#35 - Write your SaaS Growth 📈

Google Ads, Community, Email Marketing, Pricing and SEO.

January 21, 2023

Welcome to the 35th edition of Write your SaaS Growth:

In this edition, we discuss:

  • Google Ads: Landing pages that hits your Ads KPIs

  • Community: Growing to $10k with community

  • Email Marketing: 13 retention campaigns to automate

  • Pricing: Moving away from FREE

  • SEO: Writing posts that bring results

Let’s GO!

Growth Tip of the Week! 🚀

Corey shares some common SaaS marketing mistakes:

  • Not niching down

  • Copying competitors

  • Making random content

  • Copying big companies with 100x budget

  • Spreading yourself thin across too many channels

What else is he missing?

Google Ads

Google Ads can help you reach people who are looking for what your SaaS product offers. After they've clicked on your ad, it's important to have a specific page where you can guide them to take the next step. Think of your landing page as the next step in your customer's journey.

This could be signing up for a trial, or learning more about your product. Your landing page is your chance to convert those interested visitors into paying customers. Make sure it's tailored to the message of your ad and gives them a clear call-to-action.

George shares his landing page checklist before launching Google ads:

  • Testimonials

  • Trust symbols

  • Payment works

  • Fast loads speed

  • Competitive offer

  • Behavior tracking

  • Conversion tracking

Put yourself in a position to make sales and improve conversions.

Community

Having a community for your SaaS product is like having a group of loyal customers who can give you feedback and help you improve your product.

It also serves as a platform for customers to share their experiences, ask questions, and get support from other customers and the company.

In fact, Alex shares how you can leverage a community to grow till $10k/mo in 12 months:

  1. Create a Free Community. this could be discord, Mightynetworks, FB group, etc. We're going to mainly be marketing to the free community and capturing emails + phone numbers so then we can remarket via email, SMS, and nurture them inside the community.

  2. Create Strategic Partnerships. Create video lessons for large creators, courses / communities in exchange that they allow you to plug your community or software.

  3. Send Mass Cold Emails. This is a cold email campaign no one talks about cold email -> free community -> converts to software instead of pitching them on your SaaS immediately just invite them to your community (lower barrier to entry).

  4. Remarket to Your Community Like Crazy. After a few months of doing this - you should have thousands of free (or low ticket if you want to charge) community members you sell them your SaaS as a means to implement the info you teach in the community.

  5. Hit $10,000 MRR. This was assuming $50/mo which is fairly low ticket and assuming only 1 pricing tier this isn't easy but it is a pretty simple way to do it

Email Marketing

Email marketing can help retain customers and drive revenue, but as a bootstrapped SaaS founder, time is precious.

Automate campaigns, keep it simple, use customer data and pre-built templates, and schedule your emails in advance, to make your email marketing efforts more efficient and effective.

Steven shares 13 email marketing campaigns you can setup for your SaaS:

  1. Welcome Email: Used to introduce the new user to the product, provide helpful resources and links, create a positive onboarding experience. Your SaaS benefits by making a good first impression and encourage users to engage with the product right away.

  2. Onboarding Flow: Used to guide new users through the setup and configuration of the product. Your SaaS benefits by improving the user's experience, reducing the number of support requests, and increasing the chances of the user becoming a paying customer.

  3. New Feature Announcement: Used to inform users about new features and functions that have been added to the product. Your SaaS benefits by keeping users informed about new product developments, encouraging engagement and usage, and boosting retention.

  4. Trial Expiration Reminder: Used to remind users that their trial is about to end and encourage them to upgrade to a paid plan. This can benefit a SaaS business by increasing the conversion rate of trial users to paying customers.

  5. Re-engagement Campaign for Inactive Users: Used to reach out to users who haven't engaged with the product in a while, and encourage them to come back. It can benefit a SaaS business by increasing user engagement and retention.

  6. Upsell and cross-sell campaigns for existing users: Used to promote additional products or features to existing users. This can benefit a SaaS business by increasing monthly revenue through upsells and cross-sells.

  7. Webinar or Event Invitation: Used to promote events such as webinars or conferences, where users can learn more about the product. It can benefit a SaaS business by encouraging user engagement, providing opportunities for lead generation, and increasing awareness.

🚨 App Spotlight

As a bootstrapped entrepreneur, you're always looking for ways to optimize your workflow and get things done efficiently. That's where Setapp comes in. Think of it as a personal productivity coach, providing you with a wide range of apps that can help you streamline your workflow and manage your business better.

With Setapp, you can try out as many apps as you like with a single subscription, without having to waste time and money on purchasing and managing multiple apps. Sign up for Setapp,* so you can focus on what's important: growing your business. Setapp can help you to work smarter, not harder.

* affiliate link.

  1. Monthly/Quarterly Newsletter: Used to keep users informed about the latest product updates, industry news, and other relevant content. Your SaaS business will benefit by keeping users informed, encouraging engagement and retention, and promoting brand awareness.

  2. Customer Success Story/Testimonial: You can use this campaign to share success stories or testimonials from satisfied customers. Your SaaS benefits by building trust and credibility with potential customers. Your users want to see your product works!

  3. Referral/Loyalty Program: Used to promote referral or loyalty programs to encourage customers to refer others or stick around. It can benefit a SaaS business by increasing customer retention, and growing customer base through referral.

  4. Survey or Feedback Request: Used to gather feedback from users about the product, to improve user experience and retention. This is a great way to find out what you need to improve your SaaS.

  5. Product Update or Maintenance Notification: Used to keep users informed about scheduled product updates or maintenance that may affect their usage. It can benefit a SaaS business by avoiding confusion, and potential loss of customer satisfaction.

  6. Abandoned Cart/Incomplete Registration follow-up: Used to follow up with users who have abandoned their cart, or not completed registration. It can benefit a SaaS business by increasing conversion rates and increasing revenue.

Is there any other campaign you send that we missed out? Reply to this email and let us know!

Pricing

Sid asks “What’s the average conversion rate for SaaS businesses?” Only 0.7% of visitors to your website convert to paid. That number is just 0.3% if you offer a freemium product.

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Ayush says Free doesn’t work. Free users don’t mean much. Paying for something is a way of signaling intent. It’s a sign that the customer has skin in the game. You want more of those kinds of customers. You shouldn’t give too much weight (and stop chasing) free users. He shares two ways to do loss leader pricing:

  1. Offer a Life Time Deal: This is best for SaaS products just starting out Sure you will have to serve a few people forever and without recurring revenue But think of this as an investment in your business LTDs are easier to sell than subs.

  2. Offer a low cost starter plan: This applies to SaaS as well as info products. Offer a no-brainer entry product just to get people in the door. And then you can upsell them a higher priced product once you’ve built some trust with the audience

In both these cases you know that you’re making a loss with every sale. But that’s okay, because the lessons you learn from paying customers is what will allow you to charge way more in the future.

SEO

Pumping out 10 pieces of content a month is NOT a SaaS SEO strategy. If you do this, you’re probably not going to see an ROI.

Instead, invest your SaaS SEO strategy in ranking your product pages and learn (hub) pages.

Sean says if you want quick wins in SEO that play right into Google's ranking trends, write these:

  • X review

  • X vs Y

  • X pricing and plans

  • Y pros and cons

  • Z alternatives

Don't be afraid to talk about competitors or you'll be left out of the conversation.

Thanks for reading! SaaSwrites is a humble attempt to help SaaS founders and marketers grow their SaaS.

See you next Saturday.

Ricky,

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