What is SaaS?
SaaS or Software-as-a-Service is a licensing model in which the provider hosts the application and makes it available to customers over the Internet. By accessing software on a subscription basis, they let the SaaS provider manage, secure, and maintain the digital tools. This way, companies can finally leave these time-consuming tasks behind and focus only on business growth. SaaS is a unique solution that solves all technical tasks such as procurement, server maintenance, OS upgrade, recovery, security services, log access, billing, monitoring, and much more, according to your specific needs.
Fast-growing SaaS businesses
The trend toward modernising the work environment, improving system reliability, and supporting remote work will continue in 2023. For this reason, the share of cloud services is expected to increase to more than 27% this year. This is especially true for some fast-growing SaaS segments, such as:
- IT and security
- Customer care and HR
- Sales
- Marketing and Finance
- Health
In order to cover a larger number of niches, the SaaS Cloud is being improved day by day to offer more features.
SaaS business model: growth and sales in 2023
The SaaS business model can be applied to any organization, but especially to startups and small and medium enterprises. Through SaaS, enterprises can streamline their operations and reduce upfront costs for commercial software. It provides better cost-benefit analysis, lower maintenance costs, IT, training, and other costs should be reduced as the vendor supports the environment, provides personalized support, and constantly releases new updates.
If you want to successfully grow and sell SaaS in the coming year, here is what you should consider:
Working with the experienced software development team
An important part of SaaS success is finding technical experts to help you develop, support, and evolve unique and high-quality software for your business. Sometimes that can be difficult and slow because the angle of resourcing is hard. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find IT experts. Therefore, nearshoring the IT team is an effective solution to find employees in the countries near you and stay ahead of the competition.
Lead generation
If you want to sell and grow your SaaS, one of the strategies is to invest in lead generation. This way, you will bring visitors to your website who can become your new customers. To properly qualify your leads, you should define your ideal customers, determine their needs, and determine your competition. Some strategies to accomplish this include using email, segmented or guerrilla marketing.
Optimizing email campaigns can be especially useful because many customers forget about the product after signing up for a free trial. Therefore, you should send a post-signup email when the customer visits the account or cancelation page and when the trial is about to end. An important factor of a well-optimized email campaign is segmentation. Market segmentation gives you the opportunity to personalize your message and the tone with which you address your target audience. This allows you to determine exactly which message will encourage your customers to buy.
If you want to make your SaaS business more popular among customers, you should definitely start with some unconventional types of marketing, such as guerrilla. Depending on what your business is about, you can try to make contacts with influencers and participate in organizing some industry events and conferences to gain more attention.
Bootstrapping
Bootstrapping is the most convenient type of funding for startups because it offers them the opportunity to share in profits upfront in exchange for capital upfront. These revenue-based funds provide businesses with instant cash that can be used as an investment. This allows companies to retain more control over their business and increase financial exposure. Although bootstrapping is much more flexible than a traditional business loan, one of the disadvantages of this strategy is that monthly repayments are directly linked to the performance of your business, making your funding a variable rather than a fixed amount.
Effective customer service
Unmatched customer service could be the top priority for SaaS success in 2023. You should be aware that your revenue depends on customer subscriptions. Research has shown that about 67% of customer unsubscribes can be avoided if you resolve their issues at the first interaction with the service. Effective customer service provides a quick response, eases customers through the buying process, resolves issues in the shortest possible time, and offers special benefits such as loyalty programs, discounts, and promotions.
Valuating the customers’ time is one of the most important elements of a good customer experience. Speed should be essential, especially for minor issues. In addition, a positive attitude is the most important thing in providing excellent customer service. Most customer contacts are done by phone or email, so you can not communicate face-to-face, and, as a result, your attitude is reflected in your tone and language.
Short and valuable trials
Psychology says that a long trial period makes your customers think they have enough time, which can delay their decision to subscribe. Your trial period should last no longer than 14 days. During this time, you can add value to your customers and show them how your product will solve their problems. After the trial period is over, avoid complicated and lengthy questionnaires. Just ask your customers to sign up or write simple feedback on why they do not want to buy it, so you can improve your product.
Metrics: If you can’t track it, it didn’t happen
Tracking metrics can help you improve your SaaS and stay ahead in a competitive market. There are a variety of metrics that can give you clear insight into customer behavior. This way, you can prevent potential problems and solve them before they occur. For example, if your customer is happy with your service, they will stay with you, and your profits will increase. With Google Analytics, you can measure bounce rate, top visitors, and new visitors and see which pages are the most popular. For startups, the most important metrics are revenue generation and customer retention.
How can Valcon help you?
Valcon can provide you with highly experienced cloud and software developers, as well as ensure tailor-made solutions for your business needs. Whether you are looking to develop your idea into a software product or improve your current platform, our service desk can keep you ahead of the competition.
If you want to know more, please reach out to sonja.meijerink@valcon.com.
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