Don't put your SaaS marketing plan on auto-pilot

Imagine that last year I had somehow managed to put together a perfect marketing plan: a perfect

message and a perfect mix of tactics delivered perfect results.

If that actually happened (not likely, but use your imagination), this would be my first thought as I put together this year’s marketing plan:  Let’s do the same thing again.

If it worked last year, it should work this year too.  Why do anything different?

That would probably be a mistake, and here’s why:  Things change.

New tactics

Like music or clothes, marketing tactics used to reach prospects come in and out of fashion.  What worked last year might not work this year.

I remember when clever dimensional mailers were in vogue.  For example, you’d send a single walkie-talkie to a prospect, and offer to send the second one if they called to schedule a demo.  I haven’t seen that kind of promotion for awhile.

More recently, marketers have come to rely on webinars, white papers, blogs, and other content to attract leads.  Even if the concept of content marketing still works, the particulars usually need to be tweaked over time.  The topics and formats that worked one year might not draw the same response the next year.

It’s often worth allocating a portion of the marketing budget just to try some new tactics.  It’s possible that something you’d never tried before - or never even heard of before - will somehow grab the attention of prospects.  A few years ago, who would have guessed podcasts would be so popular?

And, by the way, keep in mind that some marketing tactics that were once out of fashion can come back into fashion.  I’ve worked with companies that have had success recently with a well-done direct mail piece, sent via snail mail, to reach a well-defined audience.

New competitors

Marketing plans will often need to be adjusted when new competitors come into the market.  In particular, your messages may need to be tweaked to better highlight the advantages of your solution vs. the new competitor.

To respond to a new vendor competing on low price, for example, your website, collateral, and other marketing material might need to call out the advantages of your more complete feature set or your expert customer support team.

In general, I advise companies to stick with the same messages, telling the same story again and again and again.  It takes a long time for a message to sink in with your prospects, so repetition is a good thing.

But it’s also a good idea to periodically review the message - perhaps once per year - and tweak it.

New concerns and new expectations

Over time, the things prospects care about are likely to change, and the marketing messages will need to change as well.

In the earlier days of software-as-a-service (SaaS), for example, lots of prospective customers had concerns about SaaS and cloud computing, and they needed to become more familiar with the basics.  “SaaS primers” that included a glossary of terms like “ subscription pricing,” “multi-tenancy,” and “SSAE 16” were a necessary part of the marketing collateral library.

Most folks are now familiar with SaaS and this material isn’t often needed. (See "Customers Don't Really Care About SaaS.")

Customers’ expectations also change over time.  Things like mobile capabilities, for example, that earlier buyers may have never thought about, may now be at the top of their priority list, and your marketing plans need to present them more prominently.

New kinds of buyers

In some cases, marketing plans need to be adjusted to suit new kinds of buyers.  As markets mature and solutions become more widely adopted, a company may find it’s selling to more mainstream buyers.

Unlike early adopters, these buyers may have more concerns about support or ease-of-use.  They may also follow a longer evaluation and purchase process, which a revised marketing plan needs to fit. (See "Pivoting from early adopters to mainstream buyers.")



Look, if there are pieces of your existing marketing plan that are working well, keep doing them.  But don’t revert to the same plan year after year by default.  Always ask yourself, “Does this still fit?”

Chances are there have been changes - new tactics, new competitors, new concerns and expectation, and new kinds of buyers - that you’ll want to adjust for.  You can’t afford to put your marketing plan on auto-pilot.  

  

5 SaaS Marketing Myths

With 150,000+ people jamming into Dreamforce earlier this year, I think it’s fair to say that this "SaaS thing" is for real.  Customers are definitely getting smarter about how to use software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions, and vendors are getting smarter about how to build and sell them.


But even so, a few persistent myths on how to market SaaS solutions still linger.  Some of these ideas probably made sense at one time, but no longer apply.  Others never really made sense… but they seem to stick around anyway.

 1.  SaaS is a differentiator

This certainly falls into the category of “It made sense at one time.” 

But touting that you’re “SaaS” in 2015… well it’s just not that big a deal anymore.  (See "Customers Don't Really Care About SaaS.")

Of course, you want to say you’re a SaaS solution somewhere in your description, but highlighting “web-based” or “runs in the cloud” is not necessarily the headline anymore. 

For one thing, it’s better to talk about the benefits:  rapid deployment, regular updates, and fewer IT resources. 

Moreover, in many markets, most of of your competitors are also marketing SaaS solutions.  In fact, prospective customers often just assume that any modern application is running in the cloud.  So saying you're "SaaS" just doesn’t make you stand out. 

