Dan Martell - 3 Cutting Edge SaaS Marketing Strategies That Work In 2021

00:00:00.000 Hey there, Dan Martell here,

00:00:01.100 serial entrepreneur, investor, and creator of SaaS Academy.

00:00:03.320 In this episode, I'm gonna share with you

00:00:04.960 three of my favorite new, not used,

00:00:09.060 powerful marketing strategies for you to kickstart the year.

00:00:13.300 And be sure to stay to the end where I'm gonna tell you

00:00:15.420 how to measure your activity and productivity

00:00:18.120 when it comes to marketing

00:00:19.400 so that you don't waste your time, energy,

00:00:21.240 and hold your team accountable.

00:00:23.160 Number one, let's get into it.

00:00:30.000 So I have the privilege of coaching hundreds of SaaS founders

00:00:40.400 to help them grow, scale, and achieve what I call the perfect exit.

00:00:44.700 Now, that doesn't mean selling your company.

00:00:46.060 It could mean hiring a CEO to run it.

00:00:47.660 But for most of my clients, it means a strategic acquisition or going public.

00:00:51.880 Now, one of the things that I support them on

00:00:54.300 is essentially introducing them to what is working in the market today.

00:00:58.840 And the reason why I have that visibility

00:01:01.660 into the most advanced marketing strategies out there

00:01:04.180 is because I coach so many clients

00:01:05.800 and many of them are literally

00:01:07.220 the world's best marketers out there.

00:01:10.080 They're the folks that have written the books,

00:01:11.480 they have these software products,

00:01:12.720 and just by coaching them,

00:01:14.160 I'm learning the top strategies and tactics

00:01:17.040 that's getting them the biggest result.

00:01:18.600 So what I wanna share with you

00:01:20.200 are the three most powerful marketing funnels,

00:01:24.360 tactics, strategies that you can implement

00:01:26.080 in your SaaS company today to get results.

00:01:29.700 Number one, challenge funnels.

00:01:31.900 So you may have seen people run ads for these,

00:01:35.400 but essentially it's a 20-day, 7-day, 14-day challenge

00:01:40.100 that helps your potential customers understand

00:01:44.460 what it is that you do in your product

00:01:46.580 or help them get better results

00:01:48.060 in the problem space that you solve.

00:01:50.620 So I have clients like ClickFunnels that's notorious.

00:01:52.780 I think they're adding 1,200 new customers a week

00:01:55.720 in their Challenge Funnel, the One Funnel Away Challenge.

00:01:58.320 If you wanna go to onefunnelaway.com, you'll see it there.

00:02:00.960 I've got other clients like Trevor at Carrot,

00:02:03.940 Kane at Coach Catalyst, Justin at TubeSift.

00:02:08.880 Probably since I've taught the Challenge Funnel

00:02:13.600 Builder Framework at my intensive in Atlanta,

00:02:17.180 many of them have deployed their Challenge Funnels

00:02:19.640 or are getting incredible results.

00:02:20.900 Here's why it's so powerful, okay?

00:02:22.920 So the idea is you wanna do a compressed amount of time,

00:02:25.720 teach your prospect to get an outcome. It's from point A to point B. The way I've heard it described

00:02:32.440 is, you know, if you're on this mound and you've got to go down the valley and cross it, there's

00:02:37.820 this body of water to get to the top of using your software, which is the result that they're

00:02:41.940 trying to achieve. Your challenge funnel should be the boat that helps them cross that pond of

00:02:47.940 water. Okay. So some of the challenge funnels out there is the one funnel away challenge I just

00:02:52.520 mentioned. It could be the customer retention challenge. It could be the first 10 customer

00:02:58.840 challenge. It could be the webinar challenge. So Omar at Webinar Ninja has challenges crushing for

00:03:05.200 them. And here's the reason why I love challenge funnels. Number one is it pays for your cost to

00:03:11.880 acquire a customer, at least the CPA side, the cost per acquisition. It funds your growth. Huge

00:03:18.280 incentive. Just that alone should be worth considering doing. The second one is it activates

00:03:23.900 and onboard your customers and kind of indoctrinates them into the way you think and what they need to

00:03:29.200 get ready to use your software in the biggest way. If you have an email marketing tool and they don't

00:03:33.820 have their email sequences written out, that would be a perfect challenge to support them. And you

00:03:39.660 can charge anywhere from $50 to $97. I have some clients that charge $200 for their funnel or their

00:03:45.260 challenge funnel. But the big idea is that whatever outcome you help them achieve, it gets

00:03:51.780 them ready to use your product. And then my favorite part is that it has built-in support

00:03:57.520 from the community and built-in community from just being part of this challenge funnel

00:04:01.980 that's going to increase the success rate of your new customers and improve your retention rate

00:04:08.180 because they're part of a tribe. They're part of a movement. They're part of something that's

00:04:12.520 exciting. People need deadlines. If you're going to lose weight, you need a deadline. You need a

00:04:17.020 challenge. You need a race. You need 30 days, 60 days, 90 days. I would argue that the shorter 0.95

00:04:22.320 your challenge funnel is, the better. But that is probably one of the most powerful ways that you can

00:04:27.100 not only get paid to run ads to acquire perfect fit customers that will eventually transition

00:04:33.640 in your software, because that's the last module in your funnel. It's essentially presenting them

00:04:37.780 the solution to go faster, to use your technology,

00:04:40.380 to be able to get better results.

