Pivoting from early adopters to mainstream buyers

If your software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution is relatively new to the market and you’ve already managed to bring on a group of early customers, congratulations. 

That’s usually solid proof that your product works, somebody’s getting value from it, and people will pay for it.  No small feat.  

But before you go overboard celebrating, I’ve got a bit of bad news:  It gets more difficult from here.

Sure, signing on that first group of paying customers probably was tough.  But signing on 10, 20, or 50 times that number... that's even tougher.

A new kind of buyer

Why does customer acquisition get more difficult?

Here's why:  you’re now selling to a different kind of buyer.  You’re not just selling to early adopters anymore.  You’re now marketing and selling to mainstream buyers.

Yes, these mainstream buyers may be in the same industry and they may need a solution to solve the same set of problems.

But they follow a different evaluation and purchase process.  And your marketing and sales plans need to adjust.

A longer sales cycle

When they evaluate new solutions, particularly those that are critical to their business, mainstream buyers tend to proceed more deliberately.  Unlike many early adopters, who are usually eager to try something new, these folks won’t jump right in. They move forward step-by-step.

Your marketing plan needs to follow this more deliberate process.  Plan to stay in touch with these prospects over an extended time, and implement programs to carefully nurture them along, one step at a time. 

Trying to rush things along is a bad idea.  For example, don’t expect prospects to jump from their first visit to your website and go directly to a one-on-one demo.  Not many will get your first email and immediately contact your sales rep.

They need more time to get more comfortable with you and your solution before they’re ready to talk with you directly.   

Need more proof

Mainstream buyers need to see more proof that your solution works as advertised.  They want to know that organizations similar to theirs have had success.  Unlike early adopters, they’re not interested in being the first of their colleagues to try something.

To satisfy their need to see proof, your marketing programs should include a healthy dose of customer success stories, references, and other ways to show that your solution really does deliver the benefits it promises.

Not interested in tech wizardry

Mainstream buyers usually aren’t wowed by cool technology.  They just want a solution that helps them run their business, and they don’t care a lot about what’s under the hood.  (See “Don’t talk techie to SaaS buyers.”)

They’re especially interested in how easy your solution is to learn and to use.  No matter how sophisticated the underlying technology or how long your list of features, these prospects know that if they can’t figure out how to use your solution - or train their employees to use it - it’s worthless to them.

Talking on and on about your platform, your proprietary algorithms, and your impressive feature list is more likely to distract, overwhelm, or confuse them than it is to impress them.

Rely more on support

Unlike the more adventurous early adopters, the next round of buyers tend to need more help to implement the solution.  Your ability to get them up & running quickly factors heavily in their evaluation.

Show them your on-boarding and training process and highlight your customer support capabilities.  Show them they’ll be working with a company that understands their business and won’t just leave them on their own to figure stuff out. 

Marketing pivot

Many of the companies I work with gotten themselves through the first stage of growth.   By word-of-mouth or direct contacts, they’ve managed to attract a cadre of early customers.

But to ramp up beyond that, they need a “marketing pivot.”  They need to adjust their initial messages and tactics to fit a different kind of buyer.

You may find yourself in a similar spot.  You need to reach beyond the early adopters to attract the broader pool of mainstream buyers.  That’s where you'll find the opportunity to accelerate growth and build a sustainable SaaS business.

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. 

Don't do tradeshows the wrong way

Tradeshows can be an effective way to get in front of prospective customers.  But not if you do them the wrong way.

You'll know it's the wrong way when you find yourself standing in a small booth in a remote corner of a vast exhibition hall, desperately hoping that some lone soul will meander their way past and glance in your direction. 

You'll know it's the wrong way when you're checking your email every two minutes, trying to relieve the monotony.

And you'll surely know it's the wrong way if you've spent thousands on exhibition space, booth set up, shipping and drayage, electrical, carpet, and give-aways, plus the travel expenses for everyone who staffed the booth, and you've attracted no new prospects.

Tradeshows can be expensive, especially for software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies that need to be especially careful with sales and marketing expenses. (I write extensively on the need for SaaS companies to spend wisely on customer acquisition in my "Practical Advice on SaaS Marketing" newsletter.)

One option is to skip tradeshows, dropping them from your budget altogether.

A better option, which I discuss in the video, is to select tradeshows carefully and get as much out of them as possible.

Thanks to the good folks at Openview Labs, who helped produce this video.

(By the way, I imagine there's a way to get a better still shot from the video than this rather unflattering one, but I've not yet figured out how to change that.)