Rishabh Pant, an Indian cricketer, has made an investment in TechJockey.com, which is a rapidly expanding online marketplace for software solutions.
In exchange for INR 7.40 crore, Pant purchased a 2% ownership in the company, which resulted in the company being valued at INR 370 crore (about USD 44.17 million).
TechJockey’s founders, Akash Nangia, a former vice president at Zomato, and Arjun Mittal, a former executive at McKinsey, established the company in 2017 with the purpose of connecting software sellers with small enterprises all throughout India. Beginning of 2024, the company expanded its activities into the United States, as part of its global expansion plan.
Pant’s Vision Behind the Expansion
When Pant made the decision to invest in TechJockey, his previous expertise in professional sports had a significant role. Having the appropriate technology for live streaming, commentary, and DRS is absolutely necessary in the sport of cricket. When you have the appropriate tools, it is easier to make intelligent decisions. Pant added that because he had witnessed the efficient growth that software can bring to organisations, it made perfect sense for him to invest in TechJockey.
Pant’s participation was enthusiastically welcomed by the leadership of the company, with Nangia emphasising the value of having a cricketer of Pant’s calibre on board. Nangia stated that it is not simply about Pant’s popularity, he has a profound understanding of business.
Company’s Current Revenue and Expansion Plans
With the new capital, TechJockey intends to increase the number of global merchants on its platform, as well as scale up its marketing activities and grow its footprint in the United States. According to Nangia, who has noticed the development and potential of SaaS companies, the TechJockey is well-positioned for expansion thanks to its SaaS-based approach.
A revenue of INR 125 crore was reported by TechJockey for the fiscal year 2024, with ad sales contributing between INR 7 and 10 crore. During the fiscal year 25 (FY25), the firm intends to achieve a revenue of INR 170-180 crore, which would be driven by Pant’s investment and the global expansion strategy.
Cricketers Putting Their Money Into Startup Sector
Rishabh Pant is the latest addition to the rising number of Indian sports personalities who have invested in startup sector. KL Rahul, an Indian cricketer, made an investment in the D2C men’s lifestyle firm Metaman just a month ago. In July, South African cricketer AB De Villiers supported the Indian supplement brand Supply6. A cricket player named Shreyas Iyer made an investment in the health technology platform known as Curelo earlier this year.
In the year 2023, a number of other notable players, including Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Sourav Ganguly, and Hardik Pandya, made financial contributions to a number of other Indian companies. This exemplifies a larger trend in which athletes are increasingly moving to business ownership and investments.
In today’s world, businesses heavily rely on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to expand their reach and enhance visibility. For Software as a Service (SaaS) companies, having a strong foundation in SEO is crucial for attracting and retaining customers. In this post, we will thoroughly explore the aspects of SEO that SaaS businesses should prioritize to optimize their websites.
The first thing to analyze in this SaaS SEO guide is website speed and performance. When it comes to SEO, the speed of a website plays a role in achieving high rankings on search engine result pages (SERPs). Slow-loading websites tend to have bounce rates, which can lead search engines to perceive them as less relevant. To improve website performance, SaaS businesses should consider implementing the following optimizations:
Compressing image files without compromising quality.
Reducing the file size by minifying HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files
Enabling browser caching so that loaded resources can be retrieved from a user’s storage.
Utilizing Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) for distributed content delivery.
Mobile Responsiveness
In an era where mobile usage is skyrocketing, having a website that’s responsive across devices has become an absolute necessity rather than merely an option. Google gives importance to the mobile-friendliness of websites when it comes to ranking them in its algorithms. To make sure that your SaaS website clears the test for mobile responsiveness, you can follow these steps:
Implement web design techniques that automatically adjust your website to fit device screen sizes.
Place content at the top of the page and avoid horizontal scrolling as much as possible.
Ensure that buttons are large enough and well-spaced to facilitate tapping.
URL Structure
It is crucial to have an optimized structure that benefits both users and search engines. SaaS businesses can enhance their URL structure by:
Using keywords in URLs of random alphanumeric strings.
Utilizing hyphens instead of underscores or spaces in URLs.
Keeping URLs concise and descriptive.
Implementing 301 redirects for any pages that have been deleted or moved helps maintain SEO performance.
Secure Website with HTTPS
Furthermore, securing your website with HTTPS is becoming increasingly important due to data security concerns, and search engines now prioritize websites with secure connections. To switch from HTTP to HTTPS, SaaS companies should consider:
Obtaining an SSL/TLS certificate from a reliable provider.
Updating links and sitemaps to reflect the HTTPS structure.
Redirecting used versions of your domain (such as www and non-www) accordingly.
By following these guidelines, you can ensure that your SaaS website meets Google’s mobile-friendliness requirements, has an optimized URL structure, and provides an excellent browsing experience for users.
Schema Markup
To enhance the visibility and click-through rates of a website, it is beneficial for SaaS companies to implement data using schema markup. This helps search engines better understand the content by highlighting details such as product features, pricing, licenses, reviews, and availability through product schema. Additionally, displaying information about software applications can be done using the software. To address user queries, incorporating an FAQ Page or “how-to” schema can be quite effective.
XML Sitemap Optimization
Another aspect to optimize is the XML sitemap. This acts as a guide for search engine crawlers and ensures indexing of a website’s content. It is essential to update the sitemap whenever new pages are added, or existing ones are removed. Properly structuring the hierarchy within the sitemap will help prioritize pages. It is also important to avoid including orphaned pages or duplicate URLs in the sitemap.
User Experience Optimization
In addition to SaaS SEO efforts, optimizing user experience (UX) is crucial for rankings and attracting visitors. SaaS companies should focus on improving UX through factors like intuitive navigation that helps users easily find what they need on the website. Make sure that your website is user-friendly by implementing easy-to-navigate menu structures, breadcrumb trails, and search functionality.
