Posts Tagged ‘target market’

SaaS: Building the revenue momentum you need to achieve profitability

Tuesday, May 11th, 2010

Lots going on in Boston this month.  Just got back from an information-rich panel discussion offered by the Massachusetts Technology Council entitled: Tricks of the Trade – Building Revenue Momentum in SaaS.    Here are my notes.

SaaS revenue momentumProgram description

Unlike traditional software business models which are based on one-time license sales and lump-sum cash payments, the SaaS model is predicated upon building annuity-type revenue and cash streams. Over the long-term this business model is highly attractive, but especially for early-stage companies ramping SaaS revenues poses a unique set of challenges. MassTLC has gathered a panel of accomplished SaaS operating executives to share their insights on getting the initial revenue ‘flywheel’ turning and building sustainable SaaS enterprises.

The panel

Skip Bestoff, General Partner, at Castile Ventures did a great job of moderating the discussion–asking all the questions we hoped he’d ask.  Fred Mather, Global Head, M&A and AI Sales at IntraLinks and Richard Turcott, CMO at RatePoint drew on a wealth of experience to share best practices, lessons learned, and advice about how to get the revenue flywheel going.

Determining market positioning and value propositions

Skip asked, “How do you find the sweet spot for your business?”

Advice:

  • Understand your market and follow through–too often people find their target market and then later ignore what they’ve learned.
  • Meet with prospects to gather market insights.  Nothing beats seeing someone’s reactions as they talk about what’s important to them.
  • Ensure that the opportunity you’re pursuing addresses a significant problem
  • Tie your value proposition to cost and/or time savings.
  • To ramp quickly, aim for those who already recognize they need a solution to the problem you’re addressing

Tips:

  • Accelerate your learning by using pay-per-click ads to test various terms you’re considering using to market your solution
  • Then, apply what you learn to other channels

Skip asked:  What’s the impact of the subscription model on the value proposition?

  • SaaS enables you to target the economic buyer, since you don’t need to put anything in “on premise”
  • The sale is more transactional.   When the entry point is just $/month, perceived time savings and ease of use often trump classical  ROI
  • Customer centricity is more important than ever.  You need to deliver a great customer experience if you lead with a trial.

IT’s involvement in the sale

Comments:

  • The IT budget is shrinking, so you need to attack the operating budget if you want to make a lot of money
  • IT is still involved for enterprise sales, that require custom development such as integration with other applications the customer is using
  • You need to tell IT what’s in it for them
  • Although it’s all over the place, most IT departments today are economic buyers
  • If IT approval is needed, there is one more step in the sales cycle, and the company tends to grow less quickly.

How much should you pay to acquire a customer?

Advice:

  • Start by determining the lifetime value of a customer (LTV).  The calculation is (1/attrition rate)*Average sales price
  • In the beginning, you may need to pay more than the LTV because you haven’t proven your value or developed a brand.
  • In the long term, you need to pay less than LTV to achieve profitability

Best practices for acquiring customers

  • Depend on prospect and customer anecdotes to get your messaging right.
  • For small price point products, you’re conducting focus groups every day (as you watch online buying behavior)
  • Leverage the community: start with those who wield the greatest influence with the target market
  • Then, focus on getting customers that are willing to serve as spokespeople for your case study
  • Work your network:  with the advent of social media, no one needs to make cold calls
  • Set limits and success criteria to ensure that your trials encourage conversions:  give prospects just enough time and functionality to experience value
  • Hone your process by analyzing the sales pipeline:  key metrics include visitors to trials, trials to conversions, time to progress through cycle, level of discounting

Customer support strategy is essential to success

  • Having a well thought out support strategy is essential to success
  • Business users are less technically savvy and require more handholding
  • To scale, you need to make people comfortable with on-line support
  • To maximize profitability, you need to bake support into the product over the longer term.
  • Initially, however, it’s likely you’ll need to  provide personal support to compensate for gaps in the product and/or training materials

These are some of the insights I gained from the panel this morning.  What have you done to get the revenue flywheel turning for your SaaS business?

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B2B marketing insights and tips compliments of MarketingProfs

Thursday, May 6th, 2010

So much to learn, so little time–which is why I was thrilled to have the opportunity to meet and learn from hundreds of other marketing professionals this week at Marketing Profs B2B forum.  What’s more we had a lot of fun and left with a lot of ideas that many of us are already putting into action.

B2B digital marketing best practices

Over two jam-packed days, we heard about best practices in areas like search engine optimization (SEO), content strategy, lead generation and lead nurturing, and social media.  We learned about what’s worked, what hasn’t, and why from Marketing VPs that have been there, tried that.

