Tag: SaaS product

10 Tips for Building a Successful Software Business

Posted on by Harikrishna Kundariya

In this age of computers and smartphones, we’ve started to rely a lot upon the software programs that give them life. Since computers started becoming prominent, there has been a boom in the software industry.

The software has made life easier for everyone, from education, entertainment, business, or the day-to-day issues, the software has brought the solutions of almost all of them at the fingertips.

The convenience that the software programs have brought to the lives of the people has increased their demands. An increase in demands naturally leads to an increase in production and the same happened with the software market.

Software businesses are growing and new startups are emerging, seeing these businesses grow, everyone at least once wishes to start a software startup. The catch is to do the right things to make it a successful one.

Here are some suggestions that could help you make your software startup a success-:

1. Be Customer-Centric

A business thrives by the efforts they put to satisfy their clients/customers. Making money might be the dream that brings people to start a business but an important key to success is to satisfy the customer.

A customer-centric business thrives over the motivation of solving the problems incurred by the customers rather than just focusing on converting them and making them pay.

Make sure the customer service is responsive, efficient, and welcoming, and you’ll retain the customers and bring in new ones.

2. Minimum Viable Product

For any business, especially for a startup, the efficient use of capital is always an issue. Businesses face risks during several stages of production and distribution, and a faulty decision can deplete a lot of money.

Minimizing risk makes business much more smooth. For a software-based company, this can be done by introducing an MVP (Minimum Viable Product).

An MVP is the most basic version of the product with only the essential features of the product. After introducing the MVP, enhancements and upgrades can be done as per the feedback of the user-base.

This way, businesses avoid scenarios where they incur losses because certain features or the software is badly received by the public.

3. Collaborative Marketing

Marketing is an important part of business development and the interesting thing is that the field of marketing is open to lots of creative ideas, innovation, and experimentation.

Out of all the methods that software businesses use to market their product, an interesting way is to collaborate with other businesses where there is no conflict of interest.

The Co-Marketing model which is used by companies to promote each other’s products helps the participating companies access the other company’s user base and thereby grow their audience.

Because of the growth in the user base at a comparatively lower expense, it is a win-win situation for all.

4. Incentivize the Employees

Efficient employees contribute substantially to a business, however, it is not easy to make them work efficiently.

Even though the employees vow to work diligently in an interview, and a lot of them keep up with their words, often an employee lacks the motivation to give it their best.

The best way to motivate an employee is to give them an incentive and appreciation for their accomplishments.

5. Solve Problems

There are a lot of startups that tend to imitate successful products and fail because people aren’t finding the product helpful. Whatever the issue is, if the product isn’t helpful to the clients, if it isn’t solving their problems, it will fail.

Before developing a software program, always do in-depth research about the demands, the issues that the people are facing, how important will your program be for them- are there any other simpler means to solve the issue, does the issue really bother them, and so on.

6. Measure, Analyze, and Improve

To improve something, you need to know its present condition, and how the outcomes are affected by changing its aspects. The same goes for businesses, you need to be aware of certain indicators that reflect how the business is performing.

These indicators are called KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). It is necessary to monitor these indicators along with other indicators and after analyzing the situation, make proper decisions that will improve the situation.

7. Offer Packages

The main source of revenue for a software-based business is subscriptions. While it is essential to offer some free tools for a user to hang on to the software, it is important to provide some exclusive plans that offer more sets of tools.

Such extensive tools are generally used by regular subscribers and businesses who are quite reliant on these exclusive tools and readily pay for them if the standards meet their expectations.

8. Client Retention

As we discussed in the last point that subscriptions are the major sources of revenue for a software company, now if the churn rate for the software is high, the business will lose money in the form of marketing campaigns to maintain the number of subscribers.

Retaining the subscribers is the key to success for a software business especially those with a SaaS product. Proper customer support, attractive offers, and quality products are the things that can make a customer remain subscribed.

9. Third-Party Integration

People extensively use computers and smartphones these days, most of the time, they need different software programs to accomplish a particular task.

Integrating the software with third-party software programs with which it is generally used, will help the users a great deal.

Making a flexible API that can be easily integrated with different platforms and worked upon by developers will help grow the popularity of the product and increase its value.

