When it comes to SaaS marketing, we know that Random Effort Yields Random Results… but it gets worse. The problem I see too often – and the catalyst for this epic post – isn’t Random Marketing, but what I call Lazy Marketing. And lazy marketing is perhaps a more insidious form of marketing, if for no […]
SaaS Marketing: Random Effort Yields Random Results
July 3, 2013 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Never is it more clear that random effort yields random results than when you look at the “marketing” of far too many SaaS companies…. maybe even yours. Take a look at a SaaS company that’s stagnating or failing to reach their goals, and you almost always find this random hodgepodge of tactics that they “tried” […]
SaaS Growth Hacking: An Interview with Lincoln Murphy
July 1, 2013 Article by Lincoln Murphy
After I published “Rise of the Growth Copyists” where I said that really successful SaaS growth hacking is creative and that most just copy others, the guys over at GrowthHacker.tv reached out to me and wanted to setup an interview with me. Definitely check it out… a good time was had by all…. but before […]
SaaS Marketing: Rise of the Growth Copyists?
May 17, 2013 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Let’s be clear… when it comes to your SaaS marketing plan, finding inspiration in the work of others is very different from copying them outright. The American playwright Wilson Mizner famously said: “If you copy from one author, it’s plagiarism. If you copy from two, it’s research.” So as a SaaS provider, if you copy […]
SaaS Free Trial: Require a Credit Card to begin?
April 25, 2013 Article by Lincoln Murphy
So, should you require a Credit Card to get started in your SaaS Free Trial? TL:DR – By asking for a Credit Card up front, you will get fewer prospects into your Free Trial with no guarantee of converting more paying customers. Now, if you’d like to know why that is, read on…
Who’s your ideal customer?
April 15, 2013 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Over the years I’ve helped hundreds and hundreds of SaaS providers from around the world rapidly accelerate customer acquisition and reduce their SaaS churn rates. And in just about every instance I found myself asking them the same questions. The fact that these questions were not easily answered or – if they were – that the answers […]
SaaS Customer Success: Eliminate ‘Dead Ends’ to Drive Engagement
March 30, 2013 Article by Lincoln Murphy
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
March 23, 2013 Article by Lincoln Murphy
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
February 25, 2013 Article by Lincoln Murphy
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 […]
SaaS Marketing Plan: 5 Ways to Get your App to Sell Itself
January 7, 2013 Article by Lincoln Murphy
When creating your SaaS marketing plan, you must understand that your business model of choice is a fully-integrated architecture where all aspects of the business – product, support, revenue model, and marketing – are tightly-coupled. Deviation from that model and understanding will affect growth, and most deviation occurs as a rift between marketing and product. “The […]
Common Conversion Activities (CCA): SaaS Free Trial Metric
December 21, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Before you read this article – which is really for companies that already have a good amount of customer data – I suggest reading a much more recent article “The Secret to Successful Customer Onboarding” which gives a much better perspective on how to design an onboarding (including Free Trial) flow. Once you’ve read that, come […]
Growth Hacking: 43 Ways to Drive Traffic to your Website
December 17, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
WARNING: In 2014 2015 2016, relying heavily on SEO to drive traffic to your website is a recipe for failure! Okay, that might be a bit harsh… maybe SEO isn’t dead, but things have changed and you need to look beyond SEO to drive traffic to your website. If you put all your eggs in […]
SaaS Marketing Plan: 100 Places to Promote Your App (Part 2)
December 14, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
You need to develop a robust SaaS marketing plan – but sometimes you just need to do some quick tactical things to get the ball rolling. First, see the first part of this series SaaS Marketing Plan: 100 Places to Promote your App (Part 1)… and then read this post.
