This content is provided for informational purposes only and is not original. All copyrights to the original creators are acknowledged.
Table of Contents
- How to influence your SaaS Growth?
- How to get started with GTM strategy
- The 5 elements of a SaaS GTM Strategy
- Market Strategy
- Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
- Market Segmentation & Positioning
- Product Strategy
- Sales Strategy
- The Model / Pricing Strategy
- Value Proposition & Messaging
- Growth Channels & Activities
- Measuring Success
How to influence your SaaS Growth?
How to influence your SaaS Growth?
Joel York defines the growth of a SaaS company as the following:
SaaS Growth = Acquisition Rate x Average Customer Lifetime Value
This means you can effectively influence the growth of your SaaS business by optimizing at least one of the following components:
Net Growth Customers: ✅ Adding more new customers (new customer growth)
✅ Reduce churn of customers (churn rate)
Average Revenue per Account (ARPA) ✅ Upselling & Cross-selling
✅ Pricing
Customer Lifetime ✅ Churn Rate & Retention
✅ ARPA
… or simply said:
✅ adding new customers
✅ reducing the loss of existing customers (churn)
✅ increasing the revenue per customer (CLV).
Content for this section...
How to get started with GTM strategy
How to get started with GTM strategy
When launching your business, it’s recommended to start by understanding the MARKET and identifying the PROBLEMS you’re going to solve.
Find out who are the ones that have these problems and define your IDEAL CUSTOMER PROFILE how you want to position yourself in the market (POSITIONING).
From there you can create your PRODUCT STRATEGY (how you solve the problem) and what’s in for them (VALUE PROPOSITION).
Next you decide how you’re hunting the ICP (SALES STRATEGY) and craft a compelling value proposition (MESSAGING).
Last but not least you need to experiment with various GROWTH CHANNELS to connect with potential customers.
This process needs to be a continuous iteration.
Content for this section...
The 5 elements of a SaaS GTM Strategy
The 5 elements of a SaaS GTM Strategy
There are five critical elements that determine the success of your SaaS product:
1️⃣ The Market
2️⃣ The Product
3️⃣ The Model (Pricing)
4️⃣ The Message
5️⃣ The (Growth) Channel
By ensuring that these components are aligned with each other, you can develop a powerful go-to-market (GTM) strategy that will drive growth and success.
Market Strategy
- Market Strategy First understand the market you’re going after.
What is happening/changing (at a higher level) in the market (macro trend) right now? Why do your customers need to care (now) about your product?
What is the problem you’re going to solve? Be specific!
Describe the problem in your words.
Now describe the problem in the words of your customers (use their words).
How important is the problem for them? Explain Why.
How urgent is the problem for them? Explain Why.
How frequent is the problem for them? Explain Why.
What did they already try to fix the problem?
How do customers currently handle the problem? Status quo (shitty situation A) and desired dream outcome (ideal situation B)
What is the status quo?
… What (tools) are they using right now?
… What do they like & dislike about it?
What would the ideal solution (dream outcome) look like?
What’s holding them back?
Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
- Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) Who exactly has this problem? Follow the steps below to get a better picture and come up with a clearly defined ICP.
💡You can also use the Ultimate Ideal Customer Profile Framework.
Firmographics: Who is your Target Organization/Company?
… What’s the company’s size (in terms of #employees)?
… What’s the company’s size (in terms of € revenue)?
… What’s the company’s stage (startup vs. established company)?
… Is the company growing or shrinking?
… What’s the company’s industry?
… What’s the company’s geography/country?
… Are there any other relevant criterias that identify your ideal target company? (e.g. tools they use, products they produce, policies they have…)
Persona Information: Who is your buyer persona(s) and end-user?
Who is the decision maker and who is the end user of the product?
What information do you have about the Buyer Persona(s) and Users?
… What’s their (exact) job title(s)?
… What department are they working?
… What’s their team size?
… What’s their education and qualification?
… What hobbies/interest they have?
