At this point, we’re roughly midway through the process. The Attract, Convert and Experience stages have led your prospects through the steps to become users of your product, but now the time has come to unlock the next achievement in your customer development. Subsequent installments of our full breakdown will explain the remaining stages. At this time, however, we’ll detail the next part of the SaaS Marketing Journey, the Success phase.
The Quest for Success
Because of the ongoing service they provide, SaaS products have long placed an emphasis on customer success. Yet, this concept is distinctly separate from customer satisfaction, as Success focuses on establishing a strong connection between customers and your product. Moreover, it depends on the capability of users to recognize the need fulfilled by your business and the effectiveness with which it accomplishes just that.
This stage of the SaaS Marketing Journey focuses on the creation of this customer success relationship, which in turn leads into the long-term retention your business needs to grow. Such stability serves as a baseline for you to develop your product around, and by concentrating on the customer experience through communication and targeted content marketing with your core users, you’re able to continue to strengthen the power of your product.
In many ways, the Success stage is the lynchpin upon which the accomplishments of the entire SaaS Marketing Journey hinge. During this period, your leads continue to transform into customers, while customers progress to promoters who eagerly share the value of your product with those around them.
The Strategies You Can Use
With the goal of customer success in mind, many effective strategies can be put in place to assess just how durable the bond between your users and your product has become. Here are just a few of the tools you can use to get a clear picture of where your product stands:
Net promoter score (NPS) and other surveys
During this stage, it’s useful to employ a variety of surveys to gauge the level of customeIr engagement derived from your product. However, the net promoter score (NPS) -- which can often have a direct impact on revenue -- may be among the most effective.
In-app and personalized messaging
One of the best ways to ascertain customer success is to connect directly with your user base. Due to the prevalence of mobile applications and messaging services, this is far easier than it was even a few years ago.
Training and educational content
Making training material for your product available to users can help boost their engagement, as it may alleviate some hesitation on their part to fully capitalize on all the features at their disposal.
"How to" resources, product webinars and tutorial videos
Similar to the availability of training content, documents, videos or other content designed to lead users through the various aspects of your product may help them discover some applications they didn’t even know they needed.
Customer reviews and testimonials
You should encourage customers to submit reviews and testimonials regarding your product. Negative responses can often uncover improvements you may be able to make, while positive ones could inspire other prospects to give your product a try.
How to Measure Success
Since the Success stage is dually aimed at building and maintaining your customer base, there are multiple ways in which you can evaluate the relationship between your users and your product. Churn and retention rates can give you a strong indication whether the majority of customers are remaining active, and a drastic drop could signal the need for some serious action to set things right. Likewise, the amount of revenue brought in by your expansion efforts can clue you into the effectiveness of your current strategy and reveal if your current approach is truly working.
Conclusion
Although communication with your customers is key to the Success stage, the road to success laid out in the SaaS Marketing Journey isn’t over yet. We can’t wait to share the rest of our analysis on the process with you, as the tools described therein will surely prove to be instrumental in developing your business in the future. Stay tuned for the next installment in our ongoing series soon, and prepare for a significant boost in your SaaS business.
