SaaS Marketing Strategies to Make Your Web App Dominate SaaS Marketing Strategy Focus: Scalable Customer Acquisition Through scalable SaaS Marketing practices, Sixteen Ventures lead by Lincoln Murphy, provides software-as-a-service (SaaS) and Web App companies everything they need to acquire customers, improve retention, and grow the lifetime value of those customers. New Challenges – and Opportunities – Require an Optimized SaaS Marketing Strategy The cloud introduces new challenges for traditional Independent Software Vendors (ISV), but even for those who are building new Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or Web Applications (Web Apps) from scratch, many challenges exist, with marketing being one of the biggest. The Goal of Your SaaS Marketing Strategy: to Quickly Create Profitable Customers Because Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Web Apps are very often sold on a recurring revenue, monthly basis – without a large upfront payment like traditional software – the key to successful SaaS Marketing is efficiency and scalability. Payback Customer Acquisition Costs Quickly with a Great SaaS Marketing Strategy Regardless of the type of sales process, SaaS Marketing requires you to leverage scalable methods to attract the right audience up-front, to get the customer to try before they buy, and the methods used to convert your prospect to a paying customer. SaaS Marketing ultimately breaks down to a per-customer cost and should be paid back as quickly as possible in an effort to turn new customers into profitable customers. But, when your Free Trial fails to convert customers, it’s probably doing exactly what it was designed to do! You need to design your Free Trial to actually sell your product if you want to make any money in the SaaS or Web App business. So I’ve put together a list of 7 Secrets to Free Trial Success... how to turn your SaaS Marketing efforts - your sales process - and your Free Trial - into a Customer-Creating Machine. This is SaaS Marketing / Free Trial Domination Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

1. Lincoln Murphy Presents...
The 7 Secrets to
Free Trial Success
Turn your ‘Free Trial’ into a Customer-Creating Machine!
Lincoln Murphy http://sixteenventures.com

2. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Secret #2:
Get Your Product
to Sell Itself
Lincoln Murphy

3. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
When someone signs-up for your Free
Trial, and the product doesn’t sell itself,
how do you expect to make a sale?
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

4. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
When we see Free Trial conversion rates
of < 10% - even for ‘great’ products - it
should be very clear that the product won’t
sell itself, right?
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

5. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
When your sales process fails to convert
customers, it’s probably doing exactly
what it was designed to do.
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

6. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
The reality is simple;
your product won’t sell
itself...
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

7. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Unless it is DESIGNED
to sell itself.
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

8. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Yes, some people will buy based
on features even if you have a
difficult-to-use product and cannot
articulate the value proposition...
it’s true.
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

9. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
But those people are early
adopters and likely don't make up
the majority of your market and
your opportunity
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

10. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Getting beyond those Early
Adopters and to a wider audience
(even in vertical / niche markets)
should be the goal.
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

11. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
But that doesn’t happen by accident
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

12. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
The products that seem to ‘sell
themselves’ aren’t magic, they
are designed to ‘sell themselves’
as part of a highly-scalable
customer acquisition process
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

13. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Whether you have a low-touch, e-
commerce, self-service sales
process or have a team of sales
people, designing your product to
‘sell itself’ will add much-needed
scalability to your customer
acquisition process
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

14. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
When you get into the right mindset
around Free Trials you'll realize
how most vendors do this wrong
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

15. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
And probably how you’re doing it wrong!
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

16. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
So how do you design a product
to sell itself?
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

17. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
For most SaaS & Web App
vendors, it starts with the Free Trial!
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

18. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
For most SaaS & Web App vendors,
the Free Trial is a black hole...
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

19. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
A black hole where they send
potential customers to die (not
literally, I hope)...
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

20. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Here’s a typical scenario I run
into...
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

21. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
A vendor has a great marketing
website with a good amount of
traffic (very often paid traffic)
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

22. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Through on-site optimization they
get a good amount of people to
sign-up for the trial every month...
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

23. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
And once the potential customers
sign-up for the Free Trial, most of
them leave after logging in only one
time, never to be heard from again!
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

24. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Very few ever come back for a
second look, let alone sign-up as
customers!
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

25. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
So what happened?
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

26. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
The vendor didn’t look at Free
Trials the right way!
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

27. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
They thought the product would
sell itself to people who were
interested in simply poking
around and kicking the tires.
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

28. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
I like this real estate analogy...
which agent is going to sell a
house faster and at a higher
price?
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

29. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
The agent who gets a bunch of
people to the front door, opens the
door to let them into an empty
house to look around on their own
while they read the newspaper,
allowing people to come and go as
they please? Or...
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

30. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
The agent that greets them at the
door, tells them what they’re going
to see when they enter and guides
them through the professionally
staged home in a specific path, and
gets them so emotionally invested
in the home, neighborhood, school
system, their kids’ future, their
grandkids’ future, that they are
ready to make an offer right then?
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

31. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
I’m going to go with the second agent.
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

32. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
The house is the same… the
underlying product is the same.
It is how it is presented and how
you engage and pull in the user
through the experience; how well
you get them invested.
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

33. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
You can’t let someone come into
your app and not know EXACTLY
what to do to get started!
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

34. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
This is where most SaaS & Web
App vendors completely drop the
ball and why their Free Trial
conversion rates are so low... the
product isn’t designed to sell
itself and yet that’s what they’re
banking on!
Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself Lincoln Murphy

35. For the Ultimate Free Trial
Resource Guide, visit:
http://sixteenventures.com/free-trial-resource-guide