Building a Winning SaaS Marketing & Sales Funnel
Please raise a hand if you don’t want more customers. You didn’t raise your hand, did you?
All SaaS marketers want more customers, and that’s why we spend countless days strategizing and trying to come up with something that’s going to make our dreams come true.
What we need is a working funnel. In this installment of Mouseflow Insights Cave, we go through each step of the funnel and focus on tactics to try and metrics to track.??
The 4 stages of SaaS marketing funnel
First things first—what’s going on inside your funnel? It should look something like this:
Awareness - Grabbing their attention
?? Metrics to track: Website traffic, click-through rate (CTR), social media engagement.
? What to do: At the awareness stage (aka top of the funnel), your mission is simple: get noticed! People are looking for solutions to their problem, not brands, so be the one who shows up with the solution. Use ads and content marketing. The goal is to be the first or at least the most useful thing they see when they’re searching for info. So, whether it’s a blog post, video, or social post, make sure it’s helpful, engaging and value driven.
“In the awareness stage of the funnel, we focus heavily on SEO and content marketing to attract users. By creating high-quality, keyword-optimized content that addresses the pain points and questions of our target audience, we improve our visibility in search engines. This not only drives organic traffic but also positions us as a trusted resource, laying the groundwork for deeper engagement as users move through the funnel.” — Andrew Nechiporuk, SEO Lead at Nextiva
? What not to do: Going full sales mode and bragging about how amazing your product is. Save the sales pitch and focus on entertaining, educating, and basically just getting your name out there.
If you’re looking for examples, here are five SaaS brands that are crushing it on social: HubSpot , Canva , Hootsuite , Slack and Shopify .
Consideration – Keeping them hooked
?? Metrics to track: Email open rates, content downloads, webinar attendance.
? What to do: Now they’re interested, it’s time to nurture that curiosity and keep the conversation going. Create content that answers their questions, like webinars and guides, and make sure those emails that they receive after becoming a subscriber are personalized. (This is where understanding your persona will really pay off.) ?? Show them you get THEIR PROBLEMS and that you’re here to help.
Make it easy for them to see how your product fits into what they want to solve. Think demo videos, case studies (not the fluffy, but the actionable ones), and content that makes them feel confident about taking the next step.
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Pro tip: Use funnel analytics to find out where leads are dropping off. Is it your onboarding? Your emails? Figure it out and fix it.
? What not to do: It’s still not time for the hard sell. Don’t overwhelm them with the constant “Are you ready to buy yet?” emails—they’re not. Let them warm up to you at their own pace. Keep it about them, not you.
Decision – Sealing the deal
??Metrics to Track: Sign ups, trial-to-paid conversions, sales cycle length.
? What to do: They’re almost ready to commit, and your job at this stage is to make it easy for them. Your checkout or sign-up process should be smooth and simple. Be clear about pricing, offer demos and maybe even give them limited-time offers or discounts to nudge them toward making the purchase.
? What not to do: ?Don’t make it complicated. If the sign-up process feels long and confusing, you’re doing it wrong.
Remember, the less friction, the better.
Retention – Keeping them
?? Metrics to track: Churn rate, customer lifetime value (CLV), net promoter score (NPS).
? What to do: Unlike a typical eCommerce conversion funnel, the SaaS funnel goes beyond the conversion stage. Actually, the part after the conversion is the most important one. The better you are at retaining existing users, the less reliant you become on acquiring new customers, which is from 5 to 25 times harder than building long-lasting customer relationships.
So, keep the relationship alive after the sale. Offer loyalty programs, exclusive content, and regularly check-in on them (especially those big customers). Send them some helpful tips on getting the most out of your product and always listen to what they say. Hopefully, you can show them so much value that they become advocates for your SaaS product!
? What not to do: Don’t go radio silent after the sale. If the only time they hear from you is when you’re asking for renewal, they’re much more likely to churn, and that’s not what you want.
Happy customers are your best marketing asset. Try out some of these tips on each stage but also keep experimenting on what works.
'Til next time,
Mouseflow team ??