Welcome 215 SaaS founders and marketers to the 41st edition of Write your SaaS Growth Newsletter:

In this edition, we discuss:

• Google Ads: Run profitable retargeting campaigns with Google Ads

• Product Marketing: A 3-step Jobs-To-Be-Done framework

• Growth Marketing: 7 low-hanging ways to acquire new customers

• Product-Led Growth: 5-step framework to implement PLG

• Retention: Onboarding your SaaS to forever retention

Let’s GO!

Growth Tip of the Week! 🚀

Joe says do your future self a favor and set up analytics on your SaaS.

Even if you won't use them right now You're going to wish you had the data later.

Google Ads

Rafayet says you're leaving money on the table by not taking advantage of retargeting campaigns. Retargeting campaigns allow you to reach customers who've shown interest in your site.

And you can create campaigns with Google Ads to target these customers as they browse the web. Here's a step-by-step breakdown of how to run profitable retargeting campaigns with Google Ads:

1. Set up Google Analytics. Before creating a retargeting campaign... Make sure you have Google Analytics set up on your website. This will allow you to track user behavior and identify which pages and products are most popular.

2. Define your target audience. Use Google Analytics to identify the pages and products that users are most interested in. Then create a retargeting audience based on this data. You can also create custom audiences based on user behavior. Examples: • Abandoned cart. • Abandoned checkout.

3. Use dynamic remarketing. You can show users ads for the specific products they viewed on your website. This can be highly effective in encouraging them to return and complete their purchase.

4. Experiment with ad formats. Google Ads offers a variety of ad formats: • Text. • Display • Video ads. Experiment with different formats to see which ones resonate best with your audience.

5. Set frequency caps. To avoid bombarding users with too many ads... Set frequency caps to limit the number of times they see your ads.

6. Optimize your landing pages. Make sure the landing pages users are directed to after clicking on your ads are optimized for conversions. • Clear calls-to-action. • Relevant information. • A simple checkout process.

7. Monitor and adjust your campaigns. Keep a close eye on your retargeting campaigns and adjust them as needed. This includes adjusting the following: • Bids. • Ad formats. • Targeting options.

Remember, you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time. Find what works. Improve on it. Test level of success. Reiterate.

Related: Create Google Ads for SaaS: 32 Experts Steps for Profits (2023)

Product Marketing

Ramli shares the Jobs-To-Be-Done framework for marketers to take it to the next level.

Essentially, people “hire” products for three interconnected reasons:

• functional

• emotional

• social.

Understanding and using these for your marketing is a potent power-up.

1. Functional: Products give people new abilities and superpowers that they couldn’t do before. An example mentioned is that of when Mario touches a flower power-up, he can hurl fireballs at his enemies! Pretty cool!Q) What can your customers do now with your product that they couldn’t do without it?

2. Emotional: The second way that products upgrade people is by helping them feel or avoid feeling things. It could help them feel confident with a new strategy or direction. Or it could be to remove the frustration of doing tedious tasks.An example mentioned is that of Walt Disney, the creator of Mickey Mouse. He said that The Disney Company’s goal is to “create happiness,” and they do this “by providing the best in entertainment for people of all ages everywhere.”Q) How do you want customers to feel or avoid feeling after using your product?

3. Social: When we invest time and effort into a product, we do so in a social context, whether at home with family or work with colleagues.Once we have the basic needs, we look for additional ways to feel loved, connected, and accomplished by others. Q) How do you want customers to feel or avoid feeling after using your product?

The podcast interview with Asia Orango has a lot more details if you’d like to deep-dive. There’s also a free cheat-sheet to help build your JTBD.

Growth Marketing

SaaS acquisition for an early-stage product is hard. But there are activities you can do beyond a PH launch!

Nicolas says you can't be frustrated about the lack of growth for your early-stage SaaS if you haven't tried the following 7 low-hanging fruit techniques.

And you can do these tactics in 10x — and probably even 100x — less time than trying to find success with SEO. Here they are:

1. Submit your product in *all* directories and communities possible.Not just Product Hunt or a few others. All of them. For communities, you can find a lot @thehiveindex.

2. Add your product to *all* review sites. Same as directories, add your SaaS everywhere. Ask your beta testers or early customers to write reviews. Give them a templated review they can complete. Search for "[competitor's name] reviews" and you'll find a lot of places.

3. Mentions in listicles. There's always a lot of listicles where your competitors appear. Contact the authors and convince them to add your SaaS. To find these articles, search for "[competitor's name] alternatives" or "top [your SaaS product type] tools".

