Enough with the jabbering about what a go-to-market strategy is (if you’ve been following our previous posts). Sometimes, the best way to understand something is simply to see examples of it. Without further ado, here are nine awesome examples of how SaaS companies implemented their go-to-market strategies in truly innovative ways. (Of course, if you […]
Enough with the jabbering about what a go-to-market strategy is (if you’ve been following our previous posts). Sometimes, the best way to understand something is simply to see examples of it. Without further ado, here are nine awesome examples of how SaaS companies implemented their go-to-market strategies in truly innovative ways. (Of course, if you feel the need for a primer/more detail on getting started with your go-to-market strategy, we’ve got you covered).
1. TaxJar
TaxJar is a sales tax compliance solution. You might be wondering what that means – as TaxJar thought you would. When they started in 2013, their prospective market of eCommerce companies didn’t know either. So, to enable their go-to-market strategy for startups, they embarked on an information and branding campaign to build awareness of both their market niche and the company itself.
TaxJar built a plethora of great content and focused on promotion through SEO. It helped that there was minimal competition at the time, which allowed them to model the company as an authority in the confusing world of online sales taxes.
Did it work? Put it this way – TaxJar clients include Coca-Cola, CBS, Bosch, Dell, Microsoft, and Honda.
2. Slack
Slack is a workplace communication SaaS that is now a part of Salesforce (which paid $27.7 billion for it). Whenever you read about B2B go-to-market strategy based on product-led growth (PLG), Slack is often mentioned. PLG depends, among other things, on a seamless and outstanding customer experience and an app that prompts the trial user to become a client.
And that’s pretty much what Slack did. Before it launched, Slack conducted extensive customer usage research as part of its go-to-market strategy. How did it go? On launch day, it saw 8,000 sign-ups. Four months later, they were at 1.1 million active users.
3. Zoom
A product that needs no introduction! Before Zoom became dear to our hearts as the go-to work-from-home technology, it also had great go-to-market success. Like Slack, Zoom decided to use the PLG model. Through research, they defined the features that customers wanted, and engineered a great experience. Zoom also used a thoughtful freemium pricing plan that permitted calls of up to 40 minutes without requiring credit card information. This formidable strategy led to a market value of more than $17 billion, even before Covid-19 set in.
4. Loom
…Which rhymes with Zoom, also used a PLG model, also came of age during the pandemic, and is also part of the video solutions market. But, in this case, Loom’s goal was to become a replacement for written communication. Loom allows users to easily share videos instead of sending emails. Through an obsession with user feedback, and with agile-based builds and releases issued daily, Loom managed to create significant word-of-mouth marketing. From a struggling startup in 2015, Loom is now valued at $1.5 billion.
5. Atlassian
Atlassian is an Australian company that creates products for software developers and teams, project managers, and other programming-related positions. As yet another example of PLG, Atlassian did extensive research on their target market. In the spirit of growth marketing, they ensured that user feedback was incorporated immediately and managed to create phenomenal word-of-mouth sales. The products they consequently delivered, such as Jira and Trello, became overnight sensations and global standards.
The company has stuck to this strategy. Atlassian explains that the majority of the purchasing cycle happens before sales reps get involved, and even those are partners. Today, because of the amazing success of its original go-to-market concept, Atlassian enjoys incredibly low sales and marketing costs, and still has no internal sales team.
6. Kissmetrics
Kissmetrics is a web analytics tool that enables clients to understand how customers interact with websites, and provides tools to increase engagement. Kissmetrics was in a situation much like WebJar’s because, back in 2008, few people understood the concept of web analytics. To add a greater challenge, Google Analytics was already in business as a free service, while Kissmetrics required payment.
It was a bit of genius that the company used its own analytics tool to identify audience personas of potential clients. Then, like WebJar, Kissmetrics developed a large database of quality informational material. To inform readers and establish their brand, Kissmetrics offered free content and trial periods to those who submitted email addresses for follow up. The result was a formidable 300% increase in email subscriptions over the course of the campaign.
7. HubSpot
HubSpot provides software to support inbound sales, marketing, and customer service. For its B2B go-to-market strategy, HubSpot wanted a simple and effective way to prove their value to potential clients. They came up with the idea of the Website Grader, a free online tool that assesses various aspects of a website according to a numerical score. The hook was that users could find out what solution was required if they wanted to improve. And that solution, of course, was HubSpot software. Talk about real-life application of the pain-agitate-solve formula!
8. Monday.com
An essential part of any marketing strategy, including go to market, is making sure of a product-market fit. Monday.com, which provides an open source tool for custom-built applications, took this concept a step further. By providing users with so many choices, Monday.com realized that the product can become overwhelming. So, directly on their homepage, they channel website visitors to common use cases as a way to start them on a path towards realizing individual product-market fits.
9. Dropbox
Way back in 2008, cloud-based solutions were new, with most users relying on USB flash drives and other storage media. With such established competition as a threat, Dropbox’s strategy was to focus on reputation marketing to get off the ground. The idea was simple – provide customers with free storage space in return for referrals – and the rest is history, as Dropbox grew from 4 million to 500 million users in seven years. The referral program is still around today.
Key Takeaways
- Many successful SaaS companies use ingenious methods in their go-to-market strategy
- Product-led growth is a common feature of a go-to-market strategy
- Many go-to-market plan examples demonstrate that focusing on a specific strategy aspect can work wonders
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