You have a SaaS idea, and your developers have enough courage to deliver it. But you also have to remember, the market you are willing to enter with your SaaS business is likely to be populated by other SaaS companies. And those are more established and better-funded than yours.
So, standing out in the competition, you have to understand how you can fit your idea and business into the overall picture that makes you different and unique.
I have shared my 8-steps SaaS Development idea that could help even the most desperate entrepreneur.
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If you’ve applied this framework, you can validate your idea and even have some pre-orders in your bank account.
As you are launching your product at the web market, you’re probably not rich enough to run off to the Bahamas directly.
But you have enough fuel to push your product to the next milestone of your startup journey i.e. building and launching the real product.
Here I come with the pre-launch checklist and I am going to discuss:
- How to create a Go-To Marketing Roadmap
- Build a successful landing page
- Start conversations with your pre-launch audiences
- Get traffic to your landing page
So, let’s get rocking!
Contents
1. The Go-To Marketing Roadmap
Here is the Go-To Marketing Roadmap (GTMR) that must be followed before launching the SaaS products.
The Go-To Marketing Roadmap which includes the Pre-launch marketing stage
Source: Encharge
The above GTMR can be used for launching the New SaaS products as well as launching new features and releases.
The main purpose of the GTMR is to:
- To Provide an actionable plan of action that shows the possible ways of SaaS product development and marketing are likely to evolve.
- To align your product development team and marketing team.
- It helps to prioritize the marketing activities and provides a general continuity of purpose.
The Out Come of GTMR:
So, what can you produce through this roadmap?
Well, there are both quantitative and qualitative goals that you are in control of. While it is difficult to forecast the outcome but still it will give the outputs or the opportunity to be disciplined and achieve your goals.
2. Build a successful landing page
Actually, it depends.
The landing page depends on “how far are you with your SaaS product development?” On whether you have to show any screens, and whether you’ve to validate your idea or not.
Here I could tell you that letters matter more than pixels.
The main motto is “How” you can communicate the story and the “Why” your product can have a way of a bigger impact for a customer. You must consider your pre-launch success more than the look of your page.
Still, to increase the conversion rates, the landing page design must inspire trust. And forget the quick, unpolished landing pages.
Ideally, by the time you launch your SaaS, you’d have both a raving email list and people that have passed the walled test.
So, the target customer can easily understand what your product is all about.
I’ve worked with the team at AndolaSoft on multiple websites. They are professional, responsive, & easy to work with. I’ve had great experiences & would recommend their services to anyone.
Ruthie Miller, Sr. Mktg. Specialist
Salesforce, Houston, Texas
Clear CTA
A single and clear call-to-action immediately visible above the fold
Yes, you can use only a single call-to-action (CTA) on your SaaS landing page.
Whatever goal you set for the landing page, it’s important to have it mentioned in your Go-To Marketing Roadmap.
Next thing – putting the landing page together.
3. Start a conversation with your pre-launch audience
There is just one last thing you need to do before you start marketing your SaaS product.
And this is to set-up basic Welcome email automation that you got from your pre-launching marketing.
The main goal of this workflow is to start the conversation with your potential audience.
It’s also an opportunity to learn more about your subscribers.
On the conversation, you can use the following terms like:
- We would love to learn more about you
- Click “reply” to this email and let us know
- What you are currently looking more?
- What is the biggest challenge you are facing in your business?
And finish by setting-up the presumption for the following follow-ups like:
- I am going to despatch one or two weekly updates with content about SaaS marketing, automation, and marketing news.
However, engaging first communication with the new subscribers or visitors’ expectations is vital. So getting them excited is the key.
4. Focus to get traffic at your landing page
It’s time to put our growth hacking tricks on and get some return with it!
Now you have the product landing page up and running.
Now it’s the part “driving traffic to your landing page and growing your list of sign up, orders whichever is your goal.
Many SaaS businesses have managed to gain hundreds or thousands of valid web traffic, so they must be doing something right.
And why do they generally?
Content Marketing: Start writing on Medium (the content marketing site) by using of “how-to” guides that are specific to the pain points of the targeted audience.
Social Media Promotion: Create audiences on Facebook/LinkedIn that match with your product’s interests. And post/boost articles on the Facebook page to reach these audiences.
Do Webinar: Do few webinars with describing the pain point solving pieces of stuff of the SaaS product and promote the same webinar on different social media platforms.
SEO: An obvious advice to do so. You should cover the basics and optimize the SaaS landing (website) page.
Warping up
There you have it! Now you have everything you need to create a successful pre-launch marketing campaign. Is there anything we missed? Let us know in the comments.
Hope you enjoyed reading this and already have some tactical tips for your SaaS launching road map!