Tag: SaaS B2B

How Automation can Robust your B2B eCommerce Business

Posted on by Jay

A strong relationship with partners and customers is critical for B2B businesses. This needs to be reflected in the successful B2B eCommerce strategies.

Nowadays, the B2B eCommerce model moved beyond from just transactions to putting more emphasis on relationships and automated ordering systems.

With these relationship-centered B2B eCommerce models businesses are reducing their spending efforts on low-value tasks and focusing on Extended interaction with long-term business trends, multi-party deals, and on more complex transactions.

This new model has made numerous impacts on the eCommerce business. In fact, some of the techno giants are saying B2B is surpassing the B2C.

What is B2B eCommerce

Well, B2B eCommerce is the typical exchange of products and services between 2 different businesses or companies through the electronic platform. Or you can say, buying and selling the products on the web as the exchange media.

B2B eCommerce business is not limited just limited to selling and buying. It may cover many aspects like;

  • Business Relationship between 2 companies
  • Product information and research
  • Technical learning
  • Product Ordering & Tracking
  • Technical Support, Training and Services
  • Document exchange like User guide, etc

So, technically it brings a lot of value to this process.

Now see, where the “Automation” term is fitting in this process.

B2B eCommerce Automation

What comes first to your mind when someone says “Automation”? In general, it sounds like robots are assembling cars somewhere in factories. But in B2B eCommerce it is not an artificial intelligence SKY-Net-like program.

The “Automation” in B2B e-commerce context is the use of a computer programmed software tool to complete the tasks without human intervention.

Automation spot the patterns in data and make the decision in a fraction of a second.

Now come to the basic topic of this article. How this Automation can help the eCommerce business for a better result?

Benefits of B2B Automation

Let’s go through the five ways that automation can improve your B2B eCommerce business today.

Reduce Errors:

The manual data processing always makes a tiny glitch and these small errors can cost millions in a year.

Just an example: If a B2B seller would make a misenter in an amount at the time of creating purchasing orders, it can cause chaos for both.

To avoid such types of errors you can integrate an automation layer to your eCommerce Application.

So, the orders can be created and communicated without any risk of human errors or even without human introversion.

Basically, no manual intervention is necessary when the electronically generated documents are passed back and forth between seller and buyer.

Get rid of Workflow Friction:

In B2B eCommerce workflow, a great deal of friction is generated that involves manual moving of information from one end to another.

By the intervention of an automated eCommerce cart management system with the inclusion of invoicing programs can make the progress much smoother.

So, the waiting could be over for a work process like open, read and respond to the email, etc.

As both the buyer and sellers waste their time in moving the information between the system and associated people, an automated system can help them to do it faster.

Better Relationships With Customers

Business to Business buyers are decently becoming more enthusiastic about the benefits of integration and automation.

The integration of Automation creates a more intuitive and easier purchasing experience for buyers with automated catalogs.

Better Relationship

Image Source: FreePik

Relying on automated platforms, it is significantly more effective when B2B sellers offer a straightforward path to data exchanges such as order confirmations, purchase orders, shipping notifications, and invoices.

Get Paid Faster

With a manual workflow, the B2B sellers process invoices manually. A dedicated resource creates invoices manually and emails those to the buyers.

And on the buyer side, whoever is responsible gets around to opening the email manually, and getting approval for paying.

Automated Email

Image Source: FreePik

Whereas in the automated system invoices can be created and delivered automatically.

As a result, the buyers opt to pay automatically, and for the invoices, those are required oversight, the right person will see it and react more quickly.

Focus On What Matters for You

Somehow, people worry that automation is taking place in some jobs, and there is a kernel of truth in that.

The automation system will replace some human roles, but it will also encourage us to focus on what matters most for us and for our business betterment.

For example: The automation system will allow the salespersons to focus more on sales and upbringing new business rather than getting stuck in time and paper.

This will definitely reduce the cost while increasing revenue.

Conclusion

There could be many ways that workflow automation helps your B2B business right now. But the proper planning and execution of the strategies can make your eCommerce website a winner.

The eCommerce application development planning is not much exhausting work, but it requires proper knowledge and customer satisfaction points.

You should develop an appropriate site for online business in which users can easily manage their shopping items and place orders.

For a prosperous future of B2B eCommerce, businesses must have to work with the technology and data firms.

How To Implement B2B Customer Retention Strategies In SaaS

Posted on by Jay

B2B software companies have to spend time and money on customer retention strategy. It is not easy to retain your existing customers and get new ones as well. However, it is essential to stay in the game. If your company’s software is not getting traction with customers, you will soon lose them and see a gradual decline in business. SaaS companies have a much easier time with retention strategy than B2B software companies.

