Measure the Digital Marketing ROI of Your SaaS Company – The Right Way
“Minds do not leap. Observation, evaluation, and iteration, not sudden shifts of perception, solve problems and lead us to creation.” Kevin Ashton, the guy who, among other things, pioneered the global standard system for RFID and other sensors, said that. But how does that quote relate it our topic today? Most business models in the world are a microcosm of life on a smaller scale. Digital marketing for a SaaS company is no exception. To truly excel at it, constant observation, evaluation, and iteration of ideas and efforts must take place, to lead you to ÿour goal. That’s where the ROI (Return on Investment) comes in. The process of measuring the ROI will force you to acknowledge the viability and success (or lack thereof) of your marketing efforts. Before you can think about ways to measure the ROI, you must understand the significance of measuring it. ROI – The What and The Why ROI, in SaaS, refers to the profitability ratio to evaluate the quality of fruits your marketing labours bear. In simple words, the question you, as a SaaS owner, want to ask of your company is whether you’re getting as much as you can in relation to what you put in. Why, you ask? Well, that’s where Senor Ashton’s wise words come into focus. To solve problems and lead you to creation, it is observation, evaluation, and iteration that take the limelight, rather than simple whims and epiphanies. Measuring the ROI, correctly, of course, is akin to the observation part. This in turn, will allow you to evaluate your actions, and ultimately compel you to make alterations to your efforts. (Read: iterations). Now that we understand the What and the Why of ROI, let’s move on to the How. How to measure ROI “the right way”? The right way. A bit vague, isn’t it? Let’s see if we can’t shed some light on it. Measuring the return on investments is almost as simple as proving 2+2 = 5. The whole point of the exercise is to be able to derive actionable insights. So first things first, you need to know what to measure. Let’s go about this per channel. The Website Your SaaS company’s website is basically a virtual office space. A lot of people come by, some even prospective customers. You have invested a lot to make this office welcoming and catering to the needs of said customers. The parameters you need to measure in this case are: Traffic and its source Measure how many people visit your website on a weekly basis as well as where they come from. Time spent Measure the visitors’ time spent on your website. Maybe they liked something they saw. You can use that information to talk to them more effectively. Bounce rates Bounce rates give you an idea about how many people leave your website immediately after arriving. You don’t want this number too high. Website actions Finally, measure the actions visitors take on your website. Calculate conversions per page, inquiries, likes & comments, shares, etc. Paid Advertisements Paid Advertisements are, well, pretty self-explanatory. But the process of generating leads and measuring their performance isn’t that simple. Here’s what you, as a SaaS owner, need to track: Define target CPR CPR, or Cost Per Result, refers to the ratio of profit per a predetermined metric (a click, lead, conversion, or sale), generated by an ad to the cost of running said ad. You want to define a target CPR initially and work your way towards achieving that with A/B testing. Ad interaction rate This one is rather straightforward. It refers to the number of people who clicked or interacted with the ad in some way in relation to the number of people who saw the ad. Anything close to a 2% interaction rate is a good sign. Campaign-wise ROI Simply put, you want more coming in than going out for all of your marketing efforts. Calculate simple ROI analysis on each marketing campaign you run and compare data across channels. Per-channel performance Different channels have different audiences, and hence suit one company or product more than the other. Figure out the yield of each channel and compare the performances to optimize future ads. Organic Channels These cover the company blog, social media presence, email newsletters, etc. Everything under content marketing such as blogs, articles, leadership articles, as well as organic social media content. This content is the face of your brand, and people will judge your knowledge and competency by it. This is how you measure how people react to it: Reach and impression Reach is the total number of people who see your content. Impressions are the number of times your content is displayed, no matter if it was clicked or not. Engagement Engagement refers to the number of responses such as likes, comments, shares, retweets, clicks, referrals, etc. conjured up by your content on various platforms. Revenue generated and profit/Resource-cost comparison This is the calculation of direct revenue generated thanks to your content, in relation to the cost of resources and man-hours used to create said content. Example of measuring ROI of a marketing channel: Total marketing costs = X (Email marketing team allowance) + Y (Email Marketing software). So X + Y is the total investment. Revenue = Z = Leads generated through email marketing x lead conversion rate x average sales value ROI = Z – (X+Y)/(X+Y) Some Final Points to Remember Track the trackers – Ensure you have functional trackers in place to measure all the data that you need. Google analytics and HubSpot are two of the prime examples of trackers. Go for better dashboard tools – There are a number of marketing dashboard tools out there that help you derive actionable insights from raw data like Google data studio, Datorama, Tableau, etc. Find one that best suits your needs. Keep an eye out for red flags – With all this constant tracking, collecting and deciphering of data, it may be possible to miss out on trends. Keep checking all datasheets and dashboards thoroughly to make sure any underperforming metrics are taken care of immediately. Shift focus in
