Best practices of business growth

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1		100 best practices of business growth		Get expert advice on how to improve your website communications to get more leads
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3		from the Dashly expert team			Get a free assessment
4		from the Dashly expert team

5	Try Wait Lists	Are you still at the stage where you’re planning to launch your product, but already gaining interest in it? Then using a waitlist could be the strategy for you. ‘Waitlist’ means a group of people who have given you their email addresses and are waiting to be notified when your product launches. A waitlist could be precisely what you need to gain the growth you’re looking for, putting yourself on the path to becoming a market leader from day 1. The Mailbox app used this strategy to great effect, exciting users with their waitlist and enticing them with the idea of exclusivity that comes with drip releases. Users wanted to be one of the first to get involved, giving Mailbox a headstart when it came to dropping the waitlist for a full release.	Don't keep an intrigue too long. Let people see the deadlines and product roadmap from the early beginning.	Article to read: Short updates are boring. Release notes new format. How to write
6	Build Email Lists	As your brand and business grow people will provide you with their email addresses, either in exchange for content access (a ‘warm’ lead) or because they are interested in purchasing your SaaS (a ‘hot’ lead). But what about when you’re just starting out? If that’s the case, then you could try building a cold email list. Cold emails are those that are sent without permission from (or prior contact with) the recipient. The best way to build these lists is manually. It can be done in a number of ways, from a simple Google search to targeted queries on Twitter or LinkedIn. It takes time, but when done right you’ll end up with a high-quality list full of qualified prospects.	Don't buy a list. The data will usually be incomplete, inaccurate, and ineffective, and you’re more likely to run into delivery issues that will affect your domain reputation.
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10	Offer Content For Email Addresses	Email remains one of the best ways to engage with prospective customers and attract visitors to your website. Collect email addresses by offering something in return, such as your latest blog post, a data-driven infographic, practical new product features, or an insightful guide. You can also incentivize the sign-up process by using content pop-ups that promote exclusive content that’s available only to those who part with their email address, such as a free ebook or guide. If you are in the B2B market, avoid fake email accounts by insisting on a business email address. Ensure your message has an intriguing subject line to help it stand out in busy inboxes, while well-written content will make sure you get your message across. Demonstrate your industry knowledge and explain why your product or service is relevant to the audience.	Don't launch pop-ups at the moment customers visit a website. Let them browse it for some time and offer lead magnet after a minute or when they are going to leave.	Read also: Attract customers with these 24 lead magnets
11	Make Your Outreach Personal	When you’re starting out every new customer is a cause for celebration, and none are more important than your first 100. They provide the initial signs that your product has market fit, and help improve your product while shaping your future business strategy. Considering their importance, why not take the time to reach out to each of them personally. After all, relationships that last are built on strong foundations. By introducing yourself to those first users, you provide them with a level of customer service worth shouting about, while getting to know them better can only help secure their long-term custom.
12	Try Email Pretargeting	With high opt-out and low click-through, cold lists are hard work, so why not warm them up a little first. Use advert retargeting to introduce yourself to your mailing list and get them familiar with your brand before you start a costly and time consuming email campaign. You can use the mailing list to find potential customers through their social media accounts. Since purchased cold lists can contain inaccuracies or be based on broad demographics such as occupation or location, first separate potential leads from those less likely to be interested in your product. Once you have that information, you can then start using paid ads to raise awareness of your product for those people who meet the criteria of your ideal customer.
13	List Your Business With Google	If you want to increase your visibility and gain traction, why not list yourself on Google. By using Google’s Search Engine Results Page (SERP) and listing your business’s physical location, you can rise up in their search rankings. Upload photos and earn customer reviews associated with your Google business listing to increase your visibility.
14	Craft A Press Release	In a world of online media it might seem a little outdated, but getting your story published by someone well respected within the industry can have a massive impact on your growth. Once you’re established enough to have gained some positive reviews from people other than your customers, write a short piece focusing on your brand’s story and then contact relevant individuals or outlets to see if they’ll publish it.
15	Use Localization Services	When selling globally, it pays to think locally. In an EU language preference survey, 72% of customers said they were more likely to buy a product when it is sold in their native language, while 9 out of 10 people said they would always visit a website in their own language if the option existed. With that in mind, localize your website content, product prices, and anything else you can manage. It all helps build trust with prospective customers by approaching them on their terms and providing them with recognizable context.
16	Piggyback On Other Platforms	Chances are your product is entering a crowded market. If so, join the competition rather than trying to beat them by piggybacking off their platforms. For example, Airbnb started out by posting to craigslist with a bot. Then they migrated users with the promise of a better user interface and results. Finally, they directly contacted people with popular listings, advising them of the benefit of posting with them as well as craigslist. They aren’t the only ones who have used this strategy to achieve results. PayPal originally piggybacked off eBay, leveraging their reputation and client base. The majority of traffic during the early days of Youtube came directly from Myspace. Zynga initially found its gamers by publishing through Facebook. Once you know exactly who your product is for, find and utilize a platform that has already done the hard work for you.
17	Get A Start-Up Directory Listing	With over 75% of B2B customers consulting reviews before making a purchase, getting listed on some of the SaaS industry’s best and biggest start-up directories is an effective strategy to follow. Choose those that are big, popular, and industry-relevant. They boost your visibility by providing free exposure on high-ranking websites and building social proof, and can help attract prospective customers to your business.