2.  Free trials are essential 

I remember talking to a group of aspiring SaaS entrepreneurs a few years ago, all of whom described their marketing plan like this:  “We’ll put up a free trial on our website.”

That idea didn’t make a lot of sense then, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense now.

Of course, free trials do work for lots of SaaS applications.  Bur not for all of them. 

Sometimes a free trial just isn’t the best way for the prospect to really see the value in the solution.  Maybe they don’t have time to put in the data that’s required, or maybe they don’t want to risk trying out an application across their entire organization.  (See "Free Trials Don't Always Make Sense.")

And of course, even if prospects do take advantage of the free trial, the vendor still needs to do work to convert the trialer into a buyer.  That doesn’t usually happen all by itself, especially for B2B applications.

Instead of defaulting to free trials, SaaS companies should think about alternatives, such as a money-back guarantee, a no-obligation contract, a “sand-box” where prospects can play with the app.  Heck, sometimes a good old-fashioned demo, conducted by a skilled sales support engineer, is the best way to show off your solution. 

3.  You can do marketing on the cheap 

It’s absolutely true that marketing SaaS solutions comes with its own set of daunting challenges.  Among them is the “Wimpy” challenge, named for the character from the Popeye cartoon, whose signature line was “I’ll gladly pay you on Tuesday for a hamburger today.”


That’s a decent description of how the SaaS business model works.  You get paid in the future for the sales and marketing expenses you make today.  It’s not at all unusual to take 2 or 3 years to recover the customer acquisition costs.

Which explains why it’s especially important for SaaS companies to be careful with their sales and marketing expenses. 

But that doesn’t mean SaaS marketing can be done on the cheap. 

Inbound marketing or content marketing, which puts “bait” in front of prospective customers, will usually be more cost-effective than indiscriminate cold-calling, but good content isn’t free.  Even if you can push it out via social media or email for little cost, preparing compelling content - blog posts, papers, videos, email newsletters, whatever - requires time and/or money.  (See "Good Content Marketing Requires Good Content.")

And then of course, once you attract the attention of a prospect with your content, you need to cultivate and close that opportunity.  You may need an inside sales team, a channel partner, or even face-to-face meetings.   Again, none of those tactics are cheap, especially for B2B solutions.

4.  One clever “hack” is all it takes

I’m not a big fan of the term “marketing hack.”  Or at least, I don’t buy the idea that clever gimmicks will unlock the secret of acquiring and retaining customers.  Sure, I can appreciate a smart marketing tactic as much as the next guy, but looking for one, or even a handful of these tactics to do the job just isn’t a sound approach.

Acquiring and retaining customers is a long-term process.  There’s plenty of room for clever, creative, even ingenious tactics, but marketing SaaS solutions, especially to enterprises, is a multi-step process.  Companies need to build visibility, attract leads, cultivate opportunities, close them into leads, and then on-board, retain, and upsell them. 

It requires a well-structured, end-to-end plan, and a lot of work to carefully execute it.  There’s a lot more to it than a few clever “hacks.”

5.  “Old” marketing tactics don’t fit SaaS

There's plenty that's new about SaaS technology and the SaaS business model, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the way people evaluate and purchase solutions is new, too.

In fact, prospective customers in some markets still use “old” ways to find out about solutions.  They go to trade shows, get an unsolicited direct mail piece, or ask a colleague.  Just because they’re “old” and were well-established long before SaaS - even long before software - doesn’t mean they won’t work for SaaS solutions. (See "Old Tactics Can Still Work for SaaS Marketing.")

Maybe they’re not as leading edge as social media, pay-per-click, or viral marketing campaigns, but don’t automatically rule them out of the marketing mix.  If that’s how your customers evaluate and buy solutions, do it.  (One way to know how your customers evaluate and buy solutions… just ask them.)

And don’t be afraid to try a new, or an old, tactic. If it works, do more.  If it doesn’t, try something else. 

Customers Don't Really Care About SaaS

It wasn’t that long ago that just describing your application as a "software-as-a-service (SaaS),"  or saying that it ran “in the cloud” was enough to get attention.

Companies like salesforce.com and a few other pioneers could differentiate themselves largely by saying they weren’t traditional on-premises software.  'Why buy applications built on old technology when you can buy solutions built on new technology?'

Not anymore.

SaaS just isn't so new and different anymore.  In almost any market these days, people are well-aware of SaaS, and they have a decent choice of cloud-based solutions for HR, CRM, ERP and a whole range of other acronymed applications. 

