Insight: SaaS (35) Customer journey
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In the last article ‘Insight: SaaS (34) Freemium or Free Trial: which is better for SaaS?’, we compared the Freemium and Free Trial in SaaS. Today, let’s talk about the Customer Journey in SaaS marketing.
Marketing -> Sales -> CSM is the main process of a SaaS company. Also, the MQL -> SQL -> WIN -> EXPAND is defined. Modern marketing, on the other hand, initiates with the perspective of the customer. The company publishes what the client wants to know and creates ads that mirror the customer’s current mindset. The more complicated your product is, the more customer-centric you must be. The customer journey encompasses the client’s full psychological process.
I separated a SaaS company’s Customer Journey into four stages. Others have different layering strategies for Customer Journey, which you may learn from as well; most layering approaches are similar.
1. Awareness is the customer’s awareness of a problem. This problem is critical and needs to be solved urgently by customers.
A customer might Google a ‘How to xxxx’ question. At this moment, your company must provide content regarding Awareness in order for clients to reach you. Clients progress from not recognizing whether there is an issue to realizing that it is a solvable issue. This necessitates SaaS companies to ignite their consumers’ subconscious minds.
This mental shift occurs in leaps and bounds. Customers are changing from ‘never conscious’ to ‘conscious’, ‘never urgent’ to ‘urgent’. There is an instant transformation process. Whether or not your product got PMF is determined by the ability to instantly ignite the candle in most people’s minds. Successful SaaS products have a strong positioning and a clear problem to solve. Many clients have a nagging feeling of unease. The troubles that had been hidden in their minds became immediately apparent after hearing the words from the SaaS company.
The goal of this stage: Make the customer aware of the problem, make the customer feel that the problem must be solved right away, and the customer will come to you whenever they have such a problem.
We frequently come across landing pages that assume the effect of Awareness. The landing pages often show some typical questions that customers will encounter. Inform customers that these issues can be resolved. Customers have effectively passed through the Awareness stage if these questions resonate with them.
There is a pressing need for Awareness. We don’t just need customers to identify problems, but also to push clients to act as quickly as possible.
2. Education: Customers want to know what your solution is. How your SaaS may assist clients in resolving this issue.
Customers have comprehended the problem, and they need information. He might discover everything there is to know about the SaaS product. Customers may read your product description and blog posts, as well as check over your pricing and learn about your features. Some customers will also search it on YouTube to see whether someone has uploaded a video in practice.
At this stage, the customer should double-check that your product and his problem are a good fit. A lot of firms aren’t marketing themselves well enough in this field. Either it deviates from the customer’s query, or the company’s pitches are only focused on features. Customers are unaware that these features help them address their own difficulties. At the other end of the spectrum, marketing is devoid of details, relying solely on concepts and introductions, making it difficult for clients to perceive the value of SaaS.
The best solution is to use Freemium or Free Trial so that customers can use it directly. If it works, it is the best Education.
The goal of this stage: make customers perceive your value, your SaaS product is effective, and it’s appropriate for the problem.
The more you prepare for the information involved in this stage, the easier it will be to perceive your value. For instance, write a large number of blogs that go into full detail about how to use a specific feature of the product. These articles’ purpose is not only to instruct users on how to use the product but also to educate potential customers.
Many clients have kept some questions hidden in their minds and have not spoken out about them. For example, I want to receive email responses from customers when I choose an email marketing operator, and the email address must be domain-specific. When it comes to SaaS vendors, I’m quite picky; if they’re not domain-specific, I’m not interested in making a trail. Finally, there was none that seemed really appropriate, so I went with one that mentioned domain-specific in the blog. This suggests that SaaS firms are aware of the issue, and it may be resolved in the future, even if it isn’t now.
Education entails doing all possible to ensure that users understand and trust your product.
3. Selection: This is why the customer picks you over other options to solve their problem.
After the client has decided to pay on SaaS, the selection stage begins. The customers will test the product at this time, and if it is simple to use, you will be listed as a candidate. They’ll start to get a sense of how you charge and will read through the Terms of Service. The most typical method is to compare pricing tables between various SaaS vendors. Which features do you have in your product and which do not? They also check Quora at this point to see what other users say.
You’ve convinced them of your product, and now all you have to do is outperform your competitors. The most devastating failure is losing during the selection stage. You’ve invested a significant amount of time in the Awareness and Education stages. Win the Selection stage!.
The goal of this stage: Build trust, explain what makes your product unique, and outperform your competitors.
