Category: SaaS

Key Steps To Developing A Successful SaaS MVP

Posted on by Jay

In times past, you bought something once and it was yours forever.

A few years back, you bought something once and it was yours forever. But today, you pay for the regular access.

Especially, when it comes to the use of software, vehicle, and even clothes.

But this comes with distinct advantages for both the vendor and the customer.

As the demand increases, the software and its platforms are constantly developed and improved. If you turn around you can see several well-equipped solutions that have all the mechanisms to deliver the best solution. But they are still adding more wings on it.

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As a new player, it will be a difficult journey for you to figure out what should be in your Software As A Service MVP (Minimum Viable Product). The questions like;

  • What feature to focus on?
  • What to Include?
  • Is it worth the cost?

may be speculating on your mind.

Let’s have a deep dive into it and build a SaaS MVP that customers will buy, use, and recommend as well.

SaaS Product, What Is It?

Software as a service (also known as subscribeware or rentware) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted by a company.

SaaS applications are also known as Web-based software, on-demand software, and hosted software.

For example;

Orangescrum (The Project Collaboration Tool) is a SaaS product that is hosted on the company servers and customers pay a monthly or yearly fee to access it.

And of course, you can find variations in this model.

Some companies allow their customers to deploy the on-premise model as well but still charge a regular fee.

As per Gartner Forecast; “The saas industry is expected to reach $85.1 billion by the end of 2019. This is only slated to grow as more companies use saas products regularly. An average organization uses 16 saas apps as part of its regular workflow.”Granter Forecast

Tech & Marketing giant Hubspot believes;

“for a successful launch of an MVP for a saas product, it is important to have strong support for media and specialized platforms and confirm demand for your product. The first aspect will give you a stream of constant leads and the second will give you an understanding of what you can invest in media while remaining profitable.”

Yes, it sounds like there is lots of potential in SaaS Development but there is lots of competition as well.

So, there are many factors to consider for developing a SaaS MVP that could springboard you to success.

Let’s have a look at how to confirm the demand for your idea before you start to build a saas MVP.

Get A Deep Understanding Of The Audiences Pain, Wants, And Needs

Many entrepreneurs come with an idea, they do the basic market research, through a website and start developing the features that will go into their SaaS MVP.

But this is complete wrongdoing process, reasons are:

This is a mistake for several reasons such as:

  • There’s no feature prioritization
  • Product demand is uncertain
  • Don’t have a clear customer persona
  • Not addressing a well-defined pain point

And the list goes on.

An efficient route would be talking to the people who you think as your target customer. And you should engage on this before launching your website, before the first lines of code, and even before you solidify your idea.

Why?

Why?

Because practically the market’s demand could be completely different from your imagination. If the market does not want this (your idea) then they are not going to buy it.

Let’s take the example from Buffer – the popular social media scheduling app.

When the founder got his idea, he didn’t start development right away. Instead, he tested demand by creating a landing page and a simple checkout flow that didn’t work. Instead, he collected email addresses and started conversations with the people who tried to sign up.

When the founder got his idea, he didn’t just directly jump to the development. He tested demands by creating a simple and engaging landing page with a checkout flow that did not work (deliberately). Then he collected the email Address and started the conversation with those users who tried to sign up previously.

His objective was to understand the aspect of the product, and what features they needed to make it work for their business.

After engaging with several peoples, the founder had a clear vision of the features for his SaaS product development. Then we started building the product and the rest is history. Buffer is making 10 million dollars in a year.

Another approach could identify your potential customers, reach out to them, and hold interviews. Through the open-ended questions, you could able to understand the problems and their needed solutions.

Prioritize Your Product Roadmap

After finishing the customer interview, you will have a clear view of what solution your market is looking for and how to reach a valuable proposition. It is completely up to you to decide which feature will be the best for fulfilling the market needs.

For example, if your users want to get more leads and uncover insights about their audience, there are many ways to go about it. You could create a survey tool, quiz software, popups that also ask questions, etc.

The interviews would’ve given you insights into how important aspects of the solution were. Maybe people want to generate leads the most and segmenting those leads was secondary. Maybe they need to be able to send those leads to their CRM.

A product roadmap will help you organize the features or aspects of your saas MVP. Some of them will make it into the initial version and others will be pushed back because they’re not as important.

The major benefit of a product roadmap is the clarity it gives you. You and your team know exactly where you are and what’s left to be done at any given point. If something becomes more important based on user feedback or changing priorities, you can update your product roadmap in a few moments.

Build The Single Most Important Core Feature

Feature creep is real.

It robs your product of its simplicity.

It destroys your focus.

Deadlines get shattered.