18	Plan Your Content Strategy	A clear strategy is essential when planning to produce high-quality content that excites prospective customers and meets business needs. Before you start creating content, you need to create a strategy that will help you build trust with new audiences while taking your business goals into account. Consider who you are creating content for, what problem you want to solve, what makes your solution unique, what channels you will publish it on, and how you will manage content creation and publication. If you plan to create content as a means to achieve your goals, you need a clear plan about exactly what they are and how you intend to get there.
19	Create ‘Roundup’ Content	The idea here is to choose a group of the best blog posts discussing a specific topic, then create your own post that features them. When you’ve done that, reach out to the original authors you have mentioned and tell them you’ve included them in your roundup. You should see a spike in traffic from their social media shares and mentions as a result.
20	Contribute Within The Community	Don’t promote your product; instead, advertise your expertise. When people respect your opinion and benefit from your experience, your product sells itself. Pitch your SaaS to websites like Indiehackers, Failory, or other blogs that do interviews with founders and fellow growth hackers. You can also run workshops or speak at conferences. Check out product hunt, write a blog on medium, shout out to founders, and share articles that fit your niche, gaining traction from their own social media shares. You can also join or create social media-based community forums where users can discuss your product. Problems can be resolved here, and questions answered as customers are much more likely to search for solutions through social media and Google than to ask. You can also use these groups to gather feedback about your product and ideas on how to take it further.
21	Become An Authority On Q&A Sites	A few Q&A sites out there have massive networking potential, such as Quora, which has an estimated 9+ million users. Generate engaged and relevant traffic by using them to raise product awareness. Find people asking questions that fit within your niche and then engage with them by answering. You can also find ideas for product improvement, and promote yourself as a trusted expert within the industry.
22	Use The Twitter Follower Trick	Twitter is one of the best social media sites for connecting with people in your industry, interest, or niche. Manually follow as many users in your sphere as possible, from peers and customers to competitors, thought leaders, etc. Over time, unfollow those who don’t follow back and follow others in their place. You’ll quickly build enough of a real following to become a featured account followed by relevant users. Use existing mail lists alongside tools like ManageFlitter to find customer social media accounts and follow them for a higher rate of return followers.
23	Boost Social Media Using Email Lists	Large, active, and engaged social media can do wonders for your reach and visibility. You can use cold, warm, or hot email lists to manually - or with tools like Hubspot - find social media accounts connected to your email list and follow them. The more followers you attract, the easier it’ll be to boost search rankings and attract new users.
24	Do Your Competitor Keyword Research	As part of a more extensive competitor analysis, this is the process of identifying what specific keywords or topics drive your competitors’ success. Your aim here should be to discover which phrases you are missing in your strategy, focusing on the ‘low-hanging fruit’; that is, search terms that you could use to rank quickly. By analyzing your competitors’ organic and paid keywords, you’re able to gain a better understanding of how customers search for information related to your particular SaaS. Conducting competitor keyword research can help you improve your SEO rankings and outperform your competitors. Analyzing your competitors enables you to understand how you’re doing in comparison. You can then use this information to uncover areas of your SEO strategy that need improvement. While this can be done manually there are online keyword research tools that can make the process much easier and help you collect more detailed data. You have several choices for competitor keyword analysis tools, such as Ahrefs and SpyFu
25	Use Your Competitors Keyword Branding	Now you know more about your competitors’ keywords, it’s time to look at their keyword branding and how you can use it to drive traffic to your product. When bidding on your competitors’ branding, it’s important to remember not to break your budget and to watch out for trademarked terms. Bidding on an immediate competitor's keywords is often an inexpensive strategy that can help attract quality, purpose-driven traffic.
26	Analyze your competitors content	Now’s the time to learn a little bit more about what your competitors are talking about, where they are saying it, and who is talking about them in return. When we talk about content analysis, we don’t just mean the written word. It covers everything, from audio, video, and images to a website redesign and launch. Look at the sort of content they are sharing and where they are sharing it. You can do this manually or using any number of online competitor analytic tools. Find out what generates the most likes, comments, and shares on their social media accounts and produce more comprehensive, better quality versions. You can also use online analytic tools to look at sites that link or drive traffic to your competitors. This shows you which websites link to them, which can help you recognize gaps within your own link building and show you exactly which content delivered the most traffic.
27	Who’s Using Your Competitor’s Product	Finding out about those who use one of your competitors’ products is a guaranteed way to learn more about your own audience and ideal customer. Using online tools like Similar Tech, you can check out a competitors’ tech stack. If used correctly, this information can help identify behavior patterns within market groups, helping you target potential customers more effectively. For example, if you see someone using 2 or 3 specific tools alongside that of your competitor, then targeting others using those specific tools will help increase your chance of acquiring new customers
28	Check Your Competitors Toolkit	When optimizing your conversation rate, you need to choose the tools that will genuinely benefit your lead generation. To find these, why not look at your competitors' toolkit. Services like Builtfree let you analyze websites, getting a feel for the tools and strategies used by successful competitors to generate leads, as well as helping identify smart software investments.
29	Be Transparent	Whether you’re a new start-up or an established business, being honest about your company culture, business model, and personal beliefs makes it much easier to attract the right types of visitors to your product. Transparent practices acknowledge that the customer is invested in your product and inform them about the morals and beliefs that drive and guide your business. Doing so will attract people with a similar mindset and set up partnerships for life.
