It's Hard to Overcome Inertia

One thing I’ve learned in talking with customers:  People have a high threshold for pain.  It’s really difficult to get them to move away from whatever system they’re using to handle some task in their organization – no matter how bad that system is - and adopt a new one.

When I talk with customers that have recently purchased a new software-as-a-service (SaaS)

solution for their organization, I always ask “What system did you have before, and why did you decide to change.”

I nearly always hear back that the system they used before had to be bad - really, really bad - before they decided to replace it.  Even when they know that it’s less than optimal – slow, hard-to-use, messy, whatever – they will often choose to just live with that pain if they can. 

I’ve heard this from HR managers, finance executives, property managers, advertising professionals, and pretty much everyone else.  Most people are willing endure a lot in order to avoid the expense and hassle of making a change. 

Only urgent problems get attention

If people are busy in most organizations, that’s doubly true for folks that are considering SaaS solutions.  As I’ve talked about before, these people have day jobs.  They’re managing HR, finance, sales, or some other full-time responsibility.  They don’t have a few open weeks or months to evaluate SaaS solutions.  They have a long list of tasks to focus on and only the most urgent problems an get their attention.  (See video “Only urgent problems get attention.”)

If you’re marketing a SaaS solution and the problem you solve is way down on your prospect’s list of problems that need attention, your first task is to push that problem toward the top of the list.  An annoying problem – one they can live with - needs to become an urgent problem – one that can’t be ignored.

Look for deeper pain

When SaaS solution vendors are touting their advantages over existing systems, I typically hear some variation of this: “We’re faster and we’re less expensive.”  They talk about how their system will save

the customer money and let them work more efficiently.  Some will go on to quantify the saving and even calculate the ROI on buying their solution.

“Faster and cheaper” are useful advantages, but they’re usually just table stakes.  Marketers should look for the deeper, more urgent problems – issues that can truly imperil the business - that can more effectively motivate a prospective customer.  

For a financial services professional, for example, their biggest problem – one near the top of their list – may be the need to reduce risk.  For an HR professional, it may be that they are so buried in administrivia that they’re unable to have significant impact on the organization.  I once heard from a property management executive that managed several different offices that their biggest fear was the risk of embezzlement.

Focus first on the pain, not the solution

A reminder to marketers: your biggest competitor is usually inertia.  At least in the initial discussions with prospective customers, you’re usually competing against the impulse to “do nothing,” not against a vendor offering a similar solution. 

Showing how you stack up against other vendors’ solutions doesn’t matter so much at this stage.  It’s way more important to show that the customer has an urgent problem – one that cannot be ignored.  Only when they get there have you earned the right to show them that you can solve that problem.

Benchmarks: Don't Hide This SaaS Benefit

A company may have lots of ways to know what’s going on inside their organization.  But it’s more

difficult to know what’s going on outside.  How are they doing relative to other companies.  What are others doing that they can learn from?  What mistakes are others making that they can avoid? 

During the height of the Covid-19 crisis, one of my clients asked a few dozen customers what they were doing to adjust to the new business conditions.  Besides helping some struggling customers and providing reassurance, it also let them gather a few useful insights.

Then they shared those insights, anonymously of course, with the rest of their customers.  It was sent to that large audience under the subject line: “Here’s what your peers are doing to manage through the crisis.”

Customers responded well. The advice was helpful, timely, and gave a window into what their peers were up to.

Understanding your customers is something SaaS companies can do especially well

Lots of software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies should be able to easily gather and share information like that.

In fact, they don’t even need to talk to their customers.  Because they’re hosting the data in the cloud, they can see the vital information themselves.

A SaaS HR systems vendor, for example, can find in the system useful information on sick days, turnover, or time-to-fill open positions. 

A CRM vendor can see the ratio of opportunities per lead and the average length of the sales cycle.  An ERP vendor can see average inventory levels or key financial metrics.

Vendors that sell into verticals can share industry-specific information.  A vendor that hosts a solution for car dealers, for example, can see the average sales per month, the value of extras sold with each vehicle, and the average time a vehicle stays on the lot.

Benchmarks are useful

Of course, SaaS vendors need to be very careful to share only aggregate data.  They can’t be in the business of sharing private data of individual customers.

But with proper protections, they can regularly collect and share helpful benchmark information that allow companies to compare themselves to their peers.

