The SaaS Marketing Formula

Transcription

1 The SaaS Marketing Formula How to make your SaaS business take off By Heather Baker

2 In this book you will learn 1. How SaaS marketing differs from traditional B2B technology marketing 2. How to implement the B2B SaaS Marketing Formula to generate leads and gain market share 3. How to avoid the common marketing mistakes made by SaaS companies

3 The cloud technology market The global cloud computing market is now enormous. According to Gartner, it was worth $14.5bn in 2012 and is predicted to expand to a whopping $22.1bn by SaaS-based applications are taking over marketing, sales, HR and finance, making almost every business process run smoother and faster than ever before. In fact, a recent study by the Economist Intelligence Unit shows that almost three quarters of businesses expect to move more of their processes to the cloud over the next year. While this burgeoning market presents an excellent opportunity for SaaS businesses, it has also encouraged more entrants to the market and SaaS vendors are now operating in an increasingly competitive environment.

4 Top 3 SaaS Marketing Challenges Challenge 1: Overcoming the IT department s objections In many parts of the world, where the benefits of cloud computing are not widely accepted, your cutting-edge SaaS product will replace the system or technology that the client s business is already using. While you might not care too much about that, someone in that business has probably spent years building the incumbent system it s their baby and they ll be reluctant to replace it. Even worse, they can often be the decision maker s trusted confidante and they will be consulted throughout the buying process. What does this mean for you, the SaaS vendor? You will need to be prepared to overcome a host of objections, including the cloud is not secure and the data migration process alone will cause us all kinds of headaches.

5 Top 3 SaaS Marketing Challenges Challenge 2: Securing customer loyalty While you already likely specialise in painless data migration to make it as easy as possible for a company to switch from an incumbent system to your cloud solution, it s just as easy for them to move to a competitor. This means that customer retention becomes as much of a priority as customer acquisition. There is therefore more of a need than ever before for marketing aimed at building customer loyalty and engagement to run alongside lead generation activity.

6 Top 3 SaaS Marketing Challenges Challenge 3: Reaching high volume, lower value customers For many SaaS companies, the value of the average client contract is a lot lower than it is in traditional hosted technology companies. While the B2B technology sales cycle used to be lengthy and consultative, many cloud technology companies today cannot afford to have salespeople pounding the pavement for leads. Instead, they need to bring in a high volume of lower value customers which means that the only viable sales model has to be inbound. SaaS companies need to design sophisticated marketing and lead generation machines that provide the prospect with all the information they need to make a decision, so that the sales team s time can be allocated to converting higher-value customers.

7 Introducing The SaaS Marketing Formula The brilliance of the SaaS Marketing Formula lies in its simplicity. It involves using proven techniques, based on academic research into influence and persuasion, to engage prospects at the beginning of the B2B buying cycle, and to help them along the journey through each of the stages. The B2B Buying Cycle Problem identification Criteria selection Evaluation Search Test and selection Procurement

8 By becoming a trusted advisor throughout the decision-making process, you reinforce your key messages and unique selling points to become the natural front runner by the time they reach the selection and procurement phases.

9 Stage 1: Problem Identification One of the issues commonly faced by SaaS vendors is that most of their prospects don t know they have a problem. While there is recognition within businesses that their processes are a little clunky, it is often believed that this is just an occupational hazard - it s never occurred to them that it s an issue that can potentially be solved by software. The first step in the SaaS Marketing Formula is therefore to show your prospects what the problem is. Unfortunately, as a vendor, you re not well positioned to do this (most people are sceptical of anyone who s trying to sell them something). Instead you need to persuade third parties who are trusted by your prospects to help them realise that they have a problem. Media relations is a good place to start. You gain third party endorsement, trust, links back to your website and you reach your prospects through channels they are already exposed to.

10 Stage 1: Problem Identification Examples of media tactics that help your prospects identify the problem are: Opinion articles highlighting the problem and why it needs to be solved. News stories based on surveys or calculations estimating the extent to which the problem is affecting businesses (downtime, wasted resources etc.). Case studies showing how businesses in similar situations have been affected by the problem (and solved it using your solution!). Every prospect is different; some will be persuaded more easily than others. This means you will need to maintain this problem identification activity on an ongoing basis. Beware of media relations shortcuts. While many marketing executives think newswires (where you pay to send a news release out to the media) are a shortcut to media coverage, they are a red herring. No quality publication would accept a newswire story, so the results tend to be buried deep on low authority sites that your prospects are highly unlikely to find.