30	Network With Influencers	Find people who already have well-established audiences and work with them to help grow your own. List influential people within your industry, engage with their content and ideas, and develop a rapport. When you’re done, share your own content with them. Just make sure their audience matches your ideal buyer persona to ensure they benefit from the content you produce.
31	Invite A Guest Blogger	Are you struggling to find the time or energy to create a helpful, well-written blog post? Then why not invite a guest blogger to do it for you! If your domain is already high-ranking, bloggers are more likely to get in touch with you themselves. However, if your blog doesn’t quite have that kind of traction yet, try a reach-out campaign instead, and get free outsourced content for your blog.
32	Try Gamification And Easter Egg Marketing	If you want more people to use your product, why not add an element of fun. Include enjoyment-focused design elements into a product or service that is there merely for fun. You can also include hidden features, inside jokes, or easter eggs within your SaaS to promote people into discussing and sharing. Using this strategy can drive referrals through a shared sense of community while helping you stand out from your stuffier competition.
33	Join A Slack Group	Ask almost anyone you know in the industry, and you’ll find they are all using slack for work. So, why not use it to grow your business? Start by creating a reputable profile, answering questions insightfully, and promoting your brand organically within the Slack community. Depending on your preference, there are already many slack communities available for you to become part of.
34	Offer A Free Trial	Free trials give leads time to try your product before parting with their money. When no payment is required up front, it provides more opportunity for you to demonstrate your solutions' value, gain traction with customers, build trust, and create advocates along the way. While Slack used a range of strategies to drive its growth, the most notable was its use of the Freemium model. There are usually no time limits to usage within this model, with products remaining free in their most basic form. Users only need to upgrade if they want to access additional features designed to improve their experience or add further functionality.		BTW Dashly is not only about great content. We provide businesses with a list of conversational matketing tools like chatbots, pop-ups, live chat, email campaigns, etc. Register to try them 7-days free
35	Offer Social Media Sharing Incentives	Gaining visibility is a surefire way to increase your potential lead generation, and social media is an effective means to that end. However, with “Follow us” and “Like this” buttons not quite cutting it in the competitive world of social media content marketing anymore, why not try offering other incentives? Grow your social following and attract new visitors to your site by offering them something in return for following and sharing. Maybe try a small discount, or provide some extra features in exchange for linking your homepage to LinkedIn, or for sharing your latest blog post on Twitter and commenting on it.
36	Add Social Media APIS	While we’re on the subject of Social Media, here is a quick and easy method to provide people with the means to share your SaaS with friends and colleagues. All social media websites utilize APIs designed to make 3rd party integration possible, meaning you can integrate your product with customers’ preferred social media with ease. This can start with something as simple as a way for your customers to refer your SaaS to others, but the potential applications are limited only by your imagination. For example, you can make your signup and sign-in process much more efficient by importing social media data, or you could try sharing user-generated content about your SaaS within social media.
37	Make Your Platform Compatible	Since we're on the topic of integration, you should look into making your SaaS product compatible with other popular applications. You can add your SaaS to the Chrome store or try using a 3rd party like Zapier for smooth integrations with well-established SaaS offerings like MailChimp and Dropbox. By doing this you can benefit from the massive user bases of these existing platforms to help grow your own, while also making your SaaS more practical and accessible.
38	Build A Niche-Related Glossary	The trick here is to list the most searched terms and keywords within your product niche and then use them to create a comprehensive glossary. From there, you can add links to relevant content you have made, as well as including call-to-action buttons and signup links. This will give you extra chances to rank your site in organic searches through Google.
39	Create an FAQ page	Another way to get some visibility is to build a FAQ page for your website. Ensure your entire team keeps a list of the questions they are asked about your SaaS, positioning them in order of frequency. You can then take the most commonly asked questions and publish them on your FAQ page. Creating a glossary will help rank your site highly in organic searches and reduce the time and effort your customer service and sales teams spend answering the same questions. This helps promote trust while increasing conversions and prospective leads come better equipped to understand the ins and outs of your SaaS.		Alternative solution: Create a knowledge base to keep all your docs, guidance, DIY tutorials, and answers to FAQ in one place. Check how it works
40	Create A Wikipedia Page	If your company has been up and running for a while or has gained some positive coverage on news websites, it might be time to consider a Wikipedia profile. They can help build credibility, boost organic search results and ultimately increase your sales and reach. Find a writer with previous experience and solid credibility and get them to write up your profile for you. After it is live, make sure you look for list articles and comparison tables on Wikipedia where you could include your company and link back to your main page.
41	Utilize AI	If you want to hack your growth to get ahead in the industry, you should take advantage of the benefits that come with Artificial Intelligence. You can use AI to automate recommendations for up and cross-selling to your customers. At the same time, chatbots can engage with visitors, nurture leads and personalize their experience based on usage history and referral URLs. You can also use AI to develop personalized email content for select audiences, create buyer personas that automatically leverage millions of data points, or help predict churn and employ re-engagement strategies. AI is a fantastic way to boost your SaaS growth, attract new prospects, and engage your customers while saving you time and money in the long run.
42	Track Your Visitor Lead Funnel	Keep an eye on your analytics to track where your visitors are coming from and which traffic sources provide the best conversion. You can then put more resources into those places that provide good traffic and replicate those results for those that don’t perform so well.
