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- There will be marketing gurus who will try to tell you that the funnel is dead. They're lying. Don't believe them. Anyone that's telling you that is actually just trying to sell you something that's not time tested, that's not proven, not nearly as much as the funnel is when it comes to sales and marketing, and this is not just in SaaS, this is just in selling anything, anywhere to anyone, but here's some good news though, because of the PLG movement in SaaS, product-led growth, because of the sales driven movement, because of the outbound sales engagement movement, there are more than one ways to actually create your customer acquisition funnel, to drive growth for your SaaS business. And because I get to work with 75 plus go-to-market program members that are all founders and CEOs of SaaS businesses that are trying these different permutations to drive growth, I get to see what works and what doesn't for what market and so, in this episode, I'm gonna walk you through the three key types of customer acquisition funnels. I'm gonna walk you through what the funnel is, how to break it down, what are the three key types that seem to be working out there today, and how you can use it to accelerate the growth of your SaaS business. And best of all, I'm not selling you any software. This is just brass tax tactics, time-tested improvement that you can use today. Intro! (dramatic music) What's up, everybody? Welcome to Unstoppable, I'm TK. And on this channel, I help SaaS founders like you grow your SaaS businesses faster with an unstoppable strategy. Now, if you are new to this channel, welcome, be sure to hit that subscribe button and that bell icon, because I drop a video like this two to three times a week with actionable strategies to grow your SaaS business with the TK energy. Now, if you're already part of this community, if you're part of my SaaS go-to-market coaching programs, my people welcome back. It's really good to see you over here. It's a complicated time in B2B SaaS right now, especially when it comes to customer acquisition. There's so many different schools of thought. There's ABM, there's PLG, product-led growth, there's sales driven, there's a sales engagement where it's like, no, you can grow just with outbound and Mark Zuckerberg just wants all your money and the return on investment on those ads are going lower and lower and lower and lower and lower So, what do you do? Now here's the thing, here's the good news, when I got into this game 10 years ago, I had founded ToutApp, we pioneered the sales engagement space, it was just as complicated, it was just as complicated but as I worked through growing ToutApp, as we sold ToutApp to Marketo, Marketo was a pioneer in marketing automation and so I worked in Marketo, we did a two year transformation there, and then we sold that company to Adobe for $4.75 billion, through that 10 year journey, I learned that there's always gonna be these noisy things that are always happening, but underneath it, there are these time-tested things that just work, all the time, and if you can cut through the noise and focus on the core principles and then leverage some of the unique opportunities that come up, then you will be unstoppable. That's what we did at every single company that I've been part of. So what I wanna do for you in this episode is I wanna dig into the core customer acquisition funnel and I'm gonna walk you through the three key principles that you need to know, three key types of customer acquisition funnels that you can use to drive growth for your SaaS business. So if you're excited to dig in, go to smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm, it really likes it when you do that. Let's first talk about why the funnel is still alive today. First of all, let me just explain what the funnel is, Anyone that's telling you the funnel is dead is lying. So the funnel is a simple concept of when you get an ideal customer, they essentially go through these three key stages, now there could be multiple stages, there could be more granular stages, that's all fine, but broadly speaking, they first need to know about you, that's awareness, then they need to actually take you seriously and consider you, that's building the trust, where it's like, "oh, this is important." And then there's conversion, eventually they will buy, and they always buy, eventually, if you are worthy, if you are worthy and if you're actually solving an important problem, right? And so the reason the funnel is still alive today is because this is how human beings work, and this is how logically marketing and sales works. First, they have to know about you. Then they have to pay attention to you. Then they have to consider you and trust you and then they'll maybe buy from you. And so when we, as marketers and as founders and as salespeople, as leaders are trying to make noise in the market, build a movement and get attention in a very noisy world, the funnel works really well because it helps us track how things are moving and how people are moving to the best of our abilities. Now, the other core thing is there are some very specific ways that you can actually generate awareness, right? You can run ads, you can do outbound, you