The SaaS Growth Blog

After commenting on a post by SaaSMetrics, I realized how much confusion and mixed definitions there are on the difference between ACV (Annual Contract Value) and ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue), which prompted me to think -- "I need to research this a bit more". I want to breakdown my explanation and findings, and define where confusion currently exists.

Do you know if your product’s Free Trial is hitting industry conversion benchmarks? If not, you could be leaving a lot of money on the table. This article will help you determine just how much is being potentially lost and make sure you’re picking the right type of trial for your customer acquisition model.

Actionable Metrics Canvas by Inturact is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Whether you are just starting your business or working on scaling, growing your customer base is essential to the success of any SaaS business. One of the most important places to start is by tracking the SaaS metrics that matter most. The simplest and most effective model for this is called Actionable Metrics or AARRR.

You know that content is king for creating a loyal and engaged customer base. But businesses sometimes find that content marketing is just as challenging as marketing the product that the content is designed to sell.

Content marketing should seamlessly drive customers to the product or service you're selling, not become just another source of stress for your business. Simply devising a content marketing strategy isn't sufficient to get your brand off the ground. If your strategy isn't working, you're probably making one of these seven common mistakes.

Here’s how to DIY your marketing cartography in 5 simple steps. 

1. Answer this question: Who are your best buyers now?

The answer, or answers, to this question is what you use to create a buyer persona – a fictional character representing your ideal client. This persona should have a gender, an age, a profession, and yes, even a personality.

All successful business owners know that the key to their success is due to the customer’s satisfaction. The customer always comes first. Being proactive about the customer’s needs by going out of your way to anticipate them will undoubtedly provide you with a satisfied and consistent customer base.

The SaaS Marketing Journey -- that arduous road that sees newcomers to your business become active promoters of the products you offer -- is a complicated beast, to be sure. However, just because the tasks ahead pose a significant challenge to your SaaS business, it doesn’t mean that success is beyond your reach. In fact, a number of companies have wisely leveraged SaaS content marketing to gain customers and boost awareness.

Following the successive stages of the SaaS Marketing Journey, we’ll touch base on the best practices of just a few of the companies who have optimized their content marketing efforts.

Somewhere along the line, we lost the idea to “Give the people what they want!” As marketers and as startup founders, that idea has always been our guiding star. But along the way, that simple message tends to get diluted, becoming “Give the people what we think they want,” or even worse, “Give the people what will make us the most money.”

What happens all too easily is that the people don’t get what they want, or get what they want at first, then find themselves saddled with a version of your SaaS that doesn’t deliver what they need at all.

Imagine if you could give every visitor to your site an experience targeted particularly to their interests. Doing so might be easier than you think. You don't need to write special content catering to various demographics and interests. And you certainly don't have to write personally tailored posts.

All you need is a bit of information about your readers. From there, you can start targeting your posts to their idiosyncratic content consumption habits. Here's how to thread the needle between custom-tailored content and creepy intrusiveness.

You’ve already gotten your prospects aware of your product and committed to a free trial. Now it should just be a matter of time before they become paying customers, right? Unfortunately, it’s not always that easy to get trial users to convert to premium subscribers, even when they’ve been able to gain some hands-on experience with your product. Luckily, hope is not lost when it comes to getting your SaaS leads to take that leap into the premium version of your product.