00:04:42.600 So it'll help them ascend, it's called the value ladder.

00:04:45.340 We wanna get them into the challenge funnel 1.00

00:04:46.900 and then ascend them into your software

00:04:49.200 so they can get bigger and better results.

00:04:51.240 Number two, LinkedIn prospecting.

00:04:53.480 So this is something I taught my clients a few months ago.

00:04:55.800 The idea is leveraging LinkedIn to reach out

00:04:59.760 and connect with your perfect fit customers.

00:05:01.620 But this is the problem most people do

00:05:03.440 and you probably get a bunch of these messages on LinkedIn

00:05:05.480 They're just spammy, hey, I'd love to get on a call,

00:05:08.060 blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:05:08.680 So I'm gonna walk you through the four-step process

00:05:11.860 that I taught my clients to make sure that you do it

00:05:13.960 in a way that doesn't come off as schemey,

00:05:16.460 doesn't make you feel like a used car salesman,

00:05:18.480 and is actually value add for your potential prospects.

00:05:22.340 So number one is you just wanna do a connection request.

00:05:24.480 If all you did on a daily basis

00:05:26.040 was to search for ideal prospects,

00:05:28.760 your perfect fit customers, those targets in your market,

00:05:31.140 and just connect requests.

00:05:32.440 You'd be surprised how many of them see who you are.

00:05:34.360 They go, oh, he's the founder of this software.

00:05:35.820 It's in my space.

00:05:36.740 I'm going to accept.

00:05:37.880 So you start with a connection request.

00:05:39.680 The second and the big idea that a lot of people miss

00:05:42.220 is create a industry group, okay?

00:05:44.740 So create a group on LinkedIn

00:05:46.080 and invite them to that group.

00:05:49.040 And the way to make the group really work

00:05:51.280 is to name it something that would be attractive to them.

00:05:54.760 Give it a name.

00:05:55.420 Sometimes it's like, you know, the role they're in.

00:05:58.920 So like maybe they're the director of purchasing.

00:06:01.380 So it'd be called the Director of Purchasing Alliance, right?

00:06:05.640 So that could be the name of your group,

00:06:07.100 but something that would come off as attractive,

00:06:09.840 that they would wanna be part of that.

00:06:11.260 If they felt like they joined this group,

00:06:13.200 they were gonna learn from other people that are like them.

00:06:15.560 Birds of a feather flock together.

00:06:16.880 People wanna be part of a tribe.

00:06:18.660 And the truth is you can just create it, invite them.

00:06:20.960 You can start with a dozen members.

00:06:22.100 You can get to 50 members.

00:06:22.860 Eventually you'll have a thousand prospects

00:06:25.700 supporting each other and you're the connector.

00:06:28.140 So that's the second they invite into a group.

00:06:29.840 Number three, I want you to give them a resource

00:06:32.060 that you actually think can be helpful,

00:06:33.420 like a quick download, like a free thing, no opt-in,

00:06:35.980 straight to the PDF, straight to the template,

00:06:38.600 straight to the resource, straight to the blueprint,

00:06:40.360 whatever it is, just give it to them as a value add.

00:06:43.480 Because then all of a sudden now you connected,

00:06:45.760 you invited them to a group

00:06:46.780 that's gonna improve their situation

00:06:48.120 and connect with other people like them.

00:06:50.040 You sent them a resource that you've created

00:06:51.580 that's really valuable.

00:06:52.780 And then the fourth message around that should be,

00:06:55.580 hey, do you need help with this?

00:06:57.680 Love to get on a quick call

00:06:58.640 to see if we can be helpful.

00:06:59.860 And you'd be surprised how much pipeline

00:07:01.560 that could generate for you.

00:07:03.880 So LinkedIn prospecting is here.

00:07:05.980 It's today.

00:07:06.960 Go try it out.

00:07:07.880 Number three, vanity marketing.

00:07:09.980 Okay, so I love the idea of vanity marketing.

00:07:12.780 And the way this works is essentially

00:07:14.160 using a marketing platform.

00:07:16.040 You can call it a podcast.

00:07:16.980 You can call it your blog.

00:07:17.760 You can call it a platform if you have an event.

00:07:20.200 And it's inviting your prospects

00:07:22.600 to actually be on the podcast.

00:07:25.060 Ooh, what a crazy idea.