Now, a day later, I’m summing up my notes and thought I’d share some of what I learned with those of you who couldn’t get away.  These insights just a sampling of all I took away from this great conference.

Three insights + three tips

For each session I attended you’ll find three things I found interesting and three tips I found useful.  The biggest “aha” was that sometimes the things that were the most interesting were also the things that should have been obvious…

“Higher Conversions, Better ROI: Advanced Landing Pages that Improve Campaign ROI” with Anna Talerico, Scott Brandt, and Michael Burgis.

Interesting:

  • The ability to customize landing pages to specific targets can dramatically boost conversions.
  • Having an automated tool makes customization much easier (and appears to be a “must” if you want to use your website for lead gen)
  • Match expectations:  ensure that landing page uses images and phrases consistent with the invitation to click through

Tips:

  • Want visitors to click through?  Offer reports on market trends or price quotes
  • Want to ensure prompt follow up?  Pull leads that Sales hasn’t called (within a pre-specified time
  • Add social icons to your “thank you” page to encourage further interaction

“Content SEO- Best Practices and What to Avoid” with Lee Odden and Jiyan Wei

Note: Due to a previous commitment, I only caught the last half hour of this session.

Interesting:

  • Google’s webmaster tools/blog is a treasure trove of useful information
  • There’s no tool yet that enables you to look up social keyword usage/trends
  • Google is starting to penalize sites with long load times

Tips:

  • Want to increase the chances that Google will index all your pages?  Submit your HTML and XML site maps to Google directly.
  • Do you syndicate your content?  Let Google know which page is original to avoid penalties
  • Need a proxy for a social keyword tool? Look at tag clouds on relevant blogs and social bookmarking sites.

“Drowning in Data, Starved for Knowledge?” with Devyani Sadh, PhD

Note: The recommendations offered in this session appear to require consultants, several tightly integrated software packages and teams of data analysts to implement and therefore may be beyond the reach of most small companies.

Interesting:

  • Marketing 101 rules still apply, but analytics are key to concentrating your firepower where it will have the greatest impact.
  • Larger companies that fail to invest in these resources may find themselves at a competitive disadvantage
  • Where are the dashboards that will make the data presented in this session useful to the less technical users of the data?

Tips:

  • Strategy before tactics:  Identify your target market and focus on them because there aren’t enough resources to do everything.  Then don’t forget retention which is far more profitable than acquisition.
  • Critical success factors:  objectives and a plan, database strategy, metrics strategy, data mining strategy, integration strategy (of various online systems and of online and other data)
  • Data sources in order of priority: customer contact data, preferred means and frequency of contact, purchase history, web transaction history, third-party demographic data (e.g. D&B), Campaign responses, survey data

“Blogging for Business Roundtable” with Galen DeYoung

Since this was a Q and A session, I’ve just included tips:

Tips:

  • Use WordPress as your blogging platform because it has the most plugins
  • Recommended WordPress plug ins:  All in One SEO Pack, Sexy bookmarks, Robots Meta
  • Use Google URL Builder to help you track analytics that are otherwise lost when you use URL shortening tools

“Unleash the Power of Content to Engage Your Prospects” with Stephanie Tilton, Michele Linn, Amy Black, Pam O’Neal

Interesting:

  • People forget to be interested in you, you need to remind them (sad, but true)
  • Your content strategy needs to outline goals at every stage of the buying process and content that will help you achieve those goals.
  • Content attracts more qualified leads, because searchers are often in “shopping” mode

Tips:

  • Add “best practices” to your case studies
  • Teach your sales people how to write LinkedIn profiles that sell and use SlideShare to embed your sales presentations in their profiles
  • Update the offers on your blog post

“How B2B Marketers are Using Mobile Marketing to Increase Revenue” with  Chris Koch, Bob Gold, Jeannine Rossignol, and Dawn Cochran

Interesting:

  • Shoots off plants have a better chance of surviving than their seeds do.  The success of mobile apps depends on branding done in other spheres.  Self-contained apps are not likely to succeed.
  • Your app needs to work on all phones since even the company with the largest share only has a small percentage of the market.
  • Tools now exist to port applications built on one platform to another, although additional development work is still needed.

Tips:

  • Opt-in is mandatory.  People are very protective of what they allow on their phones.
  • Provide Sales with mobile versions of all sales aids for easy access.  Make everything printable to a queue so that they can easily obtain hard copies when needed.
  • Want to build a community?  Use mobile because it’s available 24 x 7.

