Let me get the record straight, I do not consider myself and expert in marketing.  The good thing about being the owner of my own business, is that I can give myself whatever title I want. 

Now that we have the disclaimer out of the way, here are some of my thoughts and insights about marketing for SaaS applications - both as a result of working on our small business accounting software as well as observing what other people are doing.

Offline Engagement for Online Software?

The world of operating a business online is relatively new.  While it has been around since the 1990’s, it cannot compare to centuries of merchant activity offline.  Some of the questions we were considering when we first started developing Clarity Accounting was: how are we going to market an accounting software?

This was back at the end of 2007 when we sat down to have a discussion with the possible founders.  When we first started, there were 3 of us, one backed out because he couldn’t see a clear marketing model and didn’t see this project to be worthwhile to commit to (this will have to be discussed in a separate blog post about forming the core team of a startup company).  Initially we thought that the best way to market an accounting software was to go after the accountants and bookkeepers.  This seemed like a really good idea.  We thought, each accountant / accounting agency may have up to 100 clients (or more) and if we can enlicit 10 of these agencies to use Clarity Accounting, we can gain 1000 clients!  Marketing was going to be EASY! 

Until…

The grim reality sets in — Accountants Can’t Sell.

I remember meeting Wayne Zielke, owner of Ledgers Online, and having a discussion with him about the possibility of engaging accountants in the sales process when he broke the news to me.  Surely this could not be true.  Look at Intuit! They have the largest network of “Quickbooks Advisers” actively promoting their software, how can this not work?  Recently in a panel discussion, the person in charge of Quickbooks Online said, “There are 25 million users of Quickbooks, 1 million of which are accounting professionals…”, leaving door open to 24 million other users.

Using the traditional offline approach of establishing sales channels hasn’t really worked that well for us as a startup company so far.  Maybe we just haven’t been around long enough to gain the credibility necessary to secure those sales channels.  What I understand about the offline world is that it is about building relationships — leading to a longer sales cycle.  With our price point of $10 / month, it has become clear to us that this method of gaining customers would not be a good use of our time and resources.

I have seen several companies attempting to use offline strategies to distribute online software and I find that these companies simply ended up spending too much time and resources trying to build those offline relationships.  The online world is a place where people go to “skip the middle man” and clients appreciate having a direct connection with the vendors who are providing the products and services.

There is no doubt that there is a market for offline products and services.  When I go to networking events, most people have never heard of the idea of using accounting software that is hosted online.  Almost all the small business owners I have met have not even thought this was possible or available in Canada.  Software as a Service is still a relatively new phenomenon, most users are still considered to be “early adopters”.  Trying to convince them to use online software to deal with their financial matters is like trying to pull off an arm or a leg.  However, I do think there is hope as people are becoming more and more comfortable with banking and purchasing products and services online.

Online Engagement for Online Software

This is the path many software as a service companies have taken in an effort to increase subscribers and users.  Based on the success of some of the companies I have seen so far such as Salesforce and Freshbooks, many businesses are jumping on the online bandwagon.  Social media tools have the astonishing effect of pulling together people with similar interests who otherwise would have been strangers.  People who are actively engaged online are more likely to utilize products and services that are hosted online.  I do find the online world to be increasing saturated, but i don’t think it is nearly as saturated as the offline world.  Someone approached me today about the possibility of doing “print advertising” to promote our online accounting software and I thought to myself, “are they joking?”.  I replied saying, “if you can give me some compelling reasons why I should consider print advertising over spending my marketing budget on internet marketing, I’m all ears!”.

Once upon a time I thought most of these people who are actively engaged online are young people (3 to 25 years of age — that’s what I would consider young), but now I am seeing a much older crowd being interested in online applications — people in their late 30s to mid 40s.  If you feel offended by this statement, please try to understand that I am 28, therefore, people who are older than 35 are “old” and younger than 25 are “young”. 

Long story short, I still think online engagement is where online businesses should focus their attention.  This is especially true for startups on a limited marketing budget.  Offline engagement should be considered when some level of brand recognition and credibility have been established.  Even then, I still think leveraging the power of the internet provides the best bank for the marketing buck.

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Did you know that you could even form a profitable business partnership with your competitors? Imagine your business growing in prospering in ways you didn’t think possible.

I recently attended a seminar on business partnership and it got me thinking about partnership for businesses -not legal partnership, but the general concept of partnership as applied to our customers, vendors, contractors, employees, investors, family members, and so on - anyone involved or affected by your business could be considered to be a partner of sorts.

I realized that if we could make them feel and/or act, like a partner in the business to some degree, that they would help us succeed in achieving our business vision.

