Ignite cloudware freemium to premium challenges in sales campaign

Igniting Your SaaS Cloud Sales

From Freemium to Premium B2B SaaS’ Challenges in Conversion Process

Revital Libfrand, Co-founder Ignite Cloudware

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Why Freemium?

Freemuim is a business model based on the concept where the company give a limited version of its core product away for free and sell premium products or services The freemium model is used in several variation both for B2B & B2C, companies choose the freemium model to: • Gain large volume of users easily • Brand awareness • Generate product attention so free users will convert into

paid customers • Gain community of product fans so free users will attract

paying customers

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Types of Freemium Model

Capacity based Freemium

Get limited capacity

(usage, # of users etc) for

free, additional capacity requires payment

Feature based Freemium

Get limited features for

free, additional features requires

upgrade to premium version

Get Ads Freemium

Get free sw access license

with Ads;

Removing Ads requires payment

Use case based Freemium

Free access based on usage i.e

Developer free license,

Non commercial

use free license etc

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- Suit mainly B2B

- Consumer is exposed to all features from day one

- Conversion to premium is easier from consumer perception as the product is already adopted.

Capacity Based Freemium

Capacity Based Freemium -Highlights

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- Suit both B2B & B2C

- Limited version must provide true benefit to consumer to avoid churn

- Upgrade to premium is not trivial from consumer perception as it requires users new adaptation process

Feature Based Freemium

Feature Based Freemium -Highlights

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- Suit both B2B & B2C

- Consumer is exposed to all features from day one

- Conversion to Premium is done to remove vendor watermark or remove sponsored Ads

Get Ads Freemium

Get Ad Freemium -Highlights

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- This model is used to enable users adopt product in certain environment (developer, non-commercial, students etc) so once they become decision makers they will be more likely to pay for the software

Use case Based Freemium

Use Case Based Freemium -Highlights

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SaaS Vendors Challenges in conversion process

SMBs may never reach the paying level and vendor should consider the cost of free users

Vendor must communicate to Consumers the benefit of the additional features and their ROI

Consumer learned to get alone in Ads environment

Ensure the Ads revenue model works for their product

Challenge to properly monitor consumers’ usage

For all Freemium models, vendors must ensure that the marginal cost of each additional Freemium user is close to 0

Feature Based

Capacity Based

Get Ads

Use Case

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Breaking the Freemium Boundaries

Many SaaS vendors who introduced successful freemium business model by building easy-to-use product that automatically convert leads to users often struggle with the role of sales in their organizations Key topics for Freemium to Premium Sales Strategy: • Adjust Consumer Internet Techniques while approaching your

B2B customers • Use Only Inside Sales Teams- The team needs to be able to sell

strategically over the phone avoiding face-to-face visits with the customer.

• Support the sales process with nurturing leads marketing campaign

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Creating a successful sales campaign Freemium to Premium

• Freemium users are great inbound leads source for your inside sales team

• Preparation for a successful sales campaign: • Analyze how your free users are using your software • Allocate relevant inside sales REP with the required skills

to perform the job • Test several sales scenarios on few groups of users and

decide what is the most efficient campaign • Adjust the sales campaign to the Freemium model you

are using.

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Key to Campaign Success

Any sales & marketing campaign requires proper planning, clear goals definition ((# users, % retention, product usability etc), KPIs measurement along the way, analyzing the results and constantly adjust & improve the process in order to increase conversion rate in every stage.

Define KPIs

Measure

Analyze

Improve process

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Matching Sales Campaign to Freemium model- example

Feature based Freemium Capacity based Freemium

Initiate a service campaign that includes a survey. The questionnaire should include questions that enable your Sales REP to provide an “offline” recommendation which refers the customers to capabilities that exist in the premium version and create an interest with the premium version

Sales campaign: generate target list report for your inside sales team with users that reaches capacity threshold (i.e. over 80%)

Campaign Concept

Farmers in their nature, must have deep knowledge of the product and how the customer could benefit the Premium features for his business

Hunter in their nature, with ability to understand the customer growth plans

Sales REP Skills

Are you struggling allocating inside sales resources for your

Freemium to Premium Campaign?

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Inside Sales Organization Service

HR Recruitment

- Define candidate pre-requisites : Academic Degree, Language, high communication skills

- Phone interview followed with Personal interview

Cloudware School

- General sales topics

- Vendor Tailored topics

Sales Assignment

- Optimization of Sales REP to job description

Sales kit preparation

- Detailed documented sales process script

Logistic & Support systems

- Phones, Station work

- Relevant SW : CRM, punch clock etc

Ignite Cloudware Provides wide Sales & Marketing services to SaaS vendors. Our inside sales team setup & ongoing management in a nutshell :

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Ask me how to build an optimized inside sales team for your SaaS business

www.ignitecloudware.com

+972-72-2116601

[email protected]