"SaaS" doesn't make you different anymore

If your goal as a marketer is to differentiate yourself, simply highlighting the fact that your solution is "SaaS,""runs in the cloud" or is “web-based”  really doesn’t do much for you anymore. 

In your marketing messages, there’s no point in putting your “SaaS-ness” or “cloudiness (?)” front & center anymore.  

For customers, it’s just not the most important thing.

Instead, focus on what customers really care about.  Explain what SaaS really means for them:

• They can deploy the solution quickly without adding lots of new hardware
• They can access the application from any device connected to the internet
• They can rely on regular updates
• They can avoid a large up-front license fee
• They can let experts worry about uptime and security.

SaaS buyers aren't techies

Highlighting benefits, not the technology itself, is an especially good idea for most prospective SaaS solution buyers.  Usually they're professionals in HR, sales, marketing, or finance.  They're not technologists. 

Of course they care about security, access, performance and other benefits that depend on the platform.  And sometimes a SaaS primer can help. (Call me if you need help with a primer.)  But most SaaS solutions are not a technical sell.

Talk so the customer will listen

Of course you’re proud of the solution you’ve built and how you’ve built it, and you'd love to tell everybody about your clever technology.

But if you want to get the attention of prospective customers, don’t talk about what you want to say.  Talk about what your customers want to hear.

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.

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.

SaaS profits: who cares

There's a story about accounting that wouldn't really pass as funny - even by accountants' standards- but it is instructive.

A CEO was interviewing two candidates for an accounting position. He provided each with the company's most recent financial data and asked each of them: "What would you report for our company's profit?"

The first candidate pored over the numbers, pencil and calculator at hand, carefully constructing an accurate income statement. After that protracted exercise, he dutifully walked the CEO through his arithmetic, subtracting expenses from revenues. The remainder, he proclaimed, would be the company's reported profit.

The second candidate kept his pencil and calculator in his briefcase and, in fact, never even glanced at the numbers. He looked at the CEO and said, "The company's profit is whatever you want it to be."

So much for the unassailable truth of whatever is reported as "profit." Calculating it and interpreting it can be much more elusive than the cold, hard numbers would suggest.

"Profit" isn't especially meaningful, in particular for SaaS companies

Interpreting "profit" is even more elusive when assessing software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies. The problem is timing. Profit is calculated by subtracting costs incurred during a given period from revenues generated during that same period.

For most SaaS companies, though, they incur expenses in the current period, but the revenues are realized over many periods in the future. Costs now yield revenues... but not until later. (See "SaaS market consolidation: Blame Wimpy.")

The largest of those costs tend to be for customer acquisition. Sales and marketing expenses in a given period can often exceed 50% of revenues during the same period. Adding in support, operations, development, general & administrative costs, and other expenses, there's not a lot left for profit. In fact, a reported loss is far more common.

If not "profit," what really matters?

So if profit isn't a useful measure of success for SaaS companies, what is?

Metrics like "cost of customer acquisition/customer lifetime revenues"(CAC/CLV) can give a much better picture of a SaaS company's performance. For every dollar that the company invests in sales and marketing, how many dollars in revenue are earned? And how long does it take to earn them? (See Joel York's "SaaS Metrics Guide for SaaS Financial Performance" or David Skok's "SaaS Metrics" for additional metrics appropriate for evaluating SaaS companies.)

To amend the story about the CEO and the accountants, the best answer to the question "What would you report for our company's profit" wouldn't be "revenues less costs," or even "whatever you want it to be."

For a SaaS company, the best answer might be, "Who cares?"




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

Naming SaaS solutions and escaping the 1990s

One afternoon in the Spring of 1993 in a conference room in San Jose, California I learned that product versions for software are meaningless.

Well, not exactly meaningless, but mathematically illogical, as in 1 + 1 = 4.

The product manager for Lotus 1-2-3 and I were briefing an influential Dataquest analyst on the forthcoming enhancements to the Lotus 1-2-3 for Windows spreadsheet. It was a major overhaul of the less-than-successful version 1.0 and 1.1 releases of the product.

Favorably impressed with nifty new features like instant charting and "Scenario Manager," the analyst suggested we abandon plans to label the new product "release 1.5" or even "2.0."

If we really wanted to make an impact, to heck with arithmetic. Skip a few steps entirely and call it "Lotus 1-2-3 Release 4."

And the tagline that adorned the tee-shirt read: "It's Not Just a New Version. It's a New Vision."

Version numbers are irrelevant for SaaS solutions

Which brings me to the naming conventions for software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions.

When it comes to sticking version numbers on SaaS solutions, don't bother with labels like 1.1, 2.0, or anything-dot-anything.

