SaaS Buyers are Quick to Buy

Most SaaS buyers make their purchase decision quickly. 

When they need a solution, they do some online research, maybe ask a colleague, try the solution or

watch a demo, and then buy.

The whole process might take a few days, maybe a few hours.

There’s no long, drawn out sales engagements, RFIs and RFPs, head-to-head “bake-offs,” contract negotiations, blah, blah, blah.  Customers find it, they see it, they like it, they buy it.  Done.
 
Neither vendors nor buyers can afford a long sales process

Why the quick decision?

For one thing, lots of SaaS vendors won’t engage in a long sales cycle.  All that schmoozing, demo’ing, and negotiating is too expensive and doesn’t fit their low-touch sales model.  They can’t afford it.

More importantly, SaaS buyers can’t afford it either.  Or at least they can’t afford all the time.

Remember the SaaS buyer is usually someone whose main job isn’t evaluating and buying technology solutions.  It’s not like traditional on-premises software where IT was the gatekeeper and did most of the evaluation. 

With SaaS solutions, the end-user is often doing the evaluation.  It’s the sales manager who’s evaluating a SaaS sales tool, the finance manager who’s evaluating expense reporting solutions, or the HR manager who’s evaluating a time & attendance tracking solution.

Besides evaluating software, these people have a day job.  They manage sales, or finance, or HR.  
 
Rapid deployment and no long-commitment speed up the process
 
The fact that SaaS is a lot easier to install and deploy and that there’s often no long-term commitment also speeds up the evaluation cycle.  Buyers figure they can try something for a few months, and if they’re not happy, they can walk away without much lost.

 Enterprise sales could be an exception

Of course there are exceptions to this scenario.  Larger enterprises may go through a more formal evaluation process than small or mid-sized businesses.  And companies might take more time with applications that they’ll be distributing broadly throughout their organization, those that will need customization, or require a long-term commitment. 

But that still leaves a lot of SaaS solutions that will be bought PDQ. 

Good news and bad news for SaaS vendors

A shorter evaluation cycle can be good news and bad news for SaaS solution providers.

The good news:  They can cut some of the time and expense from the process.  Most buyers won’t force vendors through an arduous RFP, a months-long evaluation process, and innumerable exchanges of red-lined contracts.

The bad news:  Vendors need to be quick.  The evaluation window is only open for a short time.  Jump now… or miss your chance.

Once a prospective buyer expresses interest - they call the vendor, download a free trial, ask for information, whatever - the SaaS vendor needs to respond.  Not in a few days… now!

That doesn’t always mean they need to get on the phone ASAP.  A free trialer might be eager to get a

call from the vendor, but other prospects might not be so far along in the process.  

But companies should at least acknowledge the person’s interest and provide a way for them to move ahead in the process. 

Make a positive impression... quickly

Once vendors do get an opportunity to put their solution in front of the prospective customer - with a demo or a trial, for example - don’t waste that precious time.  Knock their socks off in the first few minutes, showing off high-impact features and benefits.  There's no need for a plodding walk-through of every feature and function.

Lost prospects often aren’t really lost

If SaaS buyers didn’t purchase the solution, SaaS vendors shouldn’t necessarily count this as a “lost” sale.  In many cases, the prospect just got distracted by other priorities (a.k.a. their real job.) 

Once they work through those “distractions” and focus on SaaS solutions again, the vendor wants to still be in front of them.  Newsletters, invitations to webinars, news of valuable white papers, for example, can be cost-effective ways to do that.

I often explain to people that marketing SaaS solutions is strategically different from marketing traditional software.  Different audience, different message, and different process.  The shorter evaluation process is one of the key differences. 

Get in sync with your prospective customers.  If SaaS buyers are quick to buy, SaaS marketers can’t be slow.

Acquiring Customers Ain't Cheap

It costs SaaS companies $1.07 in sales and marketing expense to acquire $1.00 in annual contract revenue.

So says excellent research on the experience of SaaS companies, prepared by David Skok along with Pacific Crest Securities. 

The SaaS companies included in their survey spent, on average, $1.07 on sales and marketing to win a customer that would be worth $1 in annual contract value.

Some might react with horror at that news.  “To grow a SaaS business to $100 million in annual contract value, I need to spend $107 million to acquire customers!!”

Not me. 

Spending $1 to earn $3 is a good thing

That ratio - $1.07 in customer acquisition costs (CAC) delivers $1 in annual contract value (ACV) - is great news.

