Validating Micro-SAAS Idea: Only option is Landing Page + PPC. Any other reliable ways?
So, let's say your goal is to figure out if you can sell the product before you make it, one way is put up a landing page and send some PPC traffic. But, since it's "Micro SAAS", the search volume is going to be pretty low. Maybe that very few people per day are actually searching for your idea.
Say about 10 per day. So, that means 10 impressions. With a CTR of 3% it would take 10 days to get 3 people to click on your ad. And if 10% of the people who click on your ad actually are interested, it would take 30 days to get 1 interested person.
So, that seems like a slow process. In order to get even 10 interested people and consider the idea validated it would take about 300 days. A little short of 1 year.
Now how does one solve this problem?
Either I can say that with a search volume so low, it does not make sense going after the idea.
But at the same time, the idea that I want to build a better version of, seems to be a business that is surely having customers.
We could say that in order to validate the idea try to talk to target customers and see if they would buy. Technically, I am the target customer and I would buy. It's a "scratch your own itch" type situation.
Now, the problem with talking to people also is that they might say they will buy but when push comes to shove they will not.
To solve that problem, we could ask them to pre-order. But my product is not that kind of product. You need it now to solve the problem today. It's not something that could make your life better even if it's ready 3 months from now.
The above are my thoughts on the subject till now. What am I missing? Do I need to take a leap of faith and go for it?
Can I say: Hey this company is solving for the same pain point. They are doing a shitty job. I can do better. They seem to have customers so let me just go for it.
Something sounds broken
So few users ever?
Is it a 50k$+ sale each?
What's your expectations on number of potential customers and LTV?..
Is there a better marketing/sales channel for this you can think of?
Can you test the LP there?
How micro is this micro? Would it cover it's own costs? (Inc. development and upkeep..)
Maybe you should just talk about the actual thing rather than around it
The competitor who I am trying to build a better version of seems to be having some customers. Atleast the way they talk about thier stats and all. That's my reference for size.
Anyways, I am going to try out 2 new approaches:
Maybe I should expand my PPC ad to the people who are looking to solve the same problem but are using a worse solution than I am proposing. Maybe I can convince those guys to give my solution a shot. Will try this.
It seems that every day there are people who are asking questions and looking for answers related to the solution I am offering. So, I am going to try answer thier questions. Then tell them that there is a better way, "my solution" and they should check it out by going to the landing page. Let me see how it goes.
Thank for your response.
Let me know if these approaches make sense.
you can also attach yourself a bit more to the competitor, do people search for his name as a brand? where does he get his traffic from? (you can use 3rd party services like semrush, ahref and others)
Does he have a fb page people "like", you can target them with ads
(Assuming you're competing directly, the other options might provide more of inspiration)
the questions and answer is a good path IMHO
Thanks. It is good advice. Will try out these options.
How much are you spending on ads? Seems like you need to increase your ad spend(if possible) to validate your idea. If you can't do that, there's SEO/YouTube/other platforms
I'm spending nothing. Not due to budget. But due to the fact that nobody is searching for my narrow targeting. Just about 10 impressions a day. So my plan is to widen my targeting to the people who have the same problem but seeking a different solution. There seems to be more searches per day there.
From a quick glance at Ahrefs, "SaaS business" gets about 1k organic searches per month. CPC is $20 though. Which is funny because for "SaaS", CPC is $11.00 and volume is 145k for that key phrase.
It also looks like, which search volume is low, basically all SaaS related key phrases ("SaaS" + BLANK), have super low keyword difficulty.
If you have the patience to build SEO over 3-6 months, you'd likely bring in some highly qualified traffic and pay only in your own time and sweat.
Thanks for your response. Firstly, I am a little confused why we are looking at "SaaS business" as a keyword. I am trying to build a "micro saas" business. I am not making a product for "saas businesses". Maybe, something I did not convey clearly in my original question.
About:
"If you have the patience to build SEO over 3-6 months, you'd likely bring in some highly qualified traffic and pay only in your own time and sweat."
Could you please direct me toward some resources to understand how to go about doing this. I am well aware of SEO as a concept etc. But a lot of SEO advice is about email outreach and asking for backlinks and all that. It seems like trying to scam Google into getting a good ranking.
I want to focus on "build great content that helps people". But, I do want to know what to do after that resource is built. So, since you are suggesting this approach, I would love to know what methods you follow etc.
I mentioned “saas business”, because it is an adjacent key phrase that gets 20 times the traffic what “micro saas” gets, and it’s not too competitive of a key phrase.
As for content writing, I really really like Andy Crestodina’s blog posts for Orbit Media:
https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/web-content-checklist-17-ways-to-publish-better-content/
I’ll add one more thing. I find that that running a YouTube channel drives more way more traffic than a blog alone. With that approach, your blog posts can be more middle of the funnel and bottom of the funnel.
Okay. Thank you. Will surely check this out.
If you have an existing competitor of some sort, do you know where they are getting their customers from?
In this day and age, there are so many online forums and places that people hang out. It would be likely that even if your problem is super niche, it is relevant to a group of people that like to hang out somewhere together online!
Without knowing exactly what your problem/solution is, would you be able to think of a forum/page/website that your customers as a group might hang around? That would be a perfect starting place to demonstrate your potential solution to gauge interest!
Thank for your response. So on the first question about me knowing where thier traffic is coming from: Honestly I don't. I tried to put them into the Ads Spying tools like SpyFu etc. Did not get any results.
As for where the target market hangs out: Sure there are a lot of places. I am the target market (in some aspects of my life) so all the places I hang out.
But see this is not a forever on kind of need like, "this CRM will save you so much time" where a sales person would always want a better CRM.
It's a need that pops up on some projects. So, the target market is not forever searching for a solution.
Besides, I feel like going and asking people: Hey would you buy this is not much of validation. Need to send them to my landing page and see what they do.
Anyways, after the discussion here and other things I have decided to try and do the content marketing upfront and see if I can attract the target market that way. I will send them to the landing page and track what they do there after an article that is helpful.
Without knowing a bit more on what the actual need is for the potential customers it is hard for me to help much more in terms of where they might actually be or how you could angle any potential calls to action.
If you feel you can say anything more without saying anything you don't want to, then I'd be happy to help further!
If you are interested though in learning how you might be able to more easily validate this idea you can check out www.validatethatidea.com
This comment was deleted 2 years ago.
Yes, the part I am trying to do would fit into: "Are you providing simplicity and ease in UX?".
About: "The best way to validate your SaaS idea is by building a simple version of the product that sufficiently demonstrates the unique value proposition that you offer."
I would have to think about this. But, does it not seem like a bad idea to get building before we have interested customers? I know you're suggesting an MVP. But even an MVP. That too should come after I have figured out my channels for marketing and lead. Or at least that what I have been taught by the internet.