SaaS Marketing Plan: 100 Places to Promote Your App (Part 1)
December 14, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
This is Part 1 in the series… here is SaaS Marketing Plan: 100 Places to Promote Your App (Part 2) if you want to jump ahead. Marketing isn’t just advertising… it’s really the totality of your SaaS business: Product, Price, Promotion, and Place (Distribution)… Okay, so you’ve got the product covered, right? If not, here are […]
How to Develop your SaaS Pricing Model
November 1, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Developing your SaaS Pricing Model isn’t Rocket Science, but even in the Rocket Science business, you need to price your work so you can sell it and make money! This post is awesome (IMHO), but there’s an even better, more recent one that’s specific to early-stage SaaS companies: Pricing Strategy Framework for SaaS Startups Just so […]
SaaS Free Trial: How Self-Service fits with a High-Touch Sales Process
August 22, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
How do you determine whether a self-service SaaS Free Trial is appropriate for your otherwise high-touch sales process? A SaaS Free Trial is an integral part of the sales process and not something separate… never forget that. So, whether you have a 100% automated, self-service sales model, a high-touch sales process, or a hybrid (many […]
Simply Offering a SaaS Free Trial Increases Conversions
August 14, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
For those companies who’ve offered a SaaS Free Trial and had it fail, it is hard to see how it could ever work. For those who’ve never offered a Free Trial, the idea of adding an extra 30 or 60 days to the sales cycle seems like a bad idea; they’re doing just fine, thank […]
SaaS Free Trial: Your Customer Qualification Machine
August 14, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
I believe in the saying “high-tech allows for high-touch” and that we can use the self-service nature of the web – including your SaaS Free Trial – to not eliminate the human-powered sales force, but to scale it efficiently to let each salesperson work better leads and close more sales. In my experience, SaaS Free […]
SaaS Free Trial: Confused Minds Don’t Buy
July 25, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
When it comes to your SaaS free trial, complicated isn’t cool…it kills conversions! Confused minds don’t buy… they bounce, and take the money that you spent to get them to your site and their lifetime value as a customer with ’em! Look at your SaaS sales funnel, your Free Trial sign-up process, their first in-app […]
SaaS Free Trial Users are a Vanity Metric
July 6, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
There is no such thing as an “inactive user” in a SaaS free trial. You can’t be a “user” if you aren’t “using,” right? Makes sense. I think we get confused because in software the “user” connotation comes from the fact that a user is literally someone for whom an access account has been created. […]
SaaS Conversion Rate: A Simple Trick to DOUBLE Your Revenue
April 15, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
When your Free Trial fails to convert customers, it drives down your SaaS conversion rate by doing exactly what it was designed to do. Think about that for a second. There I was working on a ‘Optimizing SaaS Conversions’ presentation and I wrote this statement: For many SaaS & Web App vendors, 100% of sales […]
SaaS Pricing Strategy: The 10x Rule
March 26, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
First thing to clearly understand when developing your SaaS pricing strategy; pricing is a function of Marketing. If you think creating your SaaS pricing strategy is a function of Finance, Accounting, Operations, or even Sales… you’re doing it wrong. That means anyone who comes up with a price for their app (or for your app) […]
SaaS Affiliate Marketing: How-To Supercharge Your Growth
March 26, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
I’ve been asked if you can “quick start” a new venture or reinvigorate an existing offering with SaaS affiliate marketing? Here’s the answer I generally give… “it depends.” Okay, let me dig in a little deeper. SaaS affiliate marketing can really super-charge your growth, BUT if you don’t have everything in alignment (or your ducks […]
SaaS Free Trial: The #1 Reason You Fail to Convert Customers
March 19, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
The #1 reason your SaaS free trial is failing to convert customers is simple… Right after a prospective customer signs-up for your Free Trial, you fail to engage them. Data shows that prospects active in the first 3 days of a SaaS Free Trial – regardless of trial length – convert at a significantly higher […]
Switch from a Reactive to Proactive SaaS Free Trial
March 13, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
There are two types of SaaS Free Trials: Reactive and Proactive; you want to be one of the latter because they will convert more prospects to customers. Period. Reactive SaaS Free Trials Most SaaS & Web App vendors fall into this category, and their mindset about Free Trials is something like this: Get them to […]
SaaS Free Trials: The Shorter the Better?
March 12, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Most people don’t realize that the length of a SaaS Free Trial is just a marketing gimmick designed to get prospects into the trial. Sure, 30-day Free Trials are the de facto standard for SaaS apps, but whether it’s 7, 14, 15, or 30-days, few providers can say WHY they came up with that length. […]
Where is Your Ideal Customer on the Awareness Ladder?