Wondering what strategies are working out best for SaaS companies? Read on for 10 of the best strategies for B2B customer retention. But first:

Why Do SaaS Businesses Need A B2B Customer Retention Strategy?

Customer churn has the power to rip a hole in any business. In fact, a recent CallMiner study found that avoidable customer churn costs companies $136 billion a year.

Unfortunately, that effect is amplified when your customers are businesses because chances are, they’ll replace your product with one of your competitors’. That can be devastating if you’re running a SaaS company that relies on customer loyalty or long-term subscriptions to turn a profit.

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Still, the best B2B customer retention strategies aren’t just about playing defense. A mediocre customer retention strategy will keep clients from leaving, but a stellar strategy will excite your customer base, fortify customer loyalty, and inspire clients to recommend your product to everyone they know.

Here are 10 strategies to take your B2B customer retention to the next level:

1. Give B2B Clients Engaging Resources

Especially in the SaaS world, customers will have questions about your product. When problems pop up, they want to solve them right away—while they’re experiencing them.

If you want to increase customer retention, give them the resources to solve problems on their own. Start by crafting quality inbound content that answers their potential questions, and give them access to it 24/7.

When you assemble a knowledge base full of webinars, blogs, e-books, white papers, and other useful content, your customers will be able to answer questions on their own time. As they learn more about your product, their bond to your brand will solidify.

2. Educate Customers Right Away

As a SaaS marketer, you know a customer’s experience doesn’t stop at the sale. If your customer starts using your product without knowing how to use it, that’s a recipe for frustration and churn. That’s why education during the on-boarding process is at the heart of B2B customer retention.

Give customers video tutorials, shower them with welcome emails, and send out newsletters to keep them engaged. These little educational guides will show them how to get the most out of your product. In turn, they’ll reward you with their loyalty.

3. Use Customer Feedback To Improve

It’s easy to get defensive when customers give constructive feedback, but feedback is invaluable if you want to retain customers. Treat it like gold.

Use Customer Feedback To Improve

Of course, you should learn everything you can from feedback and use it to improve your efforts, but don’t stop there. Be sure to let your customers know their voices are being heard, and show them how you’re using their suggestions. Showcasing this give-and-take relationship will strengthen your partnership and encourage them to keep working with you.

4. Keep Your Finger On Your Customer’s Pulse

Customer churn doesn’t have to be a surprise. And if you watch for red flags, you can address issues before customers go quietly into the night. Here are some things to watch out for:

  • They haven’t logged on to your platform in a while.
  • They’re searching your website for cancellation info.
  • They’re less engaged or using your product less.

When a customer throws up a red flag, reach out and see how your company can help. A simple follow-up call or email could be enough to pull them back in.

5. Make Business Personal

More and more, customers want to build a connection with the brands they use. And the more they interact with your brand, the more loyal they’ll become.

Make Business Personal

That’s why excellent customer retention strategies rely on personalized content. Set up loyalty programs, send personalized emails, and keep B2B clients engaged with content that answers their questions. It all adds value to their experience and makes them want to stick with you.

6. Treat Loyal Customers To A Surprise

Especially in B2B relationships, emotions are on high alert. Nobody wants their business to fail, so owners naturally have high expectations for the companies they work with. That’s what makes pleasant surprises so powerful.

Every business relationship is a chance to delight, impress, and deliver outstanding service. By surprising loyal customers with a simple thank you card, small gift, or free upgrade, you’ll remind them how much you value their patronage. They’ll reward you with their ongoing business.

7. Communicate Non-Stop

Communication is the glue that bonds B2B relationships. And a proactive communication strategy can solidify your customer retention plans. Even if your customers are perfectly happy, it’s smart to carve out space on your calendar to connect.

Beyond setting regular meetings, you can beef up communication by sending out newsletters or launching a full-on automated email marketing campaign. All the while, keep track of customer engagement and reach out to them when communication drops off.

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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For SaaS companies, uninterrupted communication doesn’t just lift retention. It creates new up-sell and cross-sell opportunities that feed your business’s bottom line.

8. Build Trust With Social Proof

Trust is at the center of any relationship—and that goes for B2B partnerships as well. That’s why some of the best SaaS customer retention strategies out there rely on social proof.