“Six Pixels of Separation – How B2B Connects In a Connected World” with Mitch Joel

Interesting:

  • Google bought YouTube for its community
  • 20% of searches have never been done before (opportunity for you to “claim” those terms!)
  • The average Canadian spends 16 hours/month on YouTube and the average segment is just 4 minutes (American stats are comparable or higher)

Tips:

  • Become active n communities where your target audience lives
  • Publish or Perish
  • Invest heavily in Search

“Websites that Convert More Customers” with David Reske and Jay Kramer

Interesting:

  • Many of the pages the speakers presented were dense with text, consistent with their recommendation to ensure you have a lot of content
  • Usability /Navigability is key
  • Sepaton, a provider of high-speed data backup solutions,  reminds visitors of its value proposition with flash images of trains, runners, and speedboats.

Tips:

  • Ensure that it’s obvious what problem you solve on every page you publish
  • Consider integrating what others are saying about you in social media on your site so visitors can validate your claims
  • Include a call for action on every page

Now, here’s the irony.  You take two days out of your busy schedule to attend a conference–and then come back with many more things to add to the “to do” list.

Of course, the hope is that they’ll pay for themselves over time–which I believe they will.  Thanks  to all the folks at Marketing Profs for a great conference!  Looking forward to next year.

Added 5/10/10

One reader asked for more clarification/examples.  Please see below.  If you require additional clarification, please let me know.

1. An automated tool for landing pages is helpful because many companies end up adding or customizing multiple landing pages each day.

2. The speaker that mentioned that  “shoots off trees do better than seeds” referenced Dragon as an example of an application that’s already branded and would benefit from a mobile extension.

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Posted in How to, Internet marketing, Marketing communications programs, Marketing strategy, social media, social media marketing | 1 Comment »

Follow the money: How to capitalize on opportunity in a tough economy

Sunday, January 11th, 2009

The economy has slowed down but businesses—and individuals—are still buying. The difference is that they’ve tightened their belts. Most are spending less—and many are spending on different things, for different reasons. The question is—how do you get money from those who are deliberately trying to cut down?

Where there’s sales activity, there’s an unmet need

Our clients find that one of the best ways to find out where to concentrate their firepower is to follow the money. They do this by studying recent activity—their own, the competitions’, or those of the companies that are succeeding under current market conditions. Why? Because where there’s activity, there’s an unmet need.

Use knowledge about wins and losses to replicate success

Next our clients look at outcomes. Who won? Who lost? Why? Once they have the answers to these important questions, they know what they need to do to replicate success–their own or that of others who were more savvy or more fortunate.

Follow the money

Here are concrete actions you can take to follow the money and capitalize on opportunity in a tough economy. Start with your own experiences, but don’t stop there.

If your business has won any deals recently, find out what caused these accounts to purchase when everyone else is sitting on the sidelines. What about their situation was different? What compelled them to act now? How did they find your company? What caused them to seek you out? How did they justify their investment?

From market intelligence to marketing strategy

Depending on what you hear, the answers to these questions may shed light on what characteristics separate the prospects that are likely to buy, from those that are not. You may also find out who you need to reach at these companies, where you need to place your marketing messages, or what you need to emphasize in your marketing literature and on your sales calls to capture attention and motivate action.

Competitive intelligence can uncover opportunity

If you haven’t won any deals recently, try to find out whether anyone in your target market has bought from anyone else. If so, you may be able to turn to them for answers to these important questions. Then, you can use that information to remove obstacles to the sale—and replicate their successes.

If neither you, nor your competition, have won any deals lately, don’t despair. You may just be targeting the wrong prospects or using the wrong message.

Validate assumptions to uncover new value propositions

The next line of attack is to go back to your existing accounts—especially those that are actively using your goods or services. Find out not what caused them to buy originally, but how they are deriving value from your solutions today.

It’s not uncommon for companies to buy for one reason, only to learn later that their purchase is more valuable when deployed to meet an entirely different need. If you find that’s the case, ask them how they discovered the new application—and try to quantify the value that they’re deriving. Then, if the value is significant, you’ll want to figure out who else might have similar needs—and rewrite your marketing messages to reflect the value these accounts have discovered.

Keep following the money

Still no success? Then, it’s time to go further a field. Where are companies in the industries you target spending money? Which ones are spending? What needs do they believe their purchases will address?

Once you know which needs are at the top of prospective buyers’ lists, you’ll know where to focus your efforts. Perhaps you can reword your messaging to demonstrate how you address these same needs—or perhaps you can develop a solution that does. If not, you may be able to partner with someone who is addressing those needs to enhance—and add value to their solution.

Change can create market opportunity

When times get tough, the business environment changes, and buyers’ needs and priorities change. Approaches that worked last year—or even six months ago—may no longer work. Nevertheless, strategies that never worked before may be effective now.