Conclusion
In today’s fast-paced landscape, where competition among SaaS companies is intense, investing in technical SEO optimization is crucial for success. By paying attention to aspects such as website speed, mobile responsiveness, URL structure, HTTPS security encryption, schema markup implementation, and XML sitemap optimization, SaaS businesses can greatly improve their rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs) and enhance their visibility online.
This comprehensive strategy will ultimately assist in drawing the attention of visitors, improving the rate at which they take desired actions, and establishing themselves as authoritative figures in their respective areas of expertise.
So why wait longer? It’s time to explore SEO and optimize your SaaS website for results!
This article has been contributed by Sonakshi Pratap, Co-founder and CEO, leadzen.ai.
Customer segmentation is an important strategy for leading firms toward success. Businesses can improve precision by using a well-defined segmentation plan. They may adjust their products, marketing campaigns, and customer experiences to certain niches, providing a more personalized experience for their customers.
Businesses must use segmentation to cater to their audiences’ individual needs, interests, and aspirations. By doing so, individuals can boldly embark on an effective path toward their objectives.
Tech Target defines Customer segmentation as “the practice of dividing a customer base into groups of individuals that have similar characteristics relevant to marketing, such as age, gender, interests, and spending habits.”
Companies that use customer segmentation understand that each customer is unique and therefore targeting all consumers with the same technique is ineffective. Instead, the organization’s marketing efforts would be more effective if they targeted particular, smaller groups with messaging that customers found relevant.
Understanding the Importance of Customer Identification and Segmentation
Customer identification in the SaaS industry is not just about understanding who your customers are; it’s about building a deep and evolving understanding of their needs, behaviours, and expectations. LinkedIn shares that 80% of companies that use market segmentation report increased sales. Do you know why? Following are some main reasons why customer identification is important in SAAS:
Tailored Solutions
SaaS offerings are diverse, and one size rarely fits all. Research shows that 10% to 15% more revenue is generated by businesses that tailor their offerings to customer segments than by those that don’t.
Customer identification allows suppliers to better grasp their target audience’s specific wants, difficulties, and preferences. This allows them to personalize their solutions to unique requirements, giving more value to clients.
Effective Marketing and Communication
Customer identification is essential for targeted marketing efforts. Understanding your audience’s demographics, behaviours, and preferences allows you to communicate more precisely and effectively. It guarantees that marketing efforts reach the intended target, resulting in improved engagement and conversion rates. 49% of participants in a study stated that they purchased something on impulse when it was presented to them with a personalized message.
Customer Retention
In a subscription-based business, such as SaaS, customer retention is just as important as acquisition. Customer identification assists in identifying the aspects that influence customer happiness and loyalty. Providers can then deploy tactics to alleviate pain areas, reduce churn, and build long-term connections.
Knowing the intricacies of your customer base guides product development. Customer identification ensures that new features or updates align with the evolving needs of users.
A recent study shared that using personas makes 90% of companies more knowledgeable about their customers and their bottlenecks, which can lead to more growth. This customer-centric strategy improves the chances of successful product launches while lowering the risk of spending on features with low demand.
Data-Driven Decision-Making
In an age where data is a strategic asset, customer identification allows for data-driven decision-making. By constantly monitoring client data, SaaS providers may make informed judgments about product enhancements, marketing strategies, and overall business direction.
Competitive Advantage
The Campaigns that are segmented had 14.31% higher open rates and saw 101% more clicks than non-segmented campaigns.
Thus, it is safe to conclude that customer-focused SaaS companies gain a competitive advantage. They stand apart in a congested market by continually providing solutions that properly fit consumer needs. Positive client experiences and word-of-mouth recommendations are important growth drivers.
Personalization Data Companies Use for Customer Profiling 2023
5 Ways To Master Customer Identification And Segmentation
Now that we’ve understood how a good customer identification and segmentation strategy helps your SAAS business let us now take a closer look at 5 ways to master customer identification and segmentation.
Crafting Comprehensive Customer Personas
Customer personas are the foundation of effective customer identification. Dive deep into the characteristics that define your ideal customers. The four of most common segmentation criteria are demographics, geographics, psychographics, and behaviour.
Beyond basic demographics, consider work duties, problems, and objectives. Use data to construct detailed personas that act as living documents, evolving with market dynamics.
Segmentation Strategies for Precision Targeting
Segmentation is the key to providing individualized solutions. Use behavioural data, usage trends, and customer interactions to divide your audience into groups with comparable needs.
A recent study states that on average, companies will use 3.5 different segmentation criteria. By doing so, companies enhance the applicability of their offerings, addressing specific pain points for each segment. The more segmented your customer profiles are, the more likely to be more precise with your offering.
Utilizing Machine Learning for Dynamic Profiling
In the era of AI, machine learning algorithms can significantly enhance customer profiling. These algorithms analyze vast datasets to identify intricate patterns that human analysis might miss. Some tools like Lusha and Leadzen.ai have robust algorithms that help you in doing so. Machine learning-driven profiling ensures real-time adaptability to shifting customer preferences.
Data-Driven Personalization for Enhanced User Experience
Personalization is a cornerstone of effective customer identification. Data Axle shares that 74% of marketers believe focused personalization can improve total customer engagement, and personalized communications result in 6x greater transaction rates. So use data insights to personalize user experiences, ranging from bespoke interfaces to personalized content recommendations. This not only increases client satisfaction but also promotes brand loyalty.
Measuring and Refining Identification Strategies
Customer identification is an iterative process. Implement robust metrics to assess the efficacy of your strategies. Key performance indicators (KPIs) should be consistent with your business objectives, such as customer retention, acquisition, or upselling. Review and modify your identification procedures regularly using performance indicators.
The Future Landscape of Customer Identification in SaaS
Ultimately, perfecting customer identification in SaaS requires continuous refining and adaptation. By embracing data-driven insights, employing sophisticated technologies, and remaining attentive to client dynamics, SaaS providers can position themselves for long-term success in a competitive landscape.