By sharing testimonials, case studies, and customer stories with your clients, you can show them new ways your product can help them. At the same time, don’t hesitate to reach out to happy clients for a quote or interview about their experience with your company. This will remind them of everything you’re doing for them, and it will help them see that they’re an asset to your team.

9. Wring Out Everything You Can From Exit Interviews

It can be heart-wrenching when a customer ultimately cuts the cord, but that’s no reason to skimp on exit interviews. Exit interviews are a chance to crawl into the head of a dissatisfied customer and find those little nuggets of information that will improve your marketing efforts. By learning everything you can from those customers that churn, you can make little tweaks to boost retention.

10. Elevate Experiences With Better Customer Service And UX

B2B customers can’t afford to muddle through poor experiences. If they can’t find a product or solution to their problems right away, there’s a good chance they’ll look somewhere else. In fact, one Accenture survey found poor experiences caused nearly one in two customers to give up on a company’s website and conduct business elsewhere.

That’s why it pays to invest in customer service and your website’s user experience (UX). The more seamless a client’s experience is, the more likely they’ll be to stick with you for the long run.

These retention strategies should help you keep your B2B customers for the long haul, but when it comes to SaaS marketing, they’re just the tip of the iceberg.

Want to make your SaaS product invincible? Let’s Discuss!

How To Overcome From B2B SaaS Marketing Challenges

Posted on by Jay

B2B SaaS marketing is always tougher than customer marketing. And we are not saying that marketing to consumers is easy, but it is more traditional.

Anyone who works in the B2B segment knows that the industry creates its own sets of constant challenges. However, in the B2C industry, the marketing takes place with the customer, the sales cycle is smaller whereas in the B2B SaaS marketing, the sales cycle is quite prolonged. Mostly if you target smaller groups with higher priced products.

The list of challenges for SaaS marketing is much longer and pretty complicated. You need to understand not only about your product and services but also about your customer industries. It is important to create a good rapport and empathy with your customers, without these two factors your business can surely fail.

Whether you’re racing to market with a brand new offering, gaining a foothold and trying to scale, or firmly established and trying to improve performance, there’s no shortage of challenges SaaS businesses inevitably face.

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Still, not selling a physical product already possesses its own challenge and this is not familiar to many people as well. Not to mention, SaaS marketing can be very demanding, where not only growth but also it is more required for a successful business.

What Is SaaS Marketing:

Let’s start with the theory of SaaS first. SaaS or Software as a Service provides users the ability to connect and use the cloud-based application via the internet.

Basically, users or business customers hire this kind of application for their business.

On the other hand, you can hire this kind of application for your business, so your user can get connected over the internet.

And SaaS marketing is simply the process to market this kind of application.

If your company offers software as a service to other businesses, there are several targeted marketing strategies you can use to achieve the highest conversion rates possible.

If you are a SaaS vendor, you must adopt the latest marketing strategies to archive more customers and high conversions.

So how do you get started with SaaS marketing?

Still, before getting started the SaaS Marketing process you may face several challenges.

Challenges Of SaaS Marketing:

SaaS is a logical product. And the mindset of its customers is always different than other targeted customers.

The decision of purchasing a SaaS product would be more logical than emotional, pricing and compatibility like factor must take some part as well.

And the purchasing decision does not lie on a single person.

So, having these facts the challenges become more complicated when it comes to SaaS marketing.

Logically, marketers may have dealt with many physical products but in SaaS is not having any physical presence.

Other Major Challenges In SaaS Marketing:

Demand and SaaS offerings are always changing. The constant update and release of new features can make your marketing strategies chaotic before your previous strategy would make any significant impact.

  • Customers are not aware of the use of your SaaS product. So, your marketing strategy and content needs to detail educational
  • You need to bring together the SaaS B2B customers and your sales cycle.
  • Standing Out from the Crowd
  • Build a loyal customer Database
  • Targeting your audience
  • Dealing with constant changes

SaaS Marketing Strategy:

Statista data shows – “the total size of the SaaS market has increased to $116 billion in 2019 from $105 billion in just one year. And it is expected to cross $135 billion in 2020.”

So, as a SaaS vendor, you must take a deep dive into marketing.

Before jumping into SaaS marketing, you need to learn about the customer journey first. And can prepare your marketing strategy by following the respected journey stages.

The customer journey may consist of the following stages:

  • Awareness
  • Consideration
  • Decision
  • Retention
  • Advocacy
SaaS Customer JourneyImage Source: Singlegrain[.]com

Actually, there are countless marketing strategies available to produce maximum results. With a mixed knowledge, I have listed some (would be) impactful SaaS marketing results.

