Marketing software-as-a-service (SaaS) is a difficult task. It means continuously giving users a reason to purchase your product while managing expectations and customer service. This can create a host of obstacles towards increasing sales and growing your brand.

However, focused marketers can overcome these branding obstacles with educated approaches to improving sales. In the digital world, this means careful brand crafting and keeping the focus on the customer.

Because 82% of senior marketers saying the production of high-quality branded content is a barrier to success, these tips can help you navigate your own branding hurdles to build your business.

Crafting the Right Brand

From the beginning of your business strategy, the decisions you make will contribute to the overall branding success of your SaaS. Without the proper attention to detail and unique user experience, your software could run into problems with long-term growth.

Businesses expect the same level of ease and customer care that a typical consumer would look for in a software platform. Because of this, the user experience should be a defining point of your brand. B2B buyers need real-time and personalized attention from their SaaS companies with as many as 65% going so far as to say they would switch companies without a personalized communication effort.

SaaS brands need to start with their approach to customer satisfaction by focusing on customer care and personalization. This can come in the form of allowing sales agents to work with their buyers for the duration of the relationship or building comprehensive customer service lines that allow users to reach a representative when they need to.

Next, the overall design of your brand identity can have impacts on your sales as well. It may seem trivial, but even the color scheme you choose can play a psychological role in the user-friendliness of your site and software. Different color schemes relay different emotions and temperaments, for example:

Cool colors can have a soothing effect
Warm colors can indicate excitement
Power colors in rich hues can register as authoritative

A design with poor use of color and usability can be a huge obstacle in growing a base of dedicated subscribers who love using your platform, so pay special attention to aesthetics and functionality. Avoid fonts that blend into the background and use high contrast in your palette.

Keeping the Focus on the Customer

Design isn’t the only obstacle you’ll face in increasing your SaaS sales. Users often face trouble on the customer experience front, with systems ill-adapted to real-time business needs. Solving these problems requires a customer-focused approach to every element of your software service.

Here are a few of the user-friendly strategies you can use to keep the focus on the customer:

1. Automate

Your brand power will increase exponentially if you can save users time and frustration. Typically, most employees won’t love a shake-up in their day-to-day procedures. However, if what you’re offering instead are handy time-savers through automated processes, they’ll want to keep coming back for more.

Whatever your software service, look for methods to automate redundant or complex processes that may be costing your customers time. Put yourself in their shoes.

2. Engage

With such a high percentage of companies expecting real-time access to helpful representatives, your service needs a precise approach to customer service. This means a team of sales reps and marketers ready to hop on the phone, solve problems, and assuage concerns.

Customer service should be a key pillar of your SaaS offerings. As you make the process seamless for users with effective onboarding, ensure users have a means for contacting your team for any help they need.

3. Innovate

The massive shift to remote work caused by the coronavirus pandemic proved just how quickly large-scale process changes need to happen. Businesses looking to stay ahead need to innovate as change occurs, lending their users the tools they need to maintain their own functionality.

Artificial intelligence, dynamic pricing, e-wallet payments, blockchain, and more are technology trends impacting the SaaS marketplace. Without the adoption of trends like these, SaaS companies stand to lose out to their competitors, who are innovating to simplify the lives of all kinds of workers.

Through automation, engagement, and innovation, software service businesses can put customers at the forefront of their approach to guarantee a great experience. In turn, sales revenues and customer retention will grow with your brand reputation.

Growing Sales

The challenges of overcoming branding obstacles for greater SaaS success are many. However, software service businesses can achieve increased sales numbers by crafting a truly user-friendly design that improves the lives of users through automation, engagement, and innovation.

Companies like BMC, for example, are following these strategies through the roll-out of self-service automation platforms that give users greater agility and speed. The future is in software like this that enables smarter systems for a changing workforce.

By crafting a brand that focuses on usability and customer success, SaaS businesses set themselves up for survivability even in the uncertain pandemic economy. Face the obstacles to customer engagement and maintain an accessible customer service approach to stay ahead of the competition.

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Overcoming Branding Obstacles to Increase SaaS Sales