Now that you have developed a useful, high-quality Software as a Service (SaaS) product, you’re probably looking to scale your business by increasing sales. As your sales team works to find new clients, here are some SaaS sales strategies.
Why Are Sales so Important for SaaS Businesses?
Finding leads and selling your product or service is important for all business models, but that is especially true for SaaS. Outside of slightly discounted prepaid annual plans, you will only have relatively small payments coming in every month.
As Ben Cotton says, SaaS “companies reach profitability over time and must continually provide value, otherwise their clients will become at risk of churning.”
So maintaining your current customers, which is significantly less expensive than acquiring new customers, is important, but you need to add new ones too. Here are some tips to make it happen.
Referrals
One of the best ways to generate new leads is an effective referral program. Usually this involves discounts or credit for existing customers who successfully refer new ones.
As you’re working to build your brand, personal referrals are an effective method to accelerate the development of your reputation.
As you develop your referral program, you need to maintain a strong balance. On the one hand, you want to provide enough incentive to encourage people and businesses to recommend and refer their connections. On the other hand, you don’t want to provide too much of a discount or cash, decreasing the quality of the leads that come in through the program.
Content Marketing
One of the fastest-growing sales and marketing strategies is content marketing. Instead of focusing on the sale, content marketing is all about answering questions that your customers have.
Content marketing is part of a larger element of your sales strategy known as inbound marketing. Through the use of high-quality content, social media and SEO work, the goal is to improve your brand recognition and trust, as well as generate new leads.
Sell the Benefits, Not the Features
As you’re talking with potential clients and developing your sales content, it’s important that you focus on how your service will improve their lives.
Many SaaS providers get caught focusing on the specs and features of their service, which can bog down potential users. Some customers will want to know all the details about how your product works- and you should be ready to provide it to them – but don’t lead with it.
Qualify Your Leads
Once new leads start pouring in, it is important that you vet the quality of the leads. As a growing company that will work intimately with your clients, you want to know that they will be a great customer before you begin.
While you may want to take the short term gain by signing a contract with an under-qualified client, it may end up costing you more money in the long-run. Your sales cycle should result in long-term clients that stick with you.
Set Your Prices Strategically
When you start your scaling process, make sure that your prices are strategically set. You may be tempted to offer request discounts or lower your prices below your competition, but it is essential that you don’t sell yourself short.
You need to price according to the quality of your product and your business’ customer service. Not only that, but you shouldn’t price your business to equate with the lowest level providers of the same service.
Some potential customers may object to your prices, but that’s the way it should be. After all, it is better to have a smaller number of quality clients who are willing to pay more than an overabundance of weak clients.
Trials
As the market has grown more and more crowded, it has become increasingly important to provide some sort of demonstration about the functionality of your product. Offering a free service upfront is a great way to generate buzz and leads.
With the free trial that you offer, it is important that you keep it short. Some SaaS giants, like Spotify and Dropbox, have the financial capabilities and services that work with longer free trials, but most SaaS startups can’t and shouldn’t offer anything longer than two weeks.
Throughout the duration of the trial, you should be persistent in reaching out to the client. Check in with them as soon as they sign up for their free trial, and several more times throughout the process.
This way, they will be impressed not only with the quality and utility of your product, but your customer service.
How Can Revtek Help You with Your Sales?
Here at RevTek, we know how difficult it can be to penetrate a crowded marketplace, find new leads, qualify those leads, and sell your product. We also know that that process requires significant amounts of capital – capital that you don’t have as a SaaS startup.
That’s where we come in.
We have developed an excellent process to aid growing SaaS businesses like yours. We provide you with growth capital that you can use to boost your sales efforts or hire a new sales representative, among other things, in exchange for manageable monthly payments based on your monthly, recurring revenue.
Unlike others, we do not take any equity or a seat on your board and our terms are simple. To be eligible, you do not have to be profitable, but you should have a predictable recurring revenue of at least $50,000 a month. If you are a qualified SaaS company, learn more about how we can partner with you today.
