SaaS has become a well-established technology that helps millions of online users run their applications on any device, anywhere.
Selling SaaS products is not easy. Many of the challenges come not only from your competitors but also from the limitations of the product itself.
Achieving success in the SaaS market requires a lot of effort. You need thoughtful strategies to grow your product virally.
With years of experience in this field, we have gathered hard-won insight into what makes SaaS products grow. That is why in this article we put together a roundup of strategies that a SaaS business can use to grow its product effectively and ramp up lead generation efforts. Check the ideas below, and you'll find more inspiration for your SaaS growth strategy.
What is a SaaS product?
SaaS stands for software as a service — a model in which the service provider hosts the organization's apps and delivers them to end users through the Internet.
SaaS apps are mostly delivered through a web browser. Subscribers pay for SaaS services on a monthly or annual basis, priced on different usage parameters. Users can change application configuration settings and customize them as they wish. However, the app code or core features usually cannot be customized by the user, which makes locally-installed software a better option for enterprises that want complete control over their data and software.
Benefits of SaaS Business
SaaS products bring a lot of advantages for both providers and users. The following are the most significant benefits of SaaS:
- Instant setup and deployment: A SaaS application can be easily installed and configured in the cloud. This minimizes the delays typical of traditional software deployment.
- Lower up-front cost: A SaaS product is subscription-based and has no up-front license fees, resulting in lower initial costs.
- Automatic updates: Because everything is hosted in the cloud, there are no local updates to manage — the service provider is responsible for automatically deploying updates.
- Accessibility and scalability: SaaS applications can be accessed from a wide range of devices connected to the Internet. Since SaaS products follow a pay-as-you-go model, customers can purchase subscriptions when needed.
How to Create Viral Growth for Your SaaS Product
Sales Strategies
Product Trials
The SaaS market is highly competitive, and many SaaS companies have disrupted almost every segment of it. Since customers are often reluctant to purchase your service outright, it's worth offering them a chance to try your product for free. Offering a trial is a great way to generate leads for your business and bring in early transactions.
With product trials, you can:
- Give a product the chance to sell itself
- Lower the barrier of entry
- Learn about customer pain points as well as your own
- Receive critical feedback about your product
- Give consumers a sense of urgency
- Have opportunities to offer incentives
- Get a competitive edge against similar products
To make the best use of product trials, you also need to invest in your marketing. Before offering trials, it's wise to create a knowledge hub and drip email campaigns to walk new users through the product. You should also decide whether the trial should be paid or free. Whichever option you choose, make sure potential customers can clearly see the actual value of what you offer.
Improve Pricing Model
A good pricing strategy is the core of any business, and it's even more critical for a SaaS business, since customers pay regularly for continued use of your service under a subscription model. Poor pricing can create false perceptions about the product, while a well-thought-out pricing strategy helps you increase revenue and customer satisfaction.
Here are some steps to take when choosing the right pricing model:
- Identify the target audience
- Identify your product's competitive strength
- Perform competitive pricing analysis
- Conduct market research
- Identify the best-selling business model
You may want to consider several different pricing models, such as:
- Flat rate pricing: you offer a single product, a single set of features, and a single price.
- Usage-based pricing: the more of the service a customer uses, the higher their bill, and vice versa.
- Tiered pricing strategy: tiered pricing allows companies to offer multiple packages, with different combinations of features at various price points.
- Per active user/feature pricing.
Retention
For a SaaS product, business is heavily reliant on ongoing subscriptions. Research shows that a large share of customers paying for a SaaS product use it only once a month. That means you need to actively work to keep customers around. Here are some must-have tips for retaining SaaS customers:
- Ask for engagement
- Ask people why they leave
- Be proactive about expired or canceled credit cards
- Always be selling
- Improve the features that matter
- Upgrade the customer experience
- Give upgrades, discounts, or random rewards
- Be transparent
- Focus on retention optimization (more than conversion optimization)
Customer retention in SaaS is all about respecting users' time and problems and making the experience worthwhile. People are always happy to pay to have their problems solved by someone who understands them. The better you understand your users, the longer you can keep them.
Marketing
Share Data-Driven Content
Although information is abundant online, customers still look for a reliable resource to guide their buying journey. By providing first-hand industry data that your customers and potential customers care about, you can naturally attract new customers and build appreciation for your brand.
Content is king. When marketing your SaaS product, provide content to prospective buyers through as many channels as possible, and make sure it targets the right people at the right time.
Show Off Good Reviews
Reviews and testimonials are among the most convincing forms of evidence, functioning as social proof. When previous customers speak positively about your product, others are more likely to choose you over competitors.
There are many ways to add social proof to your product, either manually or automatically. For example, you can spread the word about your business by sharing customers' positive reviews on your social media and Google pages. You can either share reviews customers post without prompting, or request reviews directly from customers.
Co-marketing
Another quick way for a SaaS business to reach its target market is co-marketing with a complementary product in the same industry. This tactic also gives you direct access to a qualified audience that's closer to the ideal customer persona you've defined for your brand.
Referral Marketing
Despite the effectiveness of direct marketing methods, referral marketing remains one of the fastest ways for SaaS businesses to generate leads. Customers often trust recommendations from companies with similar needs more than ads from the product itself. Through referral marketing, you can reach new customers and make them more willing to buy because the recommendation comes from someone who shares their needs.
Support Service
Of all the SaaS marketing strategies experts recommend, support service is possibly one of the most critical. It's a great way to improve the customer experience by making your service as personalized as possible. For example, you can send new clients a personalized welcome email once they complete sign-up, and offer a live chat option on your website so customers can get quick answers while browsing. This helps them navigate the site more easily and find answers to their questions.
Final Thoughts on Viral Growth for a SaaS Solution
Now you have practical, actionable tips, and the rest is up to you. We hope these SaaS sales and marketing strategies help you create viral growth for your product and improve both lead generation and customer acquisition.
The SaaS business still has many opportunities to expand and grow. Choosing a popular growth tactic is easy; choosing the one that fits your specific business always takes time and effort. Every company is different, so be prepared to tailor each of these strategies to best suit your audience.
If you are running a B2B SaaS solution for retailers and need to connect it to multiple shopping platforms at once, you can use API2Cart.
API2Cart provides a unified API that lets you build integrations with a wide range of eCommerce platforms and marketplaces at once — including Magento, Shopify, PrestaShop, WooCommerce, eBay, and Amazon, among many others featured in our overview of popular eCommerce marketplace services. If you're comparing integration approaches for your SaaS product, it's also worth reviewing how API2Cart stacks up against alternatives like Cyclr API.
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Author Bio
Daisy is an eCommerce Marketing specialist at Avada Commerce who specializes in sales funnels, targeted traffic, and SaaS marketing.