Companies benefit from understanding each group’s unique needs, desires, and pain areas. With this knowledge, firms may create products and services that are specialized to these specific segments, boosting the likelihood of meeting or exceeding customers’ expectations
A business model typically refers to a company’s plan to make a profit. It identifies the products or services to be sold, its target market and its anticipated expenses. Typically, the top-down business model is one of the oldest and the most familiar model. This business model begins by identifying and engaging key decision-makers and targeting a few large accounts that match the ideal customer profile. Historically, most businesses, including SaaS (Software as a Service) companies, follow the top-down business model.
However, in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, business operations transitioned to a new phase where capital efficiency mattered as much as, if not more than, profitability and growth. Enter the bottom-up business model that has quickly become the go-to model for thousands of SaaS companies.
Simply explained, a bottom-up business model drives a company’s revenue without a sales team. It is a self-service model that allows end users to try a SaaS product before purchasing it. This concept has been made possible by the rise of cloud-based SaaS. It is a newer and more flexible approach that is more commonly found in industries where disruption and innovation are a priority.
Unlike vertical SaaS, the bottom-up business concept is not restricted to any specific niche and is best suited for individuals. This type of business model answers a few key questions for SaaS companies, like:
Less spends on sales as well as decouple revenue from sales headcount.
Achieve a precise understanding of CAC (customer acquisition cost) and LTV (customer lifetime value).
Scale in a way that sustained growth becomes predictable and repeatable.
Zoom, Slack, Notion, and Airtable are some prime examples of SaaS companies with a bottom-up business model. Rather than a fully functional sales team of a top-up business model, these companies use a business strategy, known in the industry as ‘freemium’. Users are allowed to use the product with limited features to get a feel for it before they decide to upgrade.
Zoom, which started as a small SaaS company in 2011, focused on creating a brilliant product that quickly became a need for consumers. Their marketing strategy includes a popular freemium model that allows the user to host 40-minute video calls free of cost. Zoom was valued at more than USD 17 billion even before the Covid-19 pandemic.
Why Do SaaS Companies Prefer Bottom-Up Business Model?
SaaS End-User Spending Worldwide (2015- 2023)
In a bottom-up business model, the sales are directed at the users which lessens resistance, making it simpler to achieve high usage and adoption numbers. This also allows the company to save money on sales activities diverting that cash towards research and development to make their product better and user-friendly. The business is more sensitive and responsive to the needs of its consumers. There are other reasons that SaaS companies are increasingly adopting the bottom-up business model.
Wider Audience Reach
Bottom-up SaaS businesses are not restricted to any specific niche and enjoy a wider audience to market and sell their product. Their freedom of market also allows the companies to conduct large-scale campaigns and strategies to entice as much audience as they possibly can.
Revenue Source
Though the revenue per customer is smaller in value, SaaS bottom-up businesses have a greater number of customers as compared to an enterprise client. This also means the companies enjoy higher recurring revenue. The transaction time is shorter due to the direct connection between the company and the customer. This also allows the companies to focus more on improving customer experience and also build deeper customer relations.
Reduced Overhead Expenditure
Advanced technology has made signing up and payment methods easier and faster. This makes the bottom-up sales funnel automated allowing SaaS companies to downsize their sales teams or even integrate their sales, marketing, and customer service into one team.
Customer Rapport
Bottom-up companies are more able to focus their resources on building a dedicated team for product development and customization for their customers. This team can act quickly to provide solutions to customer complaints and issues and implement quick-fix to persistent bugs. This paves the way to customer satisfaction and customer retention. It can also act as a word-of-mouth advertisement for their product.
Faster Innovation
A bottom-up business model is not dependent on instruction from top executives. In an industry that is quick on innovation, creative teams with the freedom to brainstorm are empowered to capture and implement innovations quickly. This also boosts employee morale.
In the uncertainty generated, especially in the world of economy, post the Covid-19 pandemic, companies reacted predictably by cutting expenses, shelving expansion plans, and reducing headcount. This was all in an effort to conserve cash and extend their runway.
However, it also provided the business world with better clarity to employ capital funds and further improve business operating methods that increase funds efficiency, operational efficiency, promote organic growth, as well as build better relations with the end consumers. Currently, the bottom-up business model is fast becoming the preferred way for SaaS companies. It is highly probable, that this will become a preferred method of functioning for other industries as well.
FAQs
What is a bottom-up business model?
Simply explained, a bottom-up business model drives a company’s revenue without a sales team. It is a self-service model that allows end users to try a SaaS product before purchasing it.
Why do SaaS companies prefer a bottom-up business model?
SaaS companies prefer a bottom-up business model for the following reasons:
Wider Audience Reach
Revenue Source
Reduced Overhead Expenditure
Customer Rapport
Faster Innovation
Which SaaS companies have a bottom-up business model?
Zoom, Slack, Notion, and Airtable are some prime examples of SaaS companies with a bottom-up business model.
Zluri is an enterprise SaaS Management Platform founded in 2020 by Chaithanya Yambari, Ritish Reddy Puttaparthi, and Sethu Meenakshisundaram. The startup is headquartered at San Francisco, United States. StartupTalky took the initiative to get insights around building how to build a SaaS Product.
Insights shared by Mr.Ritish Reddy, Founder & CEO, Zluri.
How did you get your first 10 clients for your SaaS Company?
We got out initial customers through referrals and contentmarketing.
Each of the co-founders – Ritish, Sethu, and Chaitanya – had a decade of experience building/selling enterprise software before starting Zluri. They were founding members of Knolskape and made some excellent connections while working there.
During the ideation phase (of Zluri) itself, we had pitched ideas within our circles. So, when our MVP (minimum viable product) was ready, the first thing we did was to reach out to our network for feedback. Not only did they give helpful feedback, but a few of them were also interested in the product, and a few referred to the right people, who later became our customers.
What’s 1 pain which you are solving for your customer?
We help companies solve the challenges of managing SaaS applications.
Though all companies know the benefits of SaaS, not many are aware of the problems it brings. The high adoption of SaaS in the post-pandemic era has brought new problems for IT teams, like SaaS sprawl.
