What are the Best Examples of B2B Marketing for Emerging Market SaaS Businesses?

Image Credit: Lex Aliviado

There’s a good rule that you should do things that don’t scale first. In this context, the best marketing strategy for an early stage startup is network effect on a smaller scale.

The network effect is the most organic way of securing your first clients. The basic idea is that you do a great job for your clients, which in turn provides them with an incentive to recommend you to new potential clients from their market. Ideally, each new customer gives you a number of leads that are already partially qualified — they know that you’re good business.

As you can imagine, this depends on how good of a product/service you have, how good you are at customer service, etc. Supposing you don’t lack in those areas, there are strategies that might help you reap the benefits of the network effect. I’ll break down what we learned from implementing these strategies at RightHello.

• There’s always a smaller sub-group of customers (a niche) that you can pick from your general target group. A “tribe” if you will, where it will be easier for you to acquire first customers.
• A good niche is a set of people and companies that know each other, because they communicate organically — through discussion boards, social media, magazines, etc. In small market circles, everyone knows everyone — like startup founders (1st vertical) in Warsaw (2nd vertical).
• From my experience a good tribe has 1000 to 10.000 companies within. We chose the Polish IT market (services and products). It was still quite small (it’s growing very quickly) — we estimated about 1000 companies that could benefit from our solution, and we knew they communicate with each other.
• The first step to start closing deals in a new segment is to build brand recognition and trust. But it’s hard until you have a good portfolio of working with similar companies.
• That’s why you approach your close network first — because those people already trust you for who you are. First talk to people that you know and that belong to the target tribe, then ask others for introductions and referrals. Look for early adopters that will give you honest feedback.
• RightHello’s first customers were people that I knew well (and they knew me), I also pitched at a few local start-up events.

• The second very important step is to get your first case study with a company from the target tribe ASAP — if someone can identify with a company you already did a good job for, they’ll trust you more. Plus, you’ll have the confidence that you can deliver real value — and that’s priceless.
• The effects of this are awesome — you’ll start getting leads from recommendations, and close deals faster (showing a case study helps deal with objections).
• Your first brand advocate who will spread the good word about you is a game changer at the beginning. Especially if you don’t have free trials and clients have to pay upfront.
• With your first case study(s) in hand, you can circle back to the potential clients that doubted you too much to buy from you at first. Other people’s satisfaction might change their mind.
• This is the point where you can start investing in marketing and sales, and it’ll provide bigger ROI than before you proved your worth.
• At this point you know where the best leads are, what to do to make customers happy, and you have proof that you’re all about providing value. Knowing your target niche, you shouldn’t have a problem picking the right marketing channel.
• Pro-tip: Your first niche pick might prove to be wrong, if you see no interest at all in the value that you provide, you have to pick another niche and start again.
• We started organizing outbound cold email campaigns, letting them know we’re ready, well-equipped and eager to help them with outbound sales. They started discussing whether we’re worth a try. We posted case studies on our website — our potential customers had someone to reach out to and inquire about us.
• This isn’t the only right way to do this — it’s just the channel that made the most sense for us. Cold email, lead generation and outbound sales are two domains we have the most expertise in, and it was the perfect channel for our chosen niche too. In your case it might be paid media, content marketing, etc. Hit us up to see if cold email is the right channel for you.

Had we approached a bigger market from the start, achieving the network effect would’ve taken much more work and resources that an early stage B2B startup can’t afford.

In terms of footprint big enough to create a small network effect, 10 customers from Germany + 10 from Poland have a totally different effect than 20 from Poland.

After some time, when people ask for a lead generation company on a polish IT discussion board, one of our supporters or clients is sure to point to us.

As a great read on the subject, I recommend ‘Crossing the chasm’ by Geoffrey Moore. I think it’s a must-read for all technology entrepreneurs and a great inspiration for choosing a go-to-market strategy.

In the end, I have one last important piece of advice:

Don’t Screw It Up!

You have to provide great value, great customer support, really work your ass off for customer success. You’re picking a small niche, so a few unhappy customers could kill your reputation and, in turn, sales.

A mistake can happen to anyone, so if you mess things up — do everything you can to fix them. Offer discounts, give money back, improve your product, do whatever it takes to make clients smile again. Negative opinion will cost you money, happiness, health and your last shirt.

But if the customer sees that you are more sad than him and that you are doing everything to make the sun shine again, you can win him back.