How To Get Your First 100 Customers for Your SaaS Product

Summary

This video explores strategies to acquire the first 100 customers for your SaaS product. It emphasizes starting customer outreach before building the product, creating a landing page for collecting emails, and validating interest through surveys. Key marketing strategies include launching on product discovery websites, organic content creation, SEO, cold outreach, partnerships, and paid advertising. It stresses the importance of adapting tactics based on where the target audience is found and includes links for additional resources on building a SaaS business.

Takeaways

• 🌟 Start marketing your product before building it to gauge interest and collect emails for future communication.
• 📋 Create a basic landing page with a headline, copy, and email opt-in to start building your audience.
• 📝 Attach a survey to your landing page to gather more information about your potential customers.
• ☎️ Conduct customer research by reaching out to interested users to understand their pain points and market potential.
• 🚀 Use product discovery sites like Product Hunt, Hacker News, and Indie Hackers to gain initial traction.
• 🔍 Focus on organic content and SEO by creating blog posts, videos, and other helpful content to build authority and attract customers.
• 📈 Leverage social media platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube for organic reach and engagement.
• 📞 Consider cold outreach via emails or calls to potential users or decision-makers to sell your product.
• 🤝 Partner with existing SaaS products for co-marketing opportunities to expand your reach.
• 💰 Explore pay-per-click advertising on platforms like Google, Facebook, Snapchat, Pinterest, and TikTok to target your audience effectively.

Q & A

What is the best time to start acquiring customers for your SaaS product?

The best time to start acquiring customers is before you even start building the product. You should create a basic landing page with an email opt-in to begin collecting email addresses, which can help with validation and building an audience for your launch.

Why is it important to collect email addresses before launching a SaaS product?

Collecting email addresses allows you to build a list of potential customers to contact when you launch or pre-launch. It also provides validation by showing interest in your product and helps with customer research.

How can you validate your SaaS product idea before launching?

You can validate your product by creating a landing page with an email opt-in and attaching a survey to gather information from potential users. High sign-up rates and survey responses can indicate a strong interest in your product.

What are some platforms where SaaS founders can launch their product for discovery?

Founders can launch their product on platforms such as Hacker News, Indie Hackers, Product Hunt, relevant Reddit threads, Facebook groups, and Quora, depending on where their target audience is.

What role does organic content and SEO play in acquiring customers for a SaaS product?

Organic content and SEO are crucial for building authority, driving traffic, and attracting potential customers. This includes creating blog posts, videos, or social media content that targets relevant keywords and platforms.

What are the benefits and challenges of focusing on organic content for customer acquisition?

Organic content can provide long-term, sustainable growth and authority, but it requires consistent posting and can take time to see results. It’s important to experiment with content that works for the target platform.

How can cold outreach help in acquiring customers for a SaaS product?

Cold outreach, such as cold emails or calls, can help by directly reaching out to potential customers or decision-makers at companies. This method can be particularly useful for SaaS products that require a more personal, sales-driven approach.

What are some examples of marketing strategies SaaS founders can use for paid advertising?

Paid advertising strategies include Google Search ads, Facebook ads, Snapchat, Pinterest, and TikTok ads. The choice of platform depends on where the target audience is located.

Why is Google Search advertising often a popular starting point for SaaS marketing?

Google Search advertising is popular because it allows for highly targeted keyword-based ads. If someone is searching for specific product types (e.g., 'budget planner'), you can reach customers who are already looking for similar solutions.

How can partnerships benefit SaaS customer acquisition?

Partnerships allow you to collaborate with existing SaaS companies, creating co-marketing opportunities where both companies promote each other. This can extend your product's reach and credibility.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 Getting Your First 100 Customers for Your SaaS Product

Acquiring the first 100 customers for a SaaS product is a challenging but critical process. At this stage, you may not have optimized your marketing, sales funnel, or sign-up sequence. Before even building the product, it’s essential to create a landing page to collect email addresses for future marketing and validation. A strong indicator of interest is a large number of sign-ups, and attaching a survey can help gather more information about potential customers. It’s also important to connect with sign-ups early on to conduct customer research and understand their pain points. If your product is already live, marketing strategies include launching on product discovery platforms like Hacker News, Indie Hackers, or Reddit, where other SaaS founders and developers gather.