It turns your elegant solution into a slow unwieldy hulk.

Needless to say, feature creep should be avoided at all costs. The benefits of adding a marginally useful feature are outweighed by the downsides.

There are several simple ways to avoid feature creep in your MVP and the final product.

Consider Each Feature Carefully

Many organizations think up great features and start implementing them. This can work in some cases but most of the time it doesn’t. If there isn’t a demand from existing customers or it’s not part of the original product vision then think long and hard before adding it.

Consider setting up a feature approval process. Every new feature has to meet specific criteria such as:

  • It’s been requested a certain number of times
  • It’s part of the original product vision (use this if the feature hasn’t been requested too often)
  • The feature will have a tangible impact on revenue or product usage

The criteria used to evaluate new features will be peculiar to your business but the most important thing is to have an approval process. You can improve it over time.

Differentiate Between Nice-To-Have & Must-To-Have Features

Every product has essential features that make it what it is. In a list building software, popups are an essential feature.
There are also headline features. These are the features that you can put on a landing page and people will look for but they’re not necessarily used often. In our product, one of the headline features is A/B testing but a small fraction of users take advantage of it.

Nice to have features are what they sound like. They’re interesting and may help with conversions but they’re far from necessary. When you differentiate your features in this way, it makes it easier to understand what you need to focus your energy on.

Keep An Eye On Usability

If people can’t use your software then they won’t. Usability should be at the top of the list for a saas MVP. The more features you add, the more screens, clicks, and buttons you’ll need to add. It reduces usability.

Always consider how difficult or easy a new feature will be to take advantage of. If it has a marked impact on a customer’s ability to get the most out of your software then it may be better to leave it off.

Launch It And Stop Developing

This is where many founders have issues. They launch a product and don’t get a lot of traction. They think it’s because their product isn’t ready yet. It may not be the best in the world but if you’ve built a great core feature, you can sell it.

That is why it’s an MVP.

There’s a temptation to start writing more code because the next feature will turn everything around.
It won’t.

I’ve worked with the team at Andolasoft on multiple websites. They are professional, responsive, & easy to work with. I’ve had great experiences & would recommend their services to anyone.

Ruthie Miller, Sr. Mktg. Specialist

Salesforce, Houston, Texas

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If you have a stable product, have launched it, and it has gotten at least one customer then stop focusing on development.

Instead, focus on getting more customers through sales or marketing. There are countless ways to go about this and many books, blog posts, and courses have been dedicated to the subject.

Here are a few methods to build awareness and acquire your first customers:

  • Host a podcast or become a guest on a podcast
  • Start blogging to build traffic
  • Focus on a single social media channel to generate leads
  • Reach out to your target customers
  • Tap your immediate network
  • Develop strategic partnerships
  • Use Quora connect with your audience and establish authority
  • Submit to startup aggregators like BetaList or Product hunt

These are just a few ideas and there are countless more. You were creative enough to start a business so I’m confident that you’ll be creative enough to get a few customers.

Conclusion

A SaaS MVP, when done right, can be the first step to building a successful company. When done incorrectly, it’s the beginning of a long road that may not yield much return.

There are multiple steps you can take to increase your odds of success.

  • Talk to your potential customers
  • Prioritize the right features with your product roadmap
  • Build the most important feature first
  • Launch and focus on getting new customers before you continue development

Do you have a SaaS Idea? Let’s Discuss. We will Monetize it!

What Makes SaaS Marketing Unique And How To Do It Well

Posted on by Michael Dehoyos

Software as a Service (SaaS) marketing encompasses a specific niche in the eCommerce market, but a pretty large niche. According to surveys, 80% of businesses use at least one SaaS product, and 73% predict nearly all of their most-used services will be SaaS by the end of this year.

That being said, this multi-billion dollar industry operates on a unique model, and as a result, requires a unique marketing approach.

A SaaS business host software and make them available to users through the internet, often via a subscription fee.

This is why traditional marketing tips are not always applicable to SaaS marketing: there is no physical product to showcase, the service is often constantly changing and updating, or it is highly specialized to suit a handful of companies.

Even the few users who fully appreciate the usefulness of the software don’t necessarily “own” the product.

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It’s due to all of these unique challenges that a specific breed of SaaS marketing has emerged. Some of these tips will seem counter intuitive to some marketers, but they are all designed to highlight the strengths of SaaS.

More Than Free Samples

If you can conjure up any examples of SaaS products, the first thing you’ll likely notice is that they’re all free, at least for a time.

Free trials are the lifeblood of SaaS, as it gives users the chance to try out the software, get hooked and convince them to continue onto the full subscription.

Compare this to traditional marketing: most companies wouldn’t dream of giving out complete access to their product for free.

