How can you significantly increase your software sales with the Acquisition Canvas?
SaaS players, in this article we show you how to develop your MRO easily with a new approach based on the Acquisition Canvas methodology.
If you're a software publisher, you're consciously or unconsciously relying on two very popular methodologies: the Sirius Decision Demand Waterfall model and, of course, Inbound Marketing.
These two methods are excellent and have enabled many software companies to grow. But they have limitations and are far from perfect. And these imperfections slow down your expansion.
Find out why 👇
The limitations of current models
The limitations of the Sirius Decision Demand Waterfall
The Sirius Decision Demand Waterfall model is widely used by software publishers, who have either adopted it consciously (when they are Sirius Decision customers) or unconsciously (when they use acronyms such as SQL, MQL, etc.).
This model is highly effective for building an internal lead processing organisation and implementing CRM and marketing automation. On the other hand, it has 3 major limitations that need to be overcome in order to build an effective acquisition strategy:
- It is essentially an approach centred on internal processes.
- It only very partially integrates the customer's vision and does not take into account the customer's maturity and intentions. Where they are in their buying journey. An SQL may be at the very beginning of his buying journey, whereas leads in the process of being nurtured may be much more advanced and therefore poorly handled.
- It reinforces the silos between marketing and sales by focusing all alignment efforts on the transition between MQL and SQL, neglecting all the combined actions that marketing and sales need to carry out together throughout the customer acquisition process (e.g. organising trade shows, webinars, etc.).
The limits of inbound marketing
In contrast, Inbound Marketing starts with the customer and really looks at the needs of the persona in order to build the right content and offer it at the right time. Nonetheless, this methodology also has its own limitations. It was popularised by a software publisher, Hubspot, which used it as a Trojan horse to sell its solution. This methodology is therefore limited to the functionalities offered by the solution:
- In fact, inbound marketing relies solely on the following 3 levers: natural referencing, social networks and marketing automation. PR and events, although 'Inbound', are not systematically included in this cross-functional approach.
- Built in opposition to Outbound, Paid is naturally not included in this approach either, including from the point of view of retargeting, which enables prospects to progress through the decision-making process.
- Above all, the vision of the customer journey is highly simplified, boiling down to the top, middle and bottom of the funnel. It does not include a more detailed analysis of the customer journey, which differs from one acquisition process to another by focusing on the lead and not on all the stakeholders in the solution.
Why build a new approach?
In view of the limitations of these 2 models, we wanted to build a new systemic approach based on the customer and his decision pathway, enabling us to build a complete 360° marketing action plan.
This is the Acquisition Canvas that we designed at 1min30 with Christophe Kuhner. It enables the key stages in the customer acquisition process to be defined in a relevant way. Once modelled, this process can then be used to define your marketing strategy, align your marketing-sales organisation, structure your information system, etc.
The 3 advantages of the Acquisition Canvas :
- The Acquisition Canvas enables you to build a complete acquisition process specific to your business. This process will take into account all the stages in the customer's decision-making process, with their timing, the different players involved in the decision, etc.
- The Acquisition Canvas addresses all the marketing and sales levers: Inbound and Outbound, Online and Offline, and enables better marketing and sales alignment.
- The Acquisition Canvas enables you to assess your marketing maturity and quickly identify any flaws in your acquisition process. It makes it easy to prioritise the actions to be taken.
How the Customer Acquisition Canvas works
The Customer Acquisition Canvas focuses on the customer's decision-making process. Initially, they have a low level of awareness of the problem, then they make a decision to invest, and finally they acquire a solution.
This Canva helps you ask the right questions to break down all the stages in this decision-making process and build the most efficient acquisition process.
Very easy to use as part of co-creative workshops with your marketing and sales teams, whether or not facilitated by an agency consultant, this Canva enables you to bring up all the customer's issues, to fully understand the decision-making process and, particularly if it is a solitary or collective process, not to overlook any of the stages in the buying process, so as to build from there a complete marketing action plan that fits on a "big" page:
How can the Acquisition Canvas be applied to the software publishing market?
In software publishing, we can distinguish 2 types of customer decision process: simple processes without collective decision-making, and complex processes with collective decision-making.
These 2 types of process are extremely structuring for the software publishers who have to deal with them and for the customers themselves, who do not always make the best choice given the nature of their decision-making process.
The simple decision-making process: the software user is "the only" decision-maker when it comes to buying the solution
When the future user of the software is the "only" one to decide, or only has to convince one person, the decision-making process is fairly straightforward. They first become aware of the problem because they are experiencing difficulties themselves and start looking for a solution, or because they have been told about one. They do their own research, read articles, white papers and testimonials from satisfied customers and convince themselves that the solution will save them time and money.
So he decides to invest and compares the different solutions using appvizer naturally, following demos or taking trial versions, to finally choose the best value for money corresponding to his needs.
Faced with such a simple decision-making process, the publisher will have to put in place an acquisition process that is also relatively simple, consisting of :
- Inbound Marketing, to attract users and respond to their needs through a range of educational content,
- Paid advertising to target potential users (appvizer, AdWords, affiliation, other),
- retargeting and marketing automation to move the user through the decision-making process,
- then Inside Sales to run demos or answer questions from testers.
The quality of the product, its ergonomics, its ease of use and its reasonable price will also be key to winning the decision in the end, because the decision-maker will be the end-user.
On the other hand, in a complex decision-making process, other criteria come into play.
The complex decision-making process: the decision to buy the solution is a collective one
In the case of a complex decision-making process, generally in large companies, as soon as different departments are involved (IT Department, Business Department, CEO, etc.), individual awareness of the problem is not enough; we need to succeed in creating a collective awareness of the problem and obtain a decision to invest formally, often in the Executive Committee or elsewhere.
This requires more extensive marketing actions on the one hand:
But also the presence of field sales staff who will have to meet customers, organise several meetings, prepare proofs of concept, respond to invitations to tender, and so on. What's more, price and usability are no longer the only decision-making criteria.
How can we work together? Commitment to results. Fun guaranteed.
If you're interested in our Acquisition Canvas methodological approach, we'd be delighted to co-construct your complete acquisition strategy with you in co-creative workshops, and then deploy this strategy as part of our growth programmes.
As France's leading inbound marketing agency, we've developed our practices so that we can support our customers, particularly software publishers, throughout their acquisition process and commit to results, with an agile support system and consultants who are former marketing directors of leading publishers. Don't hesitate to contact me directly to discuss your requirements.
Enjoy Marketing!
Article translated from French