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 #4: Measure the Right Things

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 #4:
Measure the Right Things
Lincoln Murphy

3. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
The Free Trial is the only part of the
Sales Process that you have any real
control over...
Secret #4: Measure the Right Things Lincoln Murphy

4. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
But that control is severely lessoned
by a lack of measurement
Secret #4: Measure the Right Things Lincoln Murphy

5. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
You Can’t Optimize What You Don’t Measure
Secret #4: Measure the Right Things Lincoln Murphy

6. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
All decisions in your Sales Process -
and Free Trial - should be metrics-
driven or where data is lacking and
you have to go with your gut, should
be validated through measurement
as quickly as possible.
Secret #4: Measure the Right Things Lincoln Murphy

7. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Everyone tells you to measure, but few
tell you what to measure.
Secret #4: Measure the Right Things Lincoln Murphy

8. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Everyone tells you to measure, but few
tell you how to measure.
Secret #4: Measure the Right Things Lincoln Murphy

9. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Well, people will recommend that you use
this tool or that tool to measure...
Secret #4: Measure the Right Things Lincoln Murphy

10. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
But as Peter Drucker said... “Production
is not the application of tools to materials,
but logic to work”
Secret #4: Measure the Right Things Lincoln Murphy

11. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
You first need to figure out what to measure,
why you’re measuring it, and then find or
build the tool that will do the job.
Secret #4: Measure the Right Things Lincoln Murphy

12. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Okay, so what should you measure?
Secret #4: Measure the Right Things Lincoln Murphy

13. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Only those metrics upon which
you can take action.
Secret #4: Measure the Right Things Lincoln Murphy

14. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
If it isn’t actionable, it doesn’t
matter, so don’t spend too
much time trying to measure
and analyze it.
Secret #4: Measure the Right Things Lincoln Murphy

15. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
If it isn’t actionable, it’s a Vanity
Metric!
Secret #4: Measure the Right Things Lincoln Murphy

16. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
So Free Trial Sign-ups...
Vanity Metric or Actionable?
Secret #4: Measure the Right Things Lincoln Murphy

17. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Both.
Secret #4: Measure the Right Things Lincoln Murphy

18. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
If all you measure and gauge success
on is the number of sign-ups you get
in your Free Trial and that’s all, then it
is a Vanity Metric because it isn’t
ultimately meaningful to the desired
outcome of the Free Trial.
Secret #4: Measure the Right Things Lincoln Murphy

19. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Clearly, without sign-ups for the Free
Trial you couldn’t get conversions, so
at some point it is an actionable metric,
but when looking at the end-to-end
Free Trial strategy, number of sign-ups
is just one input and without the others,
is useless and can be misleading!
Secret #4: Measure the Right Things Lincoln Murphy

20. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Is Free Trial sign-up a meaningful metric
here?
15k Unique Visitors/mo to their site
1,000 Free Trial sign-ups per month
Secret #4: Measure the Right Things Lincoln Murphy

21. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Is Free Trial sign-up a meaningful metric
here?
15k Unique Visitors/mo to their site
1,000 Free Trial sign-ups per month
15 New Customers / Month (1.5%)
Secret #4: Measure the Right Things Lincoln Murphy

22. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Is ‘Active’ users meaningful in this scenario?
10k Unique Visitors to your site
500 free trial sign-ups per month
300 (60%) become Active users
Secret #4: Measure the Right Things Lincoln Murphy

23. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Is ‘Active’ users meaningful in this scenario?
10k Unique Visitors to your site
500 free trial sign-ups per month
300 (60%) become Active users
75 Become Customers (25% Active/15% overall)
Secret #4: Measure the Right Things Lincoln Murphy

24. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
You have to know what you’re
measuring and why you’re
measuring it so you can look at data
that seems to tell a positive story
and actually see the anomalies.
Secret #4: Measure the Right Things Lincoln Murphy

25. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
For instance, one thing I suggest is to
develop a set of Common Conversion
Activities (CCA) and measure those
instead of ‘Active’ users.
Secret #4: Measure the Right Things Lincoln Murphy

26. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
CCAs are determined by identifying things
most customers did - or what you think they
should do - during the Free Trial that lead to
their sale. (i.e. everyone who converts from a
Free Trial to a paying customer added 2
projects and shared those with 3 colleagues).
Secret #4: Measure the Right Things Lincoln Murphy

27. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
There are many tools you can use
to measure and optimize, analytics
tools, a/b testing tools, etc.
Secret #4: Measure the Right Things Lincoln Murphy

28. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Companies are even building tools
specifically for measuring and managing
the Sales Process / Free Trials / Churn
Management for SaaS & Web Apps - like
KISSMetrics, Apptegic & Totango
Secret #4: Measure the Right Things Lincoln Murphy

29. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
and they're all in my Free Trial Dominator
program to learn what really needs to be
measured so they can build tools that
are actually useful!
Secret #4: Measure the Right Things Lincoln Murphy

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