43	Run Regular Website SEO Audits	Minor changes to your website can result in significant differences in your position within search results. Use one of the many website audit tools available online to check and optimize everything, from titles and meta descriptions to images and keywords. Doing this regularly is sure to help drive up your traffic and ultimately your profits.
44	Sort Out Your Sitemap	Remember, search engines like Google rank specific pages, not just the website as a whole. Because of this, XML sitemaps are essential as they help search engines understand which pages you want to have indexed. By adding a URL to your site map, you tell Google that the page is a quality one, though you will have to make sure it complies with their standards to ensure it is indexed.
45	Repair Those Broken Links	Supporting both marketers and publishers, broken link building is an SEO tactic guaranteed to drive visitors to your content. The idea here is to find broken (dead) links, recreate the content, then tell anyone with the dead link to replace it with your own content. This is an effective strategy because dead links ultimately result in a poor user experience, so the idea here is that publishers should be eager to accept the offer of a new content link. This will help expand your reach and increase your visibility within the market.
46	Check Your 404’s and 301’s	Minor technical issues can cause much bigger problems. Make sure your 301 redirects correctly and your 404 page is in place. You could take the most search terms or articles that bring traffic to your site and then place them as links on your 404, or even turn it into a lead magnet, offering content and a homepage redirect in exchange for an email address.
47	Learn, Improve, & Replace Content	This strategy is a successful method of driving growth and boosting your visibility. Sometimes referred to as the ‘Skyscraper Technique’, there are three steps to this process. Firstly, find good quality, well-shared content. Next, write an improved, more comprehensive, data-driven, and detailed piece on the same subject. Finally, publish it and then share it with the people, companies, or groups that liked or shared the original content. By finding and Improving upon already popular content within your industry, you can help build your profile as an authority while increasing your visibility to potential customers.
48	Create A Great Customer Journey	The thing with first impressions is that you only get one, so don’t waste it. Make sure your welcome email is as warm and friendly as possible. Try including a photo of you or your team and make it personal to the customer, as well as informative, engaging, and funny. The better your first impression, the more likely it is that your follow-up emails will be read. Also, it is worth noting that the most essential line in your email is the subject line. If it doesn’t connect, they won’t engage with the body text, if they read it at all. Avoid generic greetings and personalize correspondence by referring to your customer by name whenever possible. Create familiarity and build trust and a sense of friendly approachability. You should keep in touch with your customers like a guide on their journey, making sure you are available for them whenever they need you, regardless of the reason.		Read also: Customer Journey Map: Get To Know, Design, and Use Them
49	Target Your Competitor’s Customers	When you want to acquire leads, one of the best budget-friendly ways is to target your competitors’ users with decision-stage content. This is a fantastic strategy, as you put your effort into attracting customers who you already know are looking for or using a similar product offering to your own. By creating landing pages & long-form ‘vs.’ type of blog posts, you can reach your competitors’ customers via multiple channels
50	Optimize Adwords For Long-tail Keywords	If you’re using Google Adwords, you are probably paying out a small fortune per click. Use tail keywords with 4+ words, for example, “The best software for team emails,” and you will reduce single keyword click costs while also attracting customers searching for your specific niche product. Look for keyword trails with high SEO rankings and low difficulty, then pepper your landing pages and blog posts with these terms.
51	Personalize Your Demos	Simultaneously show your customer the functionality of your product and your ability to tailor it to meet their specific needs. By taking them through the product 1 to 1, you can show how it can help resolve their particular pain points and answer any questions they might have along the way. Do this, and you will significantly increase your chances of sealing a deal and gain valuable feedback regarding the product.
52	Simplify Your Trial Signup Page	An easy way to increase the number of people signing up for a product trial is to make the process as quick and straightforward as possible. Start by deleting any unnecessary fields, like company size or the number of users; you can always find that information later once you have drawn them in. In the beginning, it’s best to start asking for the essentials, like name and phone number. Alternatively, you can always ask for just an email address, then use that to find or ask for the rest of the contact information you need.
53	Add Signups To Your Homepage	It makes sense to optimize your website for quick, efficient signups. After all, your aim is to demonstrate your product's value to potential customers. To do this, start thinking of your homepage and landing page as the same: Redesign your homepage with signups solely in mind, layout the unique value proposition of your product, and channel your anonymous visitors towards a short but sweet signup form.
54	Design Simpler, Smarter (and Fewer) Contact Form Fields	Contact fields collect user information and are essential for determining the identity of otherwise anonymous visitors. The information you collect lets you target your marketing to their specific needs. However, it’s essential to balance your need for visitor insight against the negative effect on customers. After all, absolutely no one enjoys filling out form after form of information. With that in mind, get as much as possible without exhausting or frustrating the customer. Use dynamic fields that adjust what’s required and automatically input what’s available based on previous customer interactions.		Alternative solution: Capture and qualify website visitors contacts in conwersation with a chatbot Check how it works
55	Update Your Older Content	The older your content gets the more links, shares, and social media traffic they accumulate, growing in visibility. Therefore, with the new information you are constantly acquiring, it makes sense to periodically go back and evaluate older posts to see how you can make changes to increase conversion rates. Hubspot double lead generation of their older posts this way.