When employees themselves start purchasing apps without the purview of IT, it leads to shadow IT and SaaS sprawl. This leads to budget wastage (in the form of unused & underused apps, many apps with similar functionality, unsuitable licenses ) and brings security and compliance issues if not dealt with.
Traditionally, these apps were managed in spreadsheets but spreadsheets have their own limitations. It is time-consuming to update the app details every time a new one is bought, but they are also prone to errors.
Further, many tasks are not possible in spreadsheets, like app discovery, visibility into SaaS usage, automation of giving and revoking access to apps while onboarding and offboarding, etc.
Zluri solves these issues by eliminating SaaS wastage, reducing security and compliance risks, and automating IT tasks, like provisioning and deprovisioning of apps.
Finding an Ideal Customer Profile is very important for SaaS startups. How did you go about doing that?
We knew one thing from the beginning that our product would be most useful for companies using a large number of SaaS apps. So, we reached out to IT and finance directors at many enterprises, where we got many insights on who would need our product the most.
What we found was that big organisations were still relying on on-premise software. Though they were moving towards the cloud, most software apps were still not consumed as SaaS.
On the other hand, though recently founded startups were using SaaS apps, the problems were not painful enough to solve for immediately.
What are your views on the Indian SaaS market?
Indian SaaS startups are in a position to grow rapidly today. What makes this possible is the demand for software and the availability of talent and capital in the Indian market.
The software revolution powered by the SaaS delivery model is giving rise to SaaS consumption in the domestic and international markets. Companies have seen the benefits of SaaS in events like a pandemic.
Then we have very talented people in the Indian market who can build high-quality products quickly. We can make a prototype, iterate at high speed, fail fast, and pivot.
Further, Indian startups can launch in multiple markets simultaneously and win big in the international markets like the US, Europe, and Southeast Asia.
What are a few things a founder must take care of during SaaS product development?
A SaaS product needs to be developed based on the industry and customer you will be selling to. If you take SaaS, two kinds of people will be your customer: a buyer and a user.
Before building the product, it is essential to understand them. Your product must help the end-user deliver value, and the value must be viewable to the buyer. So, before deciding to build a product, the first step is to talk to at least 100 users to understand their problems.
Of course, you aren’t going to come up with a solution for each of those pain points initially, but you can go after the common ones to build an MVP (minimum viable product).
Make sure to keep note of the other problems as well and include them in your product roadmap for the next few quarters.
After completion of the minimum viable product, get the users feedback, validate the problem-solution fit with users, and analyse the scope for improvements.
In some cases, users might suggest a better solution for some of their problems. In those cases, instead of going blindly with their solution, see how you can use innovative emerging technologies to provide the best solution for their problem.
Remember, customers are good at telling their problems, but their solutions are mostly not good. It’s your job to think and come up with the best solution.
Once you get the initial users, take their feedback regularly and keep improving your product.
With dramatic tailwinds and accelerated digital transformation, the SaaS market has grown exponentially in the last decade. The industry has managed to amass a revenue of $104 billion in 2020. By 2022, the market is expected to reach $140 billion, according to Gartner.
Whether you’ve created a SaaS product to solve a problem or make extra income, it is a valuable asset. However, when it comes to scaling the product, you need investment. But what’s the final checkpoint that the investor looks out for in a SaaS product? It’s vital to understand how valuations and metrics work in businesses.
Investors think a lot about characteristics that are representative of an early-stage startup. Before they invest in your company, they want to see specific metrics. And so, to help you prepare these, we’ve compiled an overview of the most crucial SaaS metrics. If you adhere to these, your valuation is bound to improve.
When it comes to product building and efficient selling, it’s fundamental to know your target audience. Companies that have an apparent understanding of their target customers have improved chances of success.
Investors look for a well-defined ICP before investing in the business. Therefore, entrepreneurs should establish their ICP through apparent insights and extensive “Voice of Customer” Research. It’s also essential to build the customer base from a combination of past experiences.
Some of the most substantial benefits of a clear ICP are:
An efficiently targeted go-to-market (GTM).
Highly focused product roadmap.
Shorter sales cycles and value propositions.
2. AI-powered SaaS Applications
Artificial intelligence plays a significant role in advancing modern software to automate work for consumers. At its core, AI-powered SaaS applications can be trained on increasingly larger datasets and be further augmented with customer-specific data. Thus, allowing users to automate tasks and make better-informed business decisions. Consequently, it will propose a unique standpoint to the investors.
Some SaaS companies developing AI-powered applications comprise:
Yalochat – It is a conversational AI-powered platform that allows businesses to efficiently communicate with customers.
Zeni – It is an AI application that provides bookkeeping, financial reporting, and invoicing services.
3. Product-led Growth Strategies
The product-led growth (PLG) strategy is crucial when it comes to building SaaS companies. It allows the consumers to test the product for themselves. Without the restraint of features, users can effortlessly explore the product and infer its value.
This not only helps businesses develop consumer-like products but also furnishes lucrative returns. The PLG strategy has become business-critical across all enterprises functioning. Companies adhering to product-led growth have increased chances of being approved by investors.
The PLG strategy has capitalised on a few trends, including:
Reduced sales cycle and buying decisions.
Fast employment (due to the cloud-based feature).
Easier purchasing (swipe a card and go).
Intuitive onboarding and adoption.
4. MRR
Monthly Recurring Revenue or MRR is a leading indicator of revenue growth. Hence, it’s a well-received way to appraise SaaS businesses. Investors are more likely to consider the MRR rather than the ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue). Simply because the ARR doesn’t furnish much proof of churn.
Big SaaS companies with high MRR can raise a sizable amount of money during seed funding rounds. If small businesses or brands are experiencing rapid growth and meet the criteria of investment, they could be valued using MRR. Below mentioned are the criteria:
More than $2M ARR
50% growth year after year
Founder involvement isn’t important for the business’s survival.
5. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
Customer acquisition cost or CAC is a significant metric to assess marketing and sales cost. It helps measure the effectiveness of your SaaS business’ customer acquisition strategy.