Levels of Business Partnership

In the seminar we looked at three levels of Small Business Partnership:

1. Working towards a common goal - “useful” or “practical” business partnership; example: make 500 sales calls by the end of the year.
2. Working on carrying out a shared commitment - a “commitment” based general partnership; example: being committed to growing revenues
3. Working towards a shared vision, or inspiring possibility; example: being at ease with finances

Personally I find it hard to distinguish between the “goal”, “commitment” and “vision/possibility” unless I give it careful thought.  Here’s some clarification:

• A goal has conditions of completion; when these conditions are met, you can strike the goal from your list.  This isn’t true for the other two.
• An inspiring possibility is anything that really inspires you and “lights your fire”, but which hasn’t happened or doesn’t exist yet, except as a possibility.
• A vision is an ideal future scenario that motivates us to take action; basically an inspiring possibility which is a certain event, lifestyle, environment, or outcome.
• A commitment is an ongoing agreement of some kind, from which you can generate goals and actions that support and maintain it.  Commitments are best created based on an inspiring possibility or vision.  A commitment doesn’t have conditions of completion; a commitment can simply be dropped when it no longer serves any higher purpose.

When a business vision is no longer motivating, or an inspiring possibility is no longer exciting, they can leave behind “uninspiring commitments” which no longer have any “fire” or “juice”.

Watch out for these leftover uninspiring commitments - remember that a commitment can be abandoned at any time if it no longer serves any higher purpose towards your business partnership!

To end a commitment or abandon a goal, get in communication with anyone involved with that commitment and make an agreement with them so that your integrity is preserved. This includes you.

Generating Business Partnership

Business Partnership is generated when the parties involved realize that they are already partners. At that moment, helping the other person is helping you. Generating business partnership is about making people aware of the fact that you are, already partners at some level!

Typically when someone encounters you or your website, hears about your business from someone else, they probably won’t recognize that they have common goals, commitments, or shared visions with you. Your job as a marketer is to point this out to them at a level that makes sense for your target market. Creating a marketing plan based on business partnership would go as follows:

1. Draw a map of all the different groups that are related to your business
2. Identify a group you’d like to create a small business partnership with
3. Ask them (or someone who knows them well) about their goals, commitments, visions; also what kind of possibilities they are inspired by
4. Decide which of these you really share that have synergy with your business - be honest!
5. Mention these in your pitches, your web site, and other marketing messages
6. Where possible, discuss partnership with them and formally agree on your vision, commitments, and goals for the business

Mind mapping would be a great technique for this.  Our suggestion is to use mind mapping software.

Here are some brief examples of how other businesses create partnerships with the public.

• The iPhone creates partnership by fulfilling the possibility of excitement, joy, and play via the commitment to innovative and fun new technologies to play with.  It also fulfills a vision to have a useful computer you can fit in your pocket (if you have deep pockets …)  They communicate this by showing a lot of demo videos of all the fun ways that you can use the iPhone
• Vacation sites try to be your partner in seeking romance, adventure, and luxury.  They demonstrate a commitment to travel, affordable prices, convenience, and lots of options to choose from.  They attract their customers with images of sunset beaches, people doing fun activities, and luxurious hotel rooms
• Angel investors and venture capitalists always have a commitment to making a healthy multiple on their investments when the business is sold; however, I think they are often inspired by the possibility of ongoing excitement and drama as they ride the ups and downs of your business with you.
  If you were to engage your investors into the excitement of your business more, would that be a higher level partnership than simply transacting cash?  If they feel like a partner in the business they’ll also be more inclined to help out with additional financing

The Secret Sauce of a Business Vision

Designing messages around the visions and goals of our target market is nothing new, really.  We’re already bombarded with messages intended to excite us, to speak to our desires, and give the idea that consuming certain alchoholic beverages make us into witty pirates.  How can you stand out in this crowd?

What’s missing in most of these marketing messages is that they are completely false, fake, and inauthentic.  The only way to make those messages effective to spend a boatload of money playing them over and over until they insinuate themselves into the subconscious of the audience who are influenced by them without even knowing it.

However, as a small business, we don’t have boatloads of money, so we need a bit of “secret sauce” to get “bang for our buck”.  What could that be?  You guessed it - be authentically in partnership!

For instance if you’re a travel agent, be genuinely interested in creating fun, romance, and relaxation for your clients.

If you create a partnership with a service provider (an SEO consultant or an IT operations outsourcing company) where you are both interested in personal growth, swap tips on personal development amidst your other communications and you have a fulfilling partnership in addition to getting great service.

If you sell online accounting software, create a powerful relationship between small business owners and their finances.  We have done just that. By working with us we go out of our way to ensure your business vision, your inspiring possibilities and your commitment to your partners.