10. Make it Simple and Intuitive

For a software program to be convenient for public use, it needs to be simple. People don’t want to go through the hassle of learning how to make use of the program to accomplish tasks.

Popular software programs have a simple interface through which people can find their way easily and find the necessary tools and paths intuitively. Make it interactive, simple, and intuitive then see its shining.

Conclusion

Discover essential strategies for establishing a thriving software business with the guidance of Andolasoft, a software development company.

Whether you’re a startup or an established firm, learn how to streamline your development process, harness cutting-edge technologies, enhance user experiences, and effectively market your software products.

Andolasoft’s proven expertise serves as a guiding light, empowering you to overcome challenges, make informed decisions, and pave the way for a prosperous software business. Explore these invaluable insights and set your software business on the path to success today! Contact Us now

How To Launch Your SaaS Product With a Bang? The Checklist

Posted on by Jay

You have a SaaS idea, and your developers have enough courage to deliver it. But you also have to remember, the market you are willing to enter with your SaaS business is likely to be populated by other SaaS companies. And those are more established and better-funded than yours.

So, standing out in the competition, you have to understand how you can fit your idea and business into the overall picture that makes you different and unique.

I have shared my 8-steps SaaS Development idea that could help even the most desperate entrepreneur.

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If you’ve applied this framework, you can validate your idea and even have some pre-orders in your bank account.

As you are launching your product at the web market, you’re probably not rich enough to run off to the Bahamas directly.

But you have enough fuel to push your product to the next milestone of your startup journey i.e. building and launching the real product.

Here I come with the pre-launch checklist and I am going to discuss:

  • How to create a Go-To Marketing Roadmap
  • Build a successful landing page
  • Start conversations with your pre-launch audiences
  • Get traffic to your landing page

So, let’s get rocking!

1. The Go-To Marketing Roadmap

Here is the Go-To Marketing Roadmap (GTMR) that must be followed before launching the SaaS products.

Go-To Marketing RoadmapThe Go-To Marketing Roadmap which includes the Pre-launch marketing stage
Source: Encharge

The above GTMR can be used for launching the New SaaS products as well as launching new features and releases.

The main purpose of the GTMR is to:

  • To Provide an actionable plan of action that shows the possible ways of SaaS product development and marketing are likely to evolve.
  • To align your product development team and marketing team.
  • It helps to prioritize the marketing activities and provides a general continuity of purpose.

The Out Come of GTMR:

So, what can you produce through this roadmap?

Well, there are both quantitative and qualitative goals that you are in control of. While it is difficult to forecast the outcome but still it will give the outputs or the opportunity to be disciplined and achieve your goals.

2. Build a successful landing page

Actually, it depends.

The landing page depends on “how far are you with your SaaS product development?” On whether you have to show any screens, and whether you’ve to validate your idea or not.

Here I could tell you that letters matter more than pixels.

The main motto is “How” you can communicate the story and the “Why” your product can have a way of a bigger impact for a customer. You must consider your pre-launch success more than the look of your page.

Still, to increase the conversion rates, the landing page design must inspire trust. And forget the quick, unpolished landing pages.

Ideally, by the time you launch your SaaS, you’d have both a raving email list and people that have passed the walled test.

So, the target customer can easily understand what your product is all about.

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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Clear CTA

A single and clear call-to-action immediately visible above the fold

Yes, you can use only a single call-to-action (CTA) on your SaaS landing page.

Whatever goal you set for the landing page, it’s important to have it mentioned in your Go-To Marketing Roadmap.

Next thing – putting the landing page together.

3. Start a conversation with your pre-launch audience

There is just one last thing you need to do before you start marketing your SaaS product.

And this is to set-up basic Welcome email automation that you got from your pre-launching marketing.

The main goal of this workflow is to start the conversation with your potential audience.

It’s also an opportunity to learn more about your subscribers.

On the conversation, you can use the following terms like:

  • We would love to learn more about you
  • Click “reply” to this email and let us know
  • What you are currently looking more?
  • What is the biggest challenge you are facing in your business?

And finish by setting-up the presumption for the following follow-ups like:

  • I am going to despatch one or two weekly updates with content about SaaS marketing, automation, and marketing news.