Furthermore, it analyses the expense incurred (on average) to attain new consumers. CAC also represents the return on investments in sales and marketing. Thus, it is a meaningful metric for potential investors.
The churn rate is the long-term trajectory of any SaaS business. A low churn rate improves the recurring revenue, and growth rate – and curtails the risk of long-term value loss.
Smaller companies have a higher churn rate because of less sophisticated needs and low demands. Investors would not invest in a SaaS company that experiences a high churn rate. That’s because it signifies you’re losing potential customers – and your company’s retention rate isn’t up to the mark. Hence, the churn rate is a fundamental metric that SaaS business owners need to cater to.
Ideally, lost customers equal lost revenue. Besides, it’s far more expensive to attain new consumers than it is to retain the old ones. Therefore, businesses should focus on customer retention to improve scalability and performance.
7. EBITDA
EBITDA stands for earnings before interests, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation. SaaS businesses that make annual revenue of $5 million will likely use EBITDA.
It is a substantial measure of core profit trends. This metric furnishes an accurate comparison between companies with different capital investments, tax profiles, and debt.
Besides, it eliminates extraneous factors, boosting returns. This allows a fleshed-out infrastructure and accelerated growth in your SaaS business. Thus, making it investable.
Conclusion
The COVID-19 pandemic has bestowed heavy growth to the SaaS industry. With companies compelled to take their business operations online, the SaaS market has grown fierce – yet competitive.
Seeking venture capital funding is of paramount importance in any SaaS business. Investors would only plough their money into your business when you can convince them of your company’s commercial viability and growth potential.
To fight competition, survive, and thrive, you need to stand out from the rest. Thus, there are a few business metrics that you need to take care of. Essential metrics, such as the CAC, MRR, and Churn rate define your company’s scalability and future. Once you cater to these metrics, your SaaS business is ready to successfully attract investment.
FAQs
What do investors look for in a SaaS company?
Low churn rate, Product-led growth, AI-powered SaaS applications, and EBIDTA.
What is one of the most important metrics in a SaaS model?
Customer lifetime value is one of the most important metrics in a SaaS model.
What are SaaS metrics?
SaaS metrics are different KPIs that companies measure to track their success and customer growth.
Marketing Miner is an SEO tool for data-driven marketers or simply a data mining tool. It was founded by Filip Podstavec in 2015. The main focus of the tool is to gather marketing data insights.
Marketing Miner has been given a near 5-star rating on g2, Software suggest, and many other similar tool reviewing websites.
The target audience of this app includes marketers and entrepreneurs. As per the company, they offer 40 different features useful for search engine optimization.
In this blog, we will discuss the features as well as pros and cons of Marketing Miner to see if they could deliver what they promised.
Marketing Miner is loaded with the following features:
Keyword Research
Keyword Research Feature of Marketing Miner
Based on your search query this feature analyzes the important SEO metrics such as search volume, keyword difficulty, trends, CPC, SERP, etc.
The trending keyword feature lets discover popular keywords similar to your search. Moreover, it also suggests the new keywords that have gained popularity recently.
This feature is meant to detect the technical issues on your site that may be hindering your rankings. You can analyze the indexing status to understand which page of your website is unable to attract traffic.
Another feature lets you check response codes for a webpage so you can find errors and resolve them. This app also identifies which of the external or internal link/s given on your website is broken so you can fix it.
Marketing Miner is also said to reduce keyword cannibalization in your text and help you improve your online visibility.
The search visibility feature estimates the traffic for a page and analyzes ranking keywords for both paid and organic traffic.
The alert notifies you of the technical SEO changes and keeps you updated.
Rank Tracking
Rank Tracking Feature of Marketing Miner
This helps you get detailed information on the performance of your website. The position tracking helps you see the progress of your keyword ranking on regular basis.
A bulk keyword rank checker helps you check ranking for multiple keywords.
Competitor Analysis
Competitor Analysis Feature of Marketing Miner
They offer the competitors insights like which keyword they are using to rank higher. The estimated traffic on the website together with an analysis of their performance based on organic and paid traffic.
This also reveals to you the top-ranking pages of your competitors and helps you make data-driven decisions. Overall, you can obtain the list of sites that always appear as your competitors in Google search.
This tool also makes brand monitoring possible by checking what other people have to say about your competitors. This also keeps a keen eye on the competitors and notifies any changes in their website immediately.
Brand Monitoring
Brand Monitoring Feature of Marketing Miner
This tool detects the online mentions of your brand and how others reacted to it. Thus, helping you build new partnerships.
You can also set an alert for your mentions, so you can immediately respond to them. Also, it tracks the mentions of keywords and phrases related to your niche to keep you updated with the latest trends.
Link Building
Link Building Feature of Marketing Miner
Telling you about the mentions in this app gives you an opportunity to build new links and strengthen your backlink profile. It also notifies if and when the links are removed.
It gives an insight into the websites that rank for the same organic keywords as yours. It also provides the contact details such as email addresses and social media handles that may be interested in working with you.
API
API Feature of Marketing Miner
The Application Programming Interface (API) helps you to extract data without manually logging into the tool. The app provides over 10 endpoints such as search volume, keyword suggestions, etc. to extract data.
The accurate and fresh insights are quite useful in enhancing your SEO strategy while dealing with bulk data.
The REST/POST APIs are flexible and support working on your own dashboards or applications. Project APIs are meant to extract worthy data from your projects.
It is an all-in-one program that reduces the need of using any other SEO tool.
It has quality click-stream data for SEO specialists.
It is relatively inexpensive in comparison to other similar tools.
The data provided is authentic and reliable.
The keyword analysis feature gives you an insight into the customer demand and needs.
It gives real-time alerts of the mentions. Thus, helping you respond quickly.
It has the ability to work with a large amount of data.
It offers simple and intuitive reports.
It is time-saving.
