GOLD! Ask Me Anything About SaaS ( I'm building my 7th )

[eliquid]

what does your rollout look like in terms of sales and marketing? , hungry commission-only sdr's on Linkedin? any software you utilize to get your first batch of clients?

Mostly word of mouth to this point, and what influence I have over an audience of forum members that knew me, and affiliates.

That is changing this month though

 

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[eliquid]

Sometimes just showing up, even unprepared is enough to win most of your battles.

I began helping a friend of mine with his SaaS in Dec 2019. Helping him with marketing ( no heavy tech stuff ) and almost entirely just SEO within that marketing help I did.

Wanna see how I got them to first page, 5th rank in Google for their largest B2B SaaS term in JUST 6 months with no SEO gameplan?

I don't give away the term or niche, but I wrote this out over at SERPWoo ( my current SaaS ) and here is the ranking right now.

Here are the posts:
Ranking A New Site From Scratch, Day 0
Ranking A New Website From Scratch, Day 1-31
Ranking A New Website From Scratch, Day 31-60
Ranking A New Website From Scratch, Day 61-90
Ranking A New Website From Scratch, Day 91-120

The series is still a work in progress, so there will be future updates.

.

Glad to report that Im now #1 pretty much

 

[Mark_Entr]

For marketing -

SaaS marketing isn't very different from marketing other products. That might be easy for me to say since I've been doing digital marketing for 2 decades now, but the fact is that marketing done right fits tons of niches and verticals.

Probably the biggest difference I have learned with SaaS is that you have to factor in some unique twists:

• You potentially can afford more per customer in marketing with a SaaS than other types of business
  • Since this is recurring sale, you can look at LTV more predictably than with ecom
    
• Customers may churn, but many will come back
  • Do you have a marketing plan to win people back? In my SaaS someone may cancel or quit in month 4, only to come back 3 months later and stay on for 8 months.
    
• Unlike a physical product or info product, I can continuously hype up new potential features inside my SaaS. I don't have to rely on emails that don't get opened, or opened but not read. I also don't worry about spam. People see my messages and new features and get excited to stay on longer as I pass more value to them.
  
  
• Speaking your customer's language really helps. Drawing up demographic profiles/customer profiles is important in lots of areas of marketing even for 1 time sales, digital products, and more. However, when you realize that getting profiles right in a SaaS = thousands more dollars per customer over their LTV, getting it right for a 1-time sale on a physical product gets overshadowed.
  
  
• Like many other areas, "me too" competitors will crop up left and right. Maybe not immediately, but they will come for you sooner or later. You guys selling on Amazon know what I mean.
  • Does you brand story help you stand out above your competitors?
  • Is your marketing message helping provide your unique value over your competitors?
  • Have you made yourself the industry expert? If not, your competitor will and they will become the "first mover" in your industry
    
• Fish where your tech innovators and early adopters hang out. These might not end up being your core audience in 12 months time, but their influence, usage, feedback, and revenue will help get you off the ground.
  • As an example, our SaaS started off attracting affiliate marketers. Me and my partner had a lot of influence in this niche and many affiliates are doing SEO ( white and blackhat ). They also tend to be on the cutting edge of digital marketing so they tend to be early adopters looking for an advantage over competitors.
  • As my SaaS grew, the buzz these affiliates made in other forums, chats, conferences, and online influenced other people to try our product out. By people I mean credible marketing agencies, big brands, fortune 500 companies, etc.
  • Affiliate are no longer our core audience, but they were the group that helped bring in revenue, provide feedback, and help spread our brand name. These tech innovators and early adopters were critical to us.
    
• Be unique in your message. Don't be afraid to stand out or focus in too narrow. Sometimes all you need is to connect with a core group of people. That might mean being unique in a sea of "boring". It might mean really focusing on 1 small group of users now, in order to cast out a wider net to more people later.
  
  
• Are your marketing messages clear enough that your 80 year grandma understands it? If not, can your mom understand it? If you fail both of these, you need to start over. You want even grandma to potentially be your customer, but more importantly you want people to easily understand what it is you do and the value you can provide for them.

focusing your message too narrow on a core group + Making your message understandable to your grandma can be a bit contradictory
- can you elaborate on it ?
-- ( is it about making a very clear message that attracts a core group of users
-- or should your marketing message change as you grow your user base beyond your core group

Thanks for all the info

 

[eliquid]

focusing your message too narrow on a core group + Making your message understandable to your grandma can be a bit contradictory
- can you elaborate on it ?
-- ( is it about making a very clear message that attracts a core group of users
-- or should your marketing message change as you grow your user base beyond your core group

Thanks for all the info

If my core group is digital marketing agencies, I need to narrow in my message on that core group.