can do social and you can do SEO, this is just some of them. Now, if you wanna know all six key ways that you can actually generate demand for your SaaS business, get attention in a very noisy world, be sure to check out this video where I go through the six key channels that you need to be digging into to drive awareness for your SaaS business. You don't have to go right now, I'll link to it below. So that's the funnel and that's why it's alive and well. And anyone that's telling you otherwise, probably lying to you, trying to sell you something but logically this makes perfect. So here's the next thing, now, given the funnel is still true, how do you create your customer acquisition funnel? Because if you don't get purposeful about it, then you won't have a strategy, you won't have a go-to-market strategy and on top of that, you won't be effective in growing your SaaS business. Now here's where it gets exciting because while the funnel is time tested and true, the ways in which you can actually take an ideal customer through this funnel has evolved and there's some new, interesting ways, still time-tested principles, but it has evolved. So I wanna walk you through the three key ways that I'm seeing founders are actually finding success in their customer acquisition channels. So the first is awareness. Now the one key thing that I'm seeing consistently, let's look at the first one, okay? First one that I'm seeing working really well is you actually put... you put a manifesto out there. Now a manifesto is essentially it serves as a lead magnet, but it's more than that, what it really digs into is the core of why you exist, why someone actually needs to pay attention to you, why they need to actually consider you and be aware of you, how do you actually get their attention, because it's something that's already going on in their minds. This is what a manifesto is really great for. A manifesto is otherwise also known as your strategic narrative, it encompasses your messaging, your positioning and when you do that work, out comes a really compelling lead magnet, but also comes your core messaging and positioning and the narrative that you're gonna use throughout your funnel, throughout your sales process. So the most common way that I'm seeing SaaS businesses generate demand right now is through the manifesto, actually creating a manifesto, and if you wanna learn more about what a manifesto is, how to think about it, this is something we go really in-depth into in our how to go to market program, but you can check out this video, it's completely free where I talk about why you need to have a manifesto and why every SaaS founder needs to have a manifesto and three principles to know about it. You don't have to go right now, I will link to it below. So you have your manifesto and you run your ads or your outbound or your social or your SEO, all the way to this manifesto and then as people start to actually engage with the manifesto, you essentially bring them into a sales conversation, and/or demo usually, and then from there, they essentially convert to revenue. This is probably the most tried and true, people tend to over-complicate it and people tend to not quite understand how to use it, they think they can reinvent the model, it just works, get a lead magnet, nurture them, bring them into a sales conversation and convert them, super easy, super simple. Some of the best SaaS businesses out there are growing this way very, very, very effectively and this is your first golden customer acquisition funnel. If you're not... If you're doing this and it's working for you, awesome. Now there are some caveats to this, in order to actually have salespeople and pay for them, your ACV has to be at least 20K AOR, this is just a general rule of thumb, your business may vary slightly, but for the unit economics to work, to actually pay for salespeople, to pay for the customer acquisition costs, to have these salespeople involved, you actually need to have a large enough ACV. If you don't, then the unit economics of your business are never gonna catch up, you're never gonna hit, you're never gonna be able to invest more because you're like, "well, we're just not making any money ever." And so you either have to raise a lot of money to get critical mass, and then hopefully it gets better or have to find ways to charge more for your product. So this is the most traditional model of customer acquisition funnel. A lot of people over complicate it but this works really well. Have a lead magnet, collect leads, nurture them, get them into demos and sales conversations and convert them, as long as your deal sizes are big enough, you should be able to afford it. So that's number one. Let's go to customer acquisition funnel number two, this is something that's evolved because there are a lot of people that are like, "you know what, TK? We don't have a 20K ARR, but there's just no way we can charge for it, it's just not gonna happen. Our customer base is different, but there's a lot of them, so we need to charge lower, but we can get to economies in scale." So for these guys, they follow a different model. They have a manifesto, right? And from the manifesto, they put them right into a free trial. And from the free trial they convert and