Fundamentals of Organic SaaS Growth
Thirteen Pillars of Organic SaaS Growth
Grow your SaaS business without falling for vanity
Organic growth is not just organic traffic; it’s the organic nurturing, conversion, retention, and delight of the highest possible proportion of the best-fit segment of that organic traffic.
With that, let’s jump to the first pillar of organic growth.
1. Point of View
Your POV determines your field of possibilities.
The quality of your point-of-view decides the quality of your business decisions and in turn, the results.
Be careful what you believe to be true and possible. Develop a growth POV.
2. The Loop of Market Growth
A delighted segment opens the doors to another one.
Target one market segment at a time. Select the one at the intersection of ‘easiest to capture’, ‘most profitable’, and ‘aligned with the product vision’.
Once conquered, it will lead you to another, more lucrative segment.
3. Product ABC: Best Product Always Wins
Irrespective of what anyone says, a product that works, always wins. More so, if you are in a competitive market.
Product means whole product — features, support, community, experience.
4. A Gentleman’s Evangelism: The Forced Multiplier
Be an evangelist of the ‘problem-solution’ domain of your product.
Your product is more than its features; it’s a ray-of-hope against the mediocrity and tyranny of your competitors. It’s a mirror to people’s hopes and dreams. Tell them.
5. Man & Machine: The Design of Cohesive Weaponry
An army is as good as its weapon are. Take time and design cohesive weaponry — analytics, lead gen and nurturing, CRM, demo delivery, NPS, and everything in between.
See it scales with your business.
6. Economics: Maximizing the Value Creation
Price on value — what it means for the customers to use your product.
Optimize your plans and pricing to maximize the value creation for your business and your customers.
7. The SaaS Analytics Stack
With your machine in place, focus on:
- Web analytics to improve website and outreach,
- Funnel analysis to improve conversion,
- Cohort analysis to improve retention
Capture, analyze and improve.
8. Funnels: Empowering Prospects Fight the Confusion
There is a lot of information out there at the disposal of prospects looking to solve their problems, which often leads to confusion. Think of funnels as a way to help your prospects make better decisions.
Build and optimize at least one sales funnel. Help prospects fight confusion.
9. The Lean Distribution
Understand the difference between renting and owning distribution infrastructure.
Convey the ‘right message’ to the ‘right people’ for high signal.
Be intentional to achieve high Signal to Noise ratio.
10. Experiments: Conquering Bewilderment
Avoid bewilderment by knowing:
- What has worked and Why?
- What has not worked and Why?
- What’s the best next step?
11. Cracking the Enigma of Leaky Bucket: CRO
Growth ≠ Web Traffic
Growth ∝ Traffic * Conversion * Retention
Use conversion rate optimization to crack the nigma of Leaky Bucket.
As prospects advance from being visitors to users, leverage conversion optimzation for low cost and high value growth.
12. The Alchemy of Stickiness
If you have:
- been in business for a while
- have atleast a few hundreds of users actively using your product
Churn product usage data and invest in data science to discover your most compelling growth opportunities.
13. The Unfair Advantage of Competitive Moats
Successful businesses have used leverages like low-interest debt, technology, deep customer insights, and network to achieve high growth.
A business with leverage is a business on wheels — customers love it, competitors can’t get their head around its growth. Find your leverage.
Two truths about SaaS growth Strategies
- A growth strategy is as good as the insights it is based on.
- A bad strategy takes almost the same effort to execute as it takes for a good strategy
To discover the most compelling growth insights for your SaaS business, analyze the data like website traffic, new signups, free user activation, and paid plan-wise customers. Even if you are a new business, you can still discover impactful growth insights from just a few months of data.
Use the SaaS Growth Growth Model — a spreadsheet-based model that analyzes the data using more than eight different analyses, discovers hidden growth levers, and suggests top growth strategies for your business.
Get it here : SaaS Growth Strategy Model
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