Making the Most of Your SaaS Go-to-Market Strategy
No two go-to-market strategies are identical, even if they all share the same goal. And if you’re a SaaS company, it’s even more crucial to pay attention to the nuanced differences. So before you think about launching that new product and hoping for the best, take note of the tips below.
What Is a SaaS Go-to-Market Strategy?
A?go-to-market?strategy is a roadmap of how you’ll take your product to the market. While the strategy may look similar in some ways to those other companies use, more often than not, a SaaS company’s strategy is quite different. Allow us to explain.
How a SaaS Go-to-Market Strategy Is the Same
As we mentioned, the goal of a go-to-market strategy is basically the same for any business: to introduce a product or service to their market or an existing product to a new market. Every company needs a go-to-market strategy for each new product, and that includes brands that have been around for centuries.
That’s because, without a go-to-market plan, you are flying blind. Your product might not find any demand, or target the wrong audience, or have a fatal flaw in the messaging. Remember?Google Glass,?Harley Davidson perfume, or that romantic favorite,?Cheetos Lip Balm? All fantastic companies, but each created a terrible go-to-market strategy for these respective products.
…And How a SaaS Go-to-Market Strategy Is Different
SaaS marketing enjoys (or suffers from) important differences compared to traditional companies. Regular products and services are something that everyone understands, but SaaS is all about customer experience, and the go-to-market strategy is really affected by this.
Customer Experience
With many products, you can “try before you buy”. You can hold a product in your hand, get a salesperson to demonstrate, or watch friends using it. Plus, according to the?Four Ps of Marketing, there can be many other considerations, like its appearance, its?shelf placement, and its packaging.
With SaaS, the trying IS the buying. If the user experience and/or?customer journey?don’t go smoothly for most customers, then you’re out. Even if you have a sales force to demonstrate, they usually can’t be at the customer premises forever. Sure, the prospect might go for a free trial, but then promptly forget about your product. In fact, “not in use” accounts for?40% of app uninstalls.
The Need for Growth Marketing
The make-it-or-break-it influence of customer experience ties in to the next big differentiator for B2B go-to-market plans. This is especially true when it comes to a go-to-market strategy for startups.
Traditional companies make a product and send it off into the world. Then they iterate based on market feedback, or new product developments, or even one of those “planned obsolescence” strategies.
Not so for SaaS. Because there are bound to be ways to improve the customer experience, a SaaS go-to-market strategy must rely on the sell, analyze, remake, remarket cycle of growth marketing. It’s vital to collect data at every stage of the funnel and make immediate improvements to each stage. If there are hitches along the way, you won’t have much time for debugging or UX/UI before the customer says “buh-bye”.
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The Need for Plain Old Growth
AKA, scalability. Any SaaS go-to-market strategy must account for rapid growth. Servers, customer training, QA, maintenance – everything needs to be prepared for your?Wiz?moment.
But wait! Scaling up must also be done intelligently, because doing so too quickly is?one of the biggest threats?to startups. Thankfully, there are cloud services to cover many technical issues. Plus, any SaaS worth its salt will feature a great onboarding experience to minimize training issues.
Choosing the Right Channels
When you’re a B2B startup, most of the marketing channels described in a go-to-market plan will be outbound, as this is the most relevant for initial operations. That’s because it takes time to build up all the hype around a product, which is imperative for inbound sales. Is that good news? You betcha.
Outbound channels include email, which is the most common?B2B lead generation tactic, and which also features the best?return on investment. Plus, remember how we went on and on about customer experience? Well, a clever SaaS product can market itself through upgrades, good onboarding, and lots of other techniques.
How to Build the Best SaaS Go-to-Market Strategy
Creating a go-to-market strategy is no joke. It requires a complex effort from the whole team. Knowing which strategy is right for your product depends on several factors, such as level and type of competition; whether the product leans towards intuitive use and application; market maturity; and the likelihood that clients will use it, both in terms of technical ability and need.
There are plenty of go-to-market strategy examples, but they will usually be based on one of two approaches:
Sales-Led Growth (SLG)?is ye olde traditional method. Get those contact lists out and start calling. Or, fire up your spreadsheet of qualified emails and get typing. SLG is optimal in many cases, such as when:
Some examples of the greatness to be achieved with SLG include Microsoft and Salesforce.
Product-Led Growth (PLG)?is almost the opposite of SLG. Here, marketing occurs through the product interface. The app itself supports users’ daily activities; leads clients to purchase screens; encourages upgrades and subscription renewals; handles contracts and FAQs, and delivers onboarding. PLG is good for an intuitive product with a clear value proposition, a large base of prospects, and a lack of direct competition. Well-known fans of PLG include Zapier, Hootsuite, and Atlassian.
Key Takeaways
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