What are the best Demand Generation tools and strategies for a marketing manager marketing a SaaS product?

How do we generate demand for our SaaS product here at http://www.tintup.com/? We arm ourselves with the best sales tools to find new customers and love our existing customers. If our numbers are to tell the story, we've certainly found some success in marketing our SaaS product: As http://www.tintup.com/'s first hire, my main goal was to bring in 100k by the end of 2013.  With the tools listed below, I was able to bring in $128,914 by NYE of 2013.  Now that we are on pace to hitting 2MM by 2014, my next goal is to streamline our sales team to set our sales vision higher: How to hit 20MM.  Now, I am firm believer of the saying “under commit, over deliver” but I also believe in setting high expectations that even if I’m shy of the goal, I’ll still be happy with the results. For example in November, I committed 50k to Tim (our CEO) but with 37 web-to-lead inquiries given to me, I was able to get 36 leads to show up to an appointment, which helped me close 21 accounts in 30 days.  I closed the month with $43,300 and was happy with results.  My key performance metrics include a 97% show ratio and 58% closing ratio. This is an average key performance metric for Tim and I, and we are now strategically working to scale it.  However before we do,  I would like to share the 11 tools for our sales success: Basic Marketing Tools for Lead Generation: Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+ Context, Blogging & Content Word-of-mouth/Referrals Email Newsletters & Promo Codes SEO & Blogs w/ Content Marketing Powered by Tint logo for free users 1) http://olark.com/ is an effective way to talk to your customers for sales and support in real-time on your site.If the web visitor doesn’t fill out a form, they usually send a quick question with Olark’s chat box. Because we focus so much on customer happiness, our web visitor will instantly get connected to our CEO, Tim Sae Koo.  He will immediately answer sales questions or help with support inquiries. You’d be surprised at how many closed customers you can achieve by just answering a few questions when the lead/visitor is most interested with your product. If he isn’t around, the inquiry will go straight to which our sales team can immediately answer.  9 times out of 10, Tim and I are able set appointments through Olark. If more than 12 hours pass and we still haven’t responded to an inquiry, then the lead loses interest. Time kills deals and Olark is a great solution to nurture your leads, in real time, and let them know that they are very important. 2) http://hubspot.com/ is an inbound marketing software platform that helps companies attract visitors, convert leads, and close customers.When a visitor/lead visits http://www.tintup.com/, we use Hubspot to create forms and CTAs that track, score and nurtures leads.  Hubspot has tons of features that we weren’t able to use because we only signed up for a 30 day free trial. But for the most part, we used their a/b testing landing pages, CTA, and Signals.  Signals is Hubspot’s real-time notifications that tell you when and how to follow up with your leads and customers.  The 30 day trial did generate an additional $30k for Tint though!  Although, the results are great, we are eager to learn more about other similar softwares like http://www.pardot.com/, http://kissmetrics.com/, and http://www.marketo.com/.   3) http://mailchimp.com/ is an easy and effective way to send better email newsletters to your customers.Since we never use our blog to advertise ourselves or announce new features (because we believe our readers want to learn more than hear our news), we use Mailchimp to send out our new feature releases, promotions, and our blog posts we write. It’s super easy to import your email lists, set up a template for your email campaign, and time your send outs by bulk or time zone. The email newsletters we send out is a great way to ensure that our customers know we are still working hard for them and communicating with them in mass what we’re up to. We will also segment lists by what plans our customers are so we can send out targeted promotions to them or get them back onto our site to see new developments we’ve released. Sales Tools – Lead Opportunity Stages: Vetting & Qualifying Setting the Appointment Following Up or Closing Call Verbal Agreement Closed Won Closed Lost Do not call list 4) https://rapportive.com/ is a Gmail plugin to vet who you’re communicating with and if they are a decision maker you need to close.Ever wonder when a lead comes in if they are just a random person in a company doing research or an actual decision maker? Rapportive is your key to determining who you’re speaking with and the kind of actions you need to take. It’s all super easy to find out as well. After installation, all you need to do is hover over the email address that emailed you and the sidebar of your Gmail will show you the full name, location, title, and social networks from the person you’re speaking with. With that information, you can change your tone/urge to set up a demo to close a deal quicker. 5) http://http//www.boomeranggmail.com/ is a Gmail plugin to manage your email responses and remind you when to answer.When I open my gmail, I would typically have around 50 unread messages ranging from inquiries to leads belonging in all of the above ‘opportunity stages.’  My inbox can get overwhelming rather quickly and that is why I use multiple tools to nurture leads.  