As the situation is likely to remain the same for some time to come, many SaaS managers are looking to accelerate their growth in 2021. However, for early-stage companies, the timing to take a chance is crucial and difficult to determine, and it can even mean the difference between life and death.
Looking back at the domestic venture market, it is not uncommon to see brilliant entrepreneurs take risks too early, only to have them fail, only to have a company emerge a turkmenistan b2b leads little later and take the fruits of their labor. Of course, being too cautious can also mean missing out on opportunities.
For startups and venture companies to ride the wave of growth, they need to properly determine the timing based on the trends of the times, the maturity of the product, market trends, etc. It is also very important to implement a marketing strategy that is appropriate for the current stage of the company.
In this article, we will explain marketing strategies for B2B SaaS companies at each stage.
Differences in BtoB SaaS Marketing Strategies
(This blog post is limited to B2B SaaS only.)
Understanding your company's business model is essential for successful marketing. For example, the business models of BtoB and BtoC are very different, but even the same BtoB model can be quite diverse when looked at in detail.
When it comes to BtoB SaaS , due to its characteristics, the business flow is completely different from general BtoB, for example, manufacturing.
What are the characteristics of the SaaS business model?
There is no buying and selling of physical goods (as a result, there are no purchasing costs or shipping costs)
The contract amount is not large, and the unit price per person starts at about a few hundred yen.
Monthly billing instead of one-time purchase
The sales cycle for new business development is short (even shorter than the sales cycle for high-priced products such as B2C housing)
Free trial and freemium strategies are easily implemented
Unlike on-premise systems, customizability is low (so integration with peripheral tools is important)
Cancellation is easy, and high customer satisfaction directly translates to sales.
From the customer's perspective, SaaS is an attractive service that is low-priced, has little risk, and can be easily introduced. The number of companies introducing SaaS is steadily increasing, and government agencies and local governments are also actively using SaaS, so there are probably more interested potential customers than before.
However, it is still unclear whether awareness of BtoB SaaS is widespread, and I think there are many businessmen who say, "I've seen the term before, but I don't know the details."
I myself have been involved in B2B software since before my previous job at HubSpot, and I have been in this field for almost 10 years now, so I sometimes get numb to it, but the number of people who properly understand the advantages and disadvantages of SaaS business and subscription models is very small in the general society. From my own experience, I feel that it is probably less than 5%.
For example, in the "Results of an International Corporate Survey on Cloud Services" published in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications' 2018 Information and Communications White Paper , the most common answer given to the question "Challenges with cloud services" by those who have not yet adopted cloud services, among Japanese companies, was " We don't understand the challenges " (Japan is on the far left in the figure below).
Issues with cloud services
In addition, when asked about "challenges to implementation" in the same survey, Japan had a significantly higher response rate of "concerns about security" than other countries, followed by "concerns about network stability" and "not understanding the benefits" (the blue line in the figure below represents Japan).
Issues in introducing cloud services
(Source : Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications )
In short, they are not aware of the issues their companies face that can be solved by cloud systems (including SaaS), i.e. they do not know what SaaS can do. Therefore, they do not understand the benefits. It is necessary to recognize that this is a market where many companies are concerned about security.
However, other countries also had high scores for "not understanding the benefits," suggesting that the value of SaaS is not well communicated. SaaS often has a free trial strategy, but this is also likely due to the fact that it does not put much of a burden on the vendor, and that SaaS is difficult for potential customers to understand without trying it out.
Either way, it cannot be said that SaaS is properly recognized, so there seems to be room for improvement in marketing strategies.
In domestic BtoB SaaS marketing, it is necessary to focus on proactively delivering educational content to the TOFU demographic (described later) in the funnel to generate interest and awareness of the company's issues. Also, the key point will be whether potential customers can feel reassured about security and network aspects.
