The State of SaaS and SEO GinzaMetrics

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.

RAPIDLY CHANGING MARKETS

The SaaS market iiis growing x3

faster than traditional software.

The markethas shown

growthconsistently.

30

SaaS has predicted annual

growth of through

2020.20%

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.

of US professionals who use the internet know SEO.

20%

As a result, the focus on search is growing.

SEO GROWTH

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.

In the SEO SaaS ecosystem, brands have differentiated in two ways.

DIFFERENTIATED SOLUTIONS

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

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.

BE STRATEGIC

Expanding to include more audiences means risking alienating existing users. Be strategic about your growth plans.

PIONEERING THE SCIENCE OF FINDABILITY

Our SaaS SEO platform delivers strategic insights and the tactics needed to implement them to the marketing and SEO departments of brands and agencies.

GinzaMetrics began as an application and has grown into a multinational company pioneering the science of findability on the web.

While offering a full-service product, our niche is helping users discover themselves, their competitors, and social networks to create and promote content.

Keywords lead to content which leads to social sharing.

THE META VIEW

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.

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

Accumulated Debt

Annual Revenue per customerRevenue

Revenue per employee

Growth rate

$

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

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.

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.

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.

Getting a demo before trying the tool is one way that GinzaMetrics keeps customer service as part of its platform.

Demo

=Product $

Get Started

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.

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

IMPROVE ON WHAT WORKS

= #1

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.

Consider improving the tools and features already available on your platform. Remember people are

using your existing functionality for a reason.

Product

SEVEN SAAS PITFALLS TO AVOID

1

2 The SaaS solution 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

REFERENCES

1. http://blog.startupcompass.co/2014-saas-market-outlook

2.

3. http://blog.startupcompass.co/2014-saas-market-outlook

http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/B2B_Research_2014_CMI.pdf

http://www.saasmarketingstrategy.com/sevenhazardstoavoid.html4.

GinzaMetrics

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