The challenges of start-ups in the SaaS and SEO platform markets. Choices entreprenuers have to make as they establish their brands.

1. The State of SaaS and SEO GinzaMetrics

2. RAPIDLY CHANGING MARKETS
SaaS is currently in a rapid state of change and SEO SaaS
platforms need the staying power to keep up with two
fragmented and large growth markets.
The SaaS market
iiis growing x3
faster than
traditional software.
The market
has shown
30
growth
consistently.
SaaS has
predicted annual
growth of
20%
through
2020.

3. SEO GROWTH
The growth in SEO in the next few years will be tied directly to the
rise of digital marketing. While SEO is not yet a household term, it has
gained the attention of professionals and is becoming part of the
expected workflow.
93%
of B2B content marketers use
content marketing.
20%
of US professionals who use the
internet know SEO.
As a result, the focus on search is growing.

4. CHOOSE AN APPROACH
Currently there are two approaches for developing
SaaS platforms in the SEO market.
Provide an all-in-one platform
that includes 15-20 services or
features in one product.
1
2 Choose a niche market and focus
on one aspect of the solution.

5. DIFFERENTIATED SOLUTIONS
In the SEO SaaS ecosystem, brands have differentiated in two ways.
Platforms that have chosen
this route provide all the
functionality of SEO in one
place. These features include:
•Keyword Tracking
•Page Ranking
•Daily Crawls
•Competitor Analysis
•Social Insights
•Recommendations
These niche solutions
give users flexibility and
challenges including:
•Must cobble tools together
•Individual tools address unique needs
•One or two features per tool
•Simple with less depth
All in One Solutions
One Feature Solutions

6. BE STRATEGIC
Successful start-ups in the SaaS space know the market and their target
audience. Newcomers may experience growing pains as their market
share increases and product offerings become less one dimensional.
Expanding to include more audiences means risking alienating
existing users. Be strategic about your growth plans.

7. PIONEERING THE SCIENCE OF FINDABILITY
GinzaMetrics began as an application and has grown into a
multinational company pioneering the science of findability on the web.
Our SaaS SEO platform delivers strategic insights and the tactics needed to
implement them to the marketing and SEO departments of brands and agencies.
While offering a full-service product, our niche is helping users discover
themselves, their competitors, and social networks to create and promote content.

8. THE META VIEW
Keywords lead to content which leads to social sharing.
The inverse of social is search and the inverse of search is content creation.
The challenge is to show users how to get the most out of the data.
New players in the SaaS ecosystem must have a macro focus and know
their competition. An analytics platform that discovers the competition and
tracks inbound traffic is a tool that every business should consider essential.

9. HAVE DATA AVAILABLE
Getting the funding you need may depend on the statistics
you are able to show prospective venture capitalists.
Some data you will want to have on hand include:
Customer acquisition costs
$
Growth rate
Revenue Annual Revenue per customer
Accumulated Debt
Revenue per employee

10. CHALLENGES TO GROWTH
New start-ups in the SaaS space have great advantages and great
disadvantages. Being small and nimble allows brands to quickly
respond to market changes and needs. However, they must meet
those needs with less resources and many challenges. At this stage,
all business decisions must be intentional and take into account the
trade-offs involved. Challenges to growth in SaaS companies include:
•Cost of sales teams
•Distribution capabilities
•Small operations teams
•Small marketing budgets

11. WEIGH YOUR OPTIONS
While all brands make ongoing decisions about customer acquisition costs and
churn rates, entrepreneurs in the SaaS marketplace have a unique challenge.
In this space, companies must weigh the costs and benefits of whether or not
to have a sales force. The decision to pay to retain a sales force must be
weighed against the importance of providing a seamless customer journey.

12. BEST CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
To answer the sales force question, some brands have eliminated sales
forces altogether and have left their customers with a self-serve solution.
Get Started
GinzaMetrics still holds on to the belief that having a conversation
about the product will give the customer a better product
experience and bring more serious buyers into the sales funnel.
Product = $
Getting a demo before trying the tool is one way that
GinzaMetrics keeps customer service as part of its platform.
Demo

13. SELF-SERVICE MODEL TRADE-OFFS
In this model, brands rely on free trails to bring in new customers. The trade
offs look like this:
A lot of new business initially- High churn rate due to poor fit of customer and
brand.
Freedom for customers to try the product without sales pressure- Not enough
personal attention to set-up the product correctly.
Low cost for brands to acquire new customers- High cost of customer churn
rate.
Positive image of free trail- Less positive experience with actual product
usage.
Everyone can try the product- Cohort groups who don’t fit their user profile.

14. HEAD THIS ADVICE
Catch up as fast as you can.
Improve the functionality
of your product.
Expose your most beloved
features to new users.
Be intentional about
your SaaS model -
know the market.
features

15. IMPROVE ON WHAT WORKS
Staying ahead in a competitive market has its challenges.
For many brands, launching new tools to keep up with the
competition is their answer to staying on top.
= #1
Product
Consider improving the tools and features already
available on your platform. Remember people are
using your existing functionality for a reason.

16. SEVEN SAAS PITFALLS TO AVOID
1
The SaaS solution 2
is more than just
product features.
Market the
promise, not just
the product.
3 Educate the
customers’ legal and
procurement
departments.
4 Control customer
acquisition costs.
6 Ignore existing
customers at your
peril.
5 Develop an agile
development
methodology.
7 Do not avoid the CIO
1

17. REFERENCES
1. http://blog.startupcompass.co/2014-saas-market-outlook
2.
http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/
B2B_Research_2014_CMI.pdf
3. http://blog.startupcompass.co/2014-saas-market-outlook
4. http://www.saasmarketingstrategy.com/sevenhazardstoavoid.html

18. @ginzametrics
e@ginzametrics.com
f facebook.com/ginzametrics
GinzaMetrics