How to sell SaaS? 10 experts' tips to sell SaaS

SaaS - Software as a service market was valued at a record $165.9 billion in 2021 with an expected growth rate of 11% from 2022 to 2028. The incredible journey of the SaaS industry comes from a $5.56 billion market in 2008 to a record value of $165.9 billion in 2021. Yet, it still has to witness its best. These promising stats hint at the scalability potential, growing saturation, and competitiveness in the SaaS market.

Selling software as a service is an art; it's not as easy as selling traditional software. Designing an exceptional SaaS application is not enough to drive sales. It requires a winning SaaS sales strategy ultimately to taste success in the highly competitive SaaS market. 

This blog post will walk you through the best ten SaaS sales tips to help you perfectly pitch your SaaS products.

Choose a Right SaaS Sales Model

Choosing the right SaaS sales model is the first and foremost step in designing a winning SaaS sales strategy. It lets you know the number of SaaS sales representatives you should hire and the ideal way to reach the potential audience. 

You can go with one of the following three SaaS sale models depending on your SaaS product nature, complexity, price, and targeted audience:

• Traditional Sales
• Enterprise Sales
• Customer Self Service

Traditional Sales 

This approach refers to aggressive marketing for the brand, SaaS product awareness, and generally creating a buzz. The core focus of the transactional sales model remains on creating maximum prospects through aggressive marketing campaigns. After creating a rich pool of prospects, you can individually focus on each potential client who has heard of your SaaS product to close the deal.

The traditional SaaS sale model requires you to visit potential clients in person or communicate via phone to educate them about your SaaS product. This sales model can be your first choice if you have a customizable SaaS product with small enterprises as your potential clients.

Enterprise Sales

SaaS companies with pricey and complex SaaS products follow the enterprise sales model. Complex SaaS products like ERP Software have a lengthy SaaS sales process. In this industry, clients need individualized attention, several rounds of meetings, demos, and customization requests to close the deal.

A lengthy SaaS sales cycle for complicated SaaS products urges companies to focus on quality leads rather than reaching out to every prospect. Concentrating on lead quality instead of quantity can be your key to success in selling web based software. The enterprise sales model lets SaaS companies focus on enterprises instead of individual clients. 

Through this model, you can sell pricey SaaS products to whole enterprises with after-sale services rather than targeting individual clients. That's why we recommend SaaS companies with complex and expensive products follow the enterprise model to sell SaaS.

Customer Self-Service

Customer self-service is the most common model for selling SaaS products with a lower sales value. The customer self-service model excludes the sales rep from the equation, making it a self-running model.

This model lets you trigger prospects to subscribe to your SaaS product through exceptional marketing campaigns and problem-solving (“How to”) content. The customer self-service model entirely relies on paid and organic marketing to sell SaaS; it does not require you to hire a separate selling team.

How to sell SaaS: Ten Experts' Tips to Sell SaaS

Understanding the SaaS sales models is one thing while executing a sale process is another. Selling web based software is an entirely different thing than selling traditional digital products. 

So, here is the list of ten tried and tested SaaS sale tips to convert your leads into sales.

1. Know Every Nook and Cranny of your Product

Get ready for the technical questions - you will get tons of them regarding your SaaS product features, capabilities, scalability, and limitations. As a SaaS sales representative, you must talk with your SaaS product development and marketing teams. Spend maximum time using your SaaS product and talk with marketing and development teams to better comprehend the product inside and out. It will prepare you to pitch your SaaS product perfectly and face clients' questions.

You may encounter some challenging technical questions, especially in B2B SaaS sales. However, there’s no need to lose the leads because of complex queries. The perfect solution would be to get technical persons, i.e., engineers, in meetings with challenging clients to answer their queries and close the deal easier.

2. Keep Following 

Patience and persistence are the key traits you may possess as a SaaS sales representative. SaaS products, especially B2B SaaS, have lengthy sales cycles because of their complexity and higher prices. 

To sell such SaaS products, you may have to make tens of calls and rounds of meetings with a potential lead. Stay persistent and keep following the leads to improve the conversion rate. Consistent efforts will definitely bring results for your SaaS business.

3. Set up a Compelling Marketing Campaign

Digital Marketing is the key to success in this modern era world. Design a compelling marketing campaign for your SaaS product to reach the target audience. Also, it’s important not to rely only on one digital marketing platform while designing the campaign for SaaS. 

