Growth-oriented Customer Success
Whether you're pre-launch, post-Product / Market Fit (P/MF), or an expansion stage SaaS vendor, Growth Hacking - the methods, tactics, and especially the mindset behind it - can be leveraged by companies at all stages to accelerate growth. Of course, … [Continue reading]
I answer this question all the time... should we go Freemium or Free Trial for our SaaS app? And I get this question from companies of all stages and sizes, including pre-launch Startups, software companies moving to - or adding a product line based … [Continue reading]
A recruiter looking for a Growth Hacker contacted me recently and my immediate reaction was "I wonder what that position was called two-months ago." That seemingly innocent LinkedIn message from a recruiter just trying to do their job, combined with … [Continue reading]
It's safe to say that 2013 was the year of Customer Success, especially in the SaaS industry. But where do we go from here? What does Customer Success look like in 2014? Luckily, I'm friends with someone who's job it is to know - or at least … [Continue reading]
Whatever the scenario for the SaaS vendor - during a Free Trial, as a free user of a Freemium, for Demo requests or Enterprise Pricing Inquiries, or after a prospect becomes a paying customer, I get asked all the time what the best email follow-up … [Continue reading]
This is a post about SaaS pricing models... but it starts with a story about human behavior. We all know that money doesn't buy happiness - it buys freedom, and it's with that freedom that you can choose to do things that make you happy. Money is … [Continue reading]
For any company - especially those in the expansion stages - Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is a key metric to focus on. And for most companies and their CFOs and COOs, it’s all about making that number as low as possible. But in my experience, it’s … [Continue reading]
Growth Hacking is all the rage right now. In-fact, anyone even slightly involved with marketing or product development in tech companies now calls themselves a Growth Hacker. Now, once everyone identifies as a Growth Hacker the term will be … [Continue reading]
The other day I received an email with a very specific SaaS marketing question: "we have the opportunity to send an offer to the email list of one of our Integration Partners... do you have any tips for us?" Well, since having the opportunity to send … [Continue reading]
When it comes to SaaS growth hacking, an email address is a powerful thing. If you have a list of email addresses - house lists, scraped, or bought - you can do some "pre-targeting" to increase the likelihood of engagement (that they'll open, read … [Continue reading]
So I got this email the other day asking me a SaaS Customer Success question that's really more about ethics and karma than running a SaaS business. The gist of the email was what to do if a customer has been paying for 6 months but never started … [Continue reading]
So I got an email recently about best practices for dealing with unplanned outages from a SaaS Customer Success standpoint. I’ve attempted to answer the question in a meaningful way, but I am the first to acknowledge that there is a lot more to it … [Continue reading]
I was asked a question recently about creating SaaS pricing models that include multi currency support. I've attempted to answer the question in a meaningful way, but I am the first to acknowledge that there is a lot more to it than just what I … [Continue reading]
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 … [Continue reading]
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 … [Continue reading]
"OMG... That's not who's signing up for my app!" exclaimed Jerry, after we discovered who his ideal customers are and that he's been optimizing his Sales Funnel for the wrong customers. You see, Jerry owns a custom software dev shop that spun-out a … [Continue reading]
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 … [Continue reading]
Attention SaaS Providers: If you use email in any way to communicate with your users, customers, and prospects, you should care about GMail's recent additions: Tabbed Inbox and Categories. As a SaaS provider, you leverage email for marketing with … [Continue reading]
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 … [Continue reading]
Okay, this is it... finally, my definitive answer on measuring SaaS churn! I've heard it all before... things like "Lincoln, you talk about churn a lot, but you don't ever say anything!" First, that's just hurtful. Second, all of these "how do I … [Continue reading]
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 … [Continue reading]
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 … [Continue reading]
If you're dealing with a high SaaS churn rate, a lack of customer engagement could be the reason. Customer retention - or conversely customer churn - is a common struggle for expansion-stage SaaS companies, and while some of it may come as "growing … [Continue reading]
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. … [Continue reading]
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 … [Continue reading]
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 … [Continue reading]
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 … [Continue reading]
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 … [Continue reading]
Now that you are attracting the right customers and monitoring for and driving engagement to lower your SaaS Churn Rate, you need to start monitoring and getting proactive on Churn Threats. SaaS churn threats aren't just a signal that you have an … [Continue reading]
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 … [Continue reading]
Customer churn can have a devastating effect across your entire SaaS company. From the negative impact on your company valuation because your SaaS churn rate is too high, to the drag on growth you feel when you have to replace lost customers or … [Continue reading]
I mentioned, "Expansion Revenue" and "Negative Churn" in my post SaaS Churn Rate: What's Acceptable? and I wanted to expand on those concepts a bit. But first... UPDATE 1 : Dollar Revenue Retention - DRR - is the latest SaaS churn rate metric you … [Continue reading]
For many SaaS and Cloud providers, email will be the main fuel for your Engagement Engine that you use to drive potential customers through your Free Trial to conversion or to drive new customers to become deeply invested in your service. SaaS … [Continue reading]
Welcome to 2013 2014 2015 (still applies!)... it's now time to figure out why your SaaS company even exists and what your market positioning is! If you're a SaaS or Cloud provider in the Email Marketing, CRM, Project Management, File Sharing, … [Continue reading]
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 … [Continue reading]
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 … [Continue reading]
SaaS providers should use email to drive Engagement, Conversion, and Retention, but to achieve those goals, some rules should be followed. UPDATED FOR 2015! Regardless of the type of email - Transactional or Marketing - your email has to: Get … [Continue reading]
Sixteen Ventures is a SaaS consulting company and I'm a consultant. I help SaaS / Web App / Cloud providers go to market, acquire and retain customers, and grow. I don't consider myself a SaaS or Cloud industry analyst; I actually spend more time … [Continue reading]
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 … [Continue reading]
Before you watch this video, you should watch the 25-minute Beta Testing & Pricing: A Hazardous Combination video for better context. In 2011 I pulled together this ~35 minute presentation for a group of SaaS entrepreneurs - literally overnight … [Continue reading]