That information is valuable.  HR managers, marketing professionals, sales executives, supply chain managers, etc. all want to know how they stack up.

Avoiding Website Ratholes: Advice for SaaS Marketers

Nobody seems happy with their website. 

In talking with lots of Marketing managers over many years, I’ve found that they tend to fall into one of only two camps: 

• People that are currently redoing their website, or
• People that are planning to redo their website.

In other words, nobody’s really happy with their existing website.

Over the last year, I’ve worked with 4 different clients on a complete overhaul of their websites.  And I’ve recommended suggestions for website improvements for almost every other client.

Too many choices

One of the most challenging parts of overhauling a website, or building one from scratch, is all the choices.  You need to make decisions about design, text, navigation, development, illustrations, ad infinitum. 

Though certain conventions have been established (e.g. a navigation bar running horizontally across the top of the page), there are still millions of details to wade through.  I’ve had discussions about the right color of a person’s hair in a stock photo, I kid you not.  Working through all these issues large and small, it’s easy to get lost, stuck, or frustrated.  You can head down a lot of ratholes.

Based on my experience – meaning I’ve gone down lots of these ratholes myself - let me offer some suggestions on avoiding the same mistakes.

Keep your goals top-of-mind

Specify your primary goals at the start of your website overhaul, get everyone on board, and keep those goals in front of you throughout the project.  They’ll help you stay focused, remind you of your priorities, and guide you as you work through details.

As you think about whether to add a particular section, use a screenshot instead of an illustration, or where to put call-to-action buttons, refer back to your overall goals.  Which action best supports those objectives? 

By the way, you may find that some of these choices make no real difference at all, in which case you’re wasting time fixating on them.  Move on.

Clearly articulate your value proposition

The key benefits and advantages of your solution should be consistently conveyed throughout your website.  In fact, that should be the case with all your marketing programs.  (See “Two essentials for SaaS marketing.”)

You can argue about particular words or illustrations, but the messages should be set in stone.  It should be crystal clear to the visitor who your solution is for, what problem it solves, and why they should buy it from you.  Don’t move ahead with the website until the value proposition and messages are in place.

Work from an outline

Before you start writing text, selecting illustrations, considering designs, or doing anything else, prepare an outline.  Think through and get agreement on the structure, the purpose, and contents of each page or section.  You’ll probably end up making changes as you get into the project, but to use a construction analogy, you don’t want to be designing the house while you’re building it.

 

Measure what can be measured

Rely on actual website data when it’s available. Information on visitors’ behavior collected on the   You’ll see how visitors found you, how they entered and navigated through the site, what material was most popular, what material was never found, and other vital information that can help you make improvements with the new site.  Referring to data can often be more useful than opinions in guiding the project.

existing site can often be helpful in making decisions about the new site.

Overhauling a website or building an entirely new one is a big project.  But that’s what you should expect with such a critical piece of your customer acquisition process.  It will require hard thinking, difficult decisions, and probably more time than you think.  By following a few basic rules, though, you should be able to make the experience a bit less frustrating and a lot more productive.

Upselling isn't easy

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I’m probably reading the same research you are about upselling.  The clear conclusion is that selling more stuff to existing customers is important for software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies.

The most successful SaaS companies are generating more than half of their new bookings from   Plus, they’re achieving “net negative churn,” meaning the loss of customers is more than offset by selling more to existing customers. (See KBCM 2019 survey of SaaS companies.)

upsells and expansions.

And this “land & expand” strategy can be a lot less expensive than selling to new customers.  The cost of selling to an existing customer is about half the cost of acquiring a new customer.

Where upselling can go wrong

But just because the strategy makes sense doesn’t mean it’s easy to execute.  In fact, there are lots of ways it could go wrong.

Poor experience with the initial product:  It may seem obvious, but upselling new products requires that the customer have a good experience with the first product.  Companies need effective onboarding, training and support in place to ensure customers are satisfied.  Without that, customers won’t even consider purchasing more.  (See “How to lose a customer in the first 90 days.”)

Poor product integration:  The follow-on products need to work well with the customer’s existing product.  If customers struggle to use the two products together, they simply won’t.  Things like a similar user interface, single sign-on, easy transfer of data from one product to the other are essential.

Difficult to understand the value:  It should be easy for the customer to see how they’ll derive significantly more value by adding another product.  For example, adding a tenant screening service to a residential property management solution makes sense.  Unrelated products and services don’t.  Don’t make your customer work too hard to understand the value.  (See “Your prospect has a day job.”)

