Quick Guide to marketing your software-as-a-service product. How to drive customer acquisition for a SaaS product. Explains the process from driving web traffic, through to generating registrations, then paid subscriptions and finally focusing on customer retention.

2. You’ve built a new SaaS system.
How do you acquire customers?
2

3. When you’re marketing a SaaS product you
need to know how to generate web traffic,
convert that traffic to trial accounts and
persuade those trial accounts to become
paying subscribers.
3

4. Key Points
• Understand your buyers
• Deliver value to your buyers quickly
• Define your acquisition process
• Get good at online lead generation
• Keep cost of sales low – use web and phone
• Measure performance of your process
• Continually improve conversion rates
4

5. How do your promote your SaaS system?
5

6. What is Your Value Proposition?
Answer these questions

Why should I buy something from you?

What value does your SaaS product provide to me?

How much is that worth to me – money, time saved, other benefits?

How quickly can I see the value your system delivers?

Why is your product better than other similar products?

Why is your product better than what I do at the moment?

Can you show me examples of your system delivering value?

Focus on the results you produce rather than what you do
6

7. Who Are Your Target Buyers?
Who are your buyers?

Where are they (countries, languages)

What industry sectors?

What types of organisation? Size, location ...

Any specific target companies?

What are their typical roles or titles?

How does your system relate to their job?

What are their key concerns/drivers/goals?

What are their demographics?

Where do they hang out online?

What sources of information do they use?
7

8. What is Your Customer Acquisition Process?
Bring people
Bring people
to your
to your
website
website
Persuade them
Persuade them
to sign-up for aa
to sign-up for
Free Trial
Free Trial
Persuade them to
Persuade them to
pay for your
pay for your
service
service
Convince them to
Convince them to
renew each year ––
renew each year
retain your
retain your
customers
customers
Traffic
Traffic
Conversion
Conversion
Subscription
Subscription
Retention
Retention
8

9. 4 Key Steps for SaaS Customer Acquisition
Bring people
Bring people
(traffic) to
(traffic) to
your website
your website
Persuade them
Persuade them
to sign-up for aa
to sign-up for
Free Trial
Free Trial
Persuade them to
Persuade them to
pay for your
pay for your
service
service
Convince them to
Convince them to
renew each year ––
renew each year
retain your
retain your
customers
customers
Traffic
Traffic
Conversion
Conversion
Subscription
Subscription
Retention
Retention
Traffic
Conversion
Subscription Retentio
n
9

10. 4 Key Steps for SaaS Customer Acquisition
Bring people
Bring people
to your
to your
website
website
Persuade them
Persuade them
to sign-up for aa
to sign-up for
Free Trial
Free Trial
Persuade them to
Persuade them to
pay for your
pay for your
service
service
Convince them to
Convince them to
renew each year ––
renew each year
retain your
retain your
customers
customers
Traffic
Traffic
Conversion
Conversion
Subscription
Subscription
Retention
Retention
10

11. 1. Bring people to your site - Traffic
Bring people
Bring people
to your
to your
website
website
To market your software-as-a-service
product successfully you will need to
understand online marketing
Traffic
Traffic
Where can I
find ….?
11

12. 1. Bring people to your site - Traffic
Bring people
Bring people
to your
to your
website
website
Web
Social
Pay-perclick
Email
Display
ads
Traffic
Traffic
€$£
12

13. 1. Bring people to your site - Traffic
You have to understand online marketing because
your buyers will find you before you find them
Bring people
Bring people
to your
to your
website
website
In aasurvey of technology
In survey of technology
buyers in the US, 80% of
buyers in the US, 80% of
those buyers said they found
those buyers said they found
the vendor, not the other way
the vendor, not the other way
round.
round.
Traffic
Traffic
Source: MarketingSherpa B2B
Source: MarketingSherpa B2B
Technology Marketing
Technology Marketing
Benchmark Survey
Benchmark Survey
•
•
Buyers are doing most of their initial research online before initiating
conversations with vendors and are better informed at an earlier stage.
You need to make sure your target audience finds you when they search
online for your type of product or service.
13

14. 1. Bring people to your site - Traffic


Traffic
Traffic
Bring them to your site using natural search (using search engine
optimization) and paid search (Google and Bing pay-per-click ads, LinkedIn
or Facebook ads, display ads, retargeting)

Encourage them to connect to you via social media – your blog, Twitter,
Facebook, LinkedIn, Google +, YouTube, Slideshare

Bring people
Bring people
to your
to your
website
website
Think about how your target buyers search and what they search for
Persuade them to register on your site for a free trial, content or newsletter
so you can bring them back using email
•
Sea
r
ch r
o
ute
•
1
Search route 2
•
•
rc
S ea
te N
rou
h
•
People take different routes to your
site when searching
Their searches can fall into broad
categories e.g. describing a problem,
describing a symptom of the
problem, describing what they think
the solution is, searching for a
product or brand name etc.
You need to understand which kinds
of searches are best for bringing your
desired buyer to you
You need to analyze and understand
each major “search route” into your
site so you can increase that traffic
Use Google Analytics, KISSMetrics,
ClickTale to monitor and analyze
where people are coming from and
14
what search terms they are using

