Sunniya Saleem | How to Accelerate Mid-funnel Demand | Demand Gen Summit Spring 2021

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Starting and running a thriving Saas business is so much more than just having the technology and building some software with a few unique features.

So, how do you achieve success with your Saas company?

In a recent podcast on Digital Conversations with Billy Bateman, Mr. Saas himself, Stewart Marshall, breaks down what it really means to position your Saas product for success.

His main points are the following:

• Focus on the customers’ needs.
• Choose a niche market to sell to.
• Align your marketing, sales, and product teams.

Let’s dive into what those three points entail.

1. Focus on the Customers’ Needs

You have to ensure that what you create is what somebody actually really needs; it is not enough to just create a super cool product if it doesn’t address specific pain points.

Customers need Saas technologies that seamlessly solve their problems.

Think about it: Are customers sitting there trying to come up with the perfect technology to fix all their problems? No! They are sitting there thinking about the problems they have, and it is your job to think of the solutions.

It is crucial to pinpoint the problem, and build the software that will solve for that.

To be quite honest, most customers do not care what the product does, but they care about what problem it solves for.

Think of it like this: You are not building software, you’re building answers.

2. Choose Your Niche Market

In an perfect world, you would be able to find success in marketing to everyone. But in reality, that does not work.

And that is so true!

Your company needs to choose a niche and build a product that solves for a specific pain point of businesses within that niche.

You do not need to try and beat out all other products within a certain market. You can find success in marketing to a tight niche, and being the best solution for that niche.

A common mistake is focusing too much on the product and marketing what the product is. What you really need to be doing is focusing on making it clear who should buy your product. State the pain points it solves for and who it will specifically help.

3. Align the Marketing, Sales, and Product Teams

How can sales and marketing have a say in the product?

After all, they are the ones engaging with the customers and receiving feedback. So shouldn’t they be able to influence the product?

How can marketing and sales then relay that feedback to the engineering team?

Everyone needs to be on the same page, right? So, it is important that the product team is open to suggestions from marketing and sales.

You need to set up a system that allows everyone to share their thoughts on the product. Here at Signals, that is very important to us. We have found that having weekly meetings has allowed us to all contribute and give feedback on the product. During these meetings, we go through the product and give the engineering team the time to showcase what they have been working on.

Building out new features from customer feedback is how you get customers to continue to use your product. Again, knowing what new features to incorporate comes from those team brainstorming sessions and feedback received from customers directly.

Conclusion

Finding success for your Saas company may seem overwhelming or complicated, but it does not need to be.

All you need to do is build software that solves for a very specific pain point for a very specific niche. And make sure you clearly market how the product helps and who it helps.

Message us on LinkedIn to let us know what you think!