00:07:26.700 Imagine this.

00:07:27.260 You create your kind of dream 100 customer list.

00:07:31.080 These are the people that if I had these as customers

00:07:33.300 that it would just create like a lighthouse,

00:07:35.740 like a beacon of light for everybody else to say,

00:07:38.640 hey, these people are using this software

00:07:40.240 so they must be credible.

00:07:41.340 It's gonna create super credibility.

00:07:43.460 And your ask of those potential clients

00:07:46.180 is to be invited to the podcast so you can interview them.

00:07:50.420 And it's industry specific, super nerdy inside.

00:07:53.760 Why?

00:07:54.000 Because if I'm the ops person of an e-commerce company,

00:07:57.080 I want to listen to a podcast of a person that interviews other operations people at the top

00:08:02.040 e-commerce companies. And typically what happens when you're doing those interviews is they're

00:08:06.920 going to ask, they're going to say, Hey, what is it? What does your software do anyways? How does

00:08:09.940 it work? Tell me about it. Super interesting. I'd love to learn more. And that is your in,

00:08:13.720 that is your opening to do a quick discovery, see if there's a needs assessment and then move

00:08:18.080 them forward. So the other part that I love about the vanity marketing strategy, if you're going to

00:08:22.220 do a video podcast or the easiest one's an audio podcast or even an email interview. I've done that

00:08:27.480 many times where I'll do an email list of questions. Here are the eight questions. They answer them and

00:08:31.920 I publish it as a blog post. You can also use it for your customers that are purple. So I've shared

00:08:38.200 this in the past in customer success. We have red, yellow, green, and purple customers. Purple

00:08:42.580 customers are referenceable customers. They're the ones that you want to bring on to your stages,

00:08:47.580 interview on your podcast to create case studies.

00:08:51.060 They're natural case studies that are created

00:08:52.860 by doing vanity marketing.

00:08:54.820 You're appealing to the person's vanity, their ego,

00:08:57.760 because a lot of these folks,

00:08:58.700 especially if you sell to like a very specific role

00:09:01.460 in a company, they're never asked to be on a podcast.

00:09:04.100 So your hit rate could be literally 85, 90%

00:09:06.580 of getting these people.

00:09:08.080 And if you wanted to go crazy,

00:09:09.200 like my buddy, John Lee Dumas,

00:09:10.520 you could go daily with your podcast

00:09:12.600 and do five prospects a week, seven prospects a week,

00:09:15.740 and really dial it up to blow this up.

00:09:18.540 It's also a really great way to extract case studies.

00:09:22.040 And one of my coaching clients,

00:09:23.380 David Crisello at Jetpack Workflow,

00:09:25.000 he actually transcribed the interviews

00:09:27.560 that they did on the podcast

00:09:28.480 and created a number one selling book on Amazon

00:09:31.640 for his niche of accountants.

00:09:34.020 So you can repurpose the content.

00:09:35.980 It is a powerful strategy.

00:09:37.780 Vanity marketing is just at the infancy

00:09:40.100 of the distribution of it.

00:09:42.640 And it's an idea for today, so go after it.

00:09:44.880 So three hot marketing strategies for this year

00:09:47.560 that you can implement today.

00:09:49.140 Number one, challenge funnel.

00:09:50.520 Number two, LinkedIn prospecting.

00:09:52.140 And number three, vanity marketing.

00:09:54.220 As I mentioned at the beginning of this episode,

00:09:55.560 I wanna share with you an exclusive resource

00:09:57.440 called the Precision Scorecard.

00:09:59.420 It's the exact same framework that I use

00:10:01.420 to coach my clients to help them get clarity,

00:10:03.740 accountability, and performance out of their team

00:10:06.700 by showing them how to measure your goals

00:10:08.780 on a quarterly, monthly, and weekly basis

00:10:10.860 to hold everybody accountable

00:10:12.860 in moving your marketing metrics forward.

00:10:15.160 So if you deploy any of these strategies,

00:10:16.940 you wanna click the link below

00:10:18.320 to download your copy of the Precision Scorecard.

00:10:20.600 That's got the template you can swipe and copy

00:10:22.260 to build out the funnel around these numbers

00:10:25.420 and the strategies so that you make sure

00:10:27.480 that they're moving those marketing metrics forward.

00:10:30.220 And if you liked this video,

00:10:31.000 be sure to smash the like button,

00:10:32.900 leave a comment and let me know

00:10:34.240 what was your biggest takeaway from this episode.

00:10:36.860 And as per usual, I wanna challenge you

00:10:38.640 to live a bigger life and a bigger business

00:10:40.600 and I'll see you next Monday.

00:10:42.860 I can edit it.

00:10:44.860 Yeah, you're going to have to edit it.

Dan Martell - November 09, 2020

3 Cutting Edge SaaS Marketing Strategies That Work In 2021

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