That is the difference between direct ownership and SaaS, one relies on the specific instance of sale while the other is a long game that relies on protracted investment and engagement.

Make It Quick

Another thing that sets apart SaaS from regular products is the speed of sales. In B2C SaaS interactions, the time between a customer discovering your service and signing up for a free trial is often a matter of hours.

This is one of the advantages of the free trial: it encourages your customers to engage quickly because there is practically no barrier to entry. Often customers will look to SaaS products because they solve a particular need that has suddenly arisen, rather than a long decision process.

Seeing as 89% of SaaS businesses depend on new customer acquisition for growth, capitalizing on this sudden need is essential.

This means the way you make sales has to facilitate this speed of entry. A SaaS customer will usually make a purchase decision not long after visiting your product’s landing page.

Compare this to product marketing, which could mean days or weeks of research and deliberation, allowing for a more wide-net internet presence.

For SaaS landing pages it is more important than ever to sell your product succinctly, after which try to put as few barriers as possible between your landing page and your checkout page.

Stand Out, But Not With Price

As the SaaS market is expanding os rapidly, you can be pretty sure that, whatever your product offers, there will be competitors out there offering similar services.

It begs the question: how do you stand out in such a crowded market? The first inclination might be to undercut on price.

It’s a common tactic from traditional product marketing; offering the same product for less; and while some statistics show a 1% price reduction boosts sales by 11%, it’s not always a sustainable tactic in the SaaS game.

Due to the iterative and constantly updating nature of SaaS, you might be able to offer the cheapest option for some time but eventually, another company can come in and undercut you, dragging the price down for the whole market.

I’ve worked with the team at Andolasoft on multiple websites. They are professional, responsive, & easy to work with. I’ve had great experiences & would recommend their services to anyone.

Ruthie Miller, Sr. Mktg. Specialist

Salesforce, Houston, Texas

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If you base your offer on pricing then suddenly you don’t have a leg to stand on. Much better is to advertise the quality of your features first, something that takes a lot more work to beat.

The Way Forward

This is only the beginning of what makes SaaS marketing, what gets your customers in the door. The hard part is continuing to engage them in your service, and that’s all down to the quality of your product.

Put the quality of your software first and the marketing will follow.

How To Make Your SaaS Development Idea Successful

Posted on by Jay

With many SaaS companies in the market these days, it’s becoming harder for everyone to stand out from the crowd. That’s why it’s important for any SaaS business to have a well-thought-out development road-map. If you don’t, you’ll do yourself a serious disservice, because a successful SaaS business is built on solid, tested software solutions. Even so, there’s a lot of competition out there. That’s why you have to be extra cautious when thinking about your SaaS development strategy.

The statistics say SaaS has been wiping out the dependency of an enterprise’s old, outdated software to pursue its operations. And the reasons are:

  • Software-as-a-Service has the on-demand usage model with the minimum entry point. Unlike on-premise apps, as z huge upfront costs need to be showered at the time of software updates, customization & other IT-infrastructure related requirements.
  • On SaaS, the end-users don’t have to invest in the total IT-infrastructure setup, as the entire hosting, customer support, and hardware & software implementation process are taken care of by the SaaS vendors itself.
  • The elements inside these cloud offerings can be easily scaled up & down by doing changes with few clicks or adjustments from the data centers and with certain cost allocation, whereas if the investments are done on the on-premise infrastructure, the cost & load would be comparatively heavy.

By the end of this year , 80%-90% of businesses will run their core operations over the Software-as-a-service model. It’s because this software helps to continue with complicated tasks without putting a load on hardware memory, run from anywhere via an internet connection, purchased on a subscription basis, leaves the technical glitches & upgrades part with the providers only.

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That means software-as-service is here to stay and those who are on a lookout to become a SaaS application development provider, they need to be mindful of the pitfalls of software-as-a-service development and come up with practices & measures that can help them stay afloat & reap home the desired revenue figures.

Don’t know these pitfalls or measures that can help you become a top-notch SaaS app development services provider?

Worry not, the following has all the answers that Infoxen believes will be of sheer help to you.

1. Know Your Client-Base First

Knowing the target audience is very important before starting the software-as-a-service-based development business – as based on that only you will prepare your acquisition & pricing strategy.

A complete list covering buyer persona in terms of his behavior, business type, profession, motivation, passion, demographics will help you march towards the path where you can easily identify “type of product or service they are looking for”.

Know Your Client-Base First

By interviewing such elements or your potential clients, you can plan to create an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) first, as such products will always have scope for further enhancements & will always invite users to put-in their thoughts & functionalities within it.