Here’s what that number means.  If a SaaS business wisely invests $100 million in customer acquisition costs, they’ll earn nearly all of it back from customer revenue in the first year. 

And if they can hold onto those customers for a second year, they’ll earn another $100 million in revenue, and in the third year, another $100 million. 

In other words, the first $100 million in CAC earns nearly $300 million in contract revenues over three years.

With that kind of return, the SaaS company should put as much money into CAC as it can get its hands on.

Before folks bombard me with objections, let me be clear on a couple of points.  For one, I’ve made an assumption that the money spent on sales and marketing to acquire customers is spent efficiently.  (Call me if you need help with that.)

And second, for the sake of making a point, I’ve omitted the cost of retaining an existing customer.  The Skok survey shows that companies will pay 12 cents annually to retain an existing contract worth $1.00.    Factoring that in, the cost to acquire $300 million in contract value over three years is closer to $131 million.  Still not too shabby.

SaaS is a "pay now, collect later" model

So with such an impressive return, why the resistance to spending on customer acquisition?

It may come from a couple sources.

Perhaps there’s some misunderstanding about the SaaS business model.  SaaS companies spend money on customer acquisition in the present in order to generate revenue over the life of the customer.  (See "SaaS customer acquisition:  Feed it or starve it?")  It may take 2 or 3 years to recover the sales and marketing costs.  (If you need more than 3 years to recover CAC, let’s talk.) 

That’s a lot different than the traditional on-premises business model that charges large up-front fees for software, plus on-going maintenance fees.  In that scheme, companies might allocate 4, 5, perhaps 6 percent of annual revenues to marketing. 

Effective sales and marketing costs money


There might also be a misperception about how much sales and marketing really costs.  Companies should expect to pay well if they want it done well.  

• It costs money to design and maintain an effective website.  
• It costs money to prepare compelling content.  
• It costs money to design an effective customer acquisition plan.  
• And it costs money to execute effective search engine marketing and social media campaigns.  

The experts who do this work don’t do it for free.
Of course, companies should take advantage of newer sales and marketing tactics, like social media and inbound marketing.  These can get them in front of prospective customers much less expensively and more effectively than they could have done several years ago.

And for some solutions, building a viral component into their product can be a powerful way to gain customers. 

But even with greater efficiency, customer acquisition still isn’t cheap.

SaaS companies pay a lot for excellent developers and UX designers.  They should expect to pay a lot for excellent sales and marketing people too.

There’s a reason that sales and marketing expenses at even well-established SaaS companies account for their single largest on-going expense.  Workday’s sales and marketing expenses, for example, represented 56 percent of their annual revenue according to their most recent annual financials.

Instead of looking at customer acquisition costs as an expensive burden, people should be looking at them as an investment.  And with returns of 200, 300, maybe 400 percent, a fairly lucrative investment at that. 

Your message should be boring

Why in the world would I want a box of business cards with a different design on each one?

In radio ads, I’ve heard a company that sells business cards promoting that very feature: “Business cards with a different design on each one.”

I’m sure they use some very nifty software to make this happen.  But why?

• Do people expect me to hand over more than one card when I introduce myself? 
• Are they comparing the card that I gave to them with the ones I gave to others in the room?
• Are people collecting my business cards to have a complete set? 
• Do they swap them on some secondary market?

Probably not. 

If they’re like me, they enter the info into their contacts app, put the business card in the stack of other cards bound by an elastic band, and stick them in a desk drawer.

So why tout "a different design on every card?" Here’s the only explanation I can come up. 

The company thinks that a person gets bored looking at the same, same, same business card every time they hand it out.

Boredom can be a good thing

Maybe people do get bored. 

But here’s some news:  They should be getting bored.  They should be getting tired of showing the same thing every... single... time.

When it comes to your business card, boring is OK.  In fact, whenever you're talking to someone about what your business does, boring yourself is actually a good thing.

You should be saying the same thing over and over and over.

Note that I said “boring yourself,” not “boring the other person.”  Just because you've delivered the same message a thousand times doesn't mean you can't muster some passion.  This is your business after all.

Stick with the core messages

Once you’ve figured out the core value proposition and messages - who should be buying your solution, what problem does it solve, and why is it better than alternatives - you should tell that same story... every time, everywhere.

Why? 