Provides Bulk Data analysis. You can analyse up to 100,000 keywords, domains and URLs
Marketing Miner provides a free version and their paid plan, which starts from $13, is affordable for small businesses and freelancers, in comparison to all the biggest players in the SEO tools market.
Cons of Marketing Miner
The interface can appear crowded owing to a large number of features.
It may be difficult to use in the first instance. So it may take time to accustom to the interface.
The final reports may sometimes appear technical for a layman and may need a little description.
Conclusion
The best part about Marketing Miner is the authentic and reliable information provided by the app. The ability of the app to work on a large amount of data simultaneously gives it an edge over other similar apps. The reports are mostly simple and easy to read.
Still, we cannot deny certain drawbacks to the app. But, the best part about it is that the team is regularly working on updating and improving the features. Our suggestion to them is to first improve their customer care services to hear and help people.
Overall, the app appears good. Most features work efficiently while a few may cause trouble at certain points in time. Comparing the promised and delivered features, the customers are able to take advantage of 95% of the features promised by the Marketing Miner easily which is a really big achievement. Therefore, our suggestion is to give this app a try.
FAQs
What is Marketing Miner?
Marketing Miner is an all-in-one SEO tool for all the marketers and SEO professionals to rank higher on google and grow their business.
What are the features provided by Marketing Miner?
Marketing Miner provides SEO Audit, Keyword research, Link building, Rank tracking, Competitor analysis and more.
What is the pricing of Marketing Miner?
Marketing Miner has 3 plans Miner, Digger, and Machine each cost around $29, $59, and $99 respectively. It also has a free plan that offers 1000 queries for one month.
When we talk about SaaS startups, we can find many names that have performed well in their respective segment. But Intercom is one such company whose growth has outperformed the growth statistics of some of the industry’s biggest names, viz., Hubspot, RingCentral, Zendesk, Shopify, and more. A closer look at the market growth rate highlights how Slack is the only SaaS startup besides Intercom to have witnessed such massive growth. But what exactly added fuel to Intercom’s enormous success? The answer is SEO and content marketing.
Intercom used killer SEO strategies to become one of the fewest SaaS startups that rakes millions in ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue). At present, the company has an ARR of over $50 million. Keep reading if you’re interested in learning how this company skyrocketed its ARR without spending heavily on advertising and marketing.
Intercom Leveraging the Power of Dynamic Keyword Insertion
If you use SimilarWeb, you can find the top websites that drive the most traffic to the Intercom website. The highest share of traffic comes from the Intercom app itself. And the other traffic comes from websites that use Intercom on their website. Let’s take SimilarWeb, for example. This company too uses Intercom to streamline, organize, and personalize their customer communications. Hence, whenever you visit their website and click on the live chat box, you will notice something like this:
Similarweb on Intercom
Did you see the “We run on Intercom” at the bottom of the chatbox? This message contains a link to their official website.
If you visit any company website that uses Intercom, you will find a similar message in the chatbox. You’ll instantly be redirected to a particular landing page that Intercom created for the traffic coming from the respective website when you click on it. The SEO team at Intercom used dynamic keyword insertion in these landing pages to make the messaging more personalized. For example, you can find the name of the company + Intercom that you visited earlier in the landing page’s headline. It is done to enhance personalization for referral traffic.
Intercom uses the “we run on Intercom” tactic with dynamic keyword insertion to get maximum conversions from the referral traffic. If you’re finding it difficult to convert your referral traffic, you can do something similar.
Targeting Keywords that Bring Intercom the Highest Quality Traffic
Intercom has achieved two goals by targeting the right keywords. One is becoming an authority website, and the second is ranking for hundreds of keywords on top of SERPs.
What makes this strategy unique is ranking for specific keywords that solve one core user problem. Intercom was very clear from day one about focusing more on solving a user problem and not stuffing the blog with keywords to rank for specific keywords. And guess what, it worked excellent for them.
If you go by the technical SEO terms, it is fair to say Intercom relied on “Semantic SEO.” Semantic keywords are identical phrases or words that are very similar to the primary keywords. When you use terms matching the search query, Google uses its advanced AI algorithms to find the search intent and match the user with the most relevant content piece.
So if you were unable to rank your website on SERPs and drive organic traffic, you should try replicating this tactic from Intercom that delivered phenomenal results.
Every company relies on off-page SEO to get more traffic and engagement on their blog posts or official website, and Intercom is no different. Intercom used the Medium Publication feature to get more reach and shares on the published content. You can still find their publication named Inside Intercom on Medium. But unlike most companies, Intercom doesn’t simply re-publish their blogs on Medium almost instantly after publishing them on their website.
You can notice a difference of two to eleven months between the actual blog post published on the Intercom website and the Inside Intercom Medium publication. This strategy ensures Intercom keeps getting traffic on old blog posts through Medium. A similar off-page SEO tactic is being followed by Hubspot too.
But what made Intercom’s Medium strategy work was its selection of topics. Instead of optimizing for search engines, Intercom started publishing optimized content for people. Intercom noticed that opinion pieces, reaction posts, and personal accounts were getting more engagement than the traditional blog post content. It is why they started publishing more on startups, product management, design, etc., and chose topics that would make people read their publication blog posts.
But writing compelling and engaging blog posts wasn’t the only thing that did wonders for Intercom. The company merged enticing CTAs with every blog post to maximize website traffic. Almost all the Intercom Medium articles had four common CTA links:
Intercom blog
Other relevant blog links published on the Intercom website
The author’s Twitter profile, and
The Intercom home page
Finding platforms where prospects hang out and using the same platform for repurposing content worked great for Intercom. You should try this amazing off-page tactic too.
Doing SEO Differently: A Thing to Learn from Intercom
SEO is the best way to make people find your company or products right when they need them the most. It is also a great method to drive consistent free traffic to a website in the short and long term. While many companies are trying their best to ace the SEO game, not everyone managed to crack the SEO code that works best for their website. Luckily, Intercom is not one of those companies. Intercom chose to do SEO in its own unique way.