February 3, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
I recently gave my clients some interesting questions to ask themselves… and I thought you might want to ask yourself these questions, too. If someone looks at your marketing site – main page, pricing page, sign-up page, whatever – for 5 seconds, what will they think your app does? If your ideal customer looks at […]
Your Signup Form is Hurting Your Free Trial Conversions!
January 10, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
I had a SaaS vendor ask me the following question when I mentioned “average” Free Trial conversion rates: When we look at broad Free Trial conversion ratios, I would assume some of the variances may depend on how much information is required to sign up for a free trial. For example, there are a number […]
How to Offer Both Freemium and Free Trials
January 9, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
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 the Ideal SaaS Free Trial Length?
December 27, 2011 Article by Lincoln Murphy
So, what’s the ideal Free Trial period is for SaaS and Web Apps? As you can imagine, I get asked that a lot. Sure, the 30-day Free Trial is common among B2B SaaS & Web App vendors, but there aren’t any rules. And with everything from 14-day to 60-day (and longer) trials appearing frequently I […]
Competitor Pricing… Does It Matter?
September 19, 2011 Article by Lincoln Murphy
“Wait… what about competitor pricing?” you ask. I recently published a post where I had the audacity to suggest that value pricing required only two inputs: The Customer’s Willingness to pay (value perception) The Customer’s Ability to pay (how, when, why, where, how) Since I got a number of emails with the same question – […]
SaaS Affiliate Marketing: Your Virtual Salesforce
August 24, 2011 Article by Lincoln Murphy
One benefit of SaaS Affiliate Marketing is knowing exactly what your Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) will be! Whether you’ve considered creating an affiliate marketing program for your SaaS or Web App – or not – or even if you currently have one, you NEED to watch my interview with Jack Born. BTW, here are three […]
There are 7 Types of Freemium and Why That Matters…
August 23, 2011 Article by Lincoln Murphy
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 […]
SaaS Pricing Model: Value Metrics Are Key
December 7, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Your SaaS Pricing Model should be built around what the customer values, which probably means staying away from “commodity” metrics like storage. I find most articles about “SaaS Pricing Model” to be less-than-helpful because they almost always fail to take into consideration the WIIFT of the customer – the What’s In It For Them. Most […]
SaaS Growth Hacking Experts Resource Guide
October 5, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Growth Hacking isn’t a set of tactics or just about getting cheap traffic to your website… Growth Hacking is a mindset. It’s not just about getting traffic on the cheap; it’s about understanding and exploiting customer behavior, technology, and distribution. Real Growth Hackers use their imagination to pull all of that together to drive growth, however growth […]
As SaaS Matures, so will SaaS Pricing
June 21, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
The common SaaS per-user, per-month subscription revenue model is rapidly evolving. From time to time I feel I must remind everyone – buyers, sellers, pundits, commentators, & analysts – that SaaS is not a pricing model or pricing strategy. From the vendor side, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is a unique Software Business Architecture where service is the […]
SaaS Pricing: Please Learn From the Zendesk Fiasco
May 18, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
It is time for SaaS & Web App startups to sit up and pay attention. SaaS Pricing is very important to your venture but not just to ensure you make a profit or cover expenses. It is so much more than that and you should seek to get it as right as possible out of […]
SaaS, Web Apps, or Just ‘Apps’?
April 20, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
On my last trip to San Francisco I sat down with Matt Childs of DreamSimplicity to talk about the state of SaaS. We shot some video as we talked about how Google & Apple have changed the distribution landscape for SaaS & Mobile making App Stores & Marketplaces a new reality for SaaS vendors and […]
SaaS Pricing: Commodity Metrics and the $240 GB
March 31, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
SaaS pricing strategies that use low-value commodity metrics – like storage – to differentiate tiers force customers to make price comparisons that shouldn’t be made. Updated for 2014 This topic came up with a client who wanted to pass on the storage costs associated with the use of the system to their end-customer. We quickly […]
SaaS Pricing: Versioning for Market Segments
March 5, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Rags Srinivasan posted a great article titled “The Science of Optimal Versioning in SaaS” to his blog that talks about SaaS pricing. In the article, Rags talks about taking apply SaaS pricing to through different bundles of features at different prices for various market segments. The whole article is great, so I encourage you to […]