You can develop as many product packages based on every different buyer persona to gain a competitive edge.

2. Choosing A Pricing Model That Compliments Your End-Users Requirement

On a broader level, there are 3 types of pricing models for extending software-as-a-service solutions that you can choose from-Usage-based pricing, flat-rate pricing & Tiered pricing. Let’s extend these terms to get their better understanding:

  • Usage-Based Pricing:

It’s the most common pricing model where users pay the fees each time they use storage, data or make transactions. As a development company, you can opt for this type of pricing model for your clients who have a small startup or financial base and cannot afford to pay extensively at one go.

  • Flat-Rate Pricing:

It’s the basic pricing model where only a single software-as-a-service product, with a particular set of features under one pay, is made available to the end-users. Here a predetermined subscription fee is charged from the client’s pocket. As a SaaS application development service provider, you can go ahead with this model if your end-users are comfortable at paying hassle-free all at once rather than after utilizing the services.

  • Tiered Pricing:

Here a variety of software-as-service packages at different cost plans, features & functionalities are circulated for different clients’ requirements. This model is great to have on-board if your company wants to target buyers of multiple personas & requirements single-handedly.

You can choose any of the above pricing models based on your client behavior, buying pattern & growth opportunities.

3. Keep User-Experience & Customer Satisfaction Mainstreamed

To start on a good note as a SaaS development company, make sure the user-experience & customer satisfaction you deliver to your clients is top-notch. Be precise & careful while developing your first software, choose the UX elements carefully.

Keep User-Experience & Customer Satisfaction Mainstreamed

Here is how you can add on to your Customer Satisfaction:

  • Be transparent with your customers, timely update them with every module, and ask them for necessary suggestions to ensure project success. Along with it, find the best solutions to treat lacking areas before final deployment. Since every development will be parsed through agile methodology, it will be easy to iterate fast & make the fixes asap.
  • To give your clients the hang of your developed software, draft some welcome emails, tutorial guides, or allot a personal assistant to guide through the functionality of developed products from your end.
  • There is no such thing as over-communication. You can strengthen your bond with your clients by always keeping them in the loop, questioning their requirements, gathering their feedback to foster a better product development environment & customer experiences.

4. Deploying SaaS-Specific Marketing Practices

Software-as-a-service solutions since they have no physical traces and changes constantly need special attention when it comes to their marketing. Although, if SaaS products are carefully architected & render top-notch services, there lies no need for marketing tactics, much.

But if the product has just started on hit & trial methods and demands huge penetration in the market on the initial levels, these all things for you as SaaS application development providers can do to gain better traction with your prospects:

  • Give your customers free trials to let them vibe with the product & get the better tuning with it until they don’t start paying for it.
  • Shoot a series of blog posts in the software-as-a-service community, defining your business stories and how you craft products suiting to every project requirement.
  • Reward a customer if he/she suggests you or refer your SaaS app development services by inundating some reward programs.

5. Preparing For Third-Party Integrations Way Before The Software Development

Since SaaS applications work on a cloud network, their integration with data centers & other third-party platforms has to be secure, effortless & quick. A SaaS development company here has to be well-equipped with third-party integration strategies way before they commence with the development phase. Here is how you can go ahead:

  • SaaS applications must have great data synchronization with different third-party channels. For instance, if the app targets the travel tech industry, the integration with accommodation options like Airbnb could be considered.
  • Consider developing a platform that makes your end-users life easier by enabling them to work with PDF files, ZIP files archives to streamline data import.
  • Create a browser extension of your product to let users have your product in hand all the time. For instance, popular app Grammarly has a web extension that allows users to integrate it with already in use applications.
  • Decide the payment integration option that users prefer and are safest in all accord.
  • To achieve great user coverage, integrate your product or software with SDK tools of framework like Microsoft (as it’s vastly used for enterprise suites).

6. Render Software With Possible Offline Mode Support

Downtime of the app or unstable Wi-Fi can take a toll on anyone, especially when the important task is in process.

International Data Corporation compiled a stat that “for the fortune 1000 companies, the average cost they had to bear after their unplanned application downtime was ranging between $1.25 – $2.5 per year”.

No matter the enterprises operate via software-as-a-service applications, one downtime or poor-connectivity can lead to unsubscription of such software.

Extend support of offline accessibility as a SaaS application development services provider:

  • Make provision for the information or data to store even in the offline mode, as soon as the connectivity restores, data should be able to sync well.
  • Make a feature of “download files” (to let users download important files) when situations like downtime come unannounced.
  • Make an automated/manual update function to help with the syncing of data or documents when a proper connection is available.

7. Bring Aboard A “Customer Success Management” Department

“Customer success is not about support or being reactive – it’s always about being proactive.”

