If you’re reading this post, you’re probably not closing as many sales as you would expect for your B2B SaaS.
I understand.
Converting B2B SaaS is not as easy as B2C SaaS.
But why?
With B2B SaaS, having a great product is half the struggle. Plus, you’re selling to a company, organization, or business and not an individual.
To close more sales for your B2B SaaS, you need to develop a solid marketing strategy that will get prospects to sign up for your trial or freemium plan and pay for your product after the trial ends.
Also, you need to choose robust subscription management software for your SaaS business. This Younium subscription management guide can help you reduce your business churn rate and increase the sales of your SaaS business.
But this is easier said than done.
No wonder, 30% of B2B SaaS sales professionals need help when it comes to getting data about prospects to start the conversion process. 22% say they need help in getting accurate contact information about leads:
Image via Lusha
I’m here to help you out.
This article discusses practical strategies that you can leverage to close more sales for your B2B SaaS business.
Let’s get started.
1. Understand Your Target Market
The first and most crucial step to close more sales for your B2B SaaS company is to understand your target market from the onset of your strategy.
After all, that’s how you determine whether your product will be accepted or not.
According to this Attrock guide, understanding your target audience is when creating a SaaS startup sales strategy.
Here, you need to gather enough information about your target businesses such as:
- The type of businesses your product is suited for.
- Your target businesses’ pain points.
- What they want to achieve.
- How your product can help them achieve these goals.
- The key decision-maker in your target businesses.
Remember that the B2B SaaS market is broad and diverse and comprises small, and medium-sized businesses, as well as small and large enterprises.
You need to define the specific needs, pain points, and wants of each of these groups.
The right type of CRM software can help you to manage and segment your audience as per your different segments. SmallbusinessHQ guide helps you understand different types of CRMs.
Once you segment your market and define your ideal businesses, you’ll be able to create targeted marketing campaigns that are tailored to your explicit audience.
2. Develop an ICP and Buyer Personas
To dig deeper into the pain points, wants, and needs of your target businesses, you need to develop an ideal customer profile and buyer personas.
An ICP is a depiction of the business that your SaaS product is suited for.
Remember that for B2B SaaS business, your customer is the entire organization or company.
Here is the information to include in your ICP:
- Industry
- Company size
- Compliance
- Location
- Annual revenue
- Security
Developing a solid ideal customer profile enables you to focus your sales efforts on companies that are most likely to buy.
This will help you avoid wasting resources and close more sales deals for your B2B SaaS.
Next, create buyer personas.
A buyer persona is a representation of the particular person within your ideal customer profile.
For instance, within the company, you could target the manager, executive, etc.
Here are pieces of information to gather to help you create solid buyer personas:
- Understand their role in the company
- Determine how they make purchasing decisions
- Understand their goals
Remember that during the purchase process, different people play different roles as evident in this 2022 B2B Buyer Behavior Survey by Demand Gen Report:
Image via Demand Gen Report
Developing buyer personas enables you to understand your target businesses on a more detailed level.
This enables you to launch target SaaS marketing and sales strategies targeted directly to them.
3. Decide The Right SaaS Sales Model for Your Business
When it comes to B2B SaaS, you’ll need to choose from the three common sales models below:
Traditional Sales Model
The traditional B2B SaaS sales model is the most straightforward way to sell products. This sales model focuses on lead generation and closing deals.
You’ll need a dedicated sales team that will work on lead prospecting and nurturing to move potential customers through the SaaS sales process.
You can leverage this sales model if you sell high-priced SaaS products.
The Product-Led Growth Sales Model
Otherwise called the self-service sales model, the product-led growth method is currently the popular model for selling SaaS products for companies.
In this sales methodology, you leverage your product to create a pipeline of active users using free trials and freemium plans and then convert them into paying customers
Here is an image that shows how the product-led growth sales methodology works:
Image via Product-Led Inc.
To close more sales for your B2B SaaS business with this methodology, ensure your product is easy to use and valuable to your target businesses.
The Enterprise Sales Model
This sales methodology works pretty much the same as the traditional model because it involves having a dedicated sales team working on generating leads and converting them into paying customers.
This model is useful for products that require a big deal of customization and is particularly suitable when targeting enterprises.
Conclusion
Closing more sales for your B2B SaaS business can be a complex task without a solid sales strategy that can help you build lasting relationships with the right businesses and continuously deliver value to them.
The idea is to understand your target market, develop solid ICP and buyer personas and choose the right sales model.