4 Ways To Adapt Your Marketing System For New SaaS Industry Trends
You must have heard the old “change is the only constant” chestnut a million times in your life. And it’s probably truer now than ever before, with these uncertain times we live in. Digital marketing trends for SaaS companies also mirror this theory. In the digital sphere, things are constantly changing at a rapid pace. And so are the trends in the SaaS industry. For companies to keep up, there needs to be a stable structure in place for digital marketing efforts to grow and evolve in a smooth manner. But what would such a structure consist of, and how would a SaaS company go about shaping it? Let’s find out! Stay on Top of Trends For SaaS companies, keeping up with the latest digital marketing trends is pivotal. We live in an era where Elon Musk tweeting about dogs can lead to a stock market crash worth billions. SaaS marketing spheres may not be as volatile, but new technologies that give rise to new trends are surfacing every day. And the markets need to adapt to them ASAP. For SaaS digital marketing trends, there are many ways you can ensure staying on top in your niche. Such as: Subscribe to email newsletters Read industry blogs Follow industry leaders on social media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc) Network with people in the know. Follow competitor trends Case Studies in your niche Adopt a Growth-Driven Web Design Because of the method of traditional websites, the ordinary SaaS web design is doomed from the get-go. When decision-makers approve the setup and design of a website, it is generally considered “finished.” That is where the real work begins for growth-driven design. GDD (growth-driven design) is a process for creating a website that is solely focused on improving over time. This progress is constantly aimed toward expansion. Rather than ending with a “finished” product, GDD begins with a “LaunchPad” website. This LaunchPad website is an enhancement to your present site that also serves as a source of real-time user data. When user data begins to flow in, it’s time to start experimenting with different versions of your website. This is to see which one generates the most traffic. Growth-driven design is ideal for brands looking to update their website and improve its performance. This ensures the website is built to grow and adapt to the changing demands of the SaaS industry. Devise Adaptive Marketing Strategies With consumers’ habits and priorities changing on a daily basis, it’s important to reevaluate your marketing strategies from the ground up. Starting from communication to how you spend money on advertisements and content. Marketing must now, more than ever, be focused on your consumers’ current needs. People are likely to be turned off if you continue to push a hard sale or show any signs of being opportunistic. With so much turbulence across the globe, companies need to be quick to adapt to their market imbalances. They have to be on the right track with some nifty market research and changes that put the consumers’ needs first. Track Performance Metrics with Result-Driven Software Learning how to adapt to new trends is the trickiest part for companies. You must conduct research on a regular basis to maintain an active understanding of your target market and keep customers interested. Being able to keep up with and adapt to new trends reflects well on your firm and its customer success strategy. Implementing a result-driven software such as HubSpot allows you to have an understanding of your performance. Not only that, it tracks key metrics and performance indicators, allowing you to draw valuable insights about your marketing efforts. An Eye on the Future Technology is already a big part of our daily lives, and it will continue to be at the forefront of the SaaS sector in the future. Companies will continue to use smart technologies to engage with customers, and give rise to new SaaS marketing trends. Your company must ensure that they are utilizing technology to its fullest and engage customers. SaaS is always changing and expanding. To ensure you do not get left behind, an adaptive structure that can foresee and integrate new trends is essential. And the best way to create said structure is with the help of SaaS digital marketing agencies, such as Alter Marketing Solutions. Build your company’s marketing efforts are built around an adaptable structure with a team of multi-talented and multi-faceted individuals primed at handling your business. Send an email to [email protected] or give us a call at +91 99864 60086 to get started right away. Want to learn more about creating the perfect growth plan for your SaaS product? Get Free Access To Our SaaS Growth Plan EBook. Download Now!