Having a customer success management department will act as a link between “where the sales happen” & the “product’s functionality” – which will help to evaluate your customer’s actual health by using mixes of usage data, contextual inputs, marketing, sales & customer support strategies.

The advent of such will evoke the users to share their true stories behind the usage of such software or product, which will eventually help to drive more cross-sells.

This is how you can funnel your CSM or Customer Success, and Management team:

  • Customer success management (CSM) team should be collaborative with the other organizational teams be it sales, product or marketing as it will help in sketching & resolving customer issues from all ground levels.
  • “Users love when they are served beyond their expectations”, the job role of your CSM team shouldn’t restrict to just delivering what users are expecting but it should race beyond the delivered promises as well. Your team can go the extra mile by preparing product based on different users & their traits, arrange some webinars or seminars to educate your product scope, or shoot a support mail even after delivering the product maybe with a message “Hey, how are you doing with the software we developed for you”.
  • Be on tips with the consumer metrics, these metrics can be in terms of – when & how soon the user is willing to upgrade to high-subscription plans, or how much they are liking the product/software that they are ready to prefer it to a friend or inside their circle.

8. Keep Your Analytics Handy To Measure The Key Metrics

It’s important to keep the analytics handy to determine the progressing growth of SaaS development services company, as such businesses are prone to suffer losses in the early years of their operation. Losses occur because acquisition costs exceed, sometimes customers pay only after utilizing the product/services, which is why actual revenue comes very late.

Thereby, it becomes immense for such software development businesses to know & understand the key metrics in advance – to know whether their business is scaling up or is turning towards major pitfall.

I’ve worked with the team at Andolasoft on multiple websites. They are professional, responsive, & easy to work with. I’ve had great experiences & would recommend their services to anyone.

Ruthie Miller, Sr. Mktg. Specialist

Salesforce, Houston, Texas

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To know when to put the breaks on time or know if your company is viable in proceeding ahead, consider the following metrics to measure success:

  • Consider billing date over the booking date to evaluate your revenue flow, as on billing date you get the actual sum flowing into your bank account – this will help you access the true financial health of your company.
  • Evaluate the reason behind the churn rate. Churn rate is a situation where users stop subscribing to a particular service (here it’s SaaS). Calculate the number of churn rates & possible reasons that triggered its advent.
  • Balancing the Customer Acquisition Cost is the cost spent on customers to persuade to buy the product/service. LTV or Lifetime Value is a predicted net profit that is expected from the future relationship with customers. The LTV figures should be 3 times greater than CAC, even if it’s the other way, that should not be continued for a long time as higher CAC value depicts that the company is putting a lot of cost on retaining customers than actually gaining from them.

These were the few metrics that can help to evaluate your business drive & allow you to put in the breaks before you are close to any downhill.

Winding Up!

These were the few ways demonstrating how you can go big with your software-as-service specific development business, the success & profitability of establishing such business lies in how well you are staying in competition and treating your customers with the best possible product ever.

Go the extra mile, beyond delivered promises, know what your customer’s persona is, find what pricing strategy is keeping LTV in action, create your metrics that are visible in your customers’ success, and chalk out several other your side of strategies to funnel your business.

To get basic to extreme support in the preparation of your SaaS-based business model, reach out to Andolasoft Inc, a SaaS application development company, where we consult, develop & deploy the high selling SaaS-based products by following the aforementioned points & hundreds of others (which you will find out on consulting us).

Have a cloud-based app development project to finish? Request for a callback!!!

How To Put Together A Top-Tier SaaS Marketing Strategy

Posted on by Jainish Vora

According to Cisco‘s Global Cloud Index, by this year, SaaS will deliver 75 % of cloud workflows.​ Isn’t it amazing? This data depicts the growing pace of the SaaS business model and the competition created by it in the industry. SaaS companies are finding it very difficult to stand out in the industry by providing products and services distinct from their competitors.

Well, for this reason, we have come up with top-tier SaaS marketing strategies to help companies lead the competition.

SaaS marketing is more complicated than product marketing since you don’t have a tangible product to offer. Yes, it is more difficult to tell someone that your software can help them in their daily process than selling a pair of shoes.

What Is SaaS Marketing?

SaaS Marketing

SaaS marketing refers to the strategies implemented to promote software-as-a-service companies. SaaS marketing is exclusively unusual from promoting physical products since it has a varied customer base, distinct pricing strategies, complexity in their offerings, etc.

Since SaaS marketing is distinctive, marketers should use distinct strategies for promotion.

SaaS Marketing Strategies to Improve Conversions

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Let us know a few considerations, to begin with efficiently promoting SaaS businesses. Explore available opportunities and see your brand stand out in a fierce competition.