After analyzing the Intercom website, we found that the company uses a strong off-site and on-page SEO strategy. From refraining to use keyword stuffing for higher rankings to branching out to other publications to gain more eyeballs- there’s a lot Intercom did to dominate the SERPs for the right keywords and receive consistent traffic. Sure, Intercom also invests in PPC and content marketing efforts, but its prime traffic comes from its SEO efforts.
Conclusion
Of all the SEO strategies Intercom uses, we’ve listed above the most relevant tactics that have contributed to Intercom’s massive growth. If you’re a company struggling to improve its SEO efforts, try implementing the above-discussed SEO tactics for visible results.
FAQs
Why do people use the Intercom?
Intercom is a Customer Communications Platform. It helps to target customers with content, behavior-driven messages, and conversational support.
How many customers does Intercom have?
Over 25000 businesses are the customers of Intercom.
Interaction between a customer and a brand at different stages of the customer’s journey impacts the customer’s perception of the product and services. Positive interaction strengthens the connection and enriches the customer’s experience (CX) throughout all aspects of the product consumption journey, including browsing websites, enquiring about products, purchasing products, post-purchase communications, etc. Hassle-free and convenient business transactions keep customers engaged and drive their loyalty to a brand.
The personalized experience of the product enhances the credibility of a brand and brings out the brand from a shop for a shop. Let us see how SaaS companies can enhance customer’s experience and drive revenue growth:
SaaS products and services work on subscription-based pricing and that can be altered anytime with the myriad number of SaaS products available in the digital market. Customer acquisition and customer engagement are their prime concerns and to get an edge in the market, they are dependent on customers’ responses about the SaaS products.
Effective customer experience strategy is well-crafted planning of business goals and organizing the itinerary to reach that goal. Online customers relationship play a crucial role in keeping customers engaged with the SaaS product and a brand, in a highly competitive SaaS market.
Advanced UX, easy interface, real-time chatbot conversations, engaging emails, customer feedback, review, YouTube videos, etc are various means to increase interaction between the brand and the customers. It also helps businesses to get data insights about the sensory and behavioural responses of different types of customers to further improve communication with the targeted customers.
Why do SaaS companies need to Improve Customer Experience?
SaaS businesses are undergoing many transformation phases due to the increased use of cloud computing, AI, advanced data management tools, remote working, agile infrastructure, on-demand resource availability, and many more local/global reasons. SaaS businesses run on subscription services so customer satisfaction at every consumption touchpoint delivers a stand-out result and ensures product-led growth.
Maintaining customer retention for a long time is extra pressure apart from increasing new customer in-flow for a brand. The end user’s experience is essential to maintaining a long-term relationship and improving business output.
Why Should You Improve Customer Experience
How to Improve Customer experience strategy for SaaS Business?
Improve Customer Onboarding Experience
User onboarding is the beginning stage of a customer’s interaction with a SaaS product. The customers should be well acquainted with the accessibility of website navigations, image representation, easy interface, purchasing convenience, and smooth check-out functions. Easy onboarding can include:
Free Sign-up and product trials to gain audiences’ trust for paving the way for long-term relationships.
Complete walkthrough, knowledge base, support, FAQs, and guidelines to provide comprehensive knowledge about the product and simplify the process.
Consistent customer support through support and knowledge base articles to help them to reach easy and quick solutions. Quick resolution of Help Desk queries enhances customer experiences and builds the product’s credibility.
Increase UX Investment
Your website is the face of your business and the main communication channel for showcasing your product and crafting your digital customer journey. Slow-running websites, abrupt navigation, poor image quality, and complicated language are all major pain points for customers and cause frustrations at every stage of the customer’s journey. Even a few seconds wait period for a website to upload causes 70% give up of visitors and the business loses its brand loyalty too.
Poor digital customer experience can lead you to lose traffic to competitors and it can ultimately impact the company’s growth and revenue. 85% of buyers do online shopping because of the great customer experience they get through product pages.
Focus on Customer Feedback and Reviews
Unbiased and honest posts have more capability to drive traffic and then convert it into potential buyers. People adopt which is devoid of the banner and listen more to genuine comments. Customers’ feedback, reviews, surveys, and questionnaire are considered more trustworthy because they are coming directly from customers’ mouths.
According to a market survey, 85% of people trust customer reviews before online purchasing. This way a brand engages customers and promotes its product more efficiently and authentically. Approximately 75% of brands agree that their customers are their brand promoters.
Customers’ feedbacks and ratings identify valuable insights about product quality, shortcomings, encountered issues, expectations, satisfaction, recommendations, and customers’ perception of the product.
In a fiercely competitive market of SaaS businesses, lead generation and customer acquisition are substantial parts of product growth. The constant customer engagement leads to secure and long-term relationships, which eventually turned into customer loyalty.
Get the opinion of customers through feedback, survey forms, emails, chats, and social media, and ask them to respond quickly. Positive feedbacks and recommendations promote your product through word-of-mouth marketing free of cost.
Average people are more trustworthy because they are promoting your brand for the value they got in return and not for the marketing.
Cross-Departmental Collaboration
Effective customer experience strategy is the well-crafted planning of business goals and organizing the itinerary to reach that goal. Your business goal and marketing goal should be aligned and the marketing goal should work as a complementary to achieve the business goal. Less coordination between different teams hinders smooth business functioning and frustrates your customers due to time lagging in response to the request.
Customer experience should be intelligent, personalized, relevant, and insightful across customers, marketing, communication, sales, and service teams. Develop a smooth business transition to bridge the gaps between customers and multiple departments to create better customer experiences.
Track and Measure Customer’s Experiences
Subscription-based product is highly volatile in nature and can be replaced anytime with alternates. Current customer trends, purchasing behaviours, expectations, and demands, are needed to be tracked and examined to focus on target customers.
Map your customers’ journey; research customers’ profiles, and collect data from social media about their choices, interests, gender, age group, and preferences to track the latest trends. Identify whom you are talking with? Create a persona of your audience and then target them selectively.
