Nailing a High-Converting Saas Trial

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Nailing the SaaS Trial

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MEET THE SPEAKERS

JD Peterson CRO, Scripted

@jd_peterson

Guy Marion CMO & Growth, Autopilot

@guy_marion

Michael Sharkey CEO and Co-founder, Autopilot

@michaelsharkey

Nick Franklin CEO, ChartMogul

@nick_franklin

#SaaS

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4:30 PM

Welcome

4:40 PM

Nailing the SaaS Trial (Mike Sharkey, Guy Marion)

5:30 PM

Know Thy MRR Metrics (Nick Franklin)

AGENDA

5:50 PM

SaaS Q&A Fireside Chat Mike Sharkey, Nick Franklin and JD Peterson, moderated by Guy Marion

6:30 PM

Drinks & Networking

#SaaS

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Why nail your SaaS trial?

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1) BE REMARKABLE

“beautifully simple”“zero learning curve” “empowering”

#SaaS

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2) SUCCESSFUL CUSTOMERS = HIGH LIFETIME VALUE

Monetization

Engagement / Retention

Virality

Simon Knapp @simonknapp

I’ve signed up to trial over 500 apps

over last 5 yrs so I’m not easily

impressed. But @autopilotus just blew

me away! Best onboard ever!

#SaaS

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3) GROW YOUR SAAS VALUATION

#SaaS

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Nailing the Trial: Know Your Customer

MARKETING MANAGER DIRECTOR OF GROWTH

Needs stay better in touch with customer base,

grow sales leads, provide CEO reports

Why She Buys MailChimp not cutting it. Wants ease of

use, flexibility to test, and simple reports

Needs customer journey automation, lead nurturing,

CRM pipeline management

Why He Buys Visual UX, ROI, open & integrated

TARGET PERSONAS

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Average Daily Usage (Events)

UNDERSTAND USER BEHAVIOR

#SaaS

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Phase 1

Phase 2

Phase 3

BuyersAverage Daily Usage (Events)

UNDERSTAND USER BEHAVIOR

#SaaS

DEVELOP ENGAGEMENT OBJECTIVES

Average Daily Usage (Events) Determined

Slow starters

Dropoffs

Lost

1) Motivate the determined. 2) Enable slow starters. 3) Salvage the drop-offs and lost.

#SaaS

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DRIVE ENGAGEMENT THROUGH AUTOMATION

Activated trialists are typically

3X more likely to buy than

inactive users are.

1) A visitor signs up for a trial

2) Activate through nurturing

3) Convert into paying customer

3X

#SaaS

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6 steps to nailing your trial (and let’s build!)

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6-STEPS

1 Set conversion goals Identify key behaviors Define obstacles & nudges

Build your journey Create your content Measure success

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654

#SaaS

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1

SET CONVERSION GOALS

• Track signups, activations, and conversions

• <10% is standard, 10%-15% is good, 15%+ is best

• Factor in channel and cycle time

Sign Ups Activations Customers

100%

33%

15%

#SaaS

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2

IDENTIFY KEY BEHAVIORS

Log in 10%

Upload content 33%

Share 66%

• Logging in

• Specific actions

• Usage thresholds

• Non-app events

Common examples

#SaaS

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3

DEFINE OBSTACLES AND NUDGES

Welcome Usage Tips Sales Touches Usage ReviewExpiry

Warnings Feedback

Need 1-2-3 approach Be successful in app Desire for direct POC Get a bird’s eye view Determine priority Provide input

Goal Login Drive usage Schedule or engage Go deeper Buy Get feedback

Timing Immediately After 1-2 sessions Within 24 hrs Halfway through trial 1 week to expire Post-trial

Channel HTMLHTML

HeadsUpText Enriched HTML HTML Text with survey link

Tone Humor Trusted advisor Hands-off Jargon Helpful Thankful

Personalize your content

#SaaS

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4

BUILD YOUR JOURNEY

Option 1: Time-based, non-usage based Day 1 ➝ Day 2 ➝ Day 7 ➝ Day 14 ➝ Day 23 ➝ Day 30

Option 2: Time & usage-based

Signup ➝ event check after 2 days ➝ event check after 4 days ➝ etc.