1. Using Trials To Lure Customers

Focusing on customer acquisition is significant, and the best way to do this is by offering free trials to incentivize customers to sign up and begin using your offerings. Keep your sign-up process simple and don’t have the customers go through the pain of filling lengthy forms to get your product in their hands.

This is a promising way to let people know about the benefits your products offer. This helps them take the initial step to start using your product. After making the customers realize how valuable your product is, you can easily persuade them to continue with the paid plan.

The goal is to convince more people to make a purchase. Ensure that you offer a free plan for a considerable period to make them comprehend the integrity of your product.

2. Enhance Customer Experience

SaaS Strategy

Among all the crucial SaaS marketing strategies, this is advocated by the experts as most essential. Assure that your services are personalized to the extent possible to deliver outstanding customer experience.

Just as companies send a welcome email the moment, a new customer completes the sign-up procedure. You can consider sending reminder emails to the customers who were active once but are now slowly dropping.

Integrating a live chat option on the website is a great way to interact with your customers and solve their queries on the fly. This way, you can help them navigate through your site better and find answers to their queries at the earliest.

3. Get Featured On SaaS Review Sites To Get More Exposure

People contemplate looking at customer reviews and product ratings before deciding to purchase a product. This step is crucial to buy softwares since there are no tangible products, and people check comparable products available and read reviews before they make a verdict.

Getting featured on review sites, you can get more industry exposure for your offering. Search for the best review sites available in your country or field. A few websites make comparisons between varied products offered.

4. Display The Price Aptly

A vital aspect of the SaaS marketing strategy is to display the price of your product clearly. Consider including a pricing page on your company’s website and portray every detail in such a way so that consumers can quickly decide whether or not they can afford your product.

For instance, have a look at one of the popular SaaS provider Vimeo. They have clearly mentioned their varied pricing plans for their potential customers. It helps them make an informed choice about their spending.

5 Limit The Choices Offered

With too many choices offers, your customers can get confuse as to buy which one. It can also result in them abandoning a purchase. Make two to three variations of your plans to avoid confusion.

While mentioning different plans include their features and respective prices as well. This way, customers can quickly decide which plan will fulfill their needs better. Your pricing page should consist of the characteristics of every plan offered.

6. SEO Stays On Top For Lead Generation

SEO is the best strategy to generate the right amount of leads for a SaaS company. Content Marketing, SEO and Link Building Service goes hand in hand to increase traffic on your website and, at the same time, make your website visible to the target audience.

Search rankings of your website will increase by using on-page SEO techniques, and it also ensures that it is visible to the customers when they make a search query related to your business. SEO also helps to get good quality backlinks and drive referral traffic effectively to your website.

7. Rewarding Customers For Referrals

Rewarding Customers for Referrals

When it comes to generating leads, another proven marketing strategy that works for SaaS companies is Referral Marketing. Referrals are cited as a critical source of lead generation by maximum B2B marketers.

If you want this strategy to work for your business, then you will have to make your company referral-worthy. It is done by offering incentives to the customers who refer your product to other people in their circle.

I’ve worked with the team at Andolasoft on multiple websites. They are professional, responsive, & easy to work with. I’ve had great experiences & would recommend their services to anyone.

Ruthie Miller, Sr. Mktg. Specialist

Salesforce, Houston, Texas

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Running a loyalty program to offer rewards for referrals works well, or you can choose to provide incentives in some different ways to your customers who refer to your business in several ways.

Let us take an example of Dropbox, which offers extra storage of 16GB for referring each friend.

The Bottom Line

These worthwhile SaaS marketing strategies, if leveraged, will enhance customer acquisition and lead generation for SaaS businesses. Diverse offers avenues that marketers can explore to serve as beneficial SaaS marketing strategies, and there are endless possible combinations that work for numerous businesses.

All you have to do is to try different approaches, and with the help of consumer metrics, figure out what works. SaaS marketing is a paradise for marketers.

How To Evolve Your Saas Business In Upcoming Year

Posted on by Jay

The changing environment and the growing digitization have become the primary disruptive factors in the market. And with that, it is challenging task for companies to make their SaaS offerings stand out from the others.

This is not just about in this year. The SaaS model has evolved over the past 12 years.

The rise of cloud-based software has helped to redefine the enterprise workplace, unleashing truly mobile and collaborative workforce and new customer-facing interactions.

 

 “Most of all, I discovered that in order to succeed with a product you must truly get to know your customers and build something for them.”

– Marc Benioff

It’s also democratized IT management and stimulated a shift in technology adoption that’s transformed the way companies buy and consume products and services.