Try our thirty day no risk trial for our online accounting software today and let’s make this a profitable partnership for both us.

General Partnership Can Transform Your Business

General Partnership is a powerful force which I believe has the potential to transform your business.  Keep an eye out for ways to generate partnership with those around you, treat those around you as if they are already partners in what you are up to (hey, it might rub off an and you’ll get things done), and enjoy the benefits of being in a world where everyone is working together on common goals - yours!

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I had an AHA! moment about twitter today, reading yet another blog post about using twitter having some weird example about promoting “flux capacitors” via twitter the author said “users are searching on twitter”.

I realized at that moment that they are not searching on twitter so much as asking their twitter followers for things - I often see people saying “can anyone recommend an X for me?”.

Geography isn’t the same on the internet as it is in the physical world; if you consider each social network to be it’s own community in which referrals, public opinion, and goodwill can be fostered then you can start to understand how standard ideas about business development through geographic regions can be applied to social media.

For example, it’s generally considered to be a good idea to take an existing successful product and sell it into a new geographical region.  Could you make a business from reselling someone’s existing products into the Twitter community, given that the existing customers are not typically Twitter users?

Even if you have a new product or service and you are looking for niches to approach, you could consider the various online communities to each be their own “region” as far as marketing is concerned.  Twitter has an active community of writers, journalists, graphic designers, and techies; if your product/service appeals to this group, or you’re in this group and would be interested in sharing deals and getting referrals, Twitter would be a good choice for a Social Media to engage in.

For my purposes I’ve set up a twitter search using TweetDeck which shows me whenever someone mentions accounting software.  Several times per week it’s something like “Can anyone out there recommend some kind of easy to use small business accounting software?”.  I often send them a quick note with a link to our product, and I also follow them so I can learn more about our target market by reading their tweets.

I initially signed up for twitter because I realized that someone had recommended Clarity Accounting to their Tweeps via twitter (thanks to a TweetBeep search I had set up earlier).  My hope is that I’ll see more of that as time passes, and people will recommend us on a regular basis within the Twitter community.

If you’re wondering whether anyone is asking about products like yours on twitter, just do a search.  If you don’t find anything on twitter, try searching LinkedIn or other networks and blogs. Eventually you might find a relevant online community where you have an interested market looking for your product.

Follow me on twitter

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Twitter

I was recently prompted to get on twitter and start twittering when I noticed someone on twitter was twittering about clarity accounting, our online accounting software.  Although I hadn’t started actively twittering yet, I had signed up for a twitter notifications service called TweetBeep, which watches every “tweet” and sends me any which contain my selected keywords (”clarity accounting”, in this case).

Twitter is considered to be pretty cutting edge in terms of social media marketing, probably because after hearing it described as “a place where you can tell people what you are doing in 140 characters or less” most people think “well, that sounds like a waste of time!”.  Nevertheless, once inside the world of Twitter I found this quote from one of my new tweeps:  ”I could not be more impressed with the power of Twitter! No kidding… We’ve tracked many business sales to my network of Teeps! Incredible.”

In order to use twitter to promote clarity accounting I created a personal account and started twittering about whatever I was up to.  One thing to remember about social networks is that people want to connect with you, so you’ve got to share yourself on a personal level.  However, I also placed a few search terms, like “invoicing”, “expenses”, and “accounting software” into my twitter client, which means that anyone who tweets with those keywords is brought to my attention.  If it seems appropriate, like someone saying “I’m looking for some accounting software; any recommendations?”, I’ll send them a helpful tweet mentioning our product.

The results?  So far I have had a few sign ups come from twitter and one feature request; I think these are pretty good results for a sort period of time.  I’ll continue my twittering to see if I start to build interesting relationships that lead to referrals.

Blogging

Since you are reading this blog post, I’m obviously blogging a fair bit already.  So far the blogs have helped to improve our ranking for several keywords by using internal links; we’ve also driven a fair bit of traffic by getting linked to from a few high-traffic blogs.

One of the blogs that I read recently published a great article on starting a business blog, and David Meerman Scott, who wrote an important book on the new media marketing, gives his top 5 mistakes when starting a corporate blog.

Is it time for you to twitter and blog?

You’ll have to judge for yourself whether social media marketing is important to your business.  It seems clear that for many small businesses, especially service businesses, developing online relationships through blogging and twitter has given them a boost to their business, if they invest enough time and energy into it.

Dell recently launched a mini-site on Facebook about social media marketing that’s worth reading for anyone who feels a bit confused; they’ve done a good job of simplifying everything and breaking it down into chapters covering Blogging, Facebook, Twitter, and more.  Check it out: Dell Social Media for Small Business

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