How to Sell SaaS B2B: Strategies to Help you Succeed

Developing strategies to learn how to sell SaaS B2B can be challenging. First, it's fundamental to understand the differences in dealing with a market that is focused on selling services to companies. The selling plan can't be the same as one that is made for the B2C market (business to consumers). 

The SaaS (Software as a Service) area also has particularities that need to be taken into consideration. One thing is for sure, though, if you want to increase sales, you need to study your target audience, make sure your team knows your product well, and plan thoroughly the marketing and sales actions. 

1. Know Your Target Audience#

The first step to planning your marketing strategies on how to sell SaaS B2B is identifying who is your target audience, and, then, researching them to create buyer personas.

What sectors do the companies you are going to target belong to? What size are they? Who are the decision-makers when it comes to acquiring new software? 

Knowing those things is going to enable your sales and marketing team to draw more effective campaigns. Before defining your target audience, you also need to determine how your product can help those companies. 

What problems are they facing? When using your software, how it will offer a solution to solve their demand? By having this clear, you will know what characteristics to highlight to show your software is worth the investment. 

2. Provide a Curated App Portfolio#

When we think about the experience of entering a store and seeing multiple product options, having a large catalog is a good thing that amazes the customers, right? But, in terms of B2B SaaS, that's different. 

B2B SaaS buyers usually are looking for one specific product that can solve their pain points. If they encounter an online catalog with too many apps to choose from, they may feel confused. Besides many of them don't have the time to go through an extensive catalog to search for the offer that will fit their company's needs. 

The best solution is to show them a software option that is focused on solving their demands, instead of offering a thousand features. This also helps to provide a more personalized experience. 

Stick to your core value to make it easier for customers to understand what you can provide, and choose highly targeted marketplaces to reach your potential customers. 

3. Delivery Value#

The benefits that your app provides may be clear to you, but don't run the risk of believing it will sell by itself only. Your target audience may not have realized what they will gain by using your software. 

That's why your marketing and sales teams are fundamental in closing deals. When it comes to how to sell SaaS B2B, you need to communicate clearly your product's relevance to the customer. 

Use your communication channels, such as email marketing campaigns, social media, and website to develop high-quality content that shows how valuable your software can be for a company. 

Invest in persuasive communication, and train your sales team to know deeply every detail of your SaaS products, so they can show customers the benefits they will get.  

4. Invest in Pull Marketing#

Different from push marketing, which is basically advertising, pull marketing consists of offering valuable content, such as ebooks, tutorials, blog posts, guides, and white papers to pull visitors to your website. You will grab their attention by providing information related to topics that are pertinent to them.

This way, you have the opportunity to attract potential customers that are on different stages of the buyer's journey. It's necessary to create content for every stage, to guide them until they are ready to complete a purchase. 

You can produce articles to help your target audience to identify their company issues, then point out ways to solve them, and, for leads ready to buy, present your product.

When you offer an ebook that requires filling out a form to download, for example, it's a way to generate a lead. Your team should follow up on the leads, and identify selling opportunities.   

5. Offer Free Trials#

To allow your leads to get to know your SaaS products better, provide free trials. It's a way to help them in the decision-making process, to feel more secure about choosing to acquire your software. 

Besides, when someone requires a free trial and downloads your software, you know that's a lead that you have real chances to turn into a customer. Your sales team can get in contact, to assist during the software tryout, and help close deals. 

But, pay attention to the process of accessing the free trial, make it a simple one. If you insert too many steps to install give access to the software, it may discourage the customer from doing it. Having only to enter an email, and create a password is fast and more inviting.

6. Give a Human Touch#

If on the B2C market often apps sell themselves, the same isn't so common on how to sell SaaS B2B, a human touch is frequently needed to finalize the purchase.

Use CRM software to keep track of your leads, and identify opportunities, so your sales team can help customers to make their decision, and sell.

A conversation through a  live chat, a video call or an in-person meeting are opportunities to understand better the client's doubts. You can make a personalized offer, and show how your company is interested in providing the best solution to the customer's company.  

7. Sell Customer-Centric Solutions#

To sell B2B SaaS, you need to put the customer in the center and focus on understanding their company's needs and weak points.  Listen to what your customers have to say if you aren't capable to comprehend how your solution works for them, how can you and your sales team convince them? 

The focus, when communicating with your target audience, shouldn't be solely on your software features, but on how they can be applied to solve the customer's problems. Give important information, such as accurate return on investment (ROI) and total cost of ownership (TCO). 

Prepare your sales team to be ready to answer questions like how data is protected in your software, and other security measures. Besides, show to customers they aren't going to count on only the product, but with a team prepared to offer assistance whenever they need it. 

8. Provide an Effective Onboarding Process#

When the customers buy your software, the work doesn't stop at this stage, on the contrary, it's necessary to build a relationship, to retain them.  To be able to sell them other SaaS products, updates and to make them want to renew the software license, in the future, they need to have incentives. 

You can start by providing an effective onboarding process. Help your customer company in the process of installing, configuring, and migrating information to the software that was purchased. You may even offer training to their team to get acquainted with the app features and make the most of it. 

This way, you prevent situations like when the software is acquired, but it isn't used because people don't know how to navigate through it, and find it difficult to change from the old system to the new one.

If that happens, it's most likely that they won't renovate the software license or look for other SaaS products offered by your company. 

Another benefit of an effective onboarding process is that customers value the effort made by your company to help them. It increases the customer experience and enhances your brand's image too. You can create new sales and cross-selling opportunities with this. 

Train Your Sales Team on How to Sell SaaS B2B#

When it comes to learning how to sell SaaS B2B, it won't be effective if you understand all the processes and their particularities, but don't transmit this knowledge to your sales team.

Invest in training, and make sure each salesperson is equipped with the necessary resources to get to know deeply the products they are selling. Put the strategies into action, and get your team on board with you.

Show how their work is valuable to reach the company's goals. Direct contact with customers enables them to learn how to sell SaaS B2B in practice and also have new perspectives. Encourage them to share their points of view, to continuously improve the sales processes.