Introduce chatbots to get personalized with customers and to address accurately what they are looking for. Determine the common stage where you can connect with your customers. Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest might be the best channels for connecting with target audiences for SaaS-based products.
Personalized email marketing collects insights such as niche interest, buying intent, and behavioural patterns and helps in anticipating the future needs of the customers.
Some SaaS companies personalized their websites for new or existing customers. Big data analytics and machine learning bring out the customers’ insights and their predictive behaviours which help to segment customers based on their preferences and needs. Delivering individualized content and targeted emails strengthens the relationship between businesses and consumers. It enriches customer experiences and increases brand credibility in a volatile SaaS market.
Make a Mobile-friendly Interface
Make your interface mobile-friendly as 90 out of 100 customers access web pages, social media, and emails on mobile. Customers can get weekend offers, festive offers, and timely coupon notifications anytime, anywhere with the portable mobile device.
According to a recent survey, 82% of users are primarily engaged with smartphones, while 63% of users use computers. Effective customer experience is to meet customers where they are and mobile device is accessible almost everywhere.
Incorporating the Latest Tools and Technologies
Using the right tools and technologies is an integral part of an enhanced digital customer experience. Live chat, FAQ page, Chatbot, and Helpdesk enable customer support to automate resolution quickly and enhance customer experience. Big Data analytics, AI, and Machine Learning techniques collect valuable insights and create a customer-centric user experience for individual users.
Promote Omni Channel marketing
With constantly changing consumer habits, it is crucial for the business to connect with customers through multiple channels. However, maintaining consistency all along and seamless communication at various media channels (omnichannel support) is quite a tedious job.
70% of consumers expect the same representative or same product copy in every channel. A mobile app, social media, chat, email, and web page are all part of omnichannel marketing. Create an omnichannel support strategy by optimizing user engagement across web, mobile, social media, and live chats.
A perfect customer-centric strategy comprises a well-thought-out plan to increase positive customer experiences at all stages of the customer’s journey and measures the customer’s perception of the company, product, and brand.
To create an excellent SaaS customer experience, nurture your relationship with your customers by understanding their behaviours and expectation and provide a comprehensive customer experience platform from onboarding to feedback collection.
An average user can be turned into a brand ambassador from his role as a fan or a contributor.
FAQs
What is the SaaS customer experience?
SaaS customer experience is keeping your customer engaged with your SaaS product.
What are customer experience strategies?
Customer experience strategies are a strategy that you plan to provide the customer throughout the customer journey by providing the best experience at every stage.
The article is contributed by Pankaj Gupta, Founder and CEO, EnableX.io
The Indian SaaS industry is now firmly on the upward growth trajectory. As per the Zinnov’s Punching Through The Global Pecking Order report, in 2022 alone, the Indian SaaS industry saw a whopping 50% rise in revenue and a 3x increase in VC funding. This makes it abundantly clear that the country’s SaaS ecosystem has finally come of age. While the market is growing at breakneck speed, building a successful SaaS business is not easy. Like any business, it takes time, effort & a lot of innovation to scale a business in today’s ever-evolving environment.
Launching a SaaS company involves many steps, which can be daunting for first-time entrepreneurs. Let’s go over the process of getting your software business started:
1. Getting an Initial Set of Clients
No matter what industry you’re in, every founder has the same burning question: “how will I get my first 10 customers?” The best way is to start with your existing network. It’s low-hanging fruit. Talk to the people you know. It may not yet be a big number, but in the process, you may find a few relevant connections among your friends and family. And don’t get disappointed if none of them is directly interested in using your service; they might refer to somebody who may need it.
You’re off to a good start if your product addresses a pain point or fulfils a burning need for someone and does it better, quicker, and/or cheaper than its competitor. Here are the following things that can be helpful:
Build a Quality Product
The success of a business depends on how well you understand the market needs and then build a product that addresses the users’ needs or problems. Therefore, spending some time and resources to understand customers’ requirements is fundamental & key to success. Once you’ve established a product-market fit, you are on the right path.
Be Agile
Change is the only constant, and this maxim is truer for SaaS companies. The business landscape is changing so fast that it may become obsolete by the time your product hits the market. Agility is not just about the product features; it includes everything – IT stack, business model, and culture. It should be nimble and should be able to respond faster to remain competitive. Therefore, it is essential to have a keen eye on the changing market landscape, evolving customer preferences, and competitors.
Establish Robust Customer Support
It might sound a cliché, but your customers are the heart of your business. Apart from the product quality, they always want to know how fast their problems can be resolved satisfactorily. Therefore, build robust customer support service that enhances the overall customer experience.
Even if you don’t have the financial muscle to put a 24*7 customer support team, there are many options. You can use Twitter and Facebook to provide quick support. You can also implement a ticket system to manage the support request or can put a well-defined FAQ page/User Guide on the website.
3. Building a Team That Delivers
It is essential to have a clear vision, commitment, and sincerity to realize your vision as a founder. You must believe in your product and have a clear roadmap of how you want to take it forward. And most importantly, you need to build a competent team that can help realize your vision. While hiring people, pay attention to skills, but it should not be the sole factor. Along with qualifications and skills, hiring people with a growth mindset, the right attitude & cultural fitment are key. Also, be extra careful while building your initial team as these are the set of people who are more likely to stay with the company for a long time. They should exhibit a clear commitment and drive to achieve something and excel in their work in a fast-changing environment.
4. Staying Abreast with Trends
As a founder and also your team members should be fully aware of what’s happening in the industry and what’s hot in the space. And of course, keep an eye on the competition. Know what your competitors are doing, what features they have built & what is their overall strategy. Keep tracking industry trends, technology and other news items pertaining to your industry. Networking with other startup founders, and attending industry events and peer groups is the best source to have a sense of what is happening in the environment around you!
Building and sustaining a SaaS business can be exhilarating and overwhelming at the same time. Though there are many steps to take before you can even start thinking about making money from your SaaS business, the points discussed above are crucial to starting right!
Sayantan Mondal
