How to Create an Affiliate Program for your SaaS

The CEO of a vertical-specific SaaS vendor with a relatively high priced offering emailed me the other day with a question about creating an Affiliate Marketing program to accelerate growth. I gave him a fairly detailed answer and I thought I’d elaborate on that answer even more and share it with you… enjoy. “Hey Lincoln, […]

SaaS Marketing: 21 Growth Hacks to Test Today

Below are 21 SaaS marketing growth hacks you could test right now. Of course, these are tactics and while everyone loves tactics, if they don’t make sense within your very well thought-out SaaS marketing strategy, you should probably not implement them, right? In fact, you should also probably make sure you have a well-thought-out SaaS […]

SaaS Freemium Customer Acquisition Costs

I got an email the other day asking about Freemium Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC) and whether or not to include the cost of supporting and marketing to free users in the cost of acquiring paying customers. Here’s my quick answer and some other resources for you to check out.

SaaS Customer Success: Eliminate ‘Dead Ends’ to Drive Engagement

What if I said there was something you were doing right now that was actively reducing your SaaS customer success? What if that thing you’re doing was standing in the way of driving higher levels of engagement and was reducing the amount of expansion revenue you’re generating while potentially increasing churn? What if I said […]

SaaS Customer Success: Start with Quick Wins

SaaS Customer Success starts by orchestrating “Quick Wins” for your customers, helping them bypass their natural tendency to seek out reasons not to use your service! I was in Silicon Valley recently and I found myself talking about this idea of “Quick Wins” several times within the context of SaaS Customer Success and I wanted […]

SaaS Churn Rate Improvement: Monitor and Drive Engagement

In my last post I shared some actual ways to reduce your SaaS Churn Rate, including attracting the right customer and managing expectations. In this post, I’m going to go deeper, and share some awesome methods for improving customer retention by leveraging the power of the SaaS business model, specifically the ability of the provider […]

How to Offer Both Freemium and Free Trials

I got this question from a SaaS vendor about offering both Freemium and Free Trial options and I wanted to share my response to him with you. UPDATED FOR 2015! Our current app has two pricing tiers – free and paid. Simple pricing has its advantages! We’re coming out with a major redesign of the […]

What’s Your Biggest Challenge in 2012?

I believe in moving forward, not looking back. So my question as we go into 2012 is this: What’s Your Biggest Challenge as a SaaS or Web App Vendor in 2012? Is it making your Free Trials more effective at creating customers? Coming up with the right Pricing? How to handle Competition? Whether to go […]

Freemium isn’t just for “Startups with Nothing to Lose”

A common misconception about Freemium is that it is just for startups with nothing to lose. This myth is perpetuated by many of the Freemium advocates whose backgrounds – and current experience – are limited to early-stage, venture-funded startups. Unfortunately, this misconception really misses the point. Freemium is a marketing strategy – or quite often […]

Classical Freemium Doesn’t Exist At Scale

“Classical Freemium” is the marketing tactic where a SaaS or Web App vendor offers a Free-in-Perpetuity version of a product or service, often feature- or usage-limited, as well as a version of the same product or service with less limitations to which the vendor will attempt to up-sell the user. NOTE:  I originally published this […]

SaaS Freemium Model Resource Guide

I put together this list of my BEST SaaS Freemium posts just for you. I hope it helps! Freemium or Free Trial? Ask a Better Question State of B2B Freemium 2013 (Slides from my presentation) Pivot to Profit: Ditch Freemium and Start Making Money SaaS Freemium Customer Acquisition Costs There are 7 Types of Freemium and […]

The 7 Secrets to DOMINATING Your Free Trials

In addition to the years I’ve been working with SaaS & Web App vendors, I’ve spent 2011 totally immersed in the business of free and have helped dozens of companies – from super early startups to MASSIVE $B/year companies – completely DOMINATE their free trials. Nothing else I’ve done has produced such AWESOME results – […]

Wait… You Actually WANT to Be Average?

What’s the average conversion rate for free trials, pricing pages, or Freemium with SaaS or Web Apps? There are some fundamental problems with “average conversion rate” which is why people rarely like my standard answer of: “It depends” or my more direct answer of “why, so you can be average?” Look, if you have a […]

There are 7 Types of Freemium and Why That Matters…

You think you know Freemium in SaaS? Think again! In 2009 I released the version of “The Reality of Freemium in SaaS” PDF and since then the “Freemium” landscape in SaaS has continued to evolve rapidly. Freemium use in B2B technology / software / SaaS / Web Apps / Cloud (whatever) is evolving and I […]

Why OfficeDrop Went Freemium… and how Mobile Apps forced their hand

Was OfficeDrop forced into Freemium at phone-point? Healy Jones, VP Marketing at OfficeDrop, told me exactly how leveraging mobile apps made Freemium the right strategy for them. Do you prefer to listen on the go? Download the .mp3 audio file (33.7MB) here. Wistia has kindly donated business video hosting to me, which pretty much makes […]

Assistly Marketing VP Tells You Why They Dropped Tiered Pricing and Picked Up Freemium

UPDATE: Assistly was acquired by Salesforce.com shortly after we did this interview… they are now Desk.com. I sat down and chatted with Assistly’s SVP of Marketing Matt Trifiro via Video Skype and he spilled his guts for you about why Assistly changed their pricing, adopted Freemium, and set out to disrupt the market… all at […]

SaaS Business Model Resource Guide

I put together this list of my BEST SaaS Business Model & Architecture resources just for you. I hope it helps! Software Vendors: The Cloud is Not Magic (but it can be very Profitable!) SaaS Business Architecture Overview (PDF) The 7 SaaS Revenue Streams Report (PDF) Think You’re Ready for SaaS? Think Again! (PDF) SaaS Companies […]

SaaS Distribution and Promotion Resource Guide

I put together this list of my BEST SaaS Distribution & Promotion posts just for you. I hope it helps! How to Get in Front of your Ideal Customers Traffic Hacking: 43 ways to get quality prospects to your site 100 Places to Promote Your SaaS or Web App (Part 1) 100 Places to Promote Your […]