However, engaging first communication with the new subscribers or visitors’ expectations is vital. So getting them excited is the key.

4. Focus to get traffic at your landing page

It’s time to put our growth hacking tricks on and get some return with it!

Now you have the product landing page up and running.

Now it’s the part “driving traffic to your landing page and growing your list of sign up, orders whichever is your goal.

Many SaaS businesses have managed to gain hundreds or thousands of valid web traffic, so they must be doing something right.

And why do they generally?

Content Marketing: Start writing on Medium (the content marketing site) by using of “how-to” guides that are specific to the pain points of the targeted audience.

Social Media Promotion: Create audiences on Facebook/LinkedIn that match with your product’s interests. And post/boost articles on the Facebook page to reach these audiences.

Do Webinar: Do few webinars with describing the pain point solving pieces of stuff of the SaaS product and promote the same webinar on different social media platforms.

SEO: An obvious advice to do so. You should cover the basics and optimize the SaaS landing (website) page.

Warping up

There you have it! Now you have everything you need to create a successful pre-launch marketing campaign. Is there anything we missed? Let us know in the comments.

Hope you enjoyed reading this and already have some tactical tips for your SaaS launching road map!

Planning to launch your SaaS Product? Let’s Discuss!

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

LEARN MORE

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!

How To Sell SaaS Product To More Customers With Less Time

Posted on by Hermit Chawla

Running a SaaS company is a big task for any CEO. Ideally, you’ve assembled the correct group around you, yet when you are merely beginning, your group may be extended flimsy, taking on different jobs.

If you don’t have a new business coming in all the time, at that point, before you know it, you’ll be out of income, and your SaaS will be dead in the water.

So how would you ensure you can keep everything running smoothly, while as yet acquiring a new business?

Here are top SaaS solutions on how to sell SaaS product to more customers with less time

1. Comprehend The Value Of Your Product

You ought to have the option to persuade your possibility of the genuine estimation of your product.

What are the advantages to your possibility, and by what method will your product assist them with accomplishing their objectives?

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On the off chance that you are experiencing difficulty articulating any of this to a possibility with certainty, you may need to return and invest some energy working it out.

2. Contract A Sales Team

Try not to be modest while enlisting your sales group; a high sales rep will pay for themselves, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Yet, that doesn’t mean you should employ just anyone. Be particular; somebody who might make a decent remote helper (VA) doesn’t have the right stuff necessary to bring a deal to a close.

On the off chance that you redistribute your sales to an inappropriate people, your bet is accomplishing more damage to your business than great.

3. Make Your Email Campaigns More Personal

Individuals’ inboxes are pummeled with messages each day, so, significantly, you can stick out and offer worth — mainly if they are possibilities trialing your product just because.

Have a go at making your correspondences with your clients progressively close to home. Utilize genuine names in your email addresses instead of “Sales@yoursaas.com” or “admin@yoursaas.com.”

It might appear to be a little detail, yet it’s the seemingly insignificant details that can have a significant effect while associating with your clients.

4. Email Tracking Strategy

Messages ought to go out in various circumstances, for example, upon joining, on the off chance that they visit the record crossing out page, or if their preliminary is reaching a conclusion.

It additionally shows that you care about how they are utilizing your software and that you effectively see approaches to improve their client experience.

5. Call Your Customers

Not every one of your possibilities will need to jump on the telephone, yet addressing individuals straightforwardly can massively affect changing over an opportunity into a paying client.

The phone is an extraordinary method to qualify or exclude somebody rapidly, or for you to react to any protests on the spot.

6. Always Give Demo Of Your Product

Concentrate on demonstrating a possibility of how your product is going to assist them with being progressively fruitful.

Keep the demo short; on the off chance that you can’t get the estimation of your product across in under 15 minutes, at that point, you are accomplishing something incorrectly.

You either don’t have the foggiest idea about your product, your possibility, or the worth you are giving.

Now and again, the SaaS sales rep completes the demo by saying thank you and never requesting the deal while the lead is hot.

Your demo is a sales apparatus, so toward the finish of the demo, clarify what the subsequent stages are for them to pay for your software.

The best time to request the deal is the point at which your possibility has your product front-of-mind.