It took awhile for me to get used to Boomerang because I’m such a Salesforce advocate but as soon as I applied the tool, I was able to cut down my workload by 2 ½ hours.  At my last job, I was conditioned to log all my notes/emails to salesforce and create events, and tasks to remind me who to follow up and which leads need attention – these tedious steps would add 1-2 minutes/lead to my 60-100 lead/day routine. With Boomerang, I can efficiently work all my stages. Whether it’s to set an appointment, to send a summary & proposal, to follow up with a lead, or to set an automatic reminder… it is easy to set up with only 2-3 clicks all within my Gmail. Imagine what you would have to do if 7 clients all asked to follow up with them after 1 week during different parts of the week…I now have a tool that I can set emails to remind me to answer back in 2 days, or 12pm on Thursday afternoon; no more guessing games and no more leads falling through the cracks.   6) http://www.cirrusinsight.com/helps you keep Salesforce in sync with Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Contacts.When a lead completes a form on our website or emails us directly, we create an account on Cirrus Insight and convert the lead into an ‘opportunity.’ I use this add-on as much as I use Gmail. It made Salesforce easy to teach and keep up with.  I no longer have to copy and paste everything into salesforce; I can simply ‘log a call’ through ‘activities’, set an appointment through ‘event’ and respond to emails using Salesforce templates through the ‘quick send and add’ plugin.  I’ve watched Tim receive 50 emails (support & inquiry) and respond to all 50, log complete notes on sfdc and get tons of confirmed appointments before he goes to lunch at noon.  The best part about this plugin is its ability to sync your google calendar and Salesforce calendar every 30 minutes. 7) http://www.yesware.com/ is an email productivity service for salespeople.If Boomerang and Cirrus insight had a child, it would be Yesware.  I just installed Yesware this month and it has similar features like email management, and SFDC/Gmail synchronization.  What I really like about Yesware is being able to send emails at later time.  For instance Fridays are the worst follow up days because everyone is getting ready for the weekend.  However, I also have a lot of time on Friday and so I’ll write my follow up emails and schedule them to be delivered on Monday at 8:30am, which will help me get seen first thing in the morning.  Another feature I like about Yesware is there templates.  Once my templates are setup, it takes 2 clicks to load them and send.  With Cirrus Insight, I will need to click on the icon, then choose the template folder, then choose a template, then look for a contact, then look for an account and send.  Yesware saves me another 2-3 minutes which I can substitute for my tea break . 8) http://salesforce.com/ is best known for it’s customer relationship management product.Salesforce help me keep track of all my leads, where they are in the decision making process, and help me generate reports on performance metrics. Salesforce is important because it will streamline all the information gathered about an account and a lead from beginning to end.  If a lead has support issues, or unpaid balances, your marketing, sales, operations and account management teams should be able to get the full story just by looking at the Salesforce notes.  If an account manager has to ask for more details from your salesperson about a client, this means notes are incomplete.  Incomplete notes will create inefficiencies, miscommunication, wasted time and ultimately, money lost. Salesforce will also give management valuable insights to the type of employees in your company.  It will help you find and gauge the A players from the B players.  Most importantly if your data is clean, Salesforce will help you streamline, track retention rates, churns, lifetime value of a client and projections. My Salesforce calendar is synchronized with Cirrus Insight, which is connected to my Google Calendar. I also have my Gcal set up with text notifications to give me real time reminders on appointments.  Salesforce help me nurture my pipeline and it help me forecast my numbers.  A lot of the tools I’m suggesting can actually be customized through Salesforce however I found that the more apps you need within salesforce, the more fees are added.  Also, my eyes don’t get burnt out looking at the same page all day and I appreciate the emotive variety of each tool.   9)http://join.me/, http://www.gotomeeting.com/ or http://skype.com/ – VOIP Conference Calls & Screen-sharingOnce I set an appointment, my go to screen sharing app is http://join.me/ because it is easy to send and pretty to look at.  My prospect doesn’t need to download a file like Skype or GoToMeeting, which is time consuming.  They only need to take 3 steps: Click on the http://join.me/ link Click on the phone icon to connect via internet Connect a headset Some client’s prefer GoToMeeting or Skype.  I don’t like GoToMeeting because it feels archaic, it’s interface is bulky and sending an invite takes too much time.  I don’t like Skype because I have to send an invite or wait for an invite to get connected which is inefficient. While Skype can’t do conference calls for free and half my calls are conference calls.  Both these tools require an installation and a signup.   10) http://stripe.com/ is a company that provides a way for individuals and businesses to accept payments over the Internet.Once a demo is complete, we expect to close the business within 1-14 days.  