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16 Comments

How do you market a non sexy SAAS?

Context

My main SAAS, logike.io is operating in the accounting software business for lawyers. Accounting is not sexy and lawyers are quite strict.

Here's my dilemma to market a non sexy SAAS

Compare to multiple SAAS, you cannot do crazy posts on Linkedin, twitter and funny but valuable blog articles etc.

I analyzed Quickbooks (https://quickbooks.intuit.com/global/) and Xero (https://www.xero.com/uk/). They both have a traditional approach to marketing an accounting software.

On the opposite, Alan is a recent french unicorn (https://alan.com/) which distributes insurances. Their design and marketing strategy is I would say more "friendly".

I know it's a broad question, but does anyone have experience with marketing a non sexy SAAS ? I would be happy to learn from you

  1. 8

    SEO and Content Marketing. People must be searching for similar terms, plus being only on the French market should be easy to rank

    1. 2

      Thanks for you answer @cmaggi, among the different ways I tried so far, SEO brought me small traffic even with only two months of existence. I will try to invest in it more heavily although depending on the keywords, it's actually quite hard to rank!

      However, accounting services are lots of word of mouth, my keywords research led me to queries with only 100 to 800 max research per month which is low compared to the actual market

      1. 2

        Two months is early days for SEO -- lots of people don't see significant results until around 6 to 12 months out.

        Regarding low search volume, you might try to think more broadly beyond the obvious keywords. For example, if your customer research turned up ad hoc solutions that lawyers tend to try before they start looking for a SaaS solution, then you could try to target keywords relating to those ad hoc solutions (i.e., go upstream in the customer awareness process).

        Good luck with this.

        1. 2

          I see, trying to aim for both long and short trail keywords but also more broad keywords. It takes time but hopefully it will works!

  2. 3

    I would call most SaaS's "unsexy", but that's just my opinion. I do a lot of ghost writing for some incredibly normcore SaaS companies. I would say with my clients their primary strategy is producing content that people find useful. Think about what problems your SaaS solves and produce content related to it.

    With law you're not going to be able to hire a cheap content firm though because it has to be written by someone who actually knows the subject. If I were you I'd either write it myself or hire a lawyer/writer to write it.

    As for the tone, I'd think about what your potential customers are like, as people, and what sort of things they might like. If you don't know yet, what are your competitors like? You can try to be like them or if you think there is a market for something different, try to have a different tone. I have worked with lawyers and my instinct is that professional and authoritative is their jam and they don't really respect anything else, but maybe things are changing.

    Here is an example of some legal content that I recently encountered on organic search:
    https://nealschaffer.com/ftc-influencer-guidelines/
    Because I was looking into the FTC Influencer guidelines. The audience here is non-lawyers but even as a non-lawyer looking for legal advice, I'm looking for something that seems knowledgable and professional.

    Either way, content is just one type of marketing. For my that's my own specialty but it's worth looking into other options.

    1. 2

      Thank you @melissamcewen for your insight message. So far the content I wrote was knowledgable but rather casual than professional. Reception from the target audience was good. Therefore like you said above, I will try to differentiate myself from competition who are very authoritative.

      From what I experience so far, the key takeaway is to produce highly valuable content, the rest does not affect the results that much

  3. 2

    Hi @Abelinga!

    Identify your 10 BEST users. Reach out to them and ask:

    • What is that ONE problem my software is solving for you?

    Repeat the process until you get 10 solid problems that can be well articulated. Elaborate each problem and come up with 10 SEO optimized blogs (say, 1,000 words each).

    You can also turn those blogs into a 10-chapter ebook (call it, '10 Things To Look For In A Lawyer Accounting Software', or something that piques your audience's curiosity). Stick that to a lead capture page and drive traffic.

    You may also ask your best users if they mind sharing the ebook with their peers. At the end of the ebook, add a link to test drive your system for 14 or 30 days.

    Just my 2 cents :-)

    1. 1

      Thank you @Mightyjoe for your method. I really like the idea turn the blog posts in a 10-chapter-book at some point. I already have almost 10 1000+ words articles so it might be interesting to use it according to your strategy.

      I'll try to keep you posted with the results after few weeks of implementation !

  4. 2

    I believe there are not "sexy" or "not sexy" SaaS apps. There are SaaS that help with some problems, and useless ones. So, in your case, I would focus on which value your customers will have, which problems you solve? As soon as you have a clear message, you can:

    • write articles on the problems and how your app help to solve them (SEO)
    • cold email potential customers shortly explaining why would they want to try your app
    • post your articles and info about your app on catalogs and media (Twitter, FB groups)
    • see what your competitors do (small ones) and try the same techniques.
    1. 1

      Very clear @SeaCat, thank you for these actionable tips! I already started a FB group with 1300 + members, posting articles etc. Analyzing the most clicked articles help me identifying the most painful problems for my customers

      I also tried cold mailing, so far I have open rates ranging from 19% to 55%, which leads to sign up but still trying different campaigns to find the nice catchphrase and email subject to boost open rates

  5. 2

    Bon travail! C'est bien.

  6. 2

    Quick tips on how to make your SaaS more sexy:

    • change your color theme to red, pink or purple
    • use sexy, erotic, sensual stock photos in your landing pages, in your ads
    • update your UI micro-copy to be more suggestive. For example, if a button says "OK", replace it with "Yes, baby"
    • rewrite your long-form copy to focus on not how your product objectively works, but how it feels

    (obviously, don't take this advice too seriously ;-)

  7. 2

    I think I'm dealing with the same dilemma...

  8. 2

    I'm not a marketer, but just want to say that "sexy" is not relevant.
    If you are solving a real problem for someone, that is all that matter, even if the nieche may look boring to most people.
    Try to market it using jargon that your customers can relate to. Maybe talk to some lawyers and ask them what would make them think "this is exactly what I need"

    Good luck

    1. 2

      I really like your way to approach things @Danbars, it made me rethink how to address my problem!

      When thinking about your last sentence, everything makes sense. I tried various approach already and because I believe I am tackling a real problem, lawyers actually don't care the form of how I approach them because the core message solve a deep problem. Thanks!

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