Option 3: Usage-based (e.g. Freemium) Signup ➝ Trigger on activity #1 ➝ Trigger on threshold

Common trial types

#SaaS

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CREATE YOUR CONTENT

Welcome

5Goodreads Squarespace

1-2-3 direct

#SaaS

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5

CREATE YOUR CONTENT

Usage Tips

5 Paperless Post

#SaaS

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CREATE YOUR CONTENT

In-app messages (Headsup)

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• Invite to webinar

• Link to key content

• Get feedback

• Subscribe to updates

Common examples

CEO Invite

#SaaS

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CREATE YOUR CONTENT

Usage Review

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Zendesk

#SaaS

LUNCHBOX

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5

CREATE YOUR CONTENT

Expiry Warnings

5 Dropbox

#SaaS

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5

CREATE YOUR CONTENT

Feedback Survey

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Autopilot

#SaaS

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Let’s demo

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MEASURE SUCCESS & ITERATE

Autopilot Salesforce

Mixpanel Chartmogul

Journeys & Content Leads, Customers, $

Conversion Funnels MRR Insights

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SUMMARY

1 Set conversion goals Identify key behaviors Define obstacles & nudges

Build your journey Create your content Measure success

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654

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Know Thy MRR MetricsKnow thy MRR metrics

Nick FranklinFounder & CEO at

nick@chartmogul.com@nick_franklin

About me

Our missionWe help subscription businesses measure,

understand and grow their recurring revenue.

Subscription IntelligenceTM platform

SaaS Metrics

Trial to paid conversion rates

Measuring trial to paid conversion rates with cohorts

How we measure ourselves and update our investors

Sales and revenue KPIs· Customers

· Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)

· Annualized Run Rate (ARR)

· Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA, ARPU, ARPC)

· MRR/Customer churn rate

· Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)

Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)

MRR Movements

Churn

MRR churn-rate

Customer Churn Rate

Gross MRR Churn Rate

Net MRR Churn Rate

Most SaaS startups should aim for negative MRR churn

Many of the best known public SaaS companies have negative churn, e.g. New Relic, Zendesk, but not a requirement to be a unicorn, e.g. HubSpot.

Image credits to Tomasz Tunguz

Negative churn

Churn classificationPro-active churn Passive churn Happy churn

Churn that isn’t really churn

What is a reasonable level of Churn?✓ Most SaaS companies selling to SMBs have quite high levels of monthly churn 3.2% customer churn.

✓ The more up-market you go the lower the churn rate (usually) ✓ Many public SaaS companies have negative net churn, as high as 20%

Cohort analysis

Cohort analysis is a great way to really understand how your subscriptions evolve over their lifespan.

Customer lifetime value (LTV)What is it?An estimate of the total subscription value of an average customer.

Calculation

Helps with decisions on CAC spending, growth predictions

ARPA

Customer churnLTV =

* Gross Margin %

Segment MRR and LTV by acquisition channel.

What you want to end up with…

Advantages of Ahoy

Track everything in our own database.

Referrer & UTMs of every visit + landing pages.

Connect the collected data with an account the moment the visitor signs up.

It’s free.

Pipe the relevant visitor data into all our systems

Marketing

CRM

Analytics

Seeing this caused us to turn off most paid advertising.

Where to learn more…

Jason M. Lemkin@jasonlk

saastr.com

Christoph Janz@chrija

theangelvc.net

David Skok@BostonVC

forentrepreneurs.com

Tomasz Tunguz@ttunguz

tomtunguz.com

+ ChartMogul.com

Thank you!

chartmogul.com

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Fireside chat

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autopilothq.com blog.autopilothq.com

@autopilotus

mike@autopilothq.com guy@autopilothq.com

chartmogul.com blog.chartmogul.com

@chartmogul

nick@chartmogul.com

GET IN TOUCH

scripted.com scripted.com/blogs

@getscripted

jd@scripted.com

#SaaS