I can use Stripe to create promo codes and track real time revenue. Not to mention managing (full or partial) refunds, recurring subscriptions, and custom payments. Tint also uses Stripe for self-service signups located on our pricing page: http://www.tintup.com/pricing.  The Plus and Pro signups go through our stripe account.  Our self serve page generates about more than half of our revenue every month. 11) https://zapier.com/ enables you to automate tasks between other online services (services like Salesforce, Basecamp, Gmail, Mailchimp, Olark, Hubspot and Stripe).I use this tool to synchronize Stripe with Salesforce so our self serve clients are also in our Salesforce database to keep track of all our customers. Zapier has  hundreds of other recipes you can create that will make your life easier and save you time from connecting apps together (like send all Gmail emails into Evernote automatically). We always strive for clean data because they tell the best stories.  We would love some suggestions or successful tools to help us consolidate and maintain clean data.   Account Management Tools & Circling back to Lead Generation: Orientation Call Happy Client Program Tint Support & Best Practices Save Calls, Credit, Collection & Invoicing Case Studies, Upsells Working with brand advocates 12) http://ballparkapp.com/ for invoicing and referral programs.I typically use Ballpark to send invoices and accept payments.  However, they also have referral programs that I think we should definately use and they released a feature with Stripe for credit card payments.  It seems like they have tons of features that I have not used yet and so I will be downloading the Ballpark app to take advantage of all these awesome features. 13) http://trello.com/ is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards. In one glance, Trello tells you what’s being worked on, who’s working on what, and where something is in a process.Trello is our drawing board, our to-do list; the board that keeps us accountable and innovative.  Everyday we talk about urgent challenges, tasks we completed, and what we are working on.  We are constantly looking for ways to improve, to strengthen our culture and our product.  Trello helps us stay true to one of our core philosophy, “Transparency is key.”  We are able to see what project each person is in charge of and what they have accomplished.  We are able to work together closely and give feedback to improve on our methods, which I find incredibly valuable for a startup company. This is where you can put sales goals on individual cards so your team knows what you are aiming for and can give you feedback on your steps. You can read more http://www.tintup.com/blog/how-tint-uses-trello/ 14) http://intercom.io/ is your best friend for account management and talking with customers.Tint uses intercom for “http://insideintercom.io/churn-retention-and-reengaging-customers/.”  One of our current challenges is to increase our monthly recurring revenue.  And to reduce our churn, we want to make sure we talk with our customers so they know we’re here to help and are up to date with new features, blog posts, etc. Intercom makes this SUPER easy by allowing us to communicate with our customers when they are in the Tint app. This is smart because this is when they are focused on our app and willing to chat with us. We are still learning to use Intercom effectively to create strong relationships with visitors and customers alike through automated messaging to scale our touchpoint communications. Read more at our blog post here: http://www.tintup.com/blog/14-sales-tools-tint-used-to-reach-1m-revenue-in-1-year/

We like to think http://www.edocr.com one of the best tools in the market to help companies build brand awareness, demand generation and lead capture from documents. As a business, you should consider adopting multi channel approach to bring leads to top of your funnel. This should not be confused with driving traffic to your website. We help you to capture leads, which you can then nurture into paying customers using a multiple of tools. Happy to expand on this

“Customer acquisition nightmare”Hacking an effective way of getting your first paying users, needs a sound strategy, planning, and intelligent execution. Selling your first SaaS product is one of the hardest challenges any SaaS startup has to beat. However, the idea of making a sale anytime, anywhere you are (even when you are asleep) gives the providers such a liberating feeling.Here are Hot 9 strategies to lock in Initial Saas product customers:1.Focus on sales explorationStart with your network. Tap into the network of the people you know. Your acquaintances, friends, friends of your friends, co-workers, alumni, past employees. Remember to ask for introductions before banging them with your product.What is the objective of doing this?You are not aiming to close a deal at this point (there is no pain if you close one too). The essence is to focus on early stage sales exploration and http://www.saleshandy.com/. Take your time to listen and understand your customers better. Make sure you get what their pain points are.2.Figure out who your customer is and where to find themIdentifying your real customer is not an accident. Don’t just be a product or service guy. B2B selling is harder and a little bit complicated. Look for forums where people are looking for your product. Here is a http://searchengineland.com/10-hidden-gems-finding-new-customers-197767 where you can find your customers. You can also hit freelancing websites (Up work, Guru, etc) and look job postings that are relevant to your niche.3.Leverage on targeted traffic.We are talking about the power of advertising. The competition is stiff. Lots of noises out there. If you need to go through the clutter, you have to pay. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adwords, Facebook or any other method of airing traffic that works. To be on the safe side, start off small and make sure you measure the progress of your campaign. Otherwise, you’ll lose a lot of money and achieve nothing out of it.Put up a landing page and drive targeted traffic there.Now that you have a good source of traffic. Put up a landing page. You can use a different domain name than the one your product is hosted on. Do a great sales copy, not a vague one-liner. Make the copy a bit long and describe in details all of the benefits and the features. Most importantly, the pain points it seeks to resolve. If you don’t have an exact pricing, mention that would be a premium product. Otherwise, let the readers know what your pricing plan is. Provide email opt-in form at the end to get in on the launch and secure a spot in the free beta.4.What to do with the list(Email ids)Personally, email each one of them and schedule phone calls to dig into exactly how they expect your solution to help them. During the first 2-3 months of using the free software in beta, send your list about 3-4 emails and simply update them on the progress of your team and let them say what they need. Let them know that by joining the free beta, they will enjoy a lifetime 10%, 20%, 30 % discount later when you launch publicly with paid plans.After 2-3 months, send an email to your beta users and give them a 30-day window to log in and upgrade to a paid plan, with certain percentage discount locked in for life.Why this option works. It is open and up-front about where we were at every step of the way. The customers will have sufficient time to fully evaluate your customer support, the product, and the rest. Personalized service and over-delivered every step of the way. A lifetime discount to take advantage of it is a good incentive to make those first sign ups happen. 5.Cold emailing and calling.Check if you have a mailing list? Use it to get paid users. Craft a http://salesfolk.com/cold-email-template-got-16-new-b2b-customers/ email and sent it to your list. Do not expect lots of positive response from the emails you send. Sometimes you have to send more follow up emails to get them responding. Prospects’https://app.saleshandy.com/web/site/signup would be a booster for your sales team. Schedule a call, if possible. Personally, I have seen many startups close deals with calling. If done well, you can’t fail to close several sales.6.Referral programsMany SaaS providers get their customers from referrals. If you have paying users, you can request them to refer their friends or acquaintances to your software. You can give them a link and let know what percentage they will earn once they refer new users to your site. Your first 4-6 users can bring in another 4-6 users and you’ll be looking at around 18-12 users. However, not all users go for such arrangements. If you are not sure how to do it, you can use something like http://referralsnip.com/to help you get it out there quickly.7.Capitalize on 3rd Party IntegrationsIt is difficult for startups to make a mark on the noise-filled, mass-appeal marketplace like the Google Apps store. To beat that challenge, most upcoming applications have resorted to creating their own ecosystem play. Now they are coming with their own APIs and directories of integration partners. As a SaaS start up, invest your time and resources on where you can be discovered: that means integrating with other smaller apps than with Google App store. Some companies, for instance, integrate Evernote via its API and use it a platform to advertise with. Below is a list of other apps you may be interested in integrating with. http://bufferapp.com/extras http://www.icontact.com/features/email-marketing-integrations/ http://eventbrite.appgalleries.com/ http://www.zendesk.com/apps http://basecamp.com/extras http://campfirenow.com/extras http://apps.shopify.com/ http://marketplace.constantcontact.com/ http://highrisehq.com/extras http://www.wufoo.com/partners/ http://www.formstack.com/integrations.html https://www.yammer.com/applications http://www.zoho.com/partners-api.html http://connect.mailchimp.com/integrations/ http://community.freshbooks.com/addons/ https://app.hubspot.com/market/front/list http://stocktwits.com/developers/docs/integrations http://mite.yo.lk/en/platform/ You can dig up for more.8.Media, Blog mentions & Expert “Endorsements”This is about getting expert social proof, a very effective way of getting your 11 paying customers. Blog mentions by industry leaders or expert “endorsements’ can generate the trust customers need to take up your product. As a result of the trust, many targeted users will come looking for your site.What you need to do: Offer a case study for industry top analysts. Be awesome and get on http://mixergy.com/. This applies mostly to founders. Guest post on http://blog.kissmetrics.com/ Connect with industry insiders, be awesome and get mentioned or featured on industry rags. For more information about expert endorsements, you can take a http://michaelhyatt.com/how-to-secure-raving-endorsements-for-your-product-or-service.htmlhttp://michaelhyatt.com/how-to-secure-raving-endorsements-for-your-product-or-service.htmlpost.9.Give out freebiesBefore you ask for anything from your customers, be on the first line of giving. You don’t