The SaaS industry has recorded amazing growth in recent years and the best bit is that it will grow even further. Some predict that the SaaS industry will reach global revenue of an astounding $113.1 billion in 2021.
If you are from the industry, this should clearly point to the fact that there will be a lot of opportunities for profit. And this means that you should not miss out on your chances to improve your SaaS business.
If you’d like to learn more and see how you can boost your SaaS business revenue, take a look below.
Work on the churn
Churn, in its essence, is the cancellation rate you have to deal with. To be precise, the amount of your paying customers that cancel translates to your churn rate.
Obviously, if you manage to lower your churn rate, you will do something great for your business. Keep in mind that the longer your customers are subscribing to your service, the more valuable they become.
One great way to reduce the churn is to have an engagement or retention marketing campaign. It is okay to have your marketing efforts focused on customer acquisition, but you should turn your efforts internally to help reduce churn.
This kind of marketing revolves around a simple concept. Basically, you highlight the benefits of your product to your current customers instead of focusing on new potential ones.
It would also be wise to work on your dunning process. This is what your business does once a customer’s credit card fails to come through.
A credit card could fail to charge for any number of reasons:
- The card has expired.
- It’s near its maximum limit.
- The credit card authorization network fails to communicate with the bank properly.
Do not just give up and let a failed credit card transaction end your customer’s subscription. Instead, focus on improving the dunning process.
You should retry the failed card at least three times, but wait at least a few days before you do it because your first attempt may have been at the end of a billing cycle. If you are aware that the card is about to expire, you can send an email or two before it expires to remind and encourage the customer to update the billing information.
Devise a win-back campaign
Even when a business does a lot of great things to reduce its churn rate, some customers will inevitably go away.
However, this does not mean that you should not do one last thing. When you lose customers even after you had a go with dunning and other retention methods, you can always try a win-back campaign.
After a few months, you should reach out and try to win your customers back. This can be done through special deals, discounts, extra services, and other incentives that would attract them to come back.
However, bear in mind that customers sometimes simply cancel because they are trying to cut expenses. Sometimes they just want to take a break from the service. Sometimes they have not received the support they asked for, in this case, do check past customer conversations and call notes.
Enticing them to come back after they have already cancelled could be an easy win, since the customer is already familiar with your business. This time, however, focus only on what your lost customer has been missing out on and maybe stress a new feature that you have introduced since their departure.
Optimize your on-site search functionality
This issue is common for many small business websites across different industries. The same applies to every SaaS business out there.
Look at this as a starting point of a conversation with a customer who visits your website to check out your services.
Once they click on the search bar, a conversation starts. The visitor is telling you what they want from your business.
This is also a signal that a visitor willing to use your site search feature has a high level of motivation and purchase intent. And when this feature does not work well, it becomes an obstacle that may separate you from another sale.
That is why it is necessary to optimize this functionality. First of all, your website needs to have a search bar located in a conspicuous area such as at the upper right corner of the page.
Another great thing that has to be considered is the predictive search functionality. Predictive search shows visitors popular or suggested search queries based on the words inputted in the search box.
If your business website still doesn’t have a functionality that allows an on-site search, you have to implement one as soon as possible.
Take advantage of testimonials
Never underestimate how much a great testimonial can positively affect the conversion rate of your SaaS business.
Yes, it is safe to say that taking advantage of testimonials may not be a revolutionary tactic. Some companies add testimonials that don’t help conversion rates even if they do sound good.
But remember that you have to feature honest testimonials coming from your customers. Do not try to write them yourself or copy something from other websites.
Poor testimonials can sound corny, unrealistic, or too unbelievable. They can be emotionless, meaningless, and not specific enough.
Finally, when asking for a testimonial, try to steer your customers in the right direction. Every testimonial should touch on a major pain point that your business solves.
Improve your pricing page
The pricing page of your website is one of the most important pages you have. It has a huge impact on your customer acquisition efforts.
Hence, it should allow your prospective customers to identify what they get, for what cost, and how they can sign up as quickly and easily as possible. It would be wise to actively monitor and improve the conversion rate of your pricing page.
Even though your pricing page layout and design are heavily impacted by the type of your products, know that it should be simple, easy to understand, and most of all, it should help prospective customers choose the best plan for their needs.
On top of that, take another look at your pricing model, as it has a huge impact on the conversion rate too.
Final thoughts
The competition in the SaaS industry is huge. All your rivals are looking for ways to improve their processes and offers in order to stand out from the rest.
In addition to that, this industry is a dynamic industry where things move fast. Hence, you should try everything to avoid lagging behind, as this can have catastrophic effects.
If you implement the tips you read in this article, you will be one step closer to boosting your SaaS revenue.
