Promoting a SaaS product takes a lot of hard work. You don’t just need to get it out of the door, you have to have your customers use it and choose it among other products.
It means you need to build trust among your users. Building a foundation of loyal customers is a very crucial matter to consider before getting your products known.
And although there are a lot of other well-established companies out there, more and more SaaS startups are getting into the competition. Software as a Service or SaaS has been the leading and fastest-moving business distribution model since the year 2019, with a reported 2020 growth forecast of $104.7 billion by Gartner.
SaaS has become a reputable and trusted tool for companies not only to reach a wide range of clients but also to outsource manpower and potential business partners. Businesses spend 50% more on cloud technologies such as these over the past two years.
What are SaaS Products?
SaaS products are software hosted by a central provider and advertised to users or customers via the internet. These products use cloud technology, which means you don’t need to install or download any app on your gadget.
You don’t even have to purchase hardware or software or worry about installation, maintenance, or updating. All you have to do is use the web or mobile browser to access them. Save yourself the hassle of trouble-shooting as well-the server provider will do the job.
These products are sometimes referred to as Web-based software, hosted software, or on-demand software. Providers host these products or applications online and customers can access these through monthly subscriptions.
The popularity of SaaS has been catapulted by the COVID-19 pandemic, where the workforce is forced to shift to remote work. SaaS products, therefore, are among the most adaptable and appropriate solutions to bring the workplace and business to any time and any place.
10 Things You Need To Do Before Launching Your SaaS Product
Your SaaS product may be one of the many that are entangled in a seemingly complicated online market. There are some things you have to do to thrive and survive in the industry.
Since launching a SaaS business takes money, time, and human resources, you have to be prepared before you present your product to the world.
And if you are a SaaS founder and you do not want to enter the competition shorthanded, you have come to the right site.
We have prepared a list of ten crucial things that you have to do before you publicly introduce your SaaS product:
1. Completely test your product.
When it comes to SaaS Product launching, you’ve got to remember: “First impressions last.” Make a solid, lasting good impression on your target audience by releasing an impressive first version of your product.
How to do this:
You should do a complete go-through of your product with your team. See if there are any glitches or problems with your software and fix them before letting your SaaS product out the door.
2. Share your product with a small group of users first.
Honest feedback is very valuable if we want to improve our products. Only inviting people who actually might use your products will help you generate unbiased opinions and genuine suggestions. Our family and friends may be our avid supporters, but they should be spared from reviewing your products if we want unbiased feedback.
How to do this:
Create a launch page. Create a teaser for your product. Put a sign-up form on the page and invite beta users. To draw in these people, give discounts, free subscriptions, and other promotions. Or, you can just submit your SaaS startup to Betalist, a community of early adopters and startup founders where you can present your innovation and get feedback. You can also check Launching Next or Erli Bird as alternatives to Betalist.
3. Research about the top companies in your SaaS niche.
The competition for the top rank in the online market is tough, so it’s necessary to know your opponents and how they play. Researching through top companies in your SaaS niche gives you an overview of how they operate, handle customers, and learn about their marketing strategies and tactics.
Through research, you can find techniques to promote your very own SaaS product.
How to do this:
To manually do this for free. Come up with keywords related to your niche. Type in these keywords to Google or other search engines and see who or what company comes up on the first page. Then, go to Similar Web and search each company to see their current stats.
You can even check the sites where your top competitors get their backlinks. Top SEO tools like AHREFS and SemRush have features where you can audit your competitor’s site and study their analytics in depth. Most of these tools have paid plans. So, depending on how deep your research could get, you might want to spend a few bucks for this.
4. Prepare your pre-launch calendar
You might be ready to launch your product, but the question here is when to launch. When choosing about what date you should do the launch, keep in mind that the perfect launch date is whatever time and day you chose to do it.
How to do this:
Choose a date, set the time, talk it over with your team and start working on your marketing plan from there. Also, it making a product launch plan checklist would help you avoid missing out on important matters.
5. Use your story to create a buzz or hype.
In our attempt to sound adept and professional, we sometimes bombard audiences with hard facts, statistics, and jargon. Many product launchers forget that they should build a connection with their customers to gain their interest, trust and loyalty. This is where the importance of a story comes in.
Users should know who you are, what you believe in, what you can do, and why they should trust you in solving a specific problem for them. You may do interviews, podcasts, or posts on other sites. Get involved with your users and let them know what you’re doing.
How to do this:
It all depends on YOUR story.
Check out this branding marketing campaign done by MailChimp. They created nine separate mini-campaigns using names that rhyme with MailChimp. The rationale is that the brand found out that users usually mispronounce its name. They used film as a medium to build hype around the product and it was so effective that it earned more than $3 million in media value. You can read more about this campaign here.
6. Prioritize UX or user experience.
Customer experience is the bloodline of SaaS products. These products heavily rely on customer satisfaction, so it’s crucial to have a well-thought plan for the infrastructure that powers the apps. Properly working and efficient tools ensure a successful launch and performance of your software.
How to do this:
Listen to your users. Positive customer feedback helps generate leads that transform into sales. The products’’ good reviews are most often spread by shares on various platforms and by mouth. Affirmative responses from satisfied customers help attract traffic-which will eventually make your product popular.
7. Automate your user onboarding system.
Having an automated process to onboard new users to your application is needed to make your product easier to use.
How to do this:
Your SaaS Product should enable sign up and sign in options for users, have a welcome screen on display, give a short tour of your product’s top 3 features, and automated lifecycle emails that will send the customer some updates after signing up, activation, and end of the trial.
8. Create your social media accounts before launching.
Social media, housing more than 3 billion active netizens, is a forceful tool in helping online marketers gain potential customers and business partners.
How to do this:
The key to attract traffic is through consistent posting. If you want to impose the value of your product on the people, show instead of telling. You can do so by posting on social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Using social media in promoting and sharing useful content about your product enables interaction, discussion, and draws a healthy crowd to your site.
9. Avoid charging your initial customers.
Charging your customers initially when launching a SaaS startup is a bad idea, and here’s why.
You would need to add a payment getaway to your website to charge your customers. You would also need to process your bank account and other processes, which are generally time-consuming and may postpone your launch inadvertently.
Giving a free trial period to users will give you ample time to rethink your ideas and set up payment modes.
How to do this:
Be generous. Offer free trials, free subscriptions, and free use of your SaaS application and make sure your website visitors see that on your home page.
10. Solve the largest pain point of your target users.
We have mentioned earlier that honest feedback is necessary if we want to improve our products. Unbiased opinions are not only helpful in improving your SaaS product, but also in identifying and solving the pain points of your target users.
Your ability to solve the toughest problem will make you a trusted resource among users. Once the users have developed their reliance and confidence in you, you will be difficult to replace. Being a valued and trusted product or service provider is essential in surviving the SaaS business.
How to do this:
Ask your target audience. Listen to them. You can do this by joining Facebook groups related to your niche. Create a survey in Google Forms and ask the members to answer it. Check the comments of your beta testers. One-start reviews can be daunting, but you can turn things around and use them to make your application more effective and user-friendly. As they say, what won’t kill you, will make you stronger.
Your turn…
Learning how to launch your product is an unending process since the online platform and the customers’ needs are constantly changing. Putting out something new in the online space is always a risk, but is never a loss since it is a chance to try new things.
Succeeding in the SaaS market takes a lot of hard work and perseverance. You might not have a lot of views on your first launch, but it is important to continue investing in your customers and keep a good image throughout to boost popularity and trust among customers.
Make sure that all the items on this checklist are covered so that you can have a fighting chance.
Happy launching!