Because the folks who you want to hear your message are hearing lots of other messages along with yours.  They’re positively bombarded with messages.

Repeating your message consistently is the only way that your value proposition can possible get through.  It's the only way people will remember it.

They should see it on your website, your blog posts, your presentations, your demos, your ad campaigns, and yes, even your business cards.

Staying on script improves impact, saves time & money

Believe me, I’ve been doing marketing for a long time and I understand the urge to step out, go off script, get a little crazy. 

And by the way, it’s perfectly OK to be creative.  There are ways to present the same fundamental message in different ways.

But if you wander from the basic message, you’re losing impact and squandering resources. 

If every time you want to prepare a video, a press announcement, a white paper, or any other kind of marketing material, you need to figure out the basics - who’s the audience, what’s the problem, how do we solve it, why should you buy from us - you’re going to waste a lot of time and money.

That’s bad for all companies and especially bad for software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies.  They have no time and no money to waste.  (See "SaaS customer acquisition:  Feed it or starve it?")

SaaS companies are much better off developing a compelling value proposition and message... and sticking to it.

Sure, the same message every time can get boring to you.    But you are not the person you’re talking to.

A Free Trial Isn't Really Free

Free, free, free. 

It sure is a powerful word.  Which probably explains why “free trial” is used so often by software-as-a-service (SaaS) marketers.

Lots of SaaS solutions, whether they’re for business or for personal use, let prospective customers use the solution for free.  And then after 15 days, 30 days, maybe 60 days, they ask them to actually pay for it.

(For now, I’ll focus on free trials.  I’ll leave the subject of “freemium” or “free forever” for another day.)

Here's one reason free trials are so common:  they work.  They can attract lots of users, and even lots of paying customers, if they’re done properly.

I’ll let you in on a secret about free trials, though.  They’re not really free.

Not free for solution providers

Free trials cost money for the SaaS providers.

There’s the cost of developing, hosting, and maintaining the solution. 

There’s the cost of supporting the solution if you offer help to the  trailers.

There’s the cost of attracting prospects to the free trial in the first place.  Search engine optimization, pay-per-click, email, PR, or whatever other tactics you’re using to drive people to find your free trial cost time and/or money.

And then there’s the cost of trying to convert the free trialers into paying customers.  Whatever you’re doing, it’s not free. 

If you’re not doing anything to convert trialers to paying customers, we should talk... soon.

Not free for the customers

Free trials aren’t really free for prospective customers either.

It takes time for them to find the solution and figure out if it’s something worth trying.

It takes time to register and then download the solution.

It takes time for trailers to learn to use the solution

And then it takes time for them to input some data and actually work with the solution enough to see

any value in it.

None of these activities are costing customers cash out-of-pocket.  But their time isn’t free.  

These prospective customers evaluating your solution are busy folks.  They've got a long list of things to take care of during the course of a day.  If they want to use the free trial, they’ll need to make time to do that.

By the way, if the folks using your free trial have all the time in the world, you might wonder whether they have the authority and budget to eventually make a purchase.

Think before you go free

If you offer a free trial, or you’re considering one, keep the costs in mind… both the costs to you and to the customer.  Ignoring them usually leads to failure... namely, high costs and low revenues.

Free trials, done well, can be effective.  But they’re not really free.

The human touch wins SaaS customers

Lots of smaller software-as-a-service (SaaS) businesses are tempted to try to sound “corporate” or

hide their real personality when they talk to prospective customers.

They act impersonal, like some alien borg.

They think that “sounding bigger” makes them more credible.

It's a bad idea that usually doesn’t work.


How can I trust you?

It’s hard to gain the trust of prospective customers if the provider is faking it.  People usually see through that.

And it's hard to sell SaaS without trust.

When customers buy a SaaS solution, they’re not buying a product;  they’re buying a promise.  They are relying on the vendor’s promise to deliver certain functionality and service over the life of the subscription. 

Which means that before they subscribe, the customer needs to trust the provider.   They need to believe that the SaaS provider will deliver as promised.


Instead of faking it, SaaS companies would be better off acting naturally.  If a company is smaller, friendlier, and can treat customers with a more personal touch than its larger competitors, it should flaunt it, not hide it.


The buyers are also the users
 
The prospective customers care about the kind of people they'll be working with over the life of the
subscription.

Whether they're in HR, sales, marketing, finance, or somewhere else in the organization, the people that are evaluating the SaaS solution before its purchased are often the same people who will actually be using the solution after its purchased.  There’s often no “intermediate buyer” in IT or procurement.

What that means is that the people making the purchase decision will also be considering the “personality” of the SaaS provider.  Besides thinking about features and functions, they’ll be asking themselves, “Are these the kind of people I’m going to want to work with if I subscribe to this solution?”

In most cases, they'll prefer friendly, personable experts over an impersonal, corporate borg.

SaaS Marketing is Not a Numbers Game

"If we just dump enough names in the top of the funnel, some paying customers are bound to come

out at the bottom of the funnel!"

Wrong.

This approach to customer acquisition - sucking in as many suspects as possible - is costly and inefficient.  In other words, it's a very bad fit for software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies.

For one thing, collecting all those names isn't free.  Adword campaigns, website optimization, list purchases, or any other tactics you might use to attract possible leads cost money.

And then cultivating those contacts - qualifying and nurturing them into legitimate opportunities - costs even more money. 

Working on bad leads actually costs money; it doesn't make money.  (See "When Lead Generation is a Bad Thing.")

Low yield doesn't work for SaaS

This "strategy" - pull in as many names as possible and then hope that at least a small percentage of them eventually convert to paying customers - creates a tremendous strain on the SaaS business model.

On the expense side of the equation, it means substantial sales and marketing costs that are incurred up front.

On the revenue side, it means small and uncertain income collected over a period of time.

Relative to expenses, revenues are too low and too slow.

Timing vs. quantity
 
The goal is not to get as many names into the top of the funnel as possible. 

Instead, companies should be trying to get the right names into the funnel and move them through it as quickly as possible.

SaaS success requires turning "suspects" into paying customers as quickly and efficiently as possible.  The goal is to shorten the conversion cycle.

SaaS customer acquisition is actually a timing game, not a numbers game.

Accelerating the SaaS Purchase Process

Inbound marketing can be very cost-effective, but it can also be slow.

Inbound marketing relies on prospective customers making contact with vendors.  That's the other way around from traditional marketing, where vendors try to make contact with potential customers.

What that means is that by the time the vendor engages with a prospective customer, that prospect is already fairly far along in the evaluation process.  They're already familiar with the vendor and the solution.  In other words, they've qualified themselves.

That’s perfect for software-as-a service (SaaS) vendors.  They can focus their sales and marketing activity on well-qualified prospects.  

That fits well with the SaaS business model which demands that companies spend their sales and marketing resources wisely.  (See "SaaS companies can't afford to sell")

Finding customers in the short term

But it’s not so perfect for SaaS vendors in a hurry.

While inbound marketing makes sense - and the process usually works over time - it can be a long journey.  The prospective customers move at their own pace, not the vendor's pace. 

If you're a SaaS vendor that needs to close business in the short term, you need to add in some other tactics.  Inbound marketing may not have the instant impact you need.

Friends & family

There’s a reason most vendors’ early sales are to friends & family.  These folks already have some connection to the vendor.  They might be a previous employer, an investor, or former colleagues, for example. 

Vendors looking to quickly sign on some early customers should focus their efforts on these friends & family. 

These folks are already familiar with the vendor, which means they’ve already passed through the early stage of the evaluation and purchase process.  They're more likely to buy the solution in the short term.

The early adopters

In most markets, there is usually a cadre of early adopters, folks that are actively looking for innovative solutions. To gain a competitive advantage and bolster their credentials as market leaders, they are more willing to try technology solutions before they become mainstream. 

If you're looking to close business in the short term, seek out these early adopters.

Where do you find them?  Look at the press announcements for vendors selling solutions that are
complementary to yours.  See who’s speaking at relevant conferences.  Find out who's publishing a blog that describes their experience using new technologies.   

Leverage the early adopters

One of the reasons early adopters want to be out front is that they like being known as innovators.  They want others to take their advice and follow their lead. 

So once you've secured one of these folks as a customer, enlist their help to find others.  They tend to have a wide sphere of influence.  They post, they speak, they network.  And they’re often willing to help.

Don’t abandon inbound marketing

Do keep one thing in mind:  While you’re focused on closing a few deals in the short term, don’t forget about inbound marketing.  That's what you'll need to attract the prospects that will fill your sales pipeline over the medium and long-term. 

These are the customers that will get you “across the chasm” and help you establish a sustainable revenue stream. 