Require new decision makers:  If the add-on product requires an OK from a new person within the customer’s company, a “simple” upsell can get complicated.  This is true even when one product is closely related to another.  For example, there may be an advantage to connect an HR administration solution directly to a payroll product.  But that means the purchase decision for the new solution now involves the Finance executive, not just the HR administrator.  That doesn’t mean it’s impossible to sell the add-on payroll product, but it does present another obstacle.

Poor timing:  Be careful not to jump into upselling too soon.  The customer needs to see value from the first product they’ve purchased, and they need to trust you.  That may take time.

Speaking of poor timing, don’t try to upsell a customer while they’re trying to resolve a support issue.  When they contact the support desk, they’re focused on getting the existing product to work properly, and probably not in the mood to think about purchasing additional products.

Lack the support of end-users:  If they’re happy, end-users can be a huge supporter and make it easier to sell add-on products and services.  If they’re unhappy, not so much.  If an HR manager is getting lots of pushback from employees about their experience with an HR solution, they’re unlikely to buy additional products.  Same for a Sales manager getting complaints about the CRM system, a Finance manager getting grief about an expense reporting system, etc.

Difficult to purchase:  Customers buying a related product from the same vendor expect a simple buying process.  A complicated multi-step process and pricing that’s hard to figure out will be confusing, slow everything down, and make the buyer wonder whether these two solutions really are from the same vendor.

Selling without understanding:  The people doing the upselling need to know what the customer really needs.  Mindlessly pitching one thing after another, just because it’s in the salesperson’s bag, isn’t very effective.  Because the customer is using a SaaS product, it should be possible to know precisely what additional products or services might make sense for them.  No need to spam them.

I don’t mean to scuttle anyone’s plans to grow their SaaS business by selling more to existing customers.  Done well, it can work.  And lots of SaaS companies have made it work.  But be aware of the obstacles.  Even though products carry the same logo and come from the same vendor, upselling isn’t as easy as it seems.

Taglines are more than a few clever words

There are lots of memorable taglines for consumer products: 

• Just do it. (Nike)
• Got milk. (California Milk Producers)
• Betcha can’t eat just one. (Lays)

But business and technology products have had a fair share of effective taglines as well: 

• Imagination at work (GE)
• THINK (IBM)
• Think different (Apple)
• The early salesforce tagline wasn’t even words; just a logo saying “software” with a slash through it.

Each of those short phrases does a lot of work.  They convey something vital about the product or the company.  They come out of a deep understanding of the product or the company and the benefits it delivers.

And the tagline isn’t just something that’s used on a billboard or in a TV ad.  It’s actually reflected in the way products are built, service is delivered, how the company hires, and everything else about the way they do business.

Authentic taglines require deep thinking

I worked with Lotus when they developed a tagline, “Work the web.”  It was featured prominently in a series of ads featuring Dennis Leary.  It made the point that the web was useful for lots more than creating chat rooms, virtual pets, and cat videos. 

The tagline was a clear expression that the web, which was still in its early days, can be a powerful business tool.  It came out of deep thinking and many meetings in which people thought hard about how to carve out a compelling role for Lotus – specifically Notes and Domino - in a rapidly changing market.

The most effective taglines aren’t just dreamed up by a clever marketing team.  Yes, a few creative folks sitting in a room could come up with something cute or catchy, but it’s unlikely to have much meaning to people hearing it or convey anything fundamental about the product or the company.  It will be just a few empty words.

Nor can effective taglines be “borrowed” or adapted from another company.  Grafting on a phrase that isn’t a genuine reflection of a company’s true value proposition or culture is inauthentic and meaningless. 

Taglines aren’t required

Companies can effectively market their solutions without a tagline.  They definitely need a concise and compelling value proposition – a few sentences that clearly explain who should buy their product, what problems they solve, and why someone should pay them money for it.  (See “Two Essentials for SaaS Marketing.”)

But they don’t necessarily need to distill this into a short tagline, a few words that captures the essence of the value proposition.  It can be helpful in ad campaigns or other promotional efforts, but not essential.

Companies and marketing teams that do opt to develop and use a tagline though, should recognize that it’s not an easy task to do it well.  There’s lots of work squeezed into a very few words.