7. SaaS Development

The cash is in the development. It would help if you got either a reasonable yes or no. A perhaps is undoubtedly not a no until it’s a no.

So ensure you or your group follow up until your possibility offers you a response somehow.

Utilize a client/customer relationship with the board framework (also called a CRM) to deal with this, or you can set up mechanization in your auto-responder to do this.

Set a few principles, so on the off chance that they don’t react to or open the messages, you get told to catch up physically either by email or telephone.

8. Nail Our On-boarding Process

You have to ensure that when your clients pay for your product, they are utilizing it.

How often have you pursued the rec center, just to quit pursuing a month or two?

What occurs straightaway?

You drop your participation following a half year since you aren’t utilizing it and are simply squandering your cash.

This is the reason it’s critical to have an onboarding procedure. Onboarding is the way you ensure your clients are taking advantage of it, so they don’t alter their perspective and drop.

The unpredictability of your product will decide how included you or your group should be while onboarding.

Bomb this, be that as it may, and your clients will stir quicker than a child experiences diapers.

9. Increment Your Prices

While prevailing over your rivals on cost may appear to be a decent method to get a head start in your industry, selling your product also efficiently may reverse discharge, making numerous possibilities question in the event that you can convey on your guarantees.

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

It costs a similar measure of exertion to procure one $10 client as it does one $50 client, so is there any good reason why you wouldn’t have any desire to get 100 $50 clients rather than 100 $10 clients?

10. Sell Prepaid Annual Plans

One approach to decrease your beat and to get clients to submit long haul is to sell prepaid yearly evaluating plans.

While month to month repeating income (MRR) is better when it’s coming in routinely, everything necessary is several bombed installments, and out of nowhere, you’ve lost a client.

Take a stab at offering your possibilities limited rates if they purchase a prepaid yearly arrangement, and give them what the rebate resembles from month to month.

Know that annual estimating implies you get all the cash in advance, so if you spend everything promptly, you’ll be sitting tight an entire year for the following part of income to come in, instead of the next month, which influences your month to month income.

How To Achieve SaaS Growth Through Customer Acquisition Techniques

Posted on by Jay

An established SaaS company can achieve growth in many ways. They could retain more customers, increase prices, or reduce churn rate either. 

But as a startup, you just only have one option: “to acquire more customers“.

However, the problem is that you might not have a clear path of how to do it, right?

That is exactly what I have explained with some proven strategies.

Through this post, we will show you the top 5 customer acquisition strategies that will boost your SaaS growth.

Intrigued? Then let’s do it.

Defining Acquisition:

Before making a deep dive into the techniques, let’s make something clear;

“Customer acquisition has nothing to do with generating new users.“

But the acquisition is a process of bringing new visitors to your application and helping them to sign up. 

Without new signups, you’d have no one to try to convert into a user, and retaining them as a paying customer.

However, customer acquisition is the most important part of the SaaS growth process.

“To ensure that customers go through the funnel stages (to Revenue), you have to make sure that there are enough customers at the top of the funnel. Without those customers, there will be no customers at the end.”

Defining Acquisition

(Source – incisive-edge.com)

The above graph described this point quite well. TO generate the average conversion rates at each stage, you need to acquire a large number of incoming visitors to paying users.

Now, let’s take a look at some customer acquisition strategies or techniques to grow your SaaS business.

Verify Your Product & Its Market Fit:

Like other vendors, you also like to start acquiring the targeted users as early as possible, even if you don’t have a product ready.

And it is always crucial to acquire the first user for your application.

Acquiring the first users helps you validate your idea, and learn if you’re targeting the right customer pain point.

When you have a validated idea and achieved your product & its market fit, then you can switch you focus it to grow your SaaS application.

It refers to a situation of being “in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market.”

Verify Your Product & Its Market Fit

(Source – incisive-edge.com)

Pivoting a value proposition is relatively straightforward, and speaking in technical terms as well. 

So, before you launch any strategy to attract new customers, ensure that you have validated your idea.

Develop Customer Personas:

It helps you design your products & campaigns that your target audience connects with. Preparing a customer persona also gives you detailed insights into your target audience, their behavior, their needs, etc.