4. Add your SaaS on discount websites. There's some criteria to qualify for @JoinSecret but better try than regret. Also a lot of incubators and accelerators have a similar system for their members, so look there too.

5. Make a Lifetime Deal on a platform like Appsumo While it's a double-edged sword, it can work really well. You can use @AppSumo, but there are other platforms.

6. Outreach (not 100 but 1000s) Don't say outreach doesn't work after sending 100 messages. You need to tweak and iterate over 1000s of messages.

7. Build in public. If you complain about not having customers and don't build in public, you can only blame yourself.

Links work weird on the internet. The more you hit, the higher your chances!

Related: How to acquire your early-stage SaaS customers?

Product-Led Growth

Akash shares how you can grow your SaaS with product-led growth in 5 steps:

Imagine growing your SaaS business without spending tons of money on ads, sales reps, or fancy landing pages.

Here's a simple framework to implement PLG in your business:

1. A clear understanding of your target customers' needs, pain points, goals, & behaviors. You need to know who you are building for and what problems you are solving for them. You can use tools like customer interviews, surveys, personas, & jobs-to-be-done to gain insights. For example: Slack used customer feedback to identify their ideal customer profile (ICP) as knowledge workers who value collaboration and communication. They also used data to segment their customers by industry, company size, use case, and persona. 

2. A product that delivers a great user experience, self-service onboarding, and immediate value. You need to make your product easy to use, easy to adopt, and easy to love. You can use tools like user testing, analytics, feedback loops, and value metrics to optimize your product design. For example: Dropbox used a simple sign-up process, a clear tutorial, and a referral program to onboard users and show them the value of cloud storage. They also used gamification to reward users with more storage space for inviting friends or completing tasks. 

3. A data-driven approach to measure and optimize your product performance, user engagement, retention, and revenue. You need to track the right metrics and use them to inform your decisions and actions. You can use tools like dashboards, funnels, cohorts, and experiments to monitor and improve your product outcomes. For example: HubSpot used data to identify their most engaged users, segment them by persona, and tailor their marketing messages to match their needs. They also used data to optimize their pricing strategy, reduce churn, and increase upsells and cross-sells. 

4. A cross-functional alignment of all teams around the product vision, goals, and feedback. You need to ensure that everyone in your organization is on the same page and working towards the same outcomes. You can use tools like OKRs, roadmaps, communication channels, and collaboration platforms to align and empower your teams. For example: Atlassian used a shared vision of unleashing the potential of every team to align their product, marketing, sales, and support teams around their customers' needs. They also used tools like Jira, Confluence, Trello, and Bitbucket to collaborate internally and with their customers. 

5. A scalable go-to-market strategy that leverages word-of-mouth referrals, viral loops, freemium models, or low-touch sales. You need to find the best way to reach your target customers and convince them to try or buy your product. You can use tools like landing pages, email campaigns, social media, and referrals to grow your customer base. For example: Calendly used a freemium model that allowed users to schedule meetings with anyone who saw their Calendly link on their email signature or website. This created a viral loop that exposed Calendly to millions of potential users without spending much on advertising.

Retention

Boris shares how you can make your users hooked on your product. Here are 5 ways that’ll make your onboarding flow so good your SaaS will become a retention machine:

1. Simplify. The only goal of your onboarding is to get the user engaged. Keep it clear and simple to avoid overwhelm. Focus on only one action you want the user to take. Don't rush anything.

2. Set the right tone. It should be a personal and friendly tone that’s building a relationship. The sole purpose of your SaaS is to help people. Act like a friend who’s taking them by hand and doing the heavy lifting for them.

3. Provide easy access to customer support. Make sure the user can get in touch with customer support in every email. Every step of the way should provide assistance. Your product is new to them and people will need help. Make it impossible for them to quit.

4. Use clear tutorials and training. I come across a lot of confusing walkthroughs. Every email or video should tackle only one thing. Don’t try to stuff everything together to save time and money. Make the onboarding training balanced.

5. Keep optimizing. Use analytics to track areas that are hard on the user. Improve them and test further until you find that sweet spot. Making your onboarding smooth is hard and it takes a lot of work. Once you get it right - only God can stop you.

It's about recognizing the needs of your buyers. If they need to know more about how your SaaS can help and work with their existing operations, show them. Nothing better than a SaaS who cares.

Writes and Picks 💫

• Subscribe to Ramli’s weekly newsletter and instantly unlock the 3 best frameworks from world-class marketers.

• Read the case study of how Nicolas helped Refiner increase ARPA by 46% with customer research.

• Let me help you build a new marketing channel for your SaaS. Book a session.

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

See you next Saturday.

Ricky,

SaaSwrites