56	Use Retargeting	How many times have you thought about buying something online, only to be bombarded by adverts for it all over social media immediately after? That’s Retargeting. While it isn’t cheap, when used correctly and set up in such a way to optimize conversions, it can deliver an incredible ROI. Before you start your retargeting campaign, you need to determine whether your product's value proposition is easily understood. If yes, retargeting could be a promising strategy for you. On the other hand, if your product requires a lot of explanation, sending out adverts to chase potential customers won’t work for you.
57	Try LinkedIn Inmail Outreach	LinkedIn can be a fantastic source of potential customers and provides some pretty unique growth opportunities. Paid accounts on the platform offer a limited number of DM’s to other users, even if you aren’t connected. If you don’t hear back, the attempt doesn’t count against your total DM count, meaning that just because your message was ignored, it wasn’t wasted. Create a short, punchy introduction template, keeping it concise and honest. Try not to jump straight into the hard sales pitch; Instead, offer them some benefit, from advice or a guide to a free consultation.
58	Give Your Product Away!	I don’t mean free trials, limited usage, or freemium packages. Find the perfect example of the customer you want to acquire, and let them have it. Be honest, let them know you are looking to gain traction in the market, to become a recommendation, and for any potential feedback. Let your perfect buyer persona help you perfect your product and gain vital feedback, experience, and possible reach to other customers. Depending on your product, you can also find and contact bloggers within your industry, offering a free paid account in exchange for reviews. Turn their blog audience into new traffic.
59	Keep An Ear Out For Your Name	More and more of the SaaS sales process is happening online, so use tools like Mention to find any references to your product or business on social media. You can then join the discussion and help push potential customers over the finish line. For example, you might find someone weighing the pros and cons of partnering up with your business. If that’s the case, you can get involved by explaining the benefits of working with you.
60	Perfect Your Content Marketing	Content marketing is one of the most successful long-term strategies for SaaS growth, influencing all other online strategies. It improves your SEO, provides source material for your social media campaign, and encourages more email signups on your website. It helps you build relationships with other brands in related niches, builds your reputation among prospects, attracts consistent new traffic, and influences conversions on your website. Hubspot has used this to great effect, creating page after page of practical, informative, and well-written content.
61	Repurpose Your Content	Once you have created a great piece of content, you’re only at the start of your journey. Take blog posts that have built up traction and turn them into short graphic videos for Youtube or Vimeo, or read and record them, then upload them to SoundCloud, or turn them into Podcasts. Once you have created content, reuse it in every medium possible. Everyone has their preference in how they consume content. Your aim here should be to cover as many of those preferences as possible. Utilize the fact that you probably already work with people organically interested in these things and leverage that interest.
62	Launch Ebooks On Amazon	As well as the usual channels, your eBooks can be distributed by listing them on Amazon for free. For some people, seeing your eBook on the Amazon store will add a level of legitimacy to the content. It will also help you reach a broader audience and open new lead acquisition channels.
63	Keep Your Branding Tight	Brand awareness and customer acquisition go hand in hand, especially when you’re playing in a crowded market or competing with high-profile products or companies. Customers are always more likely to buy from brands they know and trust. When working on your branding, you should always keep your customer in mind over your preferences. After all, one expert can often be wrong, but a whole host of customers will always be correct.
64	Give People Money	This one might sound strange, but if you have an app that involves currency, hear me out. Why spend money on marketing when you can incentivize signup by giving a slice of your marketing budget directly to the customer. It helps build trust in online finances, which can be a point of contention or mistrust for some, and let’s be honest, who doesn’t like free money!? The best-known example of this is PayPal giving customers $20 for simply signing up and assigning a real-world bank card to their account. This led to massive referrals and viral levels of customer signup, giving PayPals’ growth an enormous boost.
65	Create Customer Evangelists	Everyone wants loyal customers, but why not go a step further and get yourself some customer evangelists. These customers regularly use or buy your products and believe in what you’re offering, recommending your SaaS to friends and colleagues. Think of them as an unpaid sales force. You can use a few different strategies to get your own evangelists. To start, you need to talk and listen to your customers. Those brands with evangelists of their own all have exceptional customer service in common and are constantly interacting with those customers. You can also try surprising and delighting your customers. Once they have bought your product and you have provided it, why not see that as the start of a relationship rather than the end of a transaction. Go above and beyond with them, and they’ll become devoted to your brand, as well as singing its praises to others. While true evangelists will provide promotion without motivation, it never hurts to incentivize them for doing so, letting them know how important to you they are. Remember, your evangelists will provide much more credibility for your product than any marketing, advertisers, or salespeople could ever hope to achieve.
66	Make A ‘Less Is More’ Product Page	Sometimes, too much choice can be bad, causing confusion and indecision. This applies to the SaaS industry as well. Nothing stops a sale quite like a busy, confusing product or pricing page. The more you offer, the harder it is to choose until, eventually, decision-making grinds to a halt altogether. This is known as ‘analysis paralysis,’ where too many options result in confusion and cause the customer to quit the buying process. Rather than offering too many product choices, choose just 3 or 4 key ones instead. This will help reduce the number of abandoned carts while increasing sales.
67	Focus On Micro Conversions	Conversion goals are actions that represent the customer journey from lead to customer. The more milestones you pass, the closer you are to your goal. While not all your website visitors will become customers you can help encourage them. Actions such as blog subscription or booking demos are macro conversions But how do you achieve these Macro conversions? With a series of Micro conversions. These include things like downloading a file, visiting a landing page, or searching and comparing product prices. Focusing on micro conversions will help you understand the audience of your website better, as in order to micro-convert you have to segment the traffic and identify the main buyer personas. Once you have analyzed the traffic and the customers’ behavior, divide it into segments and define the buyer persona categories. Micro conversions are great indicators for a leads’ potential to purchase, and will give you an edge when it comes to engagement. Doing this, you can now address them with personalized pieces of content.