What are the top 3 jobs to be done? Be specific!
Apply the concept of a Day in the Life of your customer to get the following infos.
What are their daily activities?
What are their key responsibilities?
What are their goals & success metrics?
What are their challenges and biggest pain points? Also add 3 general pain points besides the one you’re trying to solve.
Learn unique insights on your Customer’s Behaviour:
What (other) software tools are they using?
How do they normally buy products? … What are the channels they normally use to find a solution?
… Who is involved in the purchasing decision?
… How does the process look like?
What partnerships do they have?
Who else is selling a complimentary service/product to them?
Use the Dream 100 Concept (by Russell Brunson) to identify where your ICP hangs out? Write down…
What content (website, newsletters, podcasts, blogs, Youtube channels…) they consume? … The top 5 websites they visit
… The top 5 newsletter they read
… The top 5 podcast they listen to
… The top 5 youtube channels they watch
What online channels they are active on? … The top 10 active groups (Facebook, Slack, Discord…)
Who are they following (Influencers, role models…) … The top 20+ people they follow …
What events are they taking part in? … online and offline events
Who do they want to become? Who are their role models?
What are the criterias of your ideal customer segment? (e.g. Creator with 10k+ followers; sending 20+ invoices per month, etc.)
Who are the ones within your ideal customer profile you can win first? (relevant for launching your business)
… Who are early adopters for your product you can start with?
… How do you identify early adopters? Where do you find them?
What trigger events (intent data) are a proxy that your ICP is ready and need your solution? (great for sales outreach)
Content for this section...
Market Segmentation & Positioning
- Market Segmentation & Positioning 💡Make sure to read the 6 types of SaaS positioning & the 3 types of competition.
What is the segment of the market you go after? Are you hunting flies vs. mice vs. deer vs. elephants vs. whales (see Christoph Janz: 5 ways to build a 100€ million business)?
How do you position yourself in the (competitive) market? Niche player, low-cost vs. premium player, lightweight player, unique benefit player. (check out the 6 types of unique positioning)
Product Adoption Curve & Stage of Awareness
Which stage in the Product Adoption Curve are you targeting (right now)? Where does your ICP belong to?
What is the overall awareness of your product (completely new vs. existing market)? Is it a red ocean (existing market with demand & competition) or a blue ocean (create demand in the market & little/no competition)?
How much do you need to educate the market?
What stage of awareness do they have? Are they problem unaware, problem aware, solution aware or product aware.
How big is the (total addressable) market (TAM)? Calculate the size.
Bottom-up calculation for new markets
Top-down calculation for existing markets
Product Strategy
- Product Strategy How do you serve them? What is in for them?
What product are you selling? (product category statement)
Time-to-value: What is the (first) powerful aha moment in your product?
What are the stakeholders of your product?
Who is the decision-maker?
Who are the user(s) of your product?
Are there different levels/types of users?
How complex and new is your product?
Can self-service work? Do you need to show the value or can prospects experience the value?
What can you do to make product adoption easy?
What about product engagement?
How do you measure how your customer is doing? What is the success metric?
What are key relevant activities in the product you should measure (product usage metrics)?
What are signals (red flags) that indicate users are in danger to churn?
How do you keep your customer? What is your lock-in? What can you do to make switching costs high (make your product sticky)?
How do you achieve virality with your product? What viral feature do you have?
Sales Strategy
- Sales Strategy
What is your dominant sales motion (Product-led vs. Sales-led vs. Hybrid)?
Define your sales funnel. What are the key stages and how do you track them?
What is the customer journey?
What key touchpoints do they have with you? Map out your customer’s journey.
How do you intend to onboard new customers? What are your onboarding activities?
How do you get new users to the Aha-moment?
Map out your Growth Flywheel (Acquisition, Activation, Revenue, Retention, Referral) and what key activities you do in each stage.
The Model / Pricing Strategy
- The Model / Pricing Strategy 💡Make sure to read the Ultimate SaaS Pricing Guide.