Moving beyond, the SaaS global market looks to continue with fast-paced growth.

According to Gartner, public cloud services alone are set to increase by 17% around the world to $266.4 billion in 2020.

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Meanwhile, the integration of AI with SaaS platforms looks set to propel an additional market expansion, as more and more enterprises seize the opportunities on offer to cost-effectively automate internal operations, boost productivity, and speed up delivery of personalized services.

SaaS Growth Statistics - Statista
Image Source: Statista

This could sound good to the entrepreneurs who are considering to enter the As-A-Service (AAS), as well as the existing vendors preparing to update and evolve their SaaS offering

Standing Out In A Crowded Marketplace

More than two-thirds of companies operating in the SaaS space today were formed in this last decade. And the number of new entrants also continues to increase.

With a growing number of organizations looking to benefit from the reduced costs, scalability, and convenience offered by SaaS, it’s no surprise that new market entrants are keen to capitalize on the burgeoning opportunities.

Building a strong customer relationship can be leveraged for standing out from the crowd. It will identify value-added transactions and unroll service offerings in line with changing business requirements.

This is especially relevant where private equity firms are acquiring multiple MSPs, rolling them up together, and then reducing pricing to capture market share.

This puts pricing pressure on independent MSPs, and suddenly it becomes a race to the bottom.

What’s needed is a laser-like focusing on differentiating with the best customer experience.

Actively communicate your feature changes and improvements through regular updates that ensure customers recognize you’re responsive to their evolving needs.

Staying close to customers through regular account reviews will also generate opportunities to deliver strategic consultancy and impart in-depth knowledge that improves their operations.

Finally, utilize BI and analytics to reinvent your pricing models. Tailoring pricing to individual customers will further demonstrate the truly collaborative nature of your relationship and discourage any temptation to consider switching providers.

Deliver Seamless Customer Experiences

“Every step of your customer’s journey, from first sales interaction to on-boarding and ongoing support, needs to be easy and seamless to navigate”.

Because

“if you’re not delivering a holistic service that is responsive, accurate, and timely, no customer will commit to a long term relationship”.

User Experience

An effective on-boarding process that is manageable, intuitive, and interactive should include actional walk-throughs of key features and functionality.

You will also need to provide a help center and additional resources, plus a checklist for users to work through.
Utilizing the professional service automation (PSA) and RMM (remote monitoring and management) tools will help ensure you’re able to gain complete visibility and control of your customers’ environments and can institute process improvements to serve them better.

From automating routine tasks to enabling accurate billing, the effective management of support issues, and keeping track of SLA performance, customer satisfaction depends upon your ability to deliver more than just promises.

Scalable Service For All Industries

Ensure your product can be easily integrated with the customer’s platform. It will make it easier for users to augment their internal processes with your services and products.

In recent years there’s been a growing trend towards SaaS companies moving away from delivering a broad range of business functions and focusing instead on the delivery of vertical-specific software solutions built for clear industry niches.

Focused on the concept of customer success, these solutions often incorporate industry-specific data governance capabilities and tailored features that can be easily adapted to the demands of the user base.

Providing opportunities to create new ecosystems, featuring partner organizations, moving into the delivery of vertical SaaS platforms opens the door to co-marketing opportunities and the incorporation of new technology features through the utilization of APIs.

Refresh Your Approach To Marketing

Delivering content that meets the needs of prospective and existing customers is the key to retaining your market position and becoming a recognized industry leader.

From content marketing that showcases your expertise and builds brand awareness to adopting good digital marketing tactics designed to boost audiences in a wider range of geographies, aligning your marketing activities and messages to specific buyer personas will yield positive outcomes for your business.

By keeping your finger on the pulse of the current challenges customers in your target market are facing, you will be able to refine your offering and educate current and potential customers on how your solutions solve their problem.

To build ‘stickiness’, initiate portals that enable customers to share successes and best practice with peers, gain access to subject matter experts, and acquire new knowledge.

Indeed, building a user-group community is once again becoming central to initiating stronger customer bonds and more informed relationship strategies that generate value-add for everyone involved.

You’re probably already familiar with the often-stated stat that acquiring a new customer is up to seven times more expensive than retaining an existing one. But there’s one instance where that isn’t true: customer referrals.

By creating a simple, rewarding referral program, you can turn your best customers into your most vocal and passionate fans.

I’ve worked with the team at Andolasoft on multiple websites. They are professional, responsive, & easy to work with. I’ve had great experiences & would recommend their services to anyone.

Ruthie Miller, Sr. Mktg. Specialist

Salesforce, Houston, Texas

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In doing so, you not only increase the return on investment from every customer, but you can grow your client base without increasing your marketing spend.

