SaaS companies have the best and the worst of B2B sales worlds. First, SaaS is unique because it is not a traditional software product that must be installed on the other end, typing up clients’ networks and systems. This is attractive and certainly a popular trend in software sales.
On the other hand, SaaS companies have an additional sales task, and a big one. Because their products are subscription-based, they must have a more complex and well-planned after-the-sale service and nurturing strategy, if they are to retain customers through renewed subscriptions. Each subscription renewal has to be seen as another sale and treated as such.
SaaS companies have to progress through the marketing and sales process, much like any other B2B company – getting leads, nurturing those leads through to conversions, and then providing the customer relations that result in renewed subscriptions. Here is a basic list of the best tools on the market to accomplish these goals.
1. Get Response Marketing Automation
GetResponse Marketing Automation is a great visual tool to segment your demographic and visitors according to the actions they have taken and what you want them to do next. You can send targeted responses and personalize them to begin to establish that all-important personal relationship with a potential client. Tracking the success of responses provides the analysis that drives modifications you then make. This is really an all-in-one tool that all SaaS companies should be using. When you can automate your marketing and personalize it, you save time and your target feels more connection.
2. SalesFinder
SalesFinder can be your trusted helper in automating and processing all the data for outbound leads. You can effortlessly search, organize and download social data on your prospects from multiple sources including LinkedIn, Crunchbase, Xing, Viadeo and more. Cold calling may be dead, but if you act smart and preheat the conversation, you’ll likely find your sales conversion rates spiking. Additionally, this tool offers arguably the most robust email finder on the market with tons of additional information, apart from a valid business address.
3. Got To Meeting/Go to Webinar
Face-to-face meetings are no longer feasible if you have potential client all over the country/world. Even if your leads are local, they are difficult to schedule. The other drawback of course is that you are only reaching one lead at a time. This tool allows you to host an online meeting/webinar for up to 25 people at a time.
4. HubSpot
HubSpot is a piece of marketing software that will make any inbound marketing campaign sing. Lots of tools all rolled into one that let you measure the efficacy of your whole campaign. It’s one thing to develop a campaign, include all of the important features (blog, social media, email, etc.), but measuring each of these will ultimately save you time and, more important money.
5. Salesforce
For an inbound marketing campaign, there is probably no piece of CRM software that could be more complete. But it goes far beyond that. Not only will you be able to track every step of every lead generation, communication, and sale, but you can set up automatic reminders set to reach out and nurture your clients during their subscription period, to flag when subscription renewal contacts must be made. All of this is in one place – Salesforce for all team members to share based upon their roles.
Certainly, there are many other tools out there that can also make your marketing campaign more successful. This list, however, pretty much “covers all of the bases” and certainly makes your marketing and sales efforts more organized and streamlined. And this allows you to reach more targets – more targets mean more sales.