Apple Ply
Here’s how a plywood company boosted its organic traffic by 1045.36% in just 7 months! Introduction Established 4 decades ago, Apple Plywood is a pioneer plywood manufacturer in the South India region. Apply Ply has grown to become one of the largest and well-positioned as one of India’s long-term manufacturers of allied wood products and is currently offering the widest range of products. Apple Ply enjoys a unique brand identity as the market leader, with offerings that are considered industry benchmarks. AK group’s aspiration is an exemplar in sustainability practices. Furthermore, their production plants in India and abroad have been certified with the coveted ISO 9001:2015 standard demonstrating their adherence to the BIS standards. All of this goes to show that they are focused on “green” quality as the ultimate priority. They are guided by a simple philosophy of adding more value-for-money products and at the same time, improving upon their existing product portfolio through extensive research and customer feedback. Challenge Less Organic TrafficThe website created was a static website with very little information. There was not enough content with relevant keywords used and the pages were not optimized. Was not ranking for relevant keywordsThe pages were not ranking on the SERP as they were not optimized based on the targeted and relevant keywords which lead to low page ranking and domain authority. There was no proper content strategyThe website had no content being published like blogs, product descriptions, etc. The website was slowThe website load time was very high which made it less user-friendly. Having IssuesThe website load time was very high which made it less user-friendly. The website was not optimizedThe website was not optimized with meta tags, descriptions, and keywords on the pages which lowered the ranking. Alter Solutions Since AK Plywood emphasized ranking No. 1 on the SERP, here’s what Alter had done to revamp the website: The SEO team analyzed and conducted a base report which included the issues that needed to be fixed. A wireframe was created ( WORD ) and the URL of the website was structured. Competitor research was conducted and keywords were finalized. From these chosen keywords, the content was generated in the form of blogs, pillar articles, product page optimization, and on-page and off-page optimization. Different pages were optimized based on the relevant keywords to improve the visibility in the SERP. Local SEO strategy was adopted by optimizing Google My Business to be ranked on local searches that are location specific. Blog Funnel was built along with interlinking and external linking. On-page activities like content optimization were conducted. Off-page activities like Q&A answering, Directory Listing, Email Outreach, Blog Promotion, Social Bookmarking, Local Listing, and Guest Posting were conducted in order to generate backlinks. Result The website has been ranking for the 21 relevant keywords used which gives more visibility on Search Engine. Organic Traffic has been increased by 1045.36% Referral Traffic has been increased by 3580%. Top ranking locations as per country are India, United States, China, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. Keywords targeted for certain pages have a good rank on the SERP. The average keyword ranking position has increased by 7.22%. Conclusion The majority of people have shifted to the online world which is why having an online identity for your business is very important to build credibility and trust. Digital Marketing is one of the cost-efficient and best options to measure ROI if you’re planning to expand your business. Having a proper Digital Marketing strategy will help you stay ahead of the competition and reduce your risk of marketing channel saturation. Structured approach to your marketing strategy will help you give long lasting results, rather than just having assets in place without connecting them to each other.
Tesor World
Here’s How A Home Decor Store Increased Its Organic Traffic By 258% Introduction Tesor World is one of many manufacturers that sell appealing home décor and furnishings. It is one of Bangalore’s leading home decor retailers, seeking to provide a wide range of carefully crafted, high-quality products. Tesor World distinguishes itself from the competition by offering a diverse range of exquisite home décor products made by artisans from across India. From handcrafted ceramics to ornamental decors such as canvas paintings and metallic wall art 一 They have it all. Challenge No relevant keywords and Organic traffic to the websiteThe website created by Tesor was a static website with minimum information. They were not getting relevant traffic and were ranking on random keywords since the website and its content was not optimized with the relevant and specific keywords. The website was not user friendlyAlong with the website, it wasn’t mobile-friendly as well. The load time of the website was high. Their site was having a lot of technical issues, security hacks and injections every now and then. Visibility on SERP was lowPages were not ranking on the SERP as they were not optimized based on the targeted keywords which lead to low page and domain authority. Alter Solutions Since Tesor emphasized on wanting to rank on the first page of the SERP for relevant niche keywords and having a secure website, here is how we did the website revamp: The SEO team analyzed and conducted a base report which included the issues that needed to be fixed. A wireframe was created ( WORD ) and the URL of the website was structured. The website was created on WordPress and linked to Shopify (Conversion to E-Commerce website) along with activation of chat mode and social media. Competitor research was conducted and keywords were finalized based on Primary, Secondary and tertiary. From these chosen keywords, content was generated in the form of blogs, pillar articles, product page optimization and on-page and off-page optimization. Different pages were created and categorized based on Product and service. These pages were optimized based on the relevant keywords to improve the visibility in the SERP. Local SEO strategy was adopted by optimising Google My Business to be ranked on local searches that are location specific. Blog Funnel was built along with interlinking and external linking. On – page activities like content optimization Off – page activities like Q&A answering, Directory Listing, Email Outreach, Blog Promotion, Social Bookmarking, Local Listing and Guest Posting was conducted inorder to generate backlinks. Result The website has been ranking for the relevant keywords used which gave more visibility on Google.The Page Authority and Domain Authority has been increased by 11% and 32% respectively. After revamping the website, the Organic Traffic has increased by 258.22% from the last 2 years. Referral Traffic has increased by 396.41%. Top three ranking locations as per cities are Bangalore, Mangalore and Mumbai. Top ranking locations as per state are Karnataka, Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and New Delhi. 9 keywords that are targeted are ranking on the first page of the SERP (Search Engine Ranking Page). Conclusion Majority of people have shifted to the online world which is why having an online identity for your business is very important to build credibility and trust. Digital Marketing is one of the cost-efficient and best options to measure ROI if you’re planning to expand your business. Having a proper Digital Marketing strategy will help you stay ahead of the competition and reduce your risk of marketing channel saturation. Structured approach to your marketing strategy will help you give long lasting results, rather than just having assets in place without connecting them to each other.
