The software as a service model (SaaS) has grown in popularity over the last couple of years, and this upward trajectory is bound to continue in the upcoming years. Once your SaaS business is established and has found its regular flow, you should start thinking about scaling it.
Every business owner will dream about growing their business to exponential levels. However, if you’re planning on creating the next Slack, there is much more you need to focus on. This success doesn’t come overnight, though, and scaling any business requires a considerable amount of resources, time, and, most importantly, patience.
With the SaaS industry as competitive as it is now, it’s essential to devote your efforts to the right strategies. So, here are six strategies that can help you scale your SaaS business:
Improve Your Pricing
The pricing strategy of any business is always open to improvements, so you never consider it as something that can never be changed. There’s still room for change, and a company’s pricing strategy is one of the main factors to focus on during its growth journey.
Many people misinterpret changing the pricing to increasing it. However, this particular change is not just about the rate, but it’s about offering the right price. By analyzing customer data and figuring out what has worked in the past and what hasn’t, you can determine what exactly your customer would be willing to pay for.
Create A Referral Program
The customers of any business are its most prominent advocates, and nowhere does this ring truer than in a service industry. However, this can only happen if your customers are happy with what they are getting. Customer loyalty is an important thing to focus on for any business, and there are multiple ways you can reach out to your existing customers for referrals, including emails, videos, and even creating a real conversation.
Moreover, it’s also vital to ask for referrals at the right time. One of the best times to ask customers to recommend you to their friends and family is after receiving positive feedback for your service. Additionally, customers should be incentivized to refer your service to your friends.
With an active referral program in place, your customers can prove to be your most significant assets. As long as you approach your customers in the right way, you can capitalize on the relationships you’ve built.
Keep Your Customers Happy
For a business’s long-term strategy to work, it’s essential to keep its customers as comfortable as possible. You need to know whether your customers are satisfied. By focusing on customer satisfaction metrics, such as the NPS, you can gauge what the overall customer sentiment regarding your service is.
Additionally, you should also ask your customers to leave their feedback every time they use your service. If there are things you can improve on, you should focus on improving them so your customers can know that their opinion matters.
Today, positive reviews are a huge deciding factor in whether a potential customer decides to go for your business or not. A brand’s reputation and its overall reviews can change a customer’s decision within seconds.
To ensure you’re creating a positive experience, an important thing to focus on is your customer support team. People who are skilled enough to handle any queries or issues a customer might have can ensure customers know that you have their back.
Expand To International Markets
For any SaaS startup, going global is a massive achievement that every business hopes to accomplish. To do that, it’s vital to conduct thorough research and identify your most viable markets. Once you have identified potential growth areas, you should determine the buyer personas in those markets. It’s vital to have personas for each market, since certain factors, such as interests and habits, could vary from market to market.
Multiple other things need to be considered, too. Firstly, you need to figure out the different payments customers in these countries can use. MasterCard or Visa may not be the best option for every country, so other methods, such as Xoom or PayPal, should also be explored.
Apart from this, advertising strategies that are strictly tailored to the local market’s needs are vital. Additionally, you should also remember varying time zones and whether you offer localized services for a different market.
Focus On Marketing
When you’re trying to scale your business, it’s the best time to try out various channels that could suit your business best. At the same time, though, you should be able to maintain current marketing channels, too.
Whatever content you create to promote your service should be tailored according to your customer’s persona and promoted extensively. An effective brand content strategy can help you build your brand and generate organic traffic. The content you create should be able to address any queries they might have and add value to their lives.
Revise Your Sales Strategy
Your sales funnel is the backbone of your business, so any potential improvements in the area should be focused on. It’s essential to hire people who have the skills necessary to close deals and manage clients. Your salespeople play a massive role in your growth strategy, but this doesn’t mean you should try increasing salespeople in numbers.
You should, instead, focus on improving your current sales model and determine whether it’s working to its maximum potential. Focus on optimizing your sales strategy and automating systems for your salespeople, so they don’t get caught up in administrative work. The latter, mainly, can be applied to multiple functions of a business, including marketing, accounting, and finance.
Apart from this, you can also use proposal software to write better proposals for potential customers within minutes. The simple and effective platform can help your sales team save time and make follow-ups much more manageable than they were before.
Conclusion
There are many factors involved in scaling a SaaS business, so it’s about investing your business’ resources in the right areas and making smart decisions. Focus on the data and what your metrics are telling you, and you’ll know which route to take.
Have you ever scaled your SaaS business? Which strategies worked for you, and which didn’t? Let us know in the comments below!
