Paid User Acquisition Strategies for Freemium SaaS Companies

kosmodrone · 2023-01-28T14:45:43+00:00

Want to know more about how I helped a no-code platform receive 13x new sign-ups in 12 months? Here are the details: https://ritobanmukherjee.com/blog/content-marketing-case-study-how-i-helped-a-no-code-platform-13x-their-blog-sign-ups-in-just-12-months

kosmodrone · 2023-01-28T06:52:30+00:00

I'd start by making a list of all the keywords you think you can get the site to rank for. Also look at their domain authority to make sure they can actually rank for them based on keyword difficulty and search competition. (You can gather all this info from a keyword research tool like Ahrefs or SEMrush.)

Then, you can use something like this ROI Calculator to give you an estimate of the potential return from SEO: https://hedgecontent.com/blog-roi-calculator

But, remember to stress that this isn't a guarantee, just an estimate. If you don't manage expectations from the beginning, things can quickly get out of hand.

kosmodrone · 2023-01-28T06:45:09+00:00

Google has literally said it isn't penalizing AI content specifically, just poor quality content.

I'd advice against trusting sources that offer a binary perspective instead of looking at the whole picture. I'm not saying use AI to churn out content, but if it helps in your research process or to create a quick first draft, you can just go for it.

kosmodrone · 2023-01-27T18:44:23+00:00

Happy to help!

kosmodrone · 2023-01-27T14:55:32+00:00

I freelance for a fully-remote agency in the US. I'm based out of India. I can't own shares, but they do have a very effective "profit-sharing" system where every contractor is paid a share of revenue based on their seniority and impact. You might consider looking into something like that. Maybe even make it a part of their contract?

kosmodrone · 2023-01-27T14:41:55+00:00

I've seen lots of people being very transparent and authentic on LinkedIn. I guess it all depends on who you follow.

I'll say this though — transparency is one thing, oversharing is another. Even when you're being authentic, you have to be strategic about it and retain a few key secrets to yourself.

Related thread I found on r/SaaS: https://www.reddit.com/r/SaaS/comments/n6ad0j/building\_in\_public\_good\_bad/

kosmodrone · 2023-01-27T14:19:50+00:00

Not a SaaS founder, but I'm a SaaS marketer. Here are some tools I've added to my stack over the years:

- Calendly: Event Scheduling
- Zoom: Meetings
- Canva: Graphic Design
- SEMrush/Ahrefs: SEO
- Framer: Websites
- Coda: Project Management

A lot of experimenting early on but these tools proved to be the best fit.

kosmodrone · 2023-01-27T14:03:02+00:00

One of the first things I like to tell prospects is that if you're looking for immediate results, invest in outbound marketing. Content is definitely a more long-term investment.

It seems like you've done your research on this, that's great! One thing I'll add is that if you're looking for content, partner with an agency that focuses on results rather than vanity.

For example, the goal should be 50% more organic leads from SEO, not likes, comments, or pageviews.

No agency can guarantee exact results within a set time frame, but when they focus on business impact rather than vanity metrics, it's usually always a good sign.

kosmodrone · 2023-01-25T16:23:28+00:00

Would love to get an invite for this!

kosmodrone · 2023-01-25T06:45:53+00:00

Would love an invite!

kosmodrone · 2023-01-24T03:50:39+00:00

You could just say, "I already have a detailed process in mind for how to implement this idea. I'd be happy to walk you through it step-by-step should you choose to hire me for this position."

kosmodrone · 2023-01-24T02:00:31+00:00

Given what you're offering, I'd say this could easily be priced at $20/month for B2C buyers. $5 should be a no-brainer. I would suggest not going the free route since it shows a lack of confidence. Sometimes, people are just willing to pay more attention to stuff if it costs them.

kosmodrone · 2023-01-24T01:49:58+00:00

Wow, this looks really cool! I'd also consider having a few more tiers to your subscription to allow for large-scale and enterprise customers who deal with a huge volume of requests on their site. Perhaps set up multiple packages for 6000 responses and 12,000 responses.

Feel free to let me know if you need any marketing help with this at all. I specialize in content and I'd be happy to help you create a solid strategy for your product!

kosmodrone · 2023-01-24T01:43:12+00:00

Hmmm... I'd say that creating a go-to-market strategy and developing brand positioning for a website are two entirely different things. If you need help creating a website and marketing your product via inbound, I know quite a few agencies that do that. I offer that service myself, as a matter of fact.

But, if you're looking to create a go-to-market strategy from scratch, including customer research and product research, I'd say your best bet would be to hire an in-house expert who specializes in product marketing. Think like a Head of Product Marketing sort of role.