And since everyone involved gets something out of it, referrals can increase customer satisfaction, too.

Warping Words:

Today’s customers want to have personal relationships with the companies they do business with.

To thrive and survive in an increasingly competitive landscape, SaaS businesses must strive to cultivate strong, collaborative, and strategic relationships that are personalized to every client.

That means delivering clearer communications, one-to-one check-ins, and better, more timely, insights.

Ultimately, unifying personalized solutions with technological innovations and consistent service delivery that demonstrates you’re paying attention will be the key to maintaining your position in a market that’s characterized by constant disruption.

Want to evolve your SaaS product? Let’s discuss.

10 Tips for Making Software as a Service Business Openings

Posted on by Hermit Chawla

Clients, affiliates and solutions suppliers have been fearful about hopping into the Software as a Service (SaaS) advertisement, yet these tips on making SaaS business openings clarify the new line of reasoning that has re-imagined the jobs of solutions suppliers and leaders.

These tips show how you can exploit the numerous revenue prospects that SaaS gives, however you must have a solid comprehension of what your clients’ needs are and how SaaS can meet them.

SaaS showcase offers to ascend to new programming deals leader

As the market for SaaS keeps on advancing, end clients have transformed into leaders.

Since you have been compelled to reevaluate your system while making SaaS business openings, utilize this tip to discover what transforms you have to execute to make your SaaS services speaking to end clients.

This methodology incorporates attempting to bring down the absolute expense of ownership (TCO) and figuring out how to manage merchants that have based their go-to-showcase techniques on going around the IT division.

Selling Software as a Service: How and why suppliers need to change their reasoning

How would you plan on getting acquainted with the SaaS business condition?

This tip discloses why you have to change your impression of selling SaaS when deals cycles are shorter and the volume of SaaS contracts is higher.

The focal point of solutions suppliers is moving more toward helping clients utilize the applications viably while guaranteeing their requirements are met as opposed to simply ensuring they work.

Remain serious with SaaS BI services

Your job as a solutions supplier has changed a piece since the execution of SaaS in the market, yet you’ll discover that having on-request business insight (BI) services can be engaging organizations.

Believed outsiders have kept up enormous worth, even in the progress to the SaaS advertise. See what kind of targets your clients will expect you to meet while making SaaS business openings through BI services.

Tending to IT leaders’ SaaS concerns

Is it true that you are managing IT offices that are impervious to SaaS and ponder about its unwavering quality and security?

You aren’t the only one, and you should be set up to respond to examines clients have regarding the everyday worries about SaaS.

Master Jeffrey M. Kaplan subtleties how to address these worries by utilizing a proactive methodology.

In the wake of mapping out execution destinations with your seller, Kaplan clarifies the significance of evaluating TCO and quantifiable profit while making SaaS business openings.

SaaS versus work area virtualization solutions

At the point when clients are attempting to pick among SaaS and work area virtualization, they will frequently seek you for counsel.

This article features the three most significant contemplations when settling on the choice: multifaceted nature and cost, endpoint necessities and upkeep, and unwavering quality.

When you are educated about the advantages of every, you’ll be progressively arranged to assist clients with choosing whether SaaS or work area virtualization addresses their issues.

Bringing in cash selling SaaS

Selling Software as a Service can be incredibly gainful on the off chance that you can disclose to clients how and in what limit SaaS is relevant to their business prerequisites.

Discover what you have to concentrate on when selling SaaS and why the membership model gives SaaS revenue great development potential.

Best practices for selling Software as a Service

SaaS has an assortment of minimal effort alternatives. Investigate the prescribed procedures and parts of SaaS that can be utilized as key selling focuses.

Thinking about SaaS highlights and deals strategies right now can assist you with altering your proposition contingent upon a client’s needs.

SaaS movement spikes VARs to reconsider services and bolster models

On the off chance that you are searching for various approaches to offer services and backing, the SaaS program created by Bluewolf, a long-lasting Salesforce.com accomplice, could fill in as an arrangement model.

Past Salesforce.com, SaaS bolster projects can diminish worries about valuing and address the steady requirement for recently sent applications to be executed, redone and upheld.

VARs reevaluating services they offer clients

The effect of the SaaS showcase has left the two merchants and affiliates reexamining the services they offer clients.

Right now, I responded to inquiries regarding the job the channel plays whenever solutions suppliers search for SaaS business openings.

Agenda: SaaS revenue openings

You have most likely heard waiting for worries that SaaS will press out VARs, yet this agenda shows various explicit SaaS revenue openings.

The rundown clarifies that making SaaS business openings doesn’t lessen the job of outsiders, yet it changes their obligations.