But without buyer personas, it’s hard to know who your potential users are, and how you could reach them online.

Or figure out the best ways to attract them, at that.

For example, how can you create lead magnets that will attract new users to your list, without knowing their pain points relating to your product first?

Or discover channels that drive the most targeted traffic?

You see, buyer personas make it easy to attract the right type of web visitors. And that, in turn, makes customer acquisition a much simpler task.

Develop Customer Personas

(Source – incisive-edge.com)

Identify The Most-Targeted Traffic Sources:

We admit this strategy requires experimentation to get it right. But the benefits of going through the process are immense.

Because you see:

Not every traffic channel will deliver visitors who can convert.

In fact, often, channels you might consider a certainty flop.

A couple of years ago, Dan Norris did an experiment to assess his traffic sources. And as it turns out, sources he banked on, like Adwords or email brought hardly any results.

However, strategies like guest posting, being active on forums, social media, and Twitter auto follower strategy, delivered actual conversions.

Identify The Most-Targeted Traffic Sources
(Source – incisive-edge.com)

Now, your best visitors might come from different channels. Perhaps SEO would work for you or maybe advertising your SaaS product on Facebook would drive the most signups.

It’s hard to tell without testing.

And so, to ensure that first, you get new customers, and secondly, acquire them at a relatively low cost, you have to identify your best channels.

Create Different Customer Acquisition Funnels:

Most of the time the website visitors do make the sign up on the homepage.

But many others will not even see it.

And yet, they could become users too. 

For the most part, however, SaaS founders focus on a simple acquisition funnel that looks more or less like this (via Google Analytics):

They calculate that visitors on the website will notice the Sign-Up call to action, act through it, signing up for the free or version. 

And then, through the onboarding and retention strategy, convert into paying customers.

And many do. However, a large group of your visitors may not yet be ready to create an account and start using your product.

As Elizabeth Yin points out in this article: (http://www.launchbit.com/blog/what-customer-acquisition-funnel-should-you-use-as-a-saas-company/)

“these days, the Saas market is becoming inundated with new Saas products. Nearly every Saas company has either a free trial or a free package, so free software no longer a unique factor that distinguishes your product from the competition. Professionals are no longer jumping at the opportunity to try every new free Saas tool that is on the market.”

And so, to acquire them, you’ll need to find another way to convince them to sign up.

For example, you could first target them with your lead generation strategies, then nurture them, and finally, entice to sign up at the time when they’re ready to do so.

Invest In Building Audience:

Nothing beats having an audience.

Just take a look at SaaS companies like Orangescrum, Wakeupsales CRM. They enjoy engaged audiences.

And although many of these people aren’t their customers (and maybe will never even sign up for a trial), they actively help them promote the app.

How? By sharing their content, for example, telling others about it, commenting on their blog posts, attending and promoting their webinars, and other events… The list goes on.

So, building a targeted audience for your SaaS application as early as possible. 

But when building your audience, go beyond from just posting blogs on your blogging portal:

  • Repost your content on other channels, like Medium or Linkedin. Many successful SaaS companies utilize this strategy to simultaneously initiate conversations with many audiences without having to produce original content for all of them.
  • Repurpose your content into lead magnets and content upgrades and build a lead generation engine to fuel your secondary funnel (the one we talked about in the previous point).
  • Target social media channels that you’d discount in B2B, like Pinterest, for example. You can hear Dustin Stout from Warfare Plugins sharing his experiences with less common social networks for B2B (and how they’ve become his top traffic sources) here.

Warping Words:

Last, not the least, be sure to always put your customer’s requirements first before applying the customer acquisition techniques. By focusing on the customer’s benefits and presenting the solutions to their queries would lead to more retention.

Keeping this in mind, and finding the best way to guide the visitors through the acquisition process with helpful involvement that comes at the right time and adds value to their experience. This will lead to much more success in the long term.

Have an awesome SaaS idea, but not sure about the techniques and developing the strategies? Let’s Discuss!

How To Reduce SaaS Churn?

Posted on by Jay

If you’ve just started to acquire your very first customers in your SaaS business, then reduce SaaS churn may not be a big deal for you.

