SaaS Growth Strategy | Customer Lifecycle Approach

How to grow a SaaS company? What SaaS growth strategy to use, how is the development of an online platform related to the customer’s life cycle? We collected all the answers and recommendations in this article.

How does a SaaS growth strategy differ from conventional B2B strategies?

If for a “regular” business a 12-month cycle from informing the target audience about the product to purchase is considered normal, then a SaaS platform that uses such a SaaS growth strategy is doomed to failure at the start.

The approach to the SaaS growth strategy should be different: we quickly attract a client, quickly explain the benefits of the product to the target audience, and quickly transfer the client from a trial to a paid version.

Tools for shaping a SaaS growth strategy based on the customer lifecycle

The life cycle of a SaaS platform client can be divided into three stages:

• attraction
• sale
• retention

An online tool for attracting potential customers – our own resources and external traffic sources where we advertise.

At this stage, a potential B2B client needs as much information as possible to determine how exactly this online platform suits his requirements.

This means that our target audience should realize all the benefits of cooperation, from the necessary functionality to a competitive price.

The sales stage should be made as easy, understandable and transparent as possible.

LATAM, USA, Europe – we do not know where the new client will come from, but in any case, he should not have any problems paying for the services that he receives by registering on the SaaS platform.

According to Peter Cohen, Managing Partner at SaaS Marketing Strategy Advisors, the process of purchasing products hosted on a SaaS platform should take a minimum of effort, actions and time.

The goal of the retention stage in the SaaS growth strategy is to make sure that the customer is satisfied with the purchased service and the functionality of the SaaS platform. As a result, he moved into the category of regular customers.

At this stage, you can offer additional services to customers, or encourage those who are able to attract new buyers from the B2B segment to your SaaS platform – affiliate marketing in action.

A Win-Win SaaS Growth Strategy

There is another great SaaS growth strategy followed by SaaS platform Alanbase.

The conditional name of this strategy is “The product sells itself”.

To implement this strategy, it is necessary to achieve a balance of three parameters in order to get constant sales in the B2B segment:

• a sought-after product that already solves customer problems
• impeccable technical support 24/7
• continuous updating and improvement of the existing product

Each of these parameters is important on its own, but all together they can provide real synergy, ensuring the rapid growth of the project and making its target audience happy.

About the importance of product service quality for affiliate marketing

Of course, affiliate marketing needs high-quality products with wide functionality.

Only the developers of these products should pay no less attention to the organization of the service.

Even if “the product sells itself”, the service is still vital, both at the stage of attracting potential customers and at the stage of keeping them. And at this moment, everything depends not only on programmers.

In addition to them, your team includes support service specialists, sales managers, marketers. Each of these people makes a small contribution to the development of the SaaS company and is aimed at its further growth and development no less than the founding fathers.

If you have an understanding of how important team play is, it will depend on how soon the company will become successful.

In any case, you should focus on promoting your product and the impeccable service that comes with it.

A happy customer is the new reality of any business, not necessarily SaaS. Get constant feedback from your regular customers. Feel free to ask them about what your actions, product improvements or new features can make them even a little happier?

Getting constant feedback from your customers should also be an integral part of your business growth strategy.

And one more thing. The Pareto rule works in SaaS business like nowhere else. 20% of your loyal customers bring you 80% of your profits. Therefore, appreciate them and do everything to exceed the expectations of those who already believe in your product and use it successfully.

FAQ