At this stage, the marketing and sales strategy have two points. The first is to emphasize the product’s uniqueness. This is represented in the product differentiation competitive strategy. Rather than comparing pricing in the same area, it’s your uniqueness that is most likely to exceed your opponent. You should emphasize the issues related to your product’s unique features. The second is to compensate for flaws. Pay attention to the payment method and contact approaches such as phones or emails. You don’t need to take these contents as priorities, but you should provide fundamental guarantees and inform customers. Just like when the iPhone first came out, it still guarantees basic phone calls and text messages, emails, and more. Although these are not the focus of its launch. Customers won’t buy your product since you have these features, but they may abandon the purchase because you don’t have them.
The selection gives customers a reason for closing.
4. Success: It is how customers can gain success.
Customer onboarding, initial AHA, and subsequent use all contribute to success. It also addresses challenges that clients face as they scale. What are the limits of SaaS products? What can and cannot be done using SaaS? The Success stage includes all-important product usage, from function to method.
Customers will study how to use the product effectively, whether other users have done so, and which features have not been utilized. Customers are welcome to ask CSM questions, but they may not contact CSM. You must be prepared for clients searching for the information. In the world of SaaS success, there is a fairly common occurrence. Your product plainly has a feature that solves a customer’s issue, but the customer is unaware of it. You should review your clients’ usage patterns on a regular basis. Inquire as to why these features aren’t being used by customers. To maintain a perpetual sense of surprise among clients.
In the content marketing of the Success stage, there should not only be how to operate some functions like the manual. Focus on the scene in the client’s work. Under what situations should customers utilize SaaS features, whether they need to do more actions outside of the software, and how can SaaS combined with the proper use achieve success?
Some SaaS products must be coupled with the company’s processes and business strategy in order to have the best impact. For instance, the product value of some team collaboration SaaS products is determined by how users use the platform. There are also a number of SaaS products that must be utilized in tandem with consulting. These are also what Success needs to accomplish.
The goal of this stage: let customers use the product well and improve the likelihood of renewal and extra purchases.
This is the time to inform customers about how others are using your product. Enable the customers to learn about other people’s experiences with SaaS and how they use it. Customer success stories are the most effective means of communication and the beating heart of success. Clients should be also informed regularly about which extensions are in premium plans or in the roadmap.
The Success stage is to verify that SaaS works as advertised and that they experience the benefits the SaaS provides.
The uncertainty and loops in the Customer Journey.
Uncertainty
The typical client has a holistic experience that includes awareness, education, selection, and success. When clients contact you, they may skip the stage Awareness, go straight to the stage Education, skip the stage Selection, and go straight to the stage Success. The client journey is merely an idealized scenario.
This indicates that each stage represents a product marketing opportunity. The success story in the Success stage can cover the material of Awareness, Education, and Selection, although there aren’t as many particular specifics, it’s the best marketing and most successful.
Loops
Most SaaS products are Tiered-based pricing, and many advanced features are not available in basic plans. Is the premium plan capable of meeting a customer’s new requirement? The customer was restored to the stage of Awareness at this point. Existing clients at the Success stage can revert to the Awareness stage at any time when they will encounter new issues and have to restart the procedure. The customer journey is a loop.
As a result, customer marketing keeps ongoing. Customers don’t stick with what they’ve done in the past; instead, they recognize new challenges, seek new solutions, and explore better suppliers. This cycle opens up a slew of fresh Upsell and Cross-sell prospects, as well as the possibility of churn. New competitors enter the market all the time, and they will strike by focusing on areas that the leaders miss. This is why, in the SaaS world, there are always latecomers and no one can monopolize the market.
There are two situations when an existing customer chooses to leave:
The first is that customers’ needs are changing, and your product isn’t able to meet them. This condition demonstrates that your product needs immediate updating and is out of trend. It was a fiasco, not a pity.
The second is the new problems which your product can cover but the customers are unaware of. This is a failure to see that the Customer Journey is a loop that repeats itself, and marketing isn’t executing incorrectly. This failure can be avoided.
The Customer Journey in SaaS marketing is a way of looking at marketing from the customer’s point of view. Successful marketing is about delivering what people want to know in a timely manner, not about employing a certain medium to deliver information. After you’ve figured out the Customer Journey, you’ll have a good idea of what information clients require at any stage.
Please send me an email (jasperhanlingyi@gmail.com) if you have any questions or suggestions.
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