this could be anywhere from say, I don't know, nine bucks a month, all the way to, I've seen up to $4.99 per month. And the power in this is because you have a lower ACV, you actually don't put salespeople over here, you put them into a free trial, they try the product, they get to as a form of an "aha moment" and once they get to an "aha moment" you say, "hey, your trial is ending. Don't you love this product." And they convert to actual revenues. And this works really well because you don't have to pay expensive salespeople, you don't have to pay commission, you may have to pay a bit more on marketing to acquire these people, but you have a very effective manifesto to educate them, so it's not, the barrier is not as high. You can educate them through the manifesto, make them realize why this is an important and urgent problem then they get into the product. The manifesto could actually teach them on how to be successful with the product so they don't churn, and then they go through the trial and they actually convert. That's your second type of customer acquisition funnel. Now let me just pause here for a second. Are you starting to see the power in this before we go to number three, are you starting to see the power in this? See people over-complicate this and they don't need to, ultimately there's these three types and if you just focus on these three types, you can actually get to the promise land, it's that... It's as simple as that. Now there are nuances on, well, does your market truly believe this is an urgent, important problem? There are nuances around is your messaging resonating? Is your manifesto right, structured properly? Are you positioning yourself right? Is your pricing plan? There are nuances here. I'm not saying this is easy. Simple does not mean it's easy, but we don't have to over-complicate the concepts. If you're starting to see the power in this, can I just get a yes in the comments below also smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm, it really likes it when you do that and so do we, because more founders that don't know that they can search for this stuff on YouTube, it bubbles it up to them because this video is valuable to them so YouTube will promote it more. It just means the world to us, helps us serve more people, helps our community, so please smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm. And also if you're in this stage where you're trying to figure out all these pieces to grow your SaaS business, trying to figure out what channels to go into, how do you actually build a manifesto? And you want a proven framework to follow, you should totally check out my SaaS go go-to-market coaching program. I'll tell you more about it at the end of this video, but let's go to principle number three, customer acquisition funnel number three. Okay, so this is where things get really exciting and it's branded as a new thing, but this has existed forever, and I've seen this with founders that are in our go-to-market program, they're like, "Hey, people aren't downloading the manifesto, the ads aren't working, the outbound's not engaging, this SEO is not, like, it's just not working. They don't want a piece of content." And so what they're starting to do is just promote the free trial. They take all the messaging work that we did in the manifesto, their messaging, their positioning, their value proposition, all of that, and they surface it up to the free trial landing page and the surface it up to the ads and the SEO and the social posts that they're doing and they drive directly in to a free trial, right? And what ends up happening is people resonate and it's the right audience, it doesn't work with every target market, but it works with certain target markets where they're like, "look, yeah, just let me into the product." Now, if you're selling a huge analytics suite for the C-suite, they're probably not gonna trial the product, they're probably gonna wanna have a sales conversation, but if you're selling a SaaS product that an end user is gonna use and get value from, they'll probably wanna trial the product first. But what I've seen is really powerful is from the free trial, I've seen founders put the manifesto over here. Why? Well, the manifesto is still helping them convince them that, hey, this is an important thing. So while the free trial gets them into the process, into the funnel, they actually use the manifesto and the convincing powers of the manifesto to actually enable everything in the consideration phase. I've also seen founders offer up an onboarding call. You might've seen this for a lot of the product-led growth companies, by the way, this is the PLG play, in case you were wondering. You can offer up the manifesto which educates them and teaches them while they're in that trial, so, you can even make it available inside of the product so that they actually get a lot of value, right? And they learn about the product and how to use it effectively. And then you can also offer them, if they're a high value prospect, you say, "Hey, do you want to come on an onboarding call?" If you're in the early stages, this is super powerful because you know that they're engaged, they're getting educated, they're in this consideration phase, and so if you give them a call, you