Digital Marketing Case Study reviewing strategy behind user acquisition of a SaaS product.

1. Ryan Ruud // Portfolio
Digital Strategy  Marketing  PR

2. FanTools
Acquisition Strategy

3. Situation
• New SaaS offering from Minneapolis software company, Four51
• Social media-publishing suite for small businesses
• Being marketed and sold with inside and outside sales activity
Goal
• Board of Directors set a goal for FanTools to acquire 1,000+ users
Methodology
• Keyword research, primary research captured from sales force and user experience
testing
FanTools
Acquisition Strategy

4. FanTools
Acquisition Strategy
Key findings:
• Small business owners preferred to discover and engage a social media tool online.
• Sign up and online experience frustrating/confusing.
• Plenty of affordable online channels to leverage in campaigns.
• SMBs were put off by words like platform, seemed like work and still didn’t entirely
understand what the benefit.

5. FanTools
Acquisition Strategy
The Strategy
• Refocus sales & marketing strategy to online lead/acquisition.
• Simplify website and sign up process.
• Multichannel paid, owned, earned and shared approach.
• Change positioning from “Social Promotion Platform” to “Your Social Media Guide”.
• Campaign core around a new mascot, “Joe the Pizza Guy”, to introduce product.
• http://bit.ly/VTKPKM

6. FanTools
Acquisition Strategy
Web
Update from flash enabled, no CTA, unclear message difficult user experience and hard to
update to new site with CMS, Strong CTA, Customer reinforcement, Clear message

8. FanTools
Acquisition Strategy
Media
Take “Your Social Media Guide” theme into a multichannel, paid, owned, earned and shared
media effort.
Strategy
Focus on industry verticals ( ex. hospitality, retail, restaurant) and functional areas ( ex.
management, monitoring, promotions) to align messaging and content for all media to
industry or function for relevance.

9. PPC targeted by
verticals and function
via Facebook and
Google in U.S., Canada
and U.K.

10. More than a dozen
earned media
opportunities during the
campaign including:
• Social Media Explorer
• Ragan Communications
• Business2Community
• Business Journals
• SmallBizTrends

11. Dozens of owned
media, keyword rich,
posts to drive organic
growth to domain and
capture leads/users.

12. Focus social media on
engaging in
conversations to provide
helpful social media
marketing content and
humanizing the software
and FanTools team.

13. FanTools
Acquisition Strategy
Results
45 days after launching, exceeded the goal of achieving 1,000 sign ups. Prior to, cost of
acquisition ~ $250 per sign up.
Following campaign:
• SEM CPA: $53.97
• Facebook: CPA: $72.71
Blended CPA: $54.55
Campaign generated more than 63,000,000 digital media impressions
at a nominal cost to the traditional sales channel

14. About Ryan Ruud
Ryan Ruud is a Minneapolis, MN based digital strategy,
marketing and PR business leader and consultant.
For more visit
http://ryanruud.com