68	Create A Focussed Landing Page	Your landing page has one main goal; to channel your visitors toward buying your product. Unfortunately, landing pages are often messy and distracting, full of links offering ways for your customer to get distracted or lose sight of the goal. You can try minimizing the number of navigation elements available - or even removing navigation from your landing page altogether - to seal the deal and finish the customer signup from the landing page. Also, look at your buyer journey, and remove as many unnecessary steps and barriers as possible.
69	Create A Focussed Payment Flow	As with the enclosed landing page, removing navigation elements and unnecessary headers and footers can help create a more streamlined and focused checkout page. This process forces your visitor to focus on the primary goal - buying your product. You mustn’t take this strategy too far, however, or you may cause confusion. For example, you always need to offer the customer a way to go back a step; otherwise, they’ll end up closing your site entirely. Keep your checkout design in line with the rest of your website to help maintain trust in the process.
70	Use An Exit Intent Pop Up	With pages that have a significant bounce rate, try using an exit-intent popup. When a customer leaves a page, present a pop-up message offering them a free guide, resource, or consultation. With little to lose at this point, it is worth a try, and if it has a broad appeal there is a chance they might engage and provide their email address. More specifically, these can be used to great effect on your checkout page. Sometimes a sale can fall through at the last moment, but rather than chalking it up to fate, why not engage a pop-up instead. When the customer goes to quit the checkout process try presenting them with a discount code pop-up. Considering how close they are to buying the product, sometimes all it takes is a small reduction in price to seal the deal.
71	Try The Serial Positioning Effect	Our brain subconsciously prioritizes the first and last things we read. If you want to push a particular point, such as the benefits of email subscription, ensure the intro and outro or first and last bullet points are the strongest. This works especially well when used alongside the ‘illusion of truth’; the more you state something, the more likely it is for that point to become lodged in the customer’s mind as a fact.
72	Offer A Free Setup	This is one of the easiest yet most effective strategies to implement when it comes to getting your customers on board. Simply arrange to do a 1 to 1 personal setup of your product for the customer, and you can pretty much guarantee a 100% trial to paid conversion ratio. Use this as an opportunity to showcase precisely how your products’ USP can resolve the customers’ pain points and gather any feedback or suggestions they may have.
73	Send Expiring Trial SMS/Emails	Let your customers know about their upcoming trial expiration and extol the benefits of moving to a paid version with well-timed and structured notifications. Notifying the customer this way, and with plenty of warning, can lead to a marked increase in conversions from free trial users to fully paid customers.		Try Dashly triggered email campaigns to send personalized messages when clients need them Sign up to test it 7-days free
74	Shorten Or Remove Your Free Trial Time Limit	As we just mentioned, most free trials come with a standard time limit; however, it doesn’t need to be this way. While long trials increase the length of the sales process and can decrease sales efficiency, a shorter trial adds a sense of urgency and can help improve your close rates. Also, longer trials can give people a false sense of security regarding the time available and put them off extensively testing your product, diminishing its value in their eyes. Alternatively, rather than shortening your free trial time limit, you could decide to go the other way instead and remove it altogether. Instead of time, why not try limiting your SaaS trial to a particular number of transactions, emails, users, or reports. The bonus here is that the customer has as much time as they need to see the benefits of your product and that if they hit their usage limit, it must be proving beneficial, making them more likely to transition to a full, paid account.
75	Test Trial Extensions Or Discounts	If you offer a free trial period, maybe the customer just needs a little more time to convert from free user to paid subscriber. Gauge on a per-customer basis, and offer either (a) a limited trial extension for customers with heavy usage or (b) a discount if they upgrade from free to paid user within the initial trial period. You can also offer sudden discounts that are based on time, such as “sign up in the next 48 hours to receive a 15% discount” or that are limited to a certain number of customers, like “next 10 people to convert receive a 25% discount for life, hurry, only 7 spaces left”. Create a sense of immediacy and help stave off analysis paralysis.
76	Try A Commitment Checkbox	Asking your visitor to make a small and simple commitment to your brand can be a valuable tool in driving conversions. Ask them to tick a benefit-focused button - such as ‘yes, I want to learn more about Pricing Strategies’ - and you will have co-opted the psychological power of commitment and consistency over them, making it much more likely that they’ll continue with their form submission, demo schedule, or whatever other action you want them to complete.
77	Offer A Money-Back Guarantee	It may appear a little dated, but it’s still a sound principle. By explaining how you will refund the customer if they’re unhappy, you express confidence in your product and provide the customer with the peace of mind to take a chance and part with their money. If it is a reliable service, there will be no need for refunds.