However, not everyone in that core group is in the weeds and knows the lingo and buzzwords and understands the intimate inner workings of SEO, so you will need to explain it to them so their grandma understands.

A good example might be the VP of marketing. They might make the buying decision, but they have never done SEO in their life and therefor not know everything about it.

Maybe they spent most of their career in offline marketing and are now the VP in a digital agency. Maybe they did a lot of email and PPC, but not SEO. Maybe they know a little SEO ( to talk the talk to clients ) but they don't know the inner workings enough to understand why your SaaS will really help them.

Focus your message on the group/core topic, but make the message easy enough grandma could get it.

There are actually very very few people who really "get it" in most companies when you start looking at "core" topics. It took me a long time to understand this. I use to think if this was your "job" or "career" that you would just "get it". I use to think if you made it to Director or VP or C-suite, you knew the fine details and inner workings of your "core" topic.

But that is not how it really is 95% of the time.

Craft to the core, but speak to the grandmas. Hint - the grandmas enjoy emotion. Use that.

 

[DesireOn]

Hey,
I am a web developer struggling to find an idea (or more accurately a problem) for my first SaaS project. So i decided to look for existing solutions and make them better. The problem is i am so overwhelmed that i never end up with something. :/ Can you give me advice for that? What should i do?

 

[eliquid]

Hey,
I am a web developer struggling to find an idea (or more accurately a problem) for my first SaaS project. So i decided to look for existing solutions and make them better. The problem is i am so overwhelmed that i never end up with something. :/ Can you give me advice for that? What should i do?

It's the same answer I have throughout this whole thread.

Build what you are an authority of.

That will fix the "struggling to find an idea" part and also fix the overwhlem part.

Everyone is an authority of something. You know more about a topic or 2 than the lay person.

That's what makes an authority over the lay person. Built to that.

 

[Raja]

It's the same answer I have throughout this whole thread.

Build what you are an authority of.

That will fix the "struggling to find an idea" part and also fix the overwhlem part.

Everyone is an authority of something. You know more about a topic or 2 than the lay person.

That's what makes an authority over the lay person. Built to that.

It may sound like an excuse but my authority is in app development.
How to build saas around that?

 

[eliquid]

It may sound like an excuse but my authority is in app development.
How to build saas around that?

Can you build a SaaS that makes App Dev easier?

A lot of my digital marketing problems and issues ( since I was a digital marketer ) is what I made my SaaS's around, so that those problems and issues would go away or become easier.

Can you do the same?

 

[eliquid]

It doesn't matter if your SaaS is $99.97, 49.97 or 6.97

If you don't provide value to the end user, they won't stick around month to month.

And it doesn't matter if you think it provides value, the customer has to feel the value for themselves.

Value is different to everyone.

Some people will find value in you doing 1 thing right.

Some people will find value purely in monetary comparison.

Some people will find value because you do what Y competitor does, plus Z more.

Some people will find value because they feel you will be around to help them.

etc

If you can not convey all of what people are looking for in value, you are leaving money on the table.

 

[eliquid]

After years of building SaaS, doing PPC marketing for brands like Alibaba, Team Viewer, John Deere, Virgin Group... running affiliate marketing campaigns, doing SEO, bulk email etc...

I can tell you nothing brings in the sales like a referral.

And a referral might not be what you think it should be.

Here is what I mean:

• After being #1 on Google for the right terms in SEO
• Spending money on FB and Adwords for PPC
• Writing the most helpful articles with real How To advice
• Answering questions and being voted top on Quora
• Making YouTube videos
• Posting on social media 3-4x a day ( Gary V style ) for months
• Having an affiliate program with lucrative payouts
• etc

Nothing has beat having other people mention, post, or link to us from their websites and social media and email lists. Even when it's not hyping my product, the mere posting of it ( like in Hacker News or Product Hunt ) just works out better.

Nothing beats it.

And Ive been doing online marketing since the days of GoTo, DMOZ, Yahoo Directory, and the like.

If I was building a SaaS today ( well, I always am ), I would put all of my focus on that one promotion method. Finding ways to get others to talk about me, over and over again.

I wouldn't waste time with SEO, content writing ( unless it was guest posts ), Youtube ( unless I was getting interviewed by someone else ), posting in social media, etc.

I would 110% focus on getting others to talk about me and having that on their channels and outlets.

Making content to post on your own channels ( podcasts, guides, articles, videos ) is worthless compared to creating it and having on other people's channels.

If you are going to do podcasts and videos, have other people interview you and have them post it on their channels.

If you are writing content, have it put on other people's websites.

Everything else is garbage as a start up.

Get the word out, on other people's channels.