05:00

📈 Leveraging Organic Content and SEO for SaaS Growth

Once you’ve gathered initial interest, it's time to experiment with different marketing strategies. Organic content and SEO are popular starting points, as they help establish authority over time. Whether through blog posts, YouTube videos, or short-form content on Instagram or TikTok, creating valuable content that links back to your SaaS product can gradually build a following. Focusing on platforms where your audience is active, such as LinkedIn or industry-specific tools, is key to this approach. Although it may take time and consistent effort, the long-term benefits of organic content creation can be more sustainable than paid advertising.

📞 Exploring Cold Outreach and Partnerships

Another effective strategy for growing your SaaS customer base is cold outreach, especially if your product requires a more hands-on sales approach. Cold emails or calls targeting decision-makers at relevant companies can lead to meetings where you can pitch your product. Partnerships are another avenue to explore, particularly by collaborating with other SaaS products in the market. Co-marketing opportunities can expand your reach by promoting each other’s services, helping you tap into new customer segments.

💸 Using Paid Advertising for SaaS Marketing

Paid advertising, such as pay-per-click (PPC) ads on platforms like Google, Facebook, and TikTok, can also help acquire customers for your SaaS product. Google search ads, in particular, allow you to target highly specific keywords relevant to your product. For example, if you offer a budget planner, you can advertise for searches like 'budget planner app.' The effectiveness of paid ads depends on accurately identifying where your target audience spends time online.

🎓 Learn How to Build Your Own SaaS Product

For those looking to build their own SaaS product, there are resources available. By signing up with your email, you can access a list of free SaaS ideas and explore a comprehensive course that covers the entire process, from building and scaling to profiting from your SaaS product. This step-by-step guide is tailored for those without SaaS experience, making it accessible for beginners.

👍 Wrapping Up: Key SaaS Marketing Strategies

The video concludes with a summary of the main marketing strategies for getting the first 100 customers for your SaaS product. These include organic content, SEO, cold outreach, partnerships, and paid advertising. The speaker encourages viewers to like, subscribe, and leave comments if they found the video helpful.

🎵 Outro Music

The video ends with background music as the content wraps up.

Keywords

💡SaaS Product

A SaaS (Software as a Service) product is a cloud-based software that is accessed via the internet. Users subscribe to the service rather than purchasing a physical product or software license. In the video, the speaker focuses on strategies for attracting the first 100 customers to a new SaaS product, emphasizing the importance of marketing and customer engagement even before the product is fully built.

💡Landing Page

A landing page is a single web page designed to capture information from visitors, usually through an email opt-in. In the video, the speaker advises creating a basic landing page before developing the SaaS product. This page helps gather interest, validate the product idea, and build an early list of potential customers who can be contacted upon launch.

💡Email Opt-in

An email opt-in allows users to voluntarily provide their email address, often in exchange for receiving information or updates. The video stresses the importance of using an email opt-in on the landing page to collect leads for future communication and marketing, which helps gauge customer interest in the SaaS product.

💡Customer Research

Customer research involves gathering insights about the needs, preferences, and behaviors of potential customers. The speaker encourages contacting people who sign up via the landing page to understand their pain points and whether they would be willing to pay for the SaaS product. This research helps validate the product's market fit before launch.

💡Product Discovery

Product discovery refers to the process of potential customers finding and learning about new products. The video suggests launching the SaaS product on platforms like Hacker News, Indie Hackers, or Product Hunt, where early adopters and industry professionals regularly discover and discuss new technologies.

💡Organic Content

Organic content is free, non-paid marketing material created to attract an audience naturally. This can include blog posts, videos, or social media content. The video explains that SaaS founders can build authority and attract customers by consistently creating valuable content, such as SEO-friendly blog posts or videos, on platforms where their target audience is active.

💡SEO

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of optimizing online content to rank higher in search engine results, making it easier for people to find. The speaker suggests using SEO to generate traffic to the SaaS product’s website or content, helping to attract more organic customers over time as the product gains visibility for relevant search terms.

💡Cold Outreach

Cold outreach involves contacting potential customers who have had no prior interaction with the business, usually via email or phone. In the video, the speaker mentions cold emailing or cold calling as a potential strategy to target decision-makers at companies that may benefit from the SaaS product, particularly when a direct sales approach is needed.