Also drop any notions about using "Winter" release or a "Spring" release. These seasonal monikers work for beer; not for SaaS solutions. (I also suspect they're confusing to customers in the southern hemisphere.)

In the old world of desktop applications and on-premise software, we made a big deal about new versions. It helped us sell more software. Our version 4.0 must be better than the competitor's version 3.0. And it must be way better than our old version, 1.1.

It worked really well for awhile and companies made a lot of money on this upgrade cycle. Every couple years we convinced people to rip out the old stuff and buy some new stuff.

An old naming convention doesn't fit a new model

But the logic of the upgrade cycle, and the version labels that went along with it, don't fit with SaaS solutions.

In the SaaS model, solutions are upgraded regularly and the upgrades are delivered as part of the subscription. The user doesn't have an installed version that's outdated, because the user doesn't have an installed version at all.

And if the prospective customer is asking "Which version release will I be buying," you need to do a better job of educating them on the basics of SaaS.

The only people who should know or care about version numbers are in your customer support group. In order to diagnose problems, they may need to know precisely which version the customer has access to at any particular time.

But that doesn't require a big, bold label a la "Lotus 1-2-3 Release 4," "Oracle 8i" or "Windows 95." Version numbers on SaaS solutions are sooooo 1990s.







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

SaaS advantages in a volatile market

For the last few years, NASCAR, Indy car, and Formula One drivers have been wearing a special head restraint, known as a HANS (Head and neck support) device. It's designed to prevent severe injuries from violent whiplash when the race car suddenly decelerates, as in a crash.

For business folks who have been whiplashed over the past few days by the sudden jolts in the stock market, this device might look attractive for more than just race car drivers.

But along with head and neck restraints to deal with volatility, businesses should be looking at software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions as well. SaaS offers several valuable advantages in this uncertain market, and marketers should be touting them.

No long term lock-in

Many SaaS subscriptions run year-to-year or even month-to-month. Companies don't need to lock-in a long term commitment. They can assess their need for the solution periodically and easily make adjustments.

Greater flexibility

SaaS subscriptions often give companies the flexibility to add or subtract users as needed. There's no new hardware or software to bring up or take down. When expanding the business, companies can add users. When scaling back, they can subtract users.

Faster deployment

Most SaaS solutions can be deployed fairly quickly. Though it may take some time to input data, configure the solution and learn how to use it, the SaaS application itself is already up and running. The months required to install and customize on-premise applications is cut to days or weeks.

Coping with uncertainty

The bottom line: your prospective customers are trying to manage in an usually volatile environment. Show them how a SaaS solution can help.




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

Explaing SaaS and the Cloud on TV

Microsoft is running an ad on television that I think may be trying to demonstrate the value of software-as-a-service (SaaS) and cloud computing.

It shows a mother who's having a problem composing a family photograph. To cut and paste different images into the photo, a la Photoshop, she appeals for help "to the cloud."

Huh?

You know the story of the blind men, each touching a different part of an elephant. One touches the leg and insists it's a tree. Another one touches the tail and claims it's a rope. A third one touches the elephant's trunk and is convinced it's a snake, and so on.

If we added the woman from the Microsoft "cloud" ad into this story, she'd be touching a discarded peanut shell that the elephant dropped a long way back on the trail. In other words, not even close.

It's sometimes difficult to explain SaaS and the cloud. One of the challenges confronting SaaS marketers is to educate all the buyers in the decision making process about this new mode of computing. Education is essential to winning the prospective customer's trust, and winning their trust is essential to winning their business.

In this effort to educate prospective buyers, the Microsoft "to the cloud"/photo-editing/discarded peanut shell TV ad doesn't really help. Sorry.

"It's bigger than the application"

A different ad running on television is actually more helpful to SaaS marketers... and it doesn't involve SaaS, the cloud, or even technology. It's from Starbucks.

The ad shows the process of creating a single cup of coffee for an individual customer, all the way from the plantation to the cup labeled with the customer's name, "Sue."


It closes with the tag-line: "You and Starbucks: It's bigger than coffee."

The message here: Starbucks is not just about the coffee. It's about the entire experience. They're marketing a relationship with the customer that goes beyond the product. In fact, they've even gone so far as to remove the word "coffee" from their logo.

That's a useful lesson for SaaS marketers. When it's done well, SaaS is marketed as more than just the application. It's about the entire customer experience: it's easy to purchase and deploy, simple to use, and painless to upgrade and maintain.

In addition to the features and functions, SaaS is about a commitment to deliver an increasingly useful solution reliably and securely over the life of the subscription.

It's bigger than the application.




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