  • Define Your Goals

The countless effort without the right directions is totally meaningless. To define a clear and achievable goal is the first step to do for successful SaaS marketing.

    • The goals must be specific and tractable by assigning KPIs and key metrics.
    • Figure your overall business
    • Figure how marketing and sales team can align to achieve the goals

The goal must be realistic. The bigger goal is always hard to achieve. So break down the bigger goals to smaller with realistic milestones.

  • Inbound Marketing

The inbound marketing methodology has four phases;

    • Backup your step
    • Evaluate how to create an inbound strategy
    • Define your buyers’ personas
    • Illustrating key traits of the buyers

And the very next step is to create content for them and address their issues and help them by solving those problems.

  • Content Marketing

Content marketing is an important strategy for any business including SaaS marketing as well. You may look at some of the biggest players of the SaaS market; strong content marketing is their key factor.

The content marketing methodology has encompassed two things:

    • Letting your audience know the use of your product
    • Establish your position at the related industry

You can extend your approach to social media platforms to provide the same information as well.

Existence, trust, and credibility are an important part of assets in the SaaS niche. And you can prove your existence by spreading the voluble information through content marketing.

  • Communicate Value Differentiators Of Their Product 

With the rise in the internet, the size of the market has enlarged. Many new and unique SaaS products were emerging daily, with at least ten competitors, who are launching similar products. This gives the customers a variety of options to choose, while purchasing any kind of products or services.

Therefore you need to demonstrate your product and marketise how your product is different from your customers.

You can handle this sales challenge by showing how your product is different and unique. The key is by doing some research on your customer’s industry and addressing their pain points of the future upgrades will be pretty much helpful for you. You need to communicate and concise about your product and how it will help the customers in solving their major issue.

  • Giving Users Free Trial

To encourage new customers and let them experience the actual benefits of your SaaS products, a free giving period is the best tactic to focus on.

And alternatively, it can be used for the lead generation as well!

This doesn’t mean you should go blindly without any strategy here;

“Optimizing the conversion rate within the free-trial period should be the focus of any SaaS marketer, and this will also mean one other thing: your product must be good.”

Through the free trial period, you would have the chance to showcase your customer service excellence.

Standing Out From The Crowd:

The shift from On-premises software to a cloud based SaaS took some additional time to get recognised in the market. B2b customers are pretty much apprehensive about their data security, location and many other things.

 Things might have taken some turn, however the last few years have noticed a significant development among various SaaS solutions.

However, the global cloud revenue is predicted to reach $ 474 billion by 2022, the ongoing pandemic has increased the demand for digital services and made the cloud a centerpiece for many new digital experiences.

  • User Engagement

And the last not the least Customer engagement is a goal that must stretch across teams and metrics.

It can be performed at a high level, as the knowledge and tap points of a customer for your product, company, or brand.

It is the relationship between your company and your customers and is closely related to customer loyalty and retention.

The better user experience can make a bold relationship between your SaaS product and customers and closely related to the customer success stories and retention.

Many biggest SaaS companies follow the strategy of building a loyal database for their customers. Under the SaaS subscription model, the costs are recovered along with time when the customers continue to renew the subscription.

New customer acquisition has become the top priority for many SaaS business.

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

LEARN MORE

Customer retention becomes a key point in increasing profit for SaaS business. According to Salesforce desk, with 5% increase in the customer retention will drive profits up-to 125%

SaaS Product(Source: Unboundb2b)

The customer experience can be broken down into different stages and can be developed, and implemented separately. Like;

    • Short Signup process
    • Send the users through an onboarding sequence
    • In-App Chat Feature
    • Offer Free Training or Free Demo
    • Develop and link tutorial Videos to engage
    • Get Feedback for improvement

Warping Words

SaaS marketing is different from other product marketing. If you follow the right path and strategies then you can easily gain success for your SaaS product in a short period.

 For every business, becoming successful starts with attracting the right customers. It might take some longer for the SaaS company to grow, but it is achievable by following the right SaaS marketing strategy.

The strategy discussed above will work effectively in successfully growing your SaaS business.

And must make it a point to find regular feedback from your loyal customers and instantly try to improve the customer service.

Also, throughout the marketing methodology focus on retaining the customers as this can be a game-changer in your overall profits.

Thinking of building a SaaS product, let Andolasoft help you. Our Dedicated developers will build excellent SaaS products for your business, by following all the security major and latest features to grow your business.

Happy SaaS marketing!

Planning to launch your own SaaS product? Let’s discuss!