78	Create A Competitor Comparison Page	We’ve all been there. You are about to buy a product, but before sealing the deal, you do one more check to compare the price and functionality to the next nearest competitor product. While some businesses like to pretend that they are the only viable solution within a niche, there is always a competitor lurking somewhere. Rather than acting like you’re miles ahead of the competition, it’s much more productive and practical to help facilitate these comparisons. By creating a comparison page between you and your competitors’ product, you can convey transparency and fairness while framing the conversation in a way that suits you, taking control of a crucial part of the buying process. Be warned, however, that if your product or pricing isn’t competitive or appealing enough, you could end up pushing leads right into the arms of your competition. You also need to remain honest and transparent in your comparisons; anything else, and you’re likely to lose trust and with it potential revenue.		For example, check Dashly Comparison with Intercom Comparison with Drift Comparison with Zendesk
79	Record Video Testimonials	If you want to boost your growth and visibility, video testimonials are the way to go, offering one of the best CTR’s in the industry. Firstly, get in touch with one of your more loyal, friendlier customers. Ask them if they wouldn’t mind you recording them for a testimonial and make sure they are comfortable using it in your PPC ads on Google and Social Media.
80	Utilize Decoy Price Points	Imagine you have 3 pricing structures. The first is a free limited usage trial, the second a cheap offering with limited functionality, and the third an expensive premium plan with all the features. Ideally, you want people to choose your most expensive, premium plan, but how do you convince them to go for that over the first or second option? That’s where decoy price points come into play. Create a fourth pricing plan far more expensive than your premium plan but with little extra on offer for your money. Compared to this option, the premium plan seems like a much better deal; far cheaper than your decoy price plan, but with more functionality than your more affordable offering. Users should be drawn to your premium account if things work out as planned. Worst case scenario, they keep going for your basic plan, so you haven’t lost out, and you might even get the occasional customer who unknowingly chooses the fourth, most expensive pricing plan!
81	Consider Prestige Pricing	Pricing your product isn’t about choosing an arbitrary number, but instead the combined understanding of every part of your business, from long-term goals and internal processes to product development and market positioning. The Prestige pricing strategy is all about sending out a message of service quality and exclusivity by maintaining a consistent, high product price. This will help segment your audience, creating a premium client base who perceive high prices as a mark of high quality. This strategy works best when used by companies who have established a solid reputation within their industry and can then use that reputation to justify charging higher prices than those offered by the immediate competition. To ensure this strategy works as effectively as possible, you will need to apply a particular tiered plan, confirming the belief that we have premium customers who are given access to the very best of everything via deluxe features which are unavailable on freemium or lower price tiers.
82	Try Left Digit Anchoring	Some of the best pricing strategies for growth hacking tap into psychological triggers for success, and left digit anchoring is no exception. It’s one of the oldest tricks in the pricing guidebook! Prices that end in a 9 sell at a much better rate than the same product priced to the nearest round number. This works because our brains are hardwired to subconsciously understand numbers from left to right, using the far left digit as a reference point for the entire price. By pricing something at $69.99 rather than $70.00, we encourage our brain to associate the price with the 6 rather than the 7. While the difference in cost might come down to cents, the increase in sales far outweighs the slight price reduction.
83	Utilize Bundle Pricing	Some say it’s a pricing strategy, while others say a marketing ploy. We know it’s a little of both. To put it plainly, bundling relies on grouping together packages of products or services which offer the customer a greater value than the aggregate total of those purchases when considered on an individual product by product basis. While it is much more common to see this strategy used when making one-off purchases, it is possible to apply it to a recurring revenue model successfully. Depending on the scenario, it can help greatly increase your customer LTV and is most effective when customer acquisition or product setup costs are high, ensuring the greatest return possible on your initial investment
84	Explain Your Products' Worth	Decrease the likelihood of churn and increase acquisition by creating webinars or videos that instruct customers on how to get the most value from your product and teach them how to use specific features of your SaaS. You can also consider creating an FAQ section to collect and answer common questions from the customer and gain valuable insight into actionable changes you can make to improve your SaaS. Lots of questions about your onboarding process? Concentrate on making it more straightforward, streamlined, and user-friendly.
85	Offer Useful Extras	So you have created a useful product that is building in popularity, now what? Why not try creating a free tool, product, or resource that compliments it? Consider how your customers use your product and what else they might benefit from having. For example, SendX has created an extensive resource of Free Responsive Email Templates, while Hubspot offers numerous tools and resources alongside their sales platform.
86	Make a “Best SaaS” Landing Page	Sometimes it can take time and effort to turn a lead into a sale. However, sometimes all it takes is a little awareness. Many customers know what they need and are just looking for the best version of it. For example, lots of leads who are ready to purchase a product use terms like “best,” “top-rated,” or “most useful” when searching for SaaS. With that in mind, try creating a landing page that caters to these customers, such as “www.MySaaS.com/most-useful-SaaS,” and you’re certain to convert purpose-driven traffic into sales.
87	Offer More Payment Options	Every wallet looks different, with each customer having their own payment preferences. And preference matters. It’s so important that it can make or break a sale. Don’t give potential customers the payment methods they prefer and you risk losing them altogether. But provide popular payment methods that other B2B SaaS companies don’t, and it can even drive growth. To increase sales, try to accommodate as many payment options as possible.