Yes, it may take them some time for these prospects to get to know you, assess their needs, and evaluate how well your solution fits their requirements and budget.  (See "Winning SaaS customers requires patience.")

But when they do eventually get there, they’ll be well-qualified and ready to seriously evaluate your solution.  You just can’t rush the process.







This work by Peter Cohen, SaaS Marketing Strategy Advisors is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Images obtained via iCLIPART.com.

What makes junk mail junky?

The junk email I get about replacement windows, oil change coupons, and life insurance doesn’t really bother me.

Somehow I got on a list of millions of people who own a house, own a car, and can still fog a mirror. 

These emails go out in bulk and luckily my spam filter traps most of them. 
 
Are you talking to me?  Really?

What does bother me though is the inappropriate email I get that isn't sent out by the millions.  It's the ones that come out from a real person who somehow thinks I'd really be interested.

I get several of these every week from PR people who want me to talk with their client who’s been named “something or other of the year,” or who thinks I ought to do a blog post on “Promotional Products Work! Week,” whatever that is. 

A few weeks ago, someone sent me a press announcement about changes to tax law in Idaho.  Huh?

These emails are friendly enough, and I’m certain that a new tax law in Idaho is very interesting to someone… but not to me.

Anyone who's spent any time trying to figure out what I would really be interested in would know that.

I’m not asking folks to do a lot of work here.  Thirty seconds on my website or LinkedIn profile will tell you everything you need to know.

Junk email is bad for SaaS marketing

So other than a rant about junk email that finds its way to my inbox, what does this have to do with software-as-a-service (SaaS) marketing?

For one thing, this kind of inaccurate marketing costs time and money.

Some marketing or PR person spent at least a little bit of time putting together the note... though obviously not enough time to figure out whether I’d really care about whatever it is they're promoting.

And if they follow up the note with a phone call, it’s even more time-consuming and more expensive.

If you're using poorly targeted email to market a SaaS solution, you're wasting time and money.  And the SaaS business model doesn’t leave much room for that. (See "SaaS customer acquisition: Feed it or starve it?")


Junk mail costs trust

The bigger cost though is credibility and trust.  And for SaaS businesses, that means a lot.  

Remember, SaaS marketers are selling a promise, not a product.  They are promising to deliver some benefit over the life of the subscription. 

Before they buy anything, the prospective customer needs to trust that the vendor will deliver on that promise.  (See "Winning customer trust.")

Establishing that kind of trust first requires that the vendor spend a little bit of time finding out about the prospective customer.

• What kind of tasks are they responsible for?  
• What challenges do they face?  
• What kind of solution might help them succeed? 

How do you find that out?  Ask.  (See "Listen to your SaaS customers," March 2014)

Wrong mail to the wrong person = wrong result

When a SaaS marketer sends out an email to a prospect before they know anything about the prospect, they’re off to a bad start.  It’s tough to start a relationship with someone when you haven’t bothered to find out anything about them.

All you’re likely to do is waste time and money and annoy the prospective customer. 

Rather than respond to your email, the prospect is likely to wonder:  “What in the world was this person thinking?!”

Winning SaaS customers requires patience

"Eighty percent of success is showing up."  — Woody Allen.


For most companies, buying a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution to address a critical business need isn't a decision they take lightly.

Evaluating a solution to support HR, CRM, finance, marketing, or any other important part of the business takes a good amount of deliberation.  It could involve a demo or a trial.  There might be several people involved in the decision.  It could require a series of meetings or presentations.  In other words, it takes time.

And time is in short supply.  Prospective customers don't have a lot of it.

What's urgent for you isn't necessarily urgent for the customer

While you, a SaaS vendor, thinks your solution is the most important priority, the customer has other items on their to-do list.  And the particular problem your solution is addressing just might not be at the top of the list right now.

That doesn't mean they don't have a problem that you can solve.  It doesn't mean they don't like your solution or your company.  And it doesn't mean they've already bought a solution from some other vendor.

It just means they're not ready to evaluate your solution and make a purchase decision right now.

Two options:  Push or Wait

So what's a SaaS vendor to do?

One option is to push.  That is, try to move the problem and your solution higher up on the priority list.

Create a greater sense of urgency and convince the prospective customer that every day they delay, they're losing money, losing customers, exposing themselves to risk, or some other bad outcome.  (See Practical Advice on SaaS Marketing newsletter: "Turn 'nice to have' into 'need to have.'")

Another option is to wait.

But waiting doesn't mean sitting on your hands and doing nothing. It means staying in front of the prospect, so that when they are ready and able to spend the time to evaluate solutions, you'll be there.

Guidelines for waiting

Waiting isn't easy, especially when your company has sales goals to meet.  But there are a few guidelines to doing it effectively.

Be consistent:  Staying in front of a prospective customer requires a long term commitment.  It can easily take a prospect many months before they fully engage on an evaluation of your solution.  And you'll probably not know precisely when that moment arrives.

That means you need be in front of them consistently... maybe not once every week, but certainly at least once every month.  A "one and done" approach won't work.

Educate your prospect:  The most effective way to stay in front of prospects is to provide something useful for them.  Publishing an insightful white paper, a blog post, benchmark data, or some other valuable content reinforces your credibility and makes a positive impression.

By the way, keep in mind that just because someone's on your contact list isn't an invitation to harass them.  A high "opt-out" rate will tell you've crossed into "spammer" territory.

Keep costs low: All of this effort to stay in front of prospects while you wait patiently isn't free.  It's part of the customer acquisition costs that make the SaaS business model so challenging.  (See "How to cut customer acquisition costs.")

But there are ways to keep the costs under control.  Email newsletters, white papers, and blog posts, for example, are fairly inexpensive to distribute.  On the other hand, on-site visits from sales executives are expensive and probably not the most efficient way to stay in touch with prospects who are not yet ready to fully engage.

This stuff does work

I recall work I did with one particular vendor to assess whether this "stay in front of prospects" strategy really works.  We looked at the deals we had won and worked backwards to examine the entire life of the relationship with the customer.

In most cases, we found that the process extended over many months and involved at least ten "touches" with marketing material.   That is, we got in front of the prospect ten times over the period: sent a white paper, invited them to a webinar, delivered a blog post, etc.  All that activity happened before the customer seriously engaged in an evaluation of the solution and began working closely with a sales person.

Believe me, I know patience isn't always easy.  But if you're selling important solutions to enterprises, plan for it.  It's just the way the process works.

How SaaS Marketing has Changed

Over the 10 years since salesforce.com went public, a few things have changed in the way we market software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions.

For one, companies are getting more comfortable with the idea of running critical business functions in the cloud.

Not too long ago, people marketing SaaS solutions spent a lot of time trying to convince prospective customers that putting key applications and data on the cloud was OK.

We put together plenty of documents - white papers, fact sheets, policy and procedures documents, and more - explaining that SaaS solutions were reliable and sensitive information stored there would be safe.

Fewer concerns about "the cloud"

I don’t hear many of these concerns anymore. 

Companies have grown more comfortable with the idea. 

Maybe the hosting companies have earned more trust, building a solid record of security and high-availability over the years. 

Or maybe the benefits of cloud-based solutions now simply overwhelm the possible downsides.

Of course when companies evaluate SaaS solutions, the IT professionals still care about security, performance, and integration issues.  They need to do their due diligence and ask the tough questions.  And solution providers need to have solid answers.  (For more on addressing these concerns, see "SaaS Security:  Don't Ignore It.")

Smarter buyers

As the SaaS market has matured, buyers have become more knowledgeable.  In some markets, they are now on the second or third generation of solutions.  These companies are often replacing existing systems, not adopting automation for the first time.

With this experience, buyers have a much better idea of what features and functions they really need, and what they’re willing to pay for.

To package and promote their solution effectively, SaaS marketers need a much better understanding of these more sophisticated buyers. There's no point in highlighting features and benefits that prospective customers don't really care about and aren't willing to pay for.

“SaaS” by itself isn’t a selling point

In many markets such as HR or CRM software being “SaaS” doesn’t, by itself, distinguish one solution from others anymore.  The benefits - faster deployment, no local servers, access from anywhere, regular enhancements, lower cost, etc. - are now simply “check box” items for prospective customers.  They expect them from all the solutions they’re considering.

Of course, vendors should include the benefits of SaaS in their marketing messages, but it may not make sense to put them at the top of the list. 

(A brief commercial interruption:  Contact me if you need help understanding your prospects and preparing your marketing messages.)

Some things stay the same

Though there have been some changes, some of the challenges of marketing SaaS solutions have stayed the same.