But you can only capitalize on market opportunities if you know where they are

The only way to find out what those strategies are is to turn to those that are still spending. Only they have needs that are so pressing that they bought in this economy. Only they know what worked—and what didn’t at every stage of the buying process. And only they know what ultimately caused them to purchase—and why they selected the vendor they did. On the other hand, once you know what they know, you may just be able to get a leg up on the competition.

Where is the money?

Let us know what you’re seeing. Are businesses still spending? Are they spending on similar solutions—but just cutting back? Or are they spending to address entirely different needs?

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Developing a compelling value proposition: What you need to know

Sunday, December 7th, 2008

With the economy slowing, prospective buyers are scrutinizing every penny they spend. Therefore, it’s incumbent upon sellers to clearly articulate the value that prospective buyers will derive once they buy.

In recent posts, we’ve discussed the characteristics of a compelling value proposition, and the importance of concentrating your firepower on those companies that most value your capabilities. This week’s post discusses concrete steps you can take to identify, validate, and test your value propositions.

Begin by gaining deep insights into buyers’ needs and purchase preferences

As Steven Covey said, “Start with the end in mind”. To develop a compelling value proposition, you first need to validate what matters most to prospective buyers. Else, if you make inaccurate assumptions, you’ll miss the mark and potentially end up wasting lots of money on ineffective marketing programs.

This can be a lot harder than it seems because there are lots of important questions you need to answer first. Approach this assignment as journalists do when researching a breaking story. Start by inquiring about the 5 Ws and the H.

Who are your most promising prospects?

As we discussed in the past, the most promising prospects are those that value your solutions most and will therefore pay top dollar, buy more quickly, and/or motivate others to also buy. To find them, first list all the market segments that need your capabilities.

Then, eliminate less desirable segments. Examples include market segments that are too small to meet your revenue goals, are so competitive that they will drive up your cost of sales, and market segments that don’t especially value your organization’s unique strengths.

To rank the remaining segments, and identify your target market, interview key stakeholders in each. Key stakeholders include everyone that the decision maker involves in the buying decision–from external advisors to the internal personnel who will use and implement your solutions.

When will prospective buyers need your capabilities?

The need for many solutions is event-driven rather than ongoing. For example, companies are more likely to seek out insurers when they are contemplating taking on new risks, marketing agencies when they are launching new products, or a new accountant when they are dissatisfied with their current service provider.

Often knowing what events trigger demand for your solution can help you develop a more compelling value proposition. To find out ask about last time they purchased similar services: What caused you to purchase then—rather than six months sooner or six months later?

What do key stakeholders value most?

The only way to ascertain whether you solutions provide sufficient value to garner sales is to first find out what matters most to decision makers. Ask: What are their goals? How are they measured?

Then, ask the same questions of the remaining stakeholders. Although only one person can approve a purchase decision, others can block it if their needs are not met.

In fact, you may need multiple value propositions in order to win the company’s business. For example, the decision maker may be bent on achieving market share. Finance may require a certain return on investment. Supporting departments may care about the cost and ease of ongoing maintenance. Users may focus on ease of use and access.

Where do decision makers get their information?

Some decision makers learn of new solutions through trade journals or trade association meetings. Many expect those that work for them—and have subject matter expertise—to make them aware of the need for new solutions. Others turn to trusted advisors and colleagues for recommendations.

Where ever your decision makers turn for information, that’s where you need to place your marketing messages. Else, you run the risk that you will not even make the short list when it comes time to evaluate new solutions.

How do stakeholders decide whether or not to recommend your solutions?

Not only do different stakeholders have different goals, they often require different evidence to reassure them that your solutions will meet their goals. They seek this information to address their reservations and mitigate risk.

Some will require media coverage in marquee publications, others will require references and/or testimonials from industry leaders, and still others will require demos or tools that will help them calculate the return on investment they can anticipate. Again, whatever their preferences, you need to do it their way. Else, they may never access your value propositions—and you may lose the deal to the competition.

Developing a value proposition is an iterative process

Once you’ve identified a few value propositions, do some testing. Send out a direct mail piece and see how many people respond. Develop google ad word campaigns that offer a free demo. Offer a free webinar and see how many people attend.

If people show interest you’ve probably discovered something of value. If people invest time in learning more, you may have a compelling value proposition. If not, you need to go back to the drawing board.

Validating your value proposition helps you make the most of your marketing investments

Remember, it’s not what you think that’s important; it’s what matters most to your most promising prospects. That’s why industry leaders always invest in marketing research despite the fact that they have ongoing experience with existing customers.

With the marketing investments they’ve made in product development—and plan to make in promotion–large companies know they can’t afford to miss the mark. Chances are neither can you.

What surprising information has your organization learned when validating your value propositions?

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