SaaS sells differently: understanding the customer journey

Sourcing a SaaS solution isn’t an impulse buy. Research has shown that more than one person is holding the purse strings these days – Gartner reckons it’s between six and 10. Each of whom has done their own homework and brought their own list of pros and cons to the table.

To get companies investing in your service, you’ll need to convince all those people together that the answer to their problems rests in the palm of your hand.

In such a crowded marketplace, the SaaS customer journey is more like a polar expedition – the exhausting preparation followed by venturing through blizzards of content and comms before you finally reach your destination.

To help you navigate these confusing conditions, we’ve enlisted three intrepid explorers to offer their views on how to reduce friction in the SaaS customer journey – and how buyers can themselves be the best advertisement for your solutions.

Getting your brand noticed

“SaaS companies have had tunnel vision on short-term growth,” says Amanda Holmes, Lead Consultant – SaaS & Transformation. “That was fine in the SaaS boom, but it’s not going to cut it anymore, when everyone has gotten much more careful in their vendor selection process…creating a brand identity is more important than ever.”

Building a brand identity can be somewhat simpler when you’ve developed an awareness of the audience you want to buy into it – understanding their needs and how they perceive the market.

As Nelson McConnell, Strategic & Creative Director puts it:

“There are different personas involved in the decision making. Your messaging from the outset needs to appeal to each of them, and each in slightly different ways. A CFO won’t be blown away by the more technically advanced features of the offering; nor will an IT team care for the cost-saving incentives you put forward.”

One way forward is to build a framework that can anticipate and respond to concerns before the buyer can even articulate them. According to Micarla Joseph, Head of Performance Marketing, this calls for a thought leadership offering that covers all the bases:

“Create compelling, tailored content that not only highlights your business’ expertise but also addresses the specific needs and pain points of your target audience. Ensure your resources are easily accessible and appended to owned, earned and paid media efforts – capture attention early on in the decision-making process.”

Disrupting the market 

SaaS has the potential to let challenger brands disrupt the market, provided it can solve one or more of their most pressing issues.

As leaders have scaled up their businesses, costs have climbed to match – raising the financial barrier of market entry to Scrooge McDuck levels. Those who have the budgets to dive in aren’t usually the plucky startups – or at least they weren’t until cost-busting SaaS solutions came along.

Challenger brands are forcing a rethink of everything from pricing to product management within the market, which is why they need to formulate an in-depth understanding of all competitors and their strategies. “Most businesses tend to overlook this step,” says Micarla, “focusing only on direct and dominant competitors. Recognising any of the key players and where they overlap means spotting the opportunities when they do occur.”

She suggests asking these questions to get an idea of the relevant entities in the market, and to gain a comprehensive understanding of the competitive landscape:

1. Market Investment – Which competitors are actively investing in marketing, and to what extent?
2. Competitor Strategies – Which competitors are employing strategies directly targeting your business?
3. Indirect Competitors – Are there indirect competitors within the marketing space, such as resellers or specialised SaaS businesses in a particular industry?
4. External Resources – Are there relevant existing research materials or communities that can be tapped into, to enhance your brand presence?
5. Untapped Opportunities – Are there any potentially missed or untapped opportunities in the market that you could leverage to your advantage?

Engaging with the brand

Next, your B2B comms needs a couple of big scores in order to win some points among prospects: awareness and perception. Nelson believes that, in such a saturated market, awareness is more important than ever – but the ‘human’ side can help you win out.

“Investing in a new platform is a big deal, and there’s a lot riding on it for the people making decisions or recommendations. If we’re serious about creating awareness and recall, we should aim higher than the functional checklist, and start connecting on a more emotional level.”

“Engaging with potential customers before they begin their research and purchasing journey is key,” says Micarla. “Getting that touchpoint so early on means vendors can shape how their brand is perceived, highlight what makes them unique, and build positive connections.” By this point the buyer is aware of a solution that understands their individual needs, and can be tailored to meet them. That gives the vendor an edge when it’s time for members of the buying committee to bring their findings to the table.

With a distinctive and powerful brand, it’s going to be much easier to achieve positive results through communications with prospects.

“Once they’re interested, there has got to be a relatively consistent level of communication to bring them all the way through the door,” says Amanda. “Get the true value of the product across with free trials and freemium tiers. Introduce the more advanced features as a taster of what to expect with a paid upgrade.

“Then there’s business retention; encouraging habit-building through regular usage, and cross- and up-selling opportunities for your more premium, exclusive offerings.” Customers who are maxed out on their offering are more likely to branch out to your other services than they are to spend time researching competitors.

However, there’s one more stop on the SaaS customer journey which you might not usually see on the timetable. An effective SaaS solution can have far-reaching effects that dig out efficiencies all over the business. So, when a customer’s nine-to-five is so (im)measurably improved by your SaaS offering, they might just be prepared to shout it from the rooftops – which in turn can strengthen your own pull.

Customer advocacy 

“You can build the process of transforming customers into advocates into your B2B marketing strategy,” says Micarla. “It incentivises customers to refer new businesses, and fosters a sense of brand loyalty.”

Advocates will want to spend more time in and around the service, soaking up more of the good vibes and bathing in benefits. Committed product users will flock to a community – or even build their own – of satisfied customers.

Companies like Adobe and Microsoft maintain forums for users to ask and answer any pressing questions, while making excellent use of social channels to promote user case studies from the world’s most exciting brands. There’s value in this mutual appreciation society, as the customer uses its own distinct cache to make the vendor cool by association. Building the community – and building more engagement with the brand – has distinct benefits for solidifying the SaaS customer journey.

The community acts as a channel for brands to receive feedback directly from their customers. When a product is updated with new features or there are changes to the pricing plan, you can expect to see some useful, constructive criticism from members of the community. They’ll also be on hand to help if newer users are having issues – a built-in support group for the onboarding process.

Furthermore, according to Amanda, in building a community, you’re “allowing users to share their use cases, which can spark interactions and new opportunities for users on lower levels of the product usage.”

Maintain trust by contributing to the community with a consistent, transparent attitude. As Micarla explains, “staying ahead of product scrutiny is crucial, and not generally practised. Demonstrate transparency by proactively addressing concerns from price points to functionality – posed by the customer base as well as the wider industry. Communicate on potential issues and highlight your active efforts to resolve them – position your business as responsive to feedback and committed to continuous improvement.”

Building a solid base of satisfied customers benefits your brand because their enthusiastic voices can carry all the way up the sales funnel, with the potential for glowing case studies and even the odd collaboration to draw in more interest. With a community clamouring for your solution, and more confidence in your customer journey, you can focus on opening new doors for B2B marketing.