💡Partnerships

Partnerships involve collaborating with other businesses or SaaS providers to co-market or integrate products. The speaker highlights partnerships as a valuable way to gain distribution and exposure, by co-marketing with established SaaS companies or integrating functionality with their products to reach a shared audience.

💡PPC Advertising

PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising is a paid marketing strategy where businesses pay for ads based on the number of clicks they receive. The video suggests using PPC ads on platforms like Google, Facebook, or TikTok to target specific audiences with highly relevant ads, particularly for keywords related to the SaaS product. This can help attract customers who are actively searching for similar solutions.

Highlights

Getting the first 100 customers for your SaaS product is challenging due to lack of optimized marketing, funnel, and sign-up sequence.

The best time to acquire customers is before building your product; start by creating a basic landing page with a headline, copy, and email opt-in.

Collecting email addresses early on helps in validation and building a potential customer base before the product launch.

Attach a survey to your landing page to gather insights about your sign-ups, helping with customer research and understanding pain points.

Conduct customer research by contacting early sign-ups to validate product-market fit and willingness to pay for your solution.

Launching on product discovery websites like Hacker News, Indie Hackers, and Product Hunt can help reach initial customers in relevant communities.

Engage with potential customers by posting in relevant Reddit threads, Facebook groups, or Quora discussions to gain initial traction.

Organic content and SEO, including blog posts, videos, and social media content, can build authority and drive traffic to your SaaS product.

Creating helpful content on platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube can help establish your brand and reach your target audience.

Cold outreach through emails or calls can be effective for products requiring direct sales to decision-makers in target companies.

Partnerships with existing SaaS products can provide distribution opportunities and co-marketing benefits.

Paid advertising on platforms like Google, Facebook, TikTok, and Pinterest allows targeting specific audiences based on platform use and keyword relevance.

Google search ads enable precise targeting by using specific keywords related to your product, driving highly relevant traffic.

Consistency in content creation and testing various marketing strategies is key to understanding what works best for your product and audience.

Focusing on sustainable strategies like organic growth and building a following can yield long-term benefits compared to paid advertising.

Transcripts

how to get your first 100 customers for

your SAS product across your whole

journey getting these first people to

come sign up for your product is going

to be extremely challenging you don't

have your marketing dialed in you don't

have your funnel dialed in and you don't

have your sign up sequence optimized to

get people to start using your product

in this part of the journey you're going

to be learning so much and it's going to

be so insightful so enjoy the experience

along the way so the best time to

acquire customers for your product is

before you've even started to build it

before you write a single line of code

you should be advertising it in create a

basic landing page with any landing page

builder that's going to have some basic

headline copy and have an email optin so

you can start collecting email addresses

this is crucial because when you launch

or even pre-launch you can start

emailing those people to get them to

actually try out your product this is

also great for validation as if you have

a lot of people signing up with their

email it's going to give you an

indication that they're interested in

your potential product what I also like

to do here is attach a survey to it you

can use Google forms for that where you

can start collecting information on who

is signing up Additionally you also want

to contact these people beforehand to do

some customer research try to hop on a

call with them or have a conversation so

you can really understand the pain point

of your potential product and if there

is a market that is willing to pay for

it now that is the best time to start

marketing and acquiring your customers

but if you already have a SAS product at

this point let's talk about some

marketing strategies one of the best

free marketing ways is to go and launch

on product Discovery and for websites

now it's going to depend on where your

Market is for the product but if you're

marketing to other developers or other

SAS Founders as an example you want to

go and post on Hacker News Indie hackers

or sites such as product hunts where

there's a lot of product Discovery going

on you can also find relevant Reddit

threads or Facebook groups or qu threads

where you're going and posting your

product as well so that can be a great

way to get some initial traction for

your SAS product and acquire your first

customers from there you're going to

want to start testing different

marketing strategies and approaches so

there are quite a few different

strategies you can use the first one

many Founders start out with is organic

content and SEO so you're creating blog

posts maybe it's videos for long form

video through YouTube maybe you're doing

shorts for Instagram and Tik Tok or

maybe you're creating organic content

for other platforms such as LinkedIn

it's really going to depend where your

audience is but you want creating

helpful content maybe linking your own

SAS product in there but you want to

build Authