The SaaS Blueprint: Building Brand Trust Through Unified Outreach

When delving into the world of SaaS, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the myriad of strategies and methods on offer. Yet, one fundamental truth stands out: our approach truly counts.

Now, there’s no denying the time-tested efficacy of the phone. There’s something about the immediacy of voice, the rapport it establishes. It’s undeniably our ace in the hole. However, let’s face it, we’re in a digital era, and platforms like Email and LinkedIn are simply indispensable. They’re not mere add-ons; they’re part of the core trio. These platforms grant us the ability to engage potential clients in diverse yet equally impactful ways, and when used effectively, they each compliment and bolster the others.

This brings me to another key point: the potential outcomes when sales and marketing join forces. The era when sales and marketing operated in their own bubbles is, thankfully, bygone. In today’s world, especially within SaaS, the fusion of the two has led to some incredible results. Our SDR teams receive these qualified, nurtured, warm leads, transforming conversions into genuine dialogues.

A unified front is essential. It’s not just about the message but ensuring it’s delivered harmoniously. If our marketing colleagues are communicating a narrative, it’s pivotal we’re all on the same page, talking the same language and replicating each other’s approach. This alignment doesn’t just enhance our brand’s authenticity, it amplifies it, particularly when our SDRs are reaching out.

Lastly, there’s the matter of brand trust. With marketing standing shoulder to shoulder with sales, reinforcing the narrative, it’s akin to bestowing our brand with a seal of credibility. And trust me, that doesn’t go unnoticed.

In conclusion, as the SaaS industry continues to grow and evolve, it’s pivotal that we remain agile, adaptive, and most importantly, integrated in our approach. By ensuring that our sales and marketing efforts are not just aligned but intertwined, we position ourselves for sustained success and growth. Always remember the basics: integration, consistency, and collaboration.

See how this simple, collaborative approach has led to many success stories with clients the SaaS sector, here.

Opinion piece by Sales Director, Marco Alfano-Rogers

Why it’s never too early for SaaS businesses to invest in their sales strategy

All hype and a lackluster product are a common phenomenon. We’ve all been seduced by a miracle product that promises so much but underwhelms. But what about the flipside? What happens when you spend all your time focused on technology development and neglect to think of the future sales? It’s tempting to believe that a truly fantastic product will sell itself. Sadly, this is a modern fable of the highest order. Every major new tech development of the past 10 years has been backed by a sound sales and marketing strategy because nothing drives new product investment better than a solid first year’s sales figures.

In the SaaS industry, success is largely predicated on those early sales, as an estimated 92% of SaaS companies fail within 3 years. Despite growth and funding, securing pipeline and a stronghold in the market is even more vital.

It’s a tough situation because it’s natural for entrepreneurs to hold back on marketing and sales plans when they feel their product requires further development but it’s also this lack of planning beyond the initial investment that can prove a seriously limiting factor.

So, if you’ve secured investment, found a perfect product market fit and are confident in your value proposition and pricing, you’re way ahead of most of your competitors. But in a high growth and extremely saturated market, that’s not enough to edge the competition. Beige, generic and all-encompassing messaging that doesn’t help your product stand-out, coupled with a less than expert sales approach, isn’t the winning combination that will help you succeed.

Define your market and nurture it

It’s true, there’s a global market out there if you’re an SaaS business, and even if you’ve validated the market need for your product with extensive research, you still need to have a consistent, defined approach to influencing the decision makers in the businesses who have the most need for what you’re selling. Even if you have the perfect product to solve their business challenge, if your sales strategy and approach to prospecting doesn’t include a thorough discovery process, you could be missing out on valuable prospects and upsell opportunities. Our team are experts in guiding and influencing these conversations, gathering valuable insight throughout their conversations.

Invest in lead generation

If you’re new to the market and your organic traffic and enquiries need a boost, investing in lead generation can not only directly feed your pipeline but drive valuable traffic to your website, and can help you build brand and reputation when you’re still trying to expand your reach.

