Anne Janzer

Author

SaaS marketing

Nurture SaaS Super-Users and Advocates

supercape wil stewart

Many SaaS companies empower the advocates among their customers to help others. Well-designed advocacy programs benefit everyone:

  • The advocates receive recognition, additional resources, and the overall satisfaction of helping others.
  • Newer customers benefit from having a variety of people available to answer their questions and provide guidance.
  • Your company benefits from increased customer loyalty and success.

Advocacy programs work when you focus on providing support and recognition, rather than monetary incentives alone.

The Hootsuite Ambassador program combines free training, exclusive access and promotions, and online recognition, plus the ability to claim membership:

The Salesforce MVP program is available to those customers who are expert and responsive answering others’ questions, and who are willing to be brand advocates. Salesforce recognizes and supports the MVPs among the customer base.

Both of these programs have training and education components. Offering certification is another way to develop advocates; a certification provides something of value that the individual customer can take with them between roles and jobs. HubSpot’s Inbound Marketing Certification is a great example.

Marketing teams should work with training and customer success organizations to develop advocacy programs that drive retention and loyalty.

  • Recognize your most loyal customers; look for people who proactively reach out with comments or help others.
  • Give them the support they need to help others effectively.
  • Reward them with recognition, special programs, and exclusive access.
  • Supplement advocacy programs with training and certification.

[This is an excerpt from the Subscription Marketing for SaaS ebook. Download the book here, and feel free to share it with anyone who might find it helpful.]

Image: Wil Stewart, on StockSnap.io

Subscriptions Are Eating Software

eatingIn an essay published in the Wall Street Journal in 2011, Marc Andreeson famously described the path of the technology industry with the phrase “Software is eating the world.” (Read the original article here.)

In short, software is disrupting the technology industry, sector by sector. Everything that a technology sector does is eventually absorbed into software.

There’s a corollary happening in the software industry:

Subscriptions are eating software.

More precisely, the subscription economy is eating the software industry.

The software market is moving steadily toward cloud-based, software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings. Individuals and businesses alike are offloading the tasks of owning and maintaining their own software to SaaS providers.

IDC recently published its software and licensing predictions for 2016. The number one prediction is the following:

Software Subscription Revenue Will Continue Its Rapid Growth Trajectory to Reach $130 Billion in 2016, a 21% Increase over 2015” – Amy Konary, IDC

IDC also predicts that at least three software providers will go “all-in” with subscriptions in 2016, abandoning perpetual licenses altogether.

I suspect that number is conservative.

Subscription revenues are where the growth is happening in the software industry.

SaaS Marketing Implications

The revenue shift affects SaaS marketing practices.

SaaS companies benefit from the predictable revenue stream of subscriptions, but they also absorb revenue risk up front. Customers are rarely profitable the moment they sign up for a SaaS offering. Adding customer acquisition costs to the marginal cost of providing the service, customers may not become profitable for well over a year. It’s in everyone best interest that customers find success and continue to renew.

In a SaaS business, long-term survival depends not only on new sales, but also on keeping current customers happy.

The shift to cloud delivery and subscription revenues represents a fundamental change for the people who market software.

Subscription Marketing for SaaS: An Ebook

Early this year, I published a book called Subscription Marketing about marketing strategies for sustained subscription relationships. The book applies to all types of businesses, but was inspired by the experiences with the software industry.

But the software industry is a special case, and deserves its own discussion.
This is first in a series of blogs exploring subscription marketing strategies specifically in the context of selling SaaS software, examining strategies from the book that are particularly relevant to SaaS.

These posts are excerpted from a short ebook, Subscription Marketing for SaaS. If you work in a software company, download the ebook and let me know what you think.

Image: Ryan McGuire on gratisography