You may incorporate multiple digital marketing platforms, i.e., Facebook, Google, YouTube, and Email, into your SaaS marketing strategy for various goals. E.g., product awareness, lead generation, and conversions. 

Follow the enlisted tips while designing the SaaS marketing campaign:

• Design activities-based marketing campaigns to grab the potential audience's attention.
• Design an email course to explain your SaaS product better.
• Send Emails to the potential leads daily or weekly, depending on the product nature.
• Send emails by your name rather than your department name.

4. Offer short and personalized demo

Offering the product demo is vital but avoid converting it into a training session. Comprehend the potential client needs and how your SaaS product can benefit the client before presenting a demo. 

Offer a short and personalized demo for every prospect to make it impactful. Lastly, take only 5 to 15 minutes for a demo to maintain the prospect's interest. And focus on representing your SaaS as a solution rather than explaining each & every feature.

5. Offer a free trial

Offering free trials can be a great way to hook interested users. The free trial lets interested users get your SaaS product into the picture and practically feel its benefits. But what should be the free trial period for a SaaS app?

We have seen startups offering 1-to-3 months trial periods with no gains at the end. There is no thumb rule to provide a specific trial period. To design the SaaS trial periods strategically, look at the complexity of your SaaS product. And don't forget to include the time an average prospect may take to comprehend its benefits. 

Avoid offering too short or long trial periods; provide 7-to-30 days trial periods depending on your SaaS product nature.

6. Offer a live setup Call

Signing up for the free trial hints at the prospect's interest in your SaaS product. Make a call to all the potential clients who have signed up for a free trial as early as possible. Thank them for signing up, offer a live setup call, demo, and answers to their queries. 

Personalized support at early stages can significantly boost the chances of conversions.

7. Offer special discounts on annual subscriptions

Offering subscription packages is a great way to establish a monthly recurring revenue stream for SaaS. But limiting it to a monthly subscription model isn't ideal, especially for complex and pricey SaaS.

Introduce the annual subscription plans with special discounts to grab potential audience attention. It will trigger clients to prepay for a year, and ultimately the SaaS business will get funds to improvise the product without fear of losing the client.

You may also like: 16 best SaaS pricing models and strategies

8. Get customers feedback

As a sales representative, you may have the best knowledge of a SaaS product. Still, customers have a practical understanding of your SaaS product after using it. Ask customers for feedback to better analyze your SaaS product capabilities from the customers' perspective.

Getting weekly or monthly feedback will enable SaaS sales teams to comprehend a SaaS product's strengths, weaknesses, and market needs. Their feedback-based analysis will assist the development team in improvising a SaaS product in the right direction.

9. Upsell and cross-sell opportunities

One successful lead conversion lays the foundation for future sales in the SaaS world. Practicing the feedback-based analysis will assist SaaS sales representatives in comprehending the customers' needs and offering an upsell at the right time. 

Keep analyzing the existing customers' feedback and needs to identify the upsell or cross-sell opportunities.

10. Track SaaS sales metrics

SaaS sales metrics enable SaaS companies to track the performance of SaaS sales representatives and company growth rate to meet monthly or annual goals. 

SaaS companies generally track the enlisted SaaS sales metrics:

• Conversion rate - calculate the conversion rate for sales representatives. For instance, a salesperson's 15% conversion rate means they have converted 15 leads out of 100.
• Sales goals - the number of sales a SaaS business needs to meet its financial goals.
• Leads required - number of leads required with existing conversion rate to meet the SaaS company sale goal.

Tracking these SaaS sales metrics can assist both salespersons and SaaS companies in aligning their marketing and sales strategies. 

For more in-depth knowledge, we also recommend reading: 12 vital SaaS metrics to monitor

Ten experts' tips to sell SaaS. Final words

Selling SaaS is an art - it's entirely different than selling traditional digital assets. Adding value to your SaaS products and services is the key to success in the SaaS world. 

SaaS is a billion-dollar industry; it's the right time to jump into this business (if you still haven’t done it). You can follow the tips mentioned above to boost SaaS sales and make your SaaS products shine.

Want to build your future SaaS products faster? Check out SaaS Boilerplate, a developer-friendly starter kit to speed up your SaaS development process.