88	Create Behavior Based Emails	Many SaaS companies make the mistake of relying solely on generic template-based emails when contacting their subscribers. Instead, try sending behavior-based emails with software like Intercom or Autosend. These tools track customer usage of your product and allow you to send custom messages based on their behavior. For instance, if you see your customer isn’t using a particular feature that has proven popular with others, you could send them an email offering a feature demonstration, or maybe asking them if they are having any problems with their account if you can see they haven’t used it after a certain amount of time. Perhaps you could email them suggesting an upgrade if they consistently meet their usage limits? With behavior-based emails, the potential to retain customers and increase revenue is limited only by your imagination.		Implement behavior based email in your marketing strategy with Dashly triggered emails visual builder
89	Give Awesome Customer Service	We all know that acquiring new customers is much more expensive and time-consuming than retaining existing ones. So what's the key to retention? Good customer service. 52% of consumers say they made additional purchases from a company after receiving a positive customer service experience, while an American survey found that they were willing to pay 17% more for goods or services that came with excellent behavior-based customer service reputations. If growth is your aim, then customer service and satisfaction should be at the heart of everything you do.
90	Follow-Up After Every Customer Interaction	So if customer service is the key, how do you use it to unlock customer retention and revenue growth? A good start would be following up on every customer interaction, regardless of the outcome. A simple email or in-app message is enough, and by checking in on your customers, you can work wonders for the business-user dynamic. Not only that, but increased interactions mean the ability to resolve customer issues before they become bigger problems, as well as extra opportunities for cross and upselling.
91	Engage In Proactive Customer Conversation	It’s often easier (and cheaper) to increase user revenue than acquiring new users. Don’t wait for a customer to come to you with a negative interaction when you can go to them with a positive one. Check-in and ask if they are ok and if there is anything they need? Contact them telling them about new products, but make it specific to their needs and wants. Take the time to focus on how your customer uses your product, and show them how much more they could achieve by upgrading to your next plan or priced tier.
92	Question Your Customer Cancellations	You put time and effort into onboarding, so why let them leave with the click of a button? We aren’t saying make it difficult, but gather some information about why they are leaving. You could gain valuable insights into what you need to improve in the future, and in some cases, may even be able to stop them mid-churn. For example, if they leave due to a price point issue, try offering a small discount or an extra feature.
93	Incentivize Annual Subscriptions	A good way to increase your revenue is to first focus on and lock in what you’re already generating. To ensure a healthy revenue stream, increased cash flows, and improved customer retention, you can lock customers in with annual pricing plans. To achieve this, just incentivize annual over monthly subscriptions by offering discounts or access to extra features.
94	Send Regular Analytic Emails	If you want to keep your customers informed while reminding them of the benefit of your SaaS, try sending analytic emails. These can include a range of metrics specific to the customers goals, such as how many new website visitors they’ve had, how many shares a recent piece of content generated, or the number of payments received. Whether you send them daily, weekly or monthly, regular emails will help your customers get the most out of your product. As well as keeping them informed, these emails will be a constant reminder of the value your product provides them on the journey to achieving their goals.
95	Use Drip Email Re-Engagement Campaigns	No matter how good your SaaS is, you’re going to gain inactive users; it’s unavoidable. But that doesn’t mean you can’t win them back. To do this, try using a drip email campaign. The aim here is to send a series of tailored emails to your inactive users with the goal of tempting them back to your solution. You can do this by reintroducing your brand, highlighting the pain points you can resolve, discussing the customer benefits of using your SaaS, telling them about a new feature of service etc. Use data and analytics to try and figure out why they stopped using your product, then address that point directly in your email, or incentivize usage by offering them something in return, such as a discount, free feature or complimentary product.
96	Recapture The Churn	So your drip email campaign didn’t catch all your inactive users, and a customer churned. Did you get their email address? If they didn’t opt-out, send them occasional reactivation emails. Don’t press a sale too hard. Instead, inform them of improvements or new features. Better yet, if able to use any data you acquired that might explain why they churned to identify the problem, then acknowledge the problem and present its solution via email.
97	Streamline Self Service Signup	Keep in mind that the ease of your signup can make or break a sale. If you’re building a self-service onboarding flow, sign up for your service every week. Remember, no process is ever truly perfected, so there is always room for improvement. Put an event in your calendar to do it, focussing on every aspect of the signup. Each time you go through your onboarding, you’ll find something you want to improve.
98	Remove Redundant Features	So you pay attention to the features customers use. What about those they don’t? 80% of your users will only ever use 20% of your product. Use data to analyze usage patterns and remove features that aren’t used. Instead, put your time and effort into providing features customers want, ensuring your product is constantly evolving to meet their needs and growing with their successes.
99	Ask For Referrals	If you haven’t tried your hand at referral marketing, then now's the time. The key benefit of referrals is their affordability when compared to their effectiveness. For those on a tight budget, this is one strategy to keep in mind. The key to success here is finding balance; give too much, and the customers you attract will be less interested in using your SaaS compared to what they get for free, creating a signup and churn out culture of users. Offer too little, and you won’t manage to peak any interest. Provide the customer with a slice of what you offer for referring your SaaS to others. Incentivize further by increasing their reward when referrals hit specific volumes or perform certain actions, such as paid sign-ups rather than free users. See Dropbox for solid B2C examples. Don’t worry about explicitly asking for referrals (worst-case scenario, they say no), especially after delivering a positive customer experience. Remember, free stuff = happy customers, and happy customers are the best advertisement for your SaaS.
100	Give A Little Gift	Everyone loves a surprise gift, especially when it’s free. If you have super loyal customers and evangelists behind your product, you can shore up their loyalty with little rewards. Look through their social media or your interactions with them and send them something personal that shows them how important they are to you. When you give them their gift, ask if they are ok and happy with your SaaS. If there was a problem, you're likely to diffuse the situation immediately and open up a discourse around resolution rather than complaints.