So you’ve got your SaaS business and you’re wondering how to improve your conversion?
We know that it can be much harder than it seems. SaaS products are complex, the market is changing quickly and even the smallest change can have a large impact on your performance.
To help you out, we’ve gathered our best tips for improving SaaS conversion rates below. Ready to boost your own business? Keep on reading to find out more!
Consider different stages of the sales funnel
SaaS purchases don’t just happen on the spot.
It’s not an impulsive decision, like buying a chocolate bar in a grocery store just because you saw it on the shelf.
Rather than that, the decision usually spans a longer period of time.
You should also keep in mind that the person who will be using the software is not always the decision-maker.
Because of that (and many other reasons), it’s best to come up with different strategies for every stage of the sales funnel:
The awareness stage is the beginning of the funnel, which also means it has the largest target group.
This is the moment when the potential customer realizes that they might need the solution your SaaS offers.
They aren’t sure yet whether they’re going to purchase something to solve the problem, yet this is the moment when they start looking.
This initial stage is often neglected – which is a big mistake.
As we’ve mentioned before, SaaS customers don’t make decisions right away. Before they buy a product, they will research their issue first.
This is a great opportunity to position your brand as an expert in the field.
For instance, let’s say that your potential client is facing a problem with managing team members in many countries around the globe.
They search for the phrase “how to schedule meetings across different time zones”. And here’s what they see:
You can position your blog posts to answer customers’ questions from the awareness stage.
This increases your choice of becoming the top of mind brand and, eventually, improving conversion rates.
Keep in mind that it’s not the time for direct selling – it’s time to be helpful and informative.
This is the main idea behind content marketing, as stated in Jay Baer’s Youtility.
Next comes the interest stage, also known as the consideration stage.
Here’s when the potential client starts evaluating different solutions. Then the desire/decision stage happens, when they choose one of the available options and move on to the action stage.
You can also use the power of content marketing in these stages. One of the most helpful formats here is product comparison.
Your potential clients are choosing between you and the competition, so why not give them a little hint? Kontentino, a social media management tool, handled this very smoothly – they created a comparison with Hootsuite, one of their main competitors:
Change your approach to sales meetings
SaaS sales are quite personal. Especially when the software is quite advanced and somewhat pricey, the purchase won’t happen without a personal introduction and a sales meeting.
Setting up these appointments is a form of art in itself.
You can increase your chances by making a great first impression here.
One of the best practices is to allow the prospect to choose a meeting date that is most suitable for them. This is easy to do with invite links you can generate with Harmonizely.
If you would like to learn more, we’re sure you’d enjoy our blog post on effective sales meetings.
Invest in the first impression
Speaking of first impressions, you should also consider them design-wise.
You only have a couple of seconds to make it or break it. Take some time to craft a compelling CTA and a catchy landing page.
You might be offering the best product in the world and yet still no one’s going to buy it if you don’t catch their attention first.
Science of persuasion is quite a broad topic and it’s virtually impossible to fit all the tips and tricks into one article.
To get started, we suggest familiarizing yourself with some basic psychological principles.
Use session recording tools
Although quantitative analysis can be a goldmine of information, it doesn’t have all the answers you need to improve your conversion rates.
The answer? You guessed it: qualitative analytics.
Session recording tools, such as LiveSession, can be eye-opening. You can see exactly how the users interact with your website, which parts draw the most of their attention and which ones are omitted.
This is one of the best ways not only to see what works but also why it works.
Apart from improving SaaS conversion rates, session replays can help you find bugs and website errors as well.
Put your trust in A/B testing
What’s more, session recordings can also be used for analyzing A/B tests.
If you’re not too familiar with this term, A/B testing is one of the most effective ways to optimize digital products.
Without trying two different options, you won’t be able to tell if one is really better than the other.
So, how do you tackle that? Once you implement changes, it’s best to show the new version to 50% of the users and leave the old one unchanged for the other half.
Getting the answer is as easy as that – no need to take a shot in the dark.
There are many elements that can be A/B tested for improving conversion, such as:
- above-the-fold value proposition
- the main image on the landing page (should you use a picture of an actual person, a drawing, or maybe no picture at all?)
- the colours of different elements
- call-to-action and other kinds of persuasive microcopy
Turn to personalization
Last but not least, your leads are most likely to convert if they see real value in your offer.
Your SaaS product might cater to different groups – and you should keep that in mind when working on your sales and marketing strategy.
Imagine that you’re selling call center software, like CloudTalk.
Your product may cater to different groups of customers: sales teams, customer support teams or even traders.
When you think about it that way, you can’t show the same offer to every group.
Each of them has different needs and is going to focus on other aspects of your product.
The key is to create targeted landing pages for every customer segment:
The page created for support centers is focused on the features that help with inbound calls, such as customer cards or smart routing.
On the other hand, the page for outbound teams is focused on the ease of calling and integrations with sales CRMs:
Landing pages are one thing (a very important one), but personalization should go way deeper.
With the right email marketing software, you can easily create personalized campaigns as well.
The content of emails may vary depending on many factors, including the profile of the potential client and their behavior during the sales process.
Key takeaways for increasing SaaS conversion rates
If we were to come up with a single piece of advice in this matter, we would definitely choose testing.
It pays off to try different approaches and learn from your previous experiments.
We hope you find this article inspiring!