11 Stage 2: Criteria Selection Your prospect now knows they have a problem that can be solved by technology. They ll be sitting in the boardroom with the management team developing a list of criteria for choosing a solution. Many of them won t know where to start, and that s where you come in. While you won t be privy to those conversations, you can build your position as a trusted authority on the subject by helping your prospects to create their checklists. They ll almost certainly head to Google to do more research during this process, so be helpful by: Creating optimised blog posts (on your blogs and in the media) on what to look for when choosing a solution. Publishing case studies that show what criteria your clients used at the start of their decision-making process. While you can t guarantee that this piece of helpful content will land on the desks of all your prospects at the criteria selection stage, you can make sure that it is more likely to do so than that of any of your competitors efforts.

12 Stage 3: Search The point where prospects start their search for potential suppliers perhaps presents the biggest opportunity for the marketing-savvy SaaS vendor. You need to make it really easy for them to find you, through: Organic search: by optimising your website to be one of the top search results in Google when people enter relevant search terms, you will ensure that your solution makes it onto every prospect s shortlist. Paid search: a faster, but more expensive way to generate leads at the search phase. Social recommendation : get your current customers to love you so that when their peers ask for help on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook or Google+ you are front of mind and they are keen to provide recommendations. Social listening: keep your ear to the ground for requests for recommendations on forums, Twitter and other social networks. You ll then be able to jump in and provide assistance. Video animation: every SaaS company needs a 30-second video that explains how it works. Prospects need to get it within a minute of landing on your website.

13 Stage 4: Evaluation This is where your prospects compare your solution to those of your competitors. You can influence them through clear case studies and testimonials, on your website and in the media, where people just like them (your current customers) reassure them that you re a safe and effective option. Make sure you focus on your USPs, rather than on features that the competitors also have. In some instances where the value of the deal is especially high, it might be worth asking a current customer to contact your prospect directly to give them an overview of what it s like to work with you.

14 Stage 5: Test and Selection As the prospect tests your product against others, you can sit back and wait for an answer. However, if you want to improve loyalty and increase the chances of making a sale, we recommend that you provide useful information in the form of guides, ebooks and advice on your company blog. At the same time, maintain that all-important media relations activity to act as a continued reminder that your solution works. The more trust you can build, the more likely it is that you will make a sale.

15 Stage 6: Procurement Hoorah! They ve chosen you! But your marketing responsibilities don t end here. You now need to make sure your client knows how valued they are (why not announce that they ve signed with you?) and is encouraged to engage with your brand on social networks and follow your blog. Interesting and useful ebooks and white papers (that are produced exclusively for your customers) should also be targeted at them through marketing to build loyalty. And once they ve settled in and are using your solution with enormous success, they can become case studies, and be entered into the SaaS Marketing Machine to help other prospects identify their problem.

16 Don t make these SaaS marketing mistakes Lacklustre content. Churning out content for the sake of it is one of the biggest mistakes made by SaaS vendors. Your content should be strategically planned, researched and written by expert copywriters. Relying on PPC. Pay Per Click advertising is a great way to bring in initial leads, but it is not a sustainable lead generation channel. At the very least it should be complemented by other marketing activity that gives your brand authority. But you should also be future proofing your lead generation strategy by building your position in the organic search rankings. Failure to connect the dots. You can have a great blog, a fun Twitter feed and an enviable collection of media coverage. However, if these aren t planned carefully in advance to complement and support each other, you ll lose out on valuable opportunities. Failure to localise. Different countries can have different business languages and customs. Don t alienate your target market by using terms and processes that are unfamiliar to them. Assuming you have no competition. If there are no comparable software vendors in your market, then Excel is your competitor and it s a potentially dangerous one.

17 Relying on junior marketers. People new to the business world cannot execute lead generation and marketing campaigns at the level required to launch successfully. It takes skill and experience to be able to run these campaigns and using people who know what they re doing will save you from making reputation-damaging mistakes. Failure to focus on the ROI. All messaging should focus on the benefits to your prospects, not on your solution and the people behind it. Giving up too soon. It takes time for a lead generation campaign to build momentum. It requires on-going testing and refining to develop your strategy. But it s worth it, and every extra bit of effort yields greater and greater returns. Fear of marketing the product you have. While your SaaS product might be in beta, that doesn t mean you should fly under the radar. Start getting the solution in front of customers as soon as you have your minimum viable product. Assuming your customers are for life. Don t get complacent with your current customers. Focus on trying to keep them, but also to turn them into brand advocates who can be leveraged to help you grow.

18 About the Author Heather Baker is founder and CEO of TopLine Communications, a technology PR and marketing consultancy that helps companies grow through PR, social media, SEO, content marketing and video. The company has worked with over 25 SaaS providers, helping them gain traction in their specialist markets. Heather has an MBA from London Business School, sits on the board of the Entrepreneurs Organisation in the UK and is editor of two leading business blogs: The B2B PR Blog and Small Business Heroes.