When a company’s evaluating a SaaS solution, there’s still a broad mix of folks involved in the process.  Along with IT and procurement, there’s the business owner, the department head, and the end user.  In fact, it’s often the department head - the executive responsible for Sales, Marketing, or HR, for example - that initiates the process. 

We folks marketing SaaS solutions need to reach each of these audiences and address their particular concerns.  The head of HR or the head of sales needs to hear different messages than the IT executive.


SaaS marketing is still expensive

Another constant is the high cost of acquiring customers.

In its most recent financial statement, salesforce.com reported it spent 53 percent of annual revenues on sales and marketing.  By far its largest single expense, sales and marketing costs have kept it from net profitability.  And this is for a SaaS company that is already well-known and well-established.

Yes, there are ways that SaaS companies can keep their customer acquisition costs under control - inbound marketing tactics, low-touch sales models, etc. - but sales and marketing is still going to be a substantial expense.  (See "Customer Acquisition Spending: Lessons from Workday")


It takes a lot of work and money to build visibility and credibility, generate leads, nurture leads into qualified opportunities, convert them into paying customers, and then retain and up-sell those customers.

That's an effort and an expense that hasn't changed for SaaS companies.

Listen to your SaaS customers

Companies get more from software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions than just lower cost.

So says a recent study conducted by IBM.  It reveals that companies find that the greatest benefits from SaaS solutions are more collaboration, a better customer experience, and faster time-to-market.

For anyone that’s been marketing SaaS solutions for any amount of time, those finding aren’t terribly surprising. 

What is remarkable is that IBM actually asked customers about their SaaS experience.  Companies

don't do that often.  For some reason or another, many just don’t get around to asking their customers why they bought their solution.

Too bad.  You can hear a lot just by listening. 

I know that sounds remarkably simple (and like something Yogi Berra would come out with.)  But it’s true.  

Why do people buy your solution?

I work with many companies to help them figure out why people buy their solution.  At the risk of giving away a trade secret, here’s how I pry that information out of customers:

I ask.  And then I listen carefully.

Here are the kind of things you can learn:

• What problem were these people trying to solve?
• How big or costly was the problem?
• Where did they look for solutions?
• What alternatives did they consider?
• What’s been their experience with the solution?  
• Were the original problems resolved?

It takes some practice, and there are advantages to having an outsider ask the questions.  People know I’m not trying to sell them something.  And they say things that they might not share directly with the solution provider.

Don't waste money pushing out the wrong message

Without this kind of information, it’s difficult - no, make that impossible - to develop a compelling value proposition and messages.  How can a SaaS provider tell a prospective customer that they have a solution that the customer needs... if they don’t really know what the customer needs?

And without a compelling value proposition, SaaS companies can waste a lot of money on marketing campaigns that don’t work.  Given the way the SaaS business model works, that’s money most can’t afford to waste.

SaaS Security: Don't Ignore It

Remember all those concerns about the security of software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions?  When SaaS was still a new idea, at some point in the sales process you'd get the same questions:  Who's got my data?  Who can see it?  Is it safe?

As SaaS has matured, maybe you thought those concerns were dead and gone.

You'd be wrong.

SaaS security is still an issue

Yes, SaaS solutions have been widely adopted by enterprises, and in many cases they're preferred over on-premises applications.

But for enterprise buyers, security is an issue that just won't go away.  CEOs and CIOs are still asking questions about how sensitive information is protected.  And with news of the recent data breaches at Target and Snapchat, they have good reason to keep asking.

I don't know how the information was stolen from Target or Snapchat.  Maybe it had nothing to do with how most SaaS solutions protect data.  It doesn't really matter.

What does matter is that some prospective customers think there are security issues with SaaS solutions.

So at some point in the purchase and evaluation process, these folks are likely to ask those nasty security questions.  They'll want to know exactly how their data will be protected and why they should trust you to do the protecting.

Be prepared to address security head on

As a SaaS provider, you should be prepared.  And the "you" I'm talking about here isn't just the operations people.  The marketing people have a role here, too.

Concerns about security can derail a purchase and they need to be addressed.

To satisfy CEOs, a short document that spells out the basics of the security procedures can be effective.

For IT professionals, though, a longer document is usually necessary.  They expect something with serious heft and full of details on server security, network security, application security, penetration testing, back-up procedures, and every other security issue. 

However you do it, if you're selling to enterprises, you should be prepared to address the security of your SaaS solution.   This issue isn't going away anytime soon.