15. 1. Bring people to your site - Traffic

Produce content that will interest your target buyers (use your buyer
personas to identify what will interest them)

Over time a percentage of the visitors who read your content will then
register for your trial

Examples of content people will register for includes: how-to guides, tours
and overviews, eBooks, white papers, industry surveys, case studies, Q&A
interviews, company and product information
Place that content as downloads on your site and as posts in your blog

Traffic
Traffic


Bring people
Bring people
to your
to your
website
website
To generate good search traffic your SaaS product is probably not enough you will also need to have good content like guides, eBooks, case studies
etc.
Link to that content using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus etc.
Visitor gets white paper
Bring people to your
content using Email, Google
ads, ‘natural’ search and
social media
Ask them to register to download
the content e.g. white paper
You get contact details
15
of visitor

16. 2. Persuade People To Signup for Trial

Persuade them
Persuade them
to sign-up for aa
to sign-up for
Free Trial
Free Trial
Once you are driving regular traffic to your site your next problem is to get
those visitors to sign-up for your free trial

You do this through:
 Clear value proposition


Landing pages

Clear calls to action

A/B testing

‘Nurturing’ and marketing automation

Conversion
Conversion
Home page design
Analysis of visitor behaviour

Clear Value Proposition – can you communicate the value you deliver in a
couple of seconds to a web visitor? You need to get your pitch across quickly
and clearly

Home page design – keep the home page simple with the clear objective of
moving visitors toward the ‘Free pilot’ sign-up. Look at the layout used by
other succesful SaaS products such as CampaignMonitor, MailChimp, and
Basecamp. Provide sufficient information (videos, graphics, documents,
slides) so visitors can “sell themselves”. Provide someone to talk to if a
visitor has questions.
16

17. 2. Persuade People To Signup for Trial

Landing pages – when you set up Google ads or email campaigns you can
bring visitors to special pages on your site – ‘landing pages’. These pages
are specially designed to increase ‘conversion’. Check out resources from
vendors like KissMetrics and Unbounce, consultants like Conversion Rate
Experts, Wider Funnel, Jeffrey & Brian Eisenberg and analysts like
MarketingSherpa on good landing page design.

Calls to action – your home page and landing page should have clear calls
to action, with corresponding buttons. Call-to-action button design is a
subject to itself. Use descriptive verbs on the button text (e.g. “Download
now” rather than “submit”), use bright colours and make the buttons as
big as possible. Include a product screenshot near the call to action and
sell the benefits the user will get from taking the action.

A/B testing - a/b testing means testing two variations e.g. sending one
email to 500 people and a slightly different version to another 500 to see
which version has the best response. You can a/b test almost everything
in online marketing – your home page (using Google website optimizer),
landing pages (using Google or Unbounce), your Google pay-per-click ads,
emails, tag lines, graphics and downloads.
Persuade them
Persuade them
to sign-up for aa
to sign-up for
Free Trial
Free Trial
Conversion
Conversion
17

18. 2. Persuade People To Signup for Trial

“Nurturing” and marketing automation – as people register to
download your content you will build up a list of contact details of
people who have shown interest in your product and area of focus. Start
‘nurturing’ these contacts by periodically offering them other high-value
content that you think they will be interested in. Use marketing
automation to automate the workflow of repeated interactions with
large numbers of contacts. Keep the nurturing simple to begin with e.g.
send a follow-up email every 3 to 4 weeks offering a different piece of
content. If you see contacts interacting positively, call them to
encourage them to sign-up for a free trial.

Analysis of visitor behaviour – once you’ve been running for a few
weeks and you have some content and trial registrations, you need to
analyze what is happening so you can improve your conversion rates.
You want to know what search terms people are bringing people to your
site, what other sites refer traffic to you, what way visitors act when they
get to your site and which kind of website changes will increase the
number of people who register. Google Analytics provides loads of
information so start by asking some good questions and see if Analytics
gives you the answers you need. Set up conversion tracking on your
Google ads. Use tools from KISSMetrics or Clicktale to analyse visitor
behaviour. Check out “Web Analytics 2.0” by Avinash Kaushik and
search online and in Twitter for free tips on web analytics and conversion
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optimization
Persuade them
Persuade them
to sign-up for aa
to sign-up for
Free Trial
Free Trial
Conversion
Conversion

19. 3. Persuade Them To Pay For Your Service


First - look at SaaS vendors like CampaignMonitor, ConstantContact,
Salesforce and others to see how they do it. Learn from best practice.

