Customers that are interested in Software-as-a-Service want to Search, Find, Try, and Buy online. These are known as web-centric buyers. Many SaaS providers have realized that the most efficient way to reach both these buyers, as well as web-agnostic buyers, is to:
- Make their offering web-site the focal point of all marketing demand generation activities;
- Offer customer self-subscription on the web to directly address the web-centric prospect.
Success with this type of web-centric go-to-market strategy is based on 8 key success factors. The challenge, however, is achieving the required level of maturity for all of these success factors. A lack of maturity in any one of the success factors can seriously inhibit the success of the web-centric business.
The critical success factors for the web-centric SaaS business are:
- Messaging & Positioning
- Packaging & Pricing
- Web-Site Best Practices
- Integrated Demand Generation Activities
- Online Customer Experience
- Direct and Indirect Sales Processes
- Organizational Effectiveness
- Competitive Differentiation
As an example, if you have very mature pay-per-click advertising campaigns running, but are driving prospects to a web site where they can't find the information they need to self-qualify and make the buying decision, then the maturity of your web site may be inhibiting your sales.
If you think about the effectiveness of each of these areas as a scale of maturity from 1-5, then the reality of selling and marketing SaaS is that you have to get all of these success factors to a minimal level of maturity before your business will start to achieve any level of predictability in terms of sales.
Getting your SaaS business to a predictable level is critical so that you can start to measure and understand your customer acquisition costs and the return-on-investment for marketing spend.
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About hagins
Jeff Hagins has more than 24 years of experience in product marketing, product management, software development, technical operations, service delivery, and software quality. Hagins is currently the Managing Partner for Mural Consulting and a General Partner of Mural Ventures, both companies that focus exclusively on Software-as-a-Service. His career has also included positions as Chief Technology Officer, Senior Vice President of Product Management, Chief Architect, Vice President of Engineering, and Board Member for companies such as Lockheed Martin, J.D. Edwards, TeleComputing, Apptix, Dynix, and SMBLive.
Hagins has been active in the Software-as-a-Service industry from the beginning, helping to launch the J.D. Edwards ASP initiative in early 2000, becoming a board member of the ASP Industry Consortium (ASPIC) in 2001, as an advisor to the Computing Technology Industry Association (COMPTIA) Software Services Group, and as an advisor to Microsoft on the Communications & Collaboration Developer Advisory Council. Hagins is currently also a member of the Gerson-Lehrman Technology, Media, and Telecommunications Council of Advisors.
Hagins has worked actively over the last 6 years in the Utility Computing and Software-As-A-Service industry with companies such as Microsoft, British Telecom, CSC, Telecom New Zealand, Cable & Wireless, NTT, MCI, Bell Canada, Savvis, and many others. His efforts with these ISVs and Service Providers have focused on overall Go-To-Market Strategy and Execution, Product & Marketing Strategy, Channel Development, Service Design & Architecture, Service Optimization, and OSS/BSS Integration. Hagins' experience in the SaaS industry is unique, having worked as CTO for SaaS ISVs such as SMBLive, as a CTO for pure-play Application Hosters such as Apptix, and even as the CIO for a mid-market company purchasing SaaS offerings (Dynix). He brings a unique perspective on the complete value-chain for SaaS, and in his role as Managing Partner for Mural Consulting is actively working with ISVs and Service Providers of all shapes and sizes to help them define and execute their SaaS strategies.