There are 63,703 startups in the US only right now, based on Startup Statistic and 7.1% are operating in the fintech industry. With tons of SaaS startups emerging every day along with the software giants already leading in the forefront makes the market more competitive and tough to stand out, especially when building a new startup.
Simply having a better product will not make your startup stand out. The key to a successful SaaS company is implementing the proper sales techniques and strategies strategically. Closing a deal in SaaS is lengthy and complex, which may confuse SaaS owners in their SaaS marketing journey.
This is precisely why we have outlined software sales tips for SaaS executives that will make the ultimate difference in your startup with the right techniques. We will also elaborate on the importance of sales funnels and how you can execute different strategies at different stages of the funnel to close more deals effectively, systematically, and consistently. Let’s get started.
Top 5 Software Sales Tips for SaaS Executives
As we said, closing deals in SaaS is a complex and lengthy process. Here are 5 very crucial software sales tips that can help boost your conversion rates significantly and close more deals quickly in your business.Â
1. TOF Content as SaaS Marketing Essentials
Your content efforts should always be focused on your sales funnel. Compared to all the stages of a funnel, the bottom of the funnel (BOFU) is one of the most crucial stages since it is the final stage that can make or break your potential deal.
This is why you should focus more on the top of the funnel (TOFU) leads. Why? The better and high-quality leads you gain from the top of the funnel, the better are your chances of closing the deals at the bottom of the funnel (BOFU).
Hence, creating valuable content for TOFU is non-negotiable. This is the ultimate stage that can make potential buyers interested in your business and invest in it. You need to create content that will introduce, educate and inform them about your business the right way. Instead of handling multiple prospects, focus on nurturing only the most high-quality ones with good quality content to have better chances of success by the end.
2. The Power of Data
Just like any other marketing strategy, regular measurement and assessment is another integral step to success. To have successful software sales, you need to actively research, monitor, and assess the performance of our marketing efforts.
You need to assess every piece of content and its impact on the viewers throughout the sales funnel. Some of the metrics you should consider are:
- Heatmaps
- Pageviews
- Click rates
- Monthly recurring revenue
- Churn rate
- Revenue per lead
- The ratio of closed deals to lost deals
And many more…
These will help you understand any loopholes, flows, or drawbacks in the content, which you can later optimize to prevent missing out on the potential sales.
These metrics will also help you uncover the entire buyer journey starting from how they got introduced to your business to the final stage of the funnel. These metrics will help you understand what type of content works best at a specific stage. When combined, it will help create a strategic content plan throughout the funnel that will help score more sales in the business. You can also leverage automation to keep track of these metrics.
3. Standardize and Streamline Your Content
When you start analyzing the metrics regularly with real-time data, you will be able to figure out what works well in the strategy and what doesn’t. This also demands standardizing your content types. Why? When you know a clear-cut strategy to winning a sale, you would repeat it for your subsequent sales, too. Isn’t it? Similarly, when you know what type of content works best for your SaaS business via the above metrics, you can focus more on similar types of content and make the most out of it.
The goal of your content marketing strategy should be able to produce quality content over quantity. There is no logical reason to continue creating different forms of content that have no relevance to your business since that would result in lower ROI.
Hence, interpret data and understand the most accurate content which brings more sales. Next, standardize and streamline the process with this specific content to ensure you get more proficient in producing the high-paying content for your business.
4. Customers Relationship Management
While running a SaaS, customers are your ultimate goal. Without your customers, your business has no chance of surviving, let alone bringing profits. This is why you need to focus more on scoring the right customers via different strategies.
People nowadays tend to depend on others for their purchasing decisions. You may find most people looking at the reviews, testimonials, and case studies of a product before making the purchase. Only when they see a good review, do they invest in the product.
One of the proven BOFU tactics is to have multiple testimonial content for your business in different forms such as videos, written interviews, testimonials, reviews, letters of recommendation, and many more. The key is to encourage your previous customers to speak on behalf of your product to the potential leads and persuade them into trusting your business.
Remember. When you finally achieve the secret to making your customers trust your business and offer them satisfactory services, only then can you truly attain success in your SaaS startup.
5. Reserve BOFU Tactics for BOFU Leads
Last but not least, after all this research, production, and monitoring, you need to ensure that your SaaS marketing tactics are the most effective at the right time.
Whenever you think of overloading your lead with product trials, assessments, discounts, offers, you need to ensure that the lead is ready to buy. In other words, you need to ensure that your BOFU tactics are performing well at the bottom of the funnel. Otherwise, there is genuinely no point in investing in leads who will not end up buying your products, right?
You should share these tactics only when the lead has been through all the stages of the funnel and is finally ready to buy. This brings us to another point that many SaaS owners overlook.
Suppose you use tactics like a free trial during the top or middle of the sales funnel. There are perhaps equal chances of them reaching the bottom of the sales funnel. However, considering the best outcomes, if they get to the bottom of the sales funnels, you may not have the right type of content at that stage to push them further in making the final purchase since you already used the BOFU content during TOFU or MOFU.
To sum up, share TOFU content to the leads when they are at the top of the funnel and the BOFU content when they are at the bottom of the funnel. Ensure to share the right type of content at the right stage or moment to make it the most effective.
Conclusion
Selling a SaaS is very different from selling other products. Even if the strategies like content marketing, email marketing, SEO may sound the same, the technique of implementation is different with SaaS. These 5 software sales tips for SaaS executives can help gain more leads and sales in the business since these are designed to nurture the right leads and maximize the efficiency of your existing strategies. When you identify the right time to implement the right strategy, only then can you close more high-paying, quicker and consistent deals in your business.