Persuade them to
Persuade them to
pay for your
pay for your
service
service
At this point you have a number of people using your pilot. How do
you persuade them to take the next step and become paying
subscribers?
Demonstrate value – early and repeatedly; make sure you let users
access most of the key features of the product – don’t provide them
with a ‘hobbled’ version that doesn’t demonstrate its strengths

Encourage use - encourage pilot users to add stuff to the system –
records, data, graphics, whatever it is they can put in. The more they
add, the more likely they are to find the service ‘sticky’. Conversely, if
they are not using the system during the pilot then they’re unlikely to
become paying customers.

Call them - ring your prospects to see how they find using the system
– they’ll be pleasantly surprised to hear someone offering to help.
Phone calls are cheap compared to sales visits so use the phone and
web to move your pilot customers to paying subscribers. Call them ,
don’t wait for them to call you.

Keep price entry point low – let small businesses in for a low price,
have tiered enterprise pricing

Make it easy to buy – accept most common forms of payment
Subscription
Subscription
19

20. 4. Retain Your Customers


Now you need to concentrate on ensuring that these customers stay
with you when it comes time to renew

Never stop selling to your customers – constantly remind them of the
value of your system

Convince them to
Convince them to
renew each year ––
renew each year
retain your
retain your
customers
customers
At this point you are generating a regular flow of new customers.
Monitor their usage – if people’s activity slows or their accounts
become dormant then get in touch with them to see if you can help
somehow

Survey customers on a regular basis to see if they are satisfied and to
identify potential causes of dissatisfaction

Dedicated sales staff - For larger customers, have specific sales people
allocated to engage with them in the period leading up to the renewal –
treat it like its own form of sale
Retention
Retention
20

21. Now you are generating traffic,
signing up pilot users, acquiring
paying customers and persuading
them to renew.
What do you do next?
21

22. Optimize
Bring people
Bring people
to your
to your
website
website
Persuade them
Persuade them
to sign-up for aa
to sign-up for
Free Trial
Free Trial
Persuade them to
Persuade them to
pay for your
pay for your
service
service
Convince them to
Convince them to
renew each year ––
renew each year
retain your
retain your
customers
customers
Traffic
Traffic
Conversion
Conversion
Subscription
Subscription
Retention
Retention
22

23. Optimize each step, improve conversions
Bring people
Bring people
(traffic) to
(traffic) to
your website
your website
Persuade them
Persuade them
to sign-up for aa
to sign-up for
Free Trial
Free Trial
Persuade them to
Persuade them to
pay for your
pay for your
service
service
Convince them to
Convince them to
renew each year ––
renew each year
retain your
retain your
customers
customers
Traffic
Traffic
Conversion
Conversion
Subscription
Subscription
Retention
Retention
Traffic
Trial
Subscribe
Renew
23

24. Good Resources
Here are some useful resources:
Links
• Great presentation - http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/slides-sales-marketing-machine/
• Neil Patel’s blog QuickSprout (www.quicksprout.com) has excellent information on
getting found on the web
• KissMetrics www.kissmetrics.com and ClickTale www.clicktale.com have great blogs
• Unbounce - http://unbounce.com – tool to build landing pages that you can use when
launching a product
• Lincoln Murphy’s blog Sixteen Ventures - http://sixteenventures.com/ - advice on pricing
for SaaS
• Sean Ellis’ advice on Product Market Fit for startups - http://www.startupmarketing.com/the-startup-pyramid/
• Look at www.widerfunnel.com and www.conversionscientist.com
Books
• “Don’t make me think” by Steve Krug – great book on web design
• “Crossing the Chasm”, Geoffrey A. Moore – classic guide to product marketing, good
intro to marketing for technologists
• “The Art of SEO” – gets going after about page 80
• “Advanced Google Adwords” by Brad Geddes
• “Web Analytics 2.0” by Avanish Kaushik
24

25. About Motarme
25

26. Motarme is an easy-to-use enterprise Marketing Automation system. Motarme is
specifically designed to help business-to-business (B2B) companies in the technology,
software and industrial sectors generate sales leads online. In addition to our web-based
Marketing Automation product we provide consulting, web marketing and lead generation
services. Our customers include Siemens, Mergon, SF Engineering and mid-size and early
stage technology companies.
Web: www.Motarme.com.

27. About Motarme
Clients
“The system delivered real,
measurable results in a short
timeframe – sales and contacts from
our target audience at Tier 1
companies.”
Caolan Bushell
Business Development Manager
Mergon Group
“Generating leads online is now a
central part of our sales strategy.”
Barry Rooney
Chief Operations Officer
Siemens ITSS
“ We have seen for ourselves how a solid
strategy has helped to drive traffic to our
site and generate sales leads.”
Joe Lynch
General Manager
IMEC Technologies

28. Automated Marketing That Drives Sales
michael.white@motarme.com
@michaelgwhite
Thank You
www.motarme.com