If you’re like most SaaS managers, you’re committed to running and growing your business.

but to do that, you need to ensure you’re meeting the needs of your customers, and that includes reducing churn.

As you start developing your SaaS customers, the churn becomes an important part. And gradually it can stand as a big hurdle in the success of your business.

So now the question arises how to reduce churn, which helps to gain more SaaS customers.

So Where Does The Problem Rely On?

High-growth expected SaaS startups think they have figured out every aspect. The path seems clear until churn begins to smack them in the face.

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Suddenly, customers begin cancelling and leaving at a faster rate than expected. Who is responsible for such flaws? No one will take the blame and that is obvious.

Sales team starts blaming the product team for not delivering whereas product teams blame customer success for not onboarding.

Gradually marketing starts to worry about company reputation and growth. This is a common scenario.   

I’ve gone through some surveys and what I found is extremely shocking. Here’s the list;

  • Bessemer Venture Partners says an acceptable churn rate is in the 5 – 7% range ANNUALLY, depending upon whether you measure customers or revenue.
  • Roughly 70% of SaaS companies in their survey had annual churn in the < 10% range, with 75% of those at 5% or under.
  • 30% of SaaS providers surveyed have an unacceptable level of churn.

Why Do You Need To Reduce Customer Churn?

As no business want to lose their customers. For a SaaS companies, it becomes even more critical. As they depends on having ongoing revenue from the clients to gain more profit.

A retail firms get bulk of money during their point of sale. SaaS businesses do get paid but over an extended period.

(Source: Accelerate Agency)

When a customer stay with your brand for a long period, the more value is added to the business. This helps to reduce customer churn, which is a vital steps for a successful SaaS firm. It is also an important metrics to track your business. Keeping your customers on board is helpful to maintain your monthly revenue.

It is easy to retain your own customer than gaining a new one.

Why Do Customers Leave?

There could be either number of reasons whereas the customer decides to hit that “CANCEL” button, and here are a few of the most common:

  • They’ve faced a poor customer service experience. That means they might have tried to find help for something and couldn’t get what they wanted.
  • They might have had a poor onboarding experience and couldn’t achieve what they were expecting.
  • They tried your software and it wasn’t meant for them.
  • Your software might cost them a lot.

Sometimes there’s no indication that churn is coming as customer cancels without raising any issues. However, there are some signs even before that customer cancels.

Increase Your Average Customer Spend:

It’s a fact that most of the SaaS managers accept is, With the growth of your company, the churn grows.

As it creates negative cash flow, you need more customers revenue to replace the churned revenue. Without it the company’s growth will eventually decreases.

You can reduce this type of stagnation by focusing on the negative churn. Negative churn happens when there is expansion/cross sell/up sells that is based on the current customers. It exceeds the revenue that are lost because of the churn.

You can increase the average average customer spent of the existing customers base, it’s easy to recoup the lost revenue.

Common Signs Of SaaS Churn-

  • Payment issues: These includes late or missing payments, credit card hasn’t been updated, and so on.
  • Disengagement with your product: it means the customer doesn’t seem to be engaged with your product. it might include signs like fewer logins, increased bounce rates, etc.
  • More complaints: When customers face numerous difficulties or bugs to use your product, they start raising issues and complains against it. This is the biggest sign that your customer is unhappy with your product or services.

So How Can You Reduce Churn?

Let’s take a closer look;

We all know that a SaaS life can be busy as you’re often trying to juggle many different tasks for your business growth & success. But among all, incorporating strategies to reduce churn is vital. So,  

Keep your churn rate low and your real rate of growth has a chance to improve.

Here are a few strategies;

Engage With Your Customers:

Customers are the basis of the entire SaaS product. When they don’t feel like they have a connection with your company or appreciated, it makes easier for them to cancel without a second thought.

Communicate with your customers regularly and engage them from the initial stage.

For example, Andolasoft found that by segmenting their customers and regular communication, they boosted customer engagement and reduced churn.

Below, I’ve shared some reviews that Andolasoft has received a few days back from its happy customers 🙂

John Skeet, Director

Goss Closet Pty Ltd, Australia

Andolasoft has provided a first class and professional service for our web application. Andolasoft solved all problems and was innovative in their approach to the tasks. There is also a great depth of specialist resources within Andolasoft to call upon for specialized assistance. The overall service, from determining the scope of work, the project management to the invoicing and payment for services, is user-friendly and efficient. We look forward to our continued work with Andolasoft.