have to give ‘just anything’. Give out VALUE that people will want to use or share.http://www.mirasee.com/ does this beautifully with their, 10 Rules of the VISIONARY BUSINESS e-book. You’ll see a call to action box on their first page. They update it regularly and it’s one of best free e-books on list building. The Benefit is not to convert their first-time visitors into paid subscribers. Their target is getting the brand out to many peopleFreebies accomplish several goals. Deliver value and demonstrate knowledge on what you are doing. Freebies build trust in your brand or product. If the freebies are good, they are shared across different networks, giving your product more exposure. Give out these freebies if you want to reach out to many people. Beginner’s Guides, Infographics Webinars, Free consultations, Interviews, Podcasts, E-books Blog Posts White Papers https://twitter.com/share?text=Did+you+know+giving+your+%23SaaS+product+free+for+use+at+the+beta+stage+is+also+a+strategic+freebie%3F&via=sales_handy&related=sales_handy&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.saleshandy.com%2Fblog%2F9-hot-strategies-lock-initial-customers-saas-product%2Fhttps://twitter.com/share?text=Did+you+know+giving+your+%23SaaS+product+free+for+use+at+the+beta+stage+is+also+a+strategic+freebie%3F&via=sales_handy&related=sales_handy&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.saleshandy.com%2Fblog%2F9-hot-strategies-lock-initial-customers-saas-product%2Fhttps://twitter.com/share?text=Did+you+know+giving+your+%23SaaS+product+free+for+use+at+the+beta+stage+is+also+a+strategic+freebie%3F&via=sales_handy&related=sales_handy&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.saleshandy.com%2Fblog%2F9-hot-strategies-lock-initial-customers-saas-product%2FStart with your launch with a private beta which is free. This is a common strategy adopted by many SaaS startups. And, it is very effective. Launch your product in private and offer it free for use to select few who you are targeting for use.Another way is offering free sign up for up to 3 months. This gives ample of time for brands to interact with your software solution and the support team before letting them upgrade to paid subscriptions.Summing up…Simply developing an awesome SaaS product is not enough. You need to put up solid strategies to make it stand out and close the first few sales. However, this is not a cheap task. It requires meticulous planning, crafting killer cold emails, making cold calls and aggressively looking for expert endorsements. Where possible, you may come up with a referral program that can help bring on more and more user to your product.Now, over to you…What strategies have you used (you are using) to get the first few paid users?

I represent  http://bit.ly/1VGx7YK- a tool which identifies companies visiting your website – our unique approach turns unknown B2B website visitors into business leads (that would otherwise be lost). Receive real-time reporting on high potential leads.It enables you to find out: Company name Company address Company website Company telephone Did you know 95% of companies who visit your website do not enquire. http://bit.ly/1VGx7YKis a tool that identifies these ‘unknowns’ and transforms them into hot leads with all the contact details and insight you need to get in touch.You can discover new opportunities by approaching customers directly on your site, monitor in real-time and react in seconds! Customise alerts and receive notifications of companies that land on your website.The following reports are available: Real time notifications Custom CSV email Companies by Channel Report Companies by Search Term Report I would recommend the 14-day FREE trial to analyse for yourself.Full disclosure: I work as a content writer for lead generation software company http://bit.ly/1VGx7YK. My affiliation does not affect the quality or integrity of my answers.

A huge part of Demand Generation is done through social media. Sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or even your own blog provide incredible platforms to market your SaaS product. But those platforms are nothing if you don't use the right tools to get the most out of them - here's a list of the top 100: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/top-100-social-sales-tools-celebrate-my-100th-post-brynne-tillman Through co-ordinated use of tools such as: Social Cloud Suite (manages your posting schedule and allows custom pop-ads on each post) Sumome (a Wordpress plugin that helps integrate visitors' emails into your marketing campaign) HootSuite (social media manager that utilizes keywords and custom newsfeeds) You can see huge returns on your efforts. That top 100 list also has a fair few entries based on cutting down time on activities such as online communication so that you can focus on the campaign itself. For example, Nimble (some uses posted above) is fantastic for easily gain insight into what a prospective customer has been talking about over the main social media sites; you can then use this information to tailor your approach to them. All of the tools are linked too, so you can easily check out each entry as you work through and see what could either fit in with your existing marketing campaign or might be worth expanding into. Once again, that post is: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/top-100-social-sales-tools-celebrate-my-100th-post-brynne-tillman Hope this helped.

Check out how a SaaS Lead Generation Expert won at Outbound Sales Prospecting in his company: http://bit.ly/1yfmqlr Hope it's helpful!