A Saas company’s marketing & sales objectives and funnel are different from other businesses. The primary reason being a recurring revenue model for SaaS unlike other companies. Also you might have noticed that the traditional marketing methods are seldom tried for a B2B Saas Product.
The customer journey of a SaaS product company usually take a very different path compared to a retail or B2C business. SaaS has become a popular business model among the young crop of entrepreneurs. Yet 86% of the businesses fail either before or just after the beta launch. But the industries’ numbers give a ‘stiffy’, just by looking at it.
Yes, the SaaS sector is predicted to be worth of $623 billion in 2023. And 86% of the companies in the world can solely operate depending on the SaaS products. But before you start doing your marketing activity, you should definitely know what selling model your SaaS company belongs to.
Different SaaS selling models
Choosing the right selling model for you SaaS will be first biggest task for an entrepreneur. There are 3 selling models once can choose from.
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Self-Service
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Transactional
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Enterprise
The average selling price or cost (ASP) plays a vital role in determining the targeting audience. Before that the complexity of the product also defines what selling model it belongs to.
Self-Service SaaS
Some SaaS product needs little to no help for the users, as it could be a simple and straight forward product. However, this requires that your customers be willing and able to service themselves.When I say service themselves, they should be able to understand the value of your product, how to choose the right package and most importantly how to use it. Sometimes you can offer FAQs and simple tutorials for your users. It will help them in continuing the service without any sort of human assistance.
Transactional SaaS
Here the service offered will be a basic service for all. However, there will be add-ons or some stand alone features which could be bought either in a package or alone. Now theAverage selling price increases along with the complexity. As you ASP goes up the users will expect better customer service and human support. This selling model demands some human support as well.
Enterprise SaaS
Enterprise sales is a low volume, high pricing product. The complexity of the product demands the experts intervention when it comes to installation. Most of these products are commonly customizable based on the needs of the customer. In this case the owners of the product need to do pretty much everything that a traditional SaaS enterprise model does.
Choosing the right approach
Once you know your selling model now you should position yourself in the market. Irrespective of the selling model, all SaaS companies desire to have a longer life cycle with their customers. However, it is apparent that most of those businesses have longer sales cycle too. This means a longer customer journey to take a decision. The potential customers may choose a way out in any part of the journey. This means you should engage the users throughout multiple sales stages.
Self-service sales needs at most care when it comes to making the life of a customer simple by keeping everything within the platform as straightforward as possible. It should be complemented with the help of tutorials and explanation videos. Here marketing takes care of the most part of sales cycle too. As the customers choose a trial or a start package only based on the promises offered in marketing. Sometimes a demo could be on a follow up too. Hence you need to scream all the USP and catchy factors in the advertising campaigns itself. Your marketing effort is to convert the sales or at least a step closer to the sales.
Enterprise sales usually has a very longer sales cycle. Unlike self-service here, your marketing alone will not finish half the sales job. You need to move from one stage to other in the sales life cycle to complete the sale. In Enterprise sales your marketing effort is only to generate leads and not to complete the sales. Hence you might see the enterprise sales men take out their clients for an expensive dinner and participate in networking activities.
What makes SaaS marketing different?
Let us figure out how the SaaS marketing is different from other types of B2C and B2B marketing. The not-so-secret sauce to creating a SaaS marketing strategy is analyzing and addressing a customer’s pain points at each stage of their journey, aka the funnel.
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SaaS marketing is all about free
Almost, all the time the sales happens only after a customer experiences the product. Like going through a trial period or pilot test.
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Never talk about you or your product; Emphasize customer’s problems
Unlike other businesses, no one is willing to hear your or your products story. They need to know how your product can solve their problem.
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Retention is as important as sales
Your SaaS marketing is not always about luring new customers in. It should also focus on updating and engaging your existing customers. Churn rate is a key metric in SaaS.
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Show it; Don’t tell it
Either you talk about your USP, a feature or narrating a story, shot it to the customer. If you talk about them, you the customers will be lost in translation. Show them what you want to tell. Get help from agencies like AskJuno
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Educate before you sell it
If your SaaS is solving a problem none or not many are solving, educate the users. You should make sure your users are aware of the problem and are in need of a solution. Then sell your product.
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Guide and assist
Key success to a SaaS product lies in the simplicity of its usage. Even if it is not so simple at least have proper guided tours and explanation videos. If you want to have the edge over your competitors, build a customer support team to help them.
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Use case studies
Nothing explains the use of a product than a case study. Allow your users to experience your solutions importance by reading a scenario.