Caroline Van Sickle

Pretty in my Pocket, Atlanta, GA

I got a recommendation for AndolaSoft. They are more than half the cost, they have a can-do attitude, and they are responsive, timely, and easy to work with. We had an established project, to begin with and needed further feature development and iteration. Therefore, they dove into highly complex code and knocked it out of the park. It was on me to define the scope and context of the job. Just like any project, the leadership, direction, attention to detail, and QA is critical…

Make your customers ‘Sticky’…

That means a sticky customer is a buyer who is likely to follow through on an intended purchase, buy your product repeatedly, and recommend it to others.

Like many popular SaaS companies, Andolasoft knows offering best products with best services can trigger cancellations. So they maximize every opportunity to reinforce the value their customers are getting from their product. Here’s feedback that Andolasoft SaaS product has received-

SFCG manages Marketing Automation
Delivery via Orangescrum

JAMIE SMITH
Director of Marketing Automation

We Chose Orangescrum because of Orangescrum’s rapid response to our questions and concerns as we were testing out the system. We appreciate the support and truly feel like we have a partner assisting us with our project management system.

Remember- If your customers are quitting, stay top of mind to get them engaging.

Get The Right Customers:

This means having a customer that is not right for you. You may think that rejecting a customer isn’t a good thing, but believe me, it works. The reasons are simple-

  • You spend money to get a customer and definitely you don’t want to waste your money on a customer that will churn quickly.
  • To get a healthy SaaS business your LTV (Customer Lifetime Value) must be at least 3 times higher than your CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost).  

But how to know who is an ideal customer for your business?

Well, through TRIALs. Yes… It’s common to use free trials as a way to market your product, but it’s definitely a great opportunity to qualify leads.

Although the period is usually short as 30 days, you should help customers on trials to have quick wins with your product, and truly validate the benefits out of your product/service.

Do The Customer Onboarding Accurate:

Onboarding is the process of introducing new customers to your product or service in an organized and effective manner.

It begins at the time of signup/purchase and may continue for up to three months, depending on the complexity of your offering.

Once you acquire a customer, what after that? Build trust.

One key thing to do here is to send scheduled messages during the onboarding period.

This means you can focus on getting customers engaged with your product in all the right ways, without them feeling like they’re being spammed with content irrelevant to their needs.

Ask For Feedback:

People come and go. But if you know the reason, it can be avoided. If you take my earlier example, Andolasoft was able to reduce their churn by 71% simply by asking why their customers were leaving.

It seems quite simple but asking for feedback offers you an opportunity to iterate and make your product or service the best it can be. When asking for feedback, it’s important to reach out to the right customers.

– Adler, USA

Andolasoft is an invaluable partner for us a startup. The team is great to work with and the projects are delivered in a timely fashion. I know that I can rely on Andolasoft for future projects because of the depth of resources/skills that they offer.

Identify And Reduce Activity Churn:

Most SaaS app development companies focus on regular churn which is the number of users that cancel their account each month.

While reducing regular churn is important, what’s possibly more important is identifying activity churn which is the number of users that became inactive each month.

Des Traynor, Co-founder & Chief Strategy Officer, Intercom says,

“Typically customers gradually stop using products, from using it every morning to every week to once a month … At some point down the road you’ll remember you’re paying for something you don’t need and don’t use, and then you ‘churn’, even though the decision was made months ago.”

So How Do You Reduce Activity Churn?

Send re-engagement emails to inactive subscribers.

Check out this email I received from Wakeupsales the SaaS CRM tool after I didn’t log in for a few months due to some personal issues.

Final Thoughts:

Churn is something every SaaS owner goes through. Though it isn’t always avoidable, it can be managed when you apply a few of the above best practices.

As we’ve seen, reducing churn goes beyond the basics of improving your product; it’s mostly about adding value to the lives of your customers.

If you can be able to manage that, churn will level off. What are your experiences with reducing churn? Leave a comment below.

Want to know more about reducing SaaS churn? Talk to our experts!