What are you charging for? What is your value metric?
How do you charge your customers based on value? (flat-rate vs. usage-based vs. tiered pricing)
How much do you charge? What is the ROI for your customer? Aim for a 10x in value.
What pricing tiers do you offer? What is your packaging?
What pricing terms do you have? (billing, discounts, add-ons, cancellations, free trials)
How can they purchase your product? (e-commerce vs. e-signing)
How can you increase the average revenue per account (ARPA)? How can you scale with your customers?
What upselling options do you have?
What cross-selling options do you have?
What are the best channels to increase the ARPA? Who is responsible for each of them?
Value Proposition & Messaging
- Value Proposition & Messaging Why do you do what you do and what’s your unique view on the market (Brand Message)? And how you communicate the value of your product to your audience in all your customer-facing communication (Messaging). All your content and copy (the exact words you use) in your ads, website, emails, sales calls, social media posts, etc. rely on them.
💡You can also use the Ultimate SaaS Messaging Framework.
What is the key value proposition (high-level) of your product?
Tomasz Tunguz says
“There are three kinds of software value propositions. Software that increases revenue, software that reduces cost, and software that promises improved productivity.”
How do you achieve this value proposition (3 bullet points)?
Your Brand Messaging
A great starting point for powerful brand messaging can be the Golden Circle (WHY/HOW/WHAT) by Simon Sinek.
Your brand messaging is your unique view: … how do you see the market on a higher level (big picture)?
… why do you want to serve the market (your motivation)?
… why now? What are macro trends in our society supporting your business?
Messaging: Communicating the value of your product to your ICP. Start to work on your key messaging elements (also use the elements from above including the shitty status quo, the pain points, desired outcome and ICP in your messaging). → Ultimate SaaS Messaging Framework What is your product (product category)? What are your top 3 killer features? What are the new capabilities they get using your product (make use of the features)? What results/benefits does your product deliver? Start with the ‘immediate’ first order benefits (the ones that are tangible, highly believable) and then move to the ‘resulting’ second/third order benefits (less tangible, less believable)
… What are the functional results/benefits (the core task your customers want to get done)?
… What are the emotional results/benefits (how they feel/not feel anymore, as a result of the functional result)?
… What are the social results/benefits (how they are perceived by others)?
How can you quantify your results? Do you have any social proof you can leverage in your pitch?
What is your 1-sentence value proposition? Start with one of the following templates:
We, [company XYZ], create software/platform for [ICP] that enables/empowers/helps them to [Main Result] by [How]
We enable/empower/help [ICP] to [Main Result] by [Solution]
Our product helps [ICP] who want [jobs to be done] by [minimizing a pain] and [maximizing a gain] unlike [your competitors]
What makes you special/better? What is your differentiator over your (direct & indirect) competition?
What are the 3 main objections and how to overcome them?
Growth Channels & Activities
- Growth Channels & Activities
What growth channels and growth tactics do you use to reach your target customer?
How long does it take you (sales cycle) and how much does it cost you to acquire new customers (CACs)?
Plan your growth activities for your growth channels.
Reverse Engineer: Plan how much traffic, outreach, leads, MQLs/signups, SQLs/active users, and customers you need to achieve your growth/revenue goal.
What activities do you need to deliver every day/week/month to master each growth channel?
Who is responsible (& accountable) for each growth channel?
How do you align your growth team (goal setting, tools, meetings, etc.)?
Test different growth channels to see what works, but master one channel at a time.
Measuring Success
- Measuring Success Setting ambitious goals (e.g. using the OKR framework), measuring performance, and iterating your growth strategy is the way to go. Make sure you measure the right metrics.
What is your North Star Metric?
What are the 3-5 core metrics you track to analyze the health of your growth?
What is your value metric?
What are the top 3 product usage metrics?
What are the sales funnel stages? Track your sales funnel!
What do you measure per growth channel to see if the channel works or not?
For more information, check out the official documentation on BlockStudio or check out on my Github