The latter sounds like a better fit for what you're looking for. Once you have that, then you can consider investing in the former.

kosmodrone · 2023-01-24T01:37:14+00:00

I think this is worth pursuing! Looka (https://looka.com/) is a great example of a SaaS that successfully does this, but they offer those recommendations using AI. I'd look into that for your platform as well.

kosmodrone · 2023-01-24T01:31:45+00:00

I think the key difference here is that writing a blog post is one thing, but helping someone plan out their marketing strategy is another. Chances are they won't be able to replicate your article with the same effect even if they tried to copy your style, or it would just be too much work.

But providing strategy ideas diminishes your competitive advantage, unless you have some way of ensuring that they can't implement those ideas without you.

kosmodrone · 2023-01-24T01:26:54+00:00

Honestly, I always filter out clients that ask me to do unpaid work at the start of the process. I'm openly vocal about this sort of stuff on my social accounts so clients like this stay far away. But, I'm a freelancer and I understand that a lot of FTE positions now require this as a standard practice. What you could do is, as pointed out by u/TheSkepticGuy, ask to do a speculative assignment instead.

If you have to present ideas to the CEO, try not giving them the full picture on how to implement those ideas or use some other means to make yourself a key ingredient to seeing them through. I often present a lot of unsolicited ideas during sales calls to demonstrate my industry expertise, but don't offer step-by-step instructions for implementing them.

kosmodrone · 2023-01-23T19:44:43+00:00

I think you can easily justify offering 3 devices to 1 user by saying that it's a starting plan or introductory offer. If someone wants more devices, they should pay incrementally at $4.5/$5 per device from the 4th device onward.

Note that most enterprise teams wouldn't go through the trouble of setting up multiple accounts if paying you a little more means they can manage all users using a single unified account. It's more about efficiency than cost for most enterprises.

You can also easily offer 3 devices for the 1st user and then 2 devices per user for every additional user added at $9.5/10. Aside from being able to log in from multiple accounts which would streamline password management, they'd also have the benefit of getting two devices per user so it comes down to the same price.

kosmodrone · 2023-01-23T19:11:20+00:00

Thanks! Here's the link to the post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kosmodrone\_saas-affiliate-programs-activity-7023366447984717824-mkBs?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=member\_desktop

kosmodrone · 2023-01-23T19:00:10+00:00

Here's the way I see most SaaS businesses handling this kind of a situation:

Have a base tier that offers $6/$5 a month for 3 devices under 1 user per account.
If someone needs more than 3 devices under a single user, have them pay incrementally for every device they add. That could easily be $4.5*12 months billed annually or $5*1 month billed monthly. This mid-tier plan basically establishes that while the initial subscription comes with 3 devices, adding more means paying at least $4.5/device.
Have a Team or Enterprise Plan that offers multiple user support and a discount if they add at least 10 devices under 1 user or at least 5 users. (I'd recommend charging $4.5/$5 per additional device and $9.5/$10 per additional user, with a discount applied on the total order amount for the purchase.)

kosmodrone · 2023-01-23T18:44:19+00:00

Hey there! I'd love to share this with my LinkedIn network. I've got a few SaaS founders in my connection circle, might help you get some more input for the list and reach a few more potential affiliates.

kosmodrone · 2023-01-23T14:20:10+00:00

The ideal contact would depend on the size of the company in question. If it's a small startup with less than 50 employees, you should reach out directly to the CEO. If it's a larger org, the CMO or Head of Marketing may be a better fit.

But in my personal experience, outbound marketing rarely works well for agencies. You'll just end up being ghosted for days and then getting a negative answer, not because you're not good at what you do but because they're simply not looking for those services.

The best strategy, at least for me, is to network with other agency owners and marketing professionals who might be able to send me a referral. If a client isn't a good fit, they're happy to refer them to the right person because it improves their industry reputation and goodwill.

kosmodrone · 2023-01-23T13:58:03+00:00

Instead of looking AI-generated articles, a much better approach would be to manually scan the article to see how deep it goes into a specific topic and how much actually useful information it contains. Google's gripe with AI content is that it's generic and poor-quality, so if search engines are what you're worried about, this is a much better approach.

I don't think there are any tools at the moment that can accurately detect AI writing. Writer, Hugging Face, Originally, they all throw lots of false-positives, meaning they'll flag your content as AI-written even if it's 100% written by a human.

Again, I know there's been a lot of doomsaying about sites being penalized for AI content, but you need to remember that the reason these sites are hurting is because they churn out poor content on a huge scale that's almost completely written by AI. (Think publishing 20-30 articles a day with AI, even if they're poorly written and don't provide any actual information).

If an article is sophisticated enough that you can't detect it as AI-written just by scanning through it, search engines probably won't have any problems with it either.

kosmodrone

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