The SaaS Growth Blog

You’ve been on this road before and you recognize the signs.

They sign up for a free trial, and never click another button. They’ve dropped off the face of the earth for all you know. So you send them an email extending their free trial, and sweeten the deal with a freebie offer.

They open that email (of course they do!), only to discover that the product they would have paid for (probably…eventually…when they found the time) is essentially free to them, and that sends them into a tailspin of questioning your credibility as a company and the worth of your SaaS product.

Marketing automation just created a roadblock – in fact, it may have blown up a whole bridge on your highway to Salesville.

Inbound marketing not only increases your leads – when done right, it also increases the quality of your leads. Ideally, your sales team should only be engaging with inbound leads who are warm and informed – and most importantly, qualified. The way we begin this process of separating the wheat from the chaff is to first hone in on what a “qualified” lead looks like for each of our clients.

What does a qualified lead look like?

Think of the leads you’ve had in the past year who were fully prepared to buy. What characteristics did they have in common? How do they find you? What social media are they on? What are their frequently-asked questions? The best answers will probably come from the men and women on the front lines: Your sales team.*

Inbound Marketing is all about building relationships – really! That's what we’re doing right now by publishing helpful articles and Tweeting daily awesome insights for your reading pleasure. It turns out that being friendly online isn't just good karma, it's good marketing. Do good work, treat people well, help when you can, and be likeable. Sustainable sales can be as simple as that.

Email marketing and marketing automation are connected, like Tiger Woods and his golf club. Now, Tiger Woods could probably use a pool cue to hit a golf ball and do better than most of us, but having the right tool for the job does make a substantial difference – even to his game. To be clear, in this metaphor, Tiger is Email Marketing, and his golf club is Marketing Automation. For great Email Marketing to make those hole-in-one shots, it needs the right tool to get the ball on the green.* The two combined is a powerfully rewarding combination.

*Your customers are the little spiky bits of grass on the green.

Don't waste money chasing customers when they can strategically come to you.

It’s no secret there is a direct correlation between the number of sales qualified leads passed to your sales team and the amount of closed sales. The key is “sales qualified,” so how to you attract the right leads to your SaaS product and push them down the sales funnel at a lower cost per customer? One answer is inbound marketing.

Inbound marketing is the strategic approach to delivering quality content to the right people at the right time. Rather than blast a message to a target audience and cross your fingers that they will just happen to be at the beginning of their purchase cycle, inbound marketing is the science of bringing qualified buyers to you. By offering content that aligns with their purchase decision phases, you position yourself as the expert and go-to source when they’re ready to buy.

Dick had a system, or, more accurately, Dick was the system. Dick believed in personal customer service, but also knew that the leads contacting his flooring installation company came in three flavors: Just looking, Just pricing, and Just make my floors happen NOW!