Stop firefighting and trust a sales expert

We’ve covered the issue of allocating a budget to outsourcing sales in our blog How to decide what to spend your investment on. A big part of this is understanding that the right team is essential to success. When you’re just starting to get established, it’s frustrating for team members to lead functions where they have limited expertise. You can be a genius developer with a talent for securing investment but that doesn’t mean you know how to create a winning sales strategy, tailor conversations that convince decision makers to part with their cash or seamlessly adjust the script to keep a prospect warm and interested. That’s what our team can do for you, giving you back valuable time to focus on core business.

The Covid-19 effect

The pandemic has seen SaaS sales rise, thanks to increased digitisation of services expedited by the shift to remote work. Who knows how long the boom will last? What we do know is that when budgets tighten, SaaS services will have to prove their mettle and stay close to both customers and prospects to keep churn low and convince new customers to part with their cash, making a consistent approach to account managing existing customers and nurturing new relationships even more vital.

If you’d like to find out more about how we can help you create a winning sales approach that will ensure a strong pipeline as the market recovers, get in touch: call 0345 241 3038 or email contact@air-marketing.co.uk.

How SaaS companies are reaping the benefits of outsourcing their Sales Development Representative (SDR) roles – now’s the time to take the leap

In the SaaS market, outbound sales are crucial to scale
and grow at the rate needed to remain competitive and deliver that initial
return on investment necessary not only to validate their product but to ensure
their company’s future.

While an annual growth rate of 20% is a healthy benchmark for businesses in other industries, software companies growing at that rate have a 92% chance of failure in just a few years according to McKinsey & Company. Further cementing the pressure to succeed for tech businesses in those crucial early months.

For most, their product has spent many months in
development, they’re confident in their value proposition, their market
research and their messaging. With this level of pressure to make it succeed, there
is no doubt going to be a level of nervousness in handing over the reins to an
outsourced partner to support taking that product to market.

But there are clear and well-documented benefits to outsourcing sales, especially for a high growth model like SaaS. Developing a high-performance sales process takes time and expertise. For companies looking to fast track growth and build pipeline, they may not have months to build a sales culture primed for success. In fact, building an SDR function in-house comes with many challenges; you need to recruit the right people, retain the best performers and spend time training and managing those who don’t come up to the mark.

Fast growth means high churn

Research shows the turnover rates average at 39% for players in the high growth SaaS market, with contributing factors including burnout, poaching from more recognised brands with established career pathways and simply the nature of working in a fast-paced environment. If you consider average ramp-up time is just over 3 months for most SDRs, it becomes clear why it makes sense to work with a partner who specialises in recruiting and retaining talented SDRs. A related benefit of outsourcing is protecting the in-house sales talent tech businesses need to retain, by allowing them to focus on closing deals rather than spreading themselves thinly across prospecting and short-term promotions.

Building a sales culture for success takes time

A successful sales culture is reliant on great team relationships, a comprehensive onboarding and training programme and the right mix of employee benefits and incentives. At Air, we’re proud of our culture and the journey our SDRs have taken from new recruits to experienced individuals with enviable track records. But it didn’t happen overnight, our people have honed their experience through working on diverse and complex campaigns and growing in confidence and experience with each client collaboration. This means they can hit the ground running with new campaigns and are already familiar with the challenges across a range of SaaS clients, so can leverage their experience and insight into industry challenges to build rapport with key decision makers. For more insight on this topic, watch our vlog where we explore the challenges of Growing a team of Sales Development Representatives.

Air’s outsourced model

We help our SaaS clients fast track to success with Air’s outsourced SDR model, removing the burden of developing their in-house sales specialism and giving them back time to focus on their operations, service and product development. If you are a SaaS business looking for support, we can help.

Scale
your outreach

We believe that
there’s nothing more effective in a sales process than a good, human to human
conversation. Our expert team of SDRs will scale your reach, increasing your
brand awareness and potential sales opportunities.

Build
your pipeline

A healthy sales pipeline of qualified leads that will convert is vital to your plans to scale. Our team of highly skilled SDRs effectively engage with your ideal target audience, to give you the best chance of making a sale.

Convert
prospects

We’ll work with you to increase revenue from new sales. Our talented Sales Development team will not only create pipeline but cover the full sales cycle.

To discover more about how we work with SaaS businesses and the results we achieve check out our case studies. If you’d like to start a conversation about how we could work together to help your business grow, call 0333 250 3217 or email contact@air-marketing.co.uk.