MIFSE
2000 admission enquiries with a spend of just 1L in 4 months! Introduction Mangalore Institute of Fire and Safety Engineering (MIFSE) is a pioneer institute of Fire and Safety Education in India.The Institution was awarded prestigious “Indian Education Excellence award” in 2014 as a No.1 institution for safety courses in India. It is also affiliated to some of the leading universities in India which have been accredited with grade by the National Assessment Accreditation Council. Their branches include Mangalore, Bangalore- Malleshwaram and Banshankari, Udupi, Shimoga, Davangere, Hubli, Belgaum, Hospet, Tumkur, Mysore They offer Diploma, P.G Diploma, Advance Diploma, BBA, NSDC courses and international courses. Challenges The courses were unique and people were unaware of the scope The courses offered by the college were not the ones that one would generally opt for. The institution faced a lot of problems due to the pandemic. People were either not thinking about future education or were opting for courses they thought had the most potential. It was a challenge to market these courses in such a way that people would want to choose them over all other mainstream courses. The pandemic restricted all their usual sources of admissions There was no way to conduct programs and awareness as the institution would usually do. The only way to reach their audience was through digital means! They needed to have a digital presence MIFSE is a well renowned institution. Even then, their digital presence was very minimal. They had no idea where their audience spends time and what interests they had. Their social media channels also had minimal engagement. Alter Solutions A strategy was put into place after we went through the following: Before we commencing the work, we do start with audit to understand following things, Understanding the market and defining a target audience Concluding the value offer to be communicated Base analysis on where we stand and drafted milestone on KPI’s Drafted the integrated marketing strategy which is aligned with our KPI of brand expansion, lead generation with proven ROI. Research on market and strategy In this case, there was more of a challenge to make people move away from choosing the 2 -3 common courses. Our strategy simply involved picking our most effective benefit and putting it across in the most attractive way. We narrowed down the persona and the fact that these people want a course that guarantees jobs, is short and interesting. Our course gave them all 3. Facebook ads Ads were run on Facebook and Instagram platforms after thorough research was done on the target. They fell in the age group of 18-24 and this group is very active on both the platforms. Further, we pinpointed the target audience to those people who spoke kannada only. This was concluded after an A/B test was done between english and kannada ad creatives. Results Admission leads through social media ads. A total of 19 ads ran in the duration of 4 months. The objective of all these ads was lead generation. Ads were directed towards people who were looking for unique career opportunities. We also concluded that kannada ads worked best for this brand. Here are some highlights from our journey with MIFSE! – We managed to get 1,831 leads at an average cost of just Rs. 54.61! – This means at an average there were about 15 leads per day for 4 months! – Managed to get over 17L impressions at an average CPM of just Rs. 56 – There were about 20,339 clicks with only Rs. 4.9 per click The impact The strategies developed by the marketing team worked wonders for the brand! The leads were not just high in number but also in quality. We made sure that the ads had to-the-point communication and only spoke about the value it had to offer to the audience! This is what led to incredible results in a very short time! Conclusion Don’t leave out any way to reach your audience People consume information from so many sources. It is crucial you pick out the places most relevant to your audience and keep showing them your advertisements so that they do not forget you! Make sure people know the value you have to offerNo matter how good your product/service is, people will not opt for it until they see a real value in it for them. So, tell them WHY exactly your product/service is the one they should choose among the multiple other options they might have. Cater to your audience!Take time to understand your audience properly. It is most crucial in marketing. Best of the best plans fail when the audience set is not right! Who is your audience? What age group do they fall under? Where do these people spend most of their time? What are their interests and pain points? These are a few of the questions you need to keep in mind while strategizing. Messaging is key!In today’s digital world, people do not have the time to give their complete concentration to every ad they come across. If it does not catch their attention in the first few seconds.. You lost them! Therefore, communication and messaging become crucial. Give them something that they simply can’t scroll past!