can actually nudge them over and then eventually you can drive them to conversion. And this is the third funnel, and this is why I think PLG is so popular right now, it's so exciting because you can go after larger and larger deal sizes with this model, without having to spend money on a very expensive sales team. So this is also just as powerful and one of the things that I've learned is you can't usually predict what your target market is gonna like, sometimes you have to test it, you have to test the manifesto, you test the free trial, you have to test the demo call, and then you can say like, okay, like we know that we have to drive awareness, we have to drive the consideration and the education, build a trust and then we have to drive the conversion and so you have these key tools and you can sequence them in different ways to figure out which one is right for your target audience and your ideal customer profile. So those are the three core SaaS customer acquisition funnels. Don't let anyone over complicate it for you. You can keep it simple and it can work really well. Now, simple is not always easy. There's some key critical components that you'll have to figure out to make this whole thing work, right? What are those things? Well, first of all, you'll have to figure out your messaging, you'll have to figure out your positioning, you'll have to figure out your pricing, you'll also have to build out your manifesto, these are what I call, and also like there's one more thing, you have to figure out your channels, so this is what I call strategy and this is what I call execution. You have to figure out some of these strategic elements on, hey, like who are our ideal customers? What should our messaging be? What should our positioning be? How do we craft that into a strategic narrative? How do we tell the story? How do we define our value prop and how do we convince them? So, and when you do these pieces, then this will become easier, like how you run all these different channels, which channels you pick will become easier to choose, and then the flow of things that make sense to drive actual acquisition of customers will actually work really well for you. So if you're in this stage where you're trying to figure out all these pieces, and you don't wanna sit in a dark room, trying to figure out how to do all these pieces, and you actually wanna work with me to figure these pieces out, because I help SaaS founders all day long, actually do this, then I invite you to check out my SaaS go-to-market coaching program, inside of this coaching program, I'm gonna teach you exactly how to do these key pieces. We have three critical components for the SaaS go-to-market coaching program. First, we figure out your ideal customer profile that helps us really understand who you're going after and that helps us actually craft the second piece, which is your manifesto. Your manifesto encompasses your strategic narrative, your positioning, your messaging, all in one core document and that helps you actually mobilize your go-to-market strategy. And that's the third piece, we actually teach you how to run a Broadway show. This is one show that you can run on a consistent basis every week to generate pipeline and to grow your SaaS business. These are the three critical components that I work with you on when you join the SaaS go-to-market coaching program. And when you follow these steps, you're able to build out a cohesive customer acquisition funnel, you actually are able to define your go-to-market strategy and you're able to execute on it to drive growth for your SaaS business. Now, this program is application-based meaning you need to make sure that we can actually help you, and we're the right fit for working together, so if you wanna learn more about it and you wanna apply to join, just go to TKKADER.COM/GTM TKKADER.COM/GTM, Just go to that link, you'll get all the details on the program, in the bottom, you'll be able to fill out a little application and then we can get on a call to review your application and figure out if I can help you grow your SaaS business faster with my go-to-market program. And then if it makes sense, we're off to the races, we can define these things and actually help you accelerate the growth of your SaaS business. We have over 70 members in the program. Now we have founders who have raised series A, C pluses based on the success in program, so we're super excited about it and we'd love to have you on if you're right at the stage where you're figuring out your customer acquisition funnel, just go to TKKADER.COM/GTM for all of the details. And lastly, if you got value from this, smash that like button, if you have a fellow founder that would get value from this, please share this video with them, it'll mean the world to us. Also, I drop a video like this with actionable strategies on how to grow your SaaS business two to three times a week, so be sure to hit subscribe button and that bell icon that you'll get notified every single time I drop an episode. And lastly, remember, everyone needs a strategy for their life and their business, when you are with us, yours is gonna be unstoppable. I'm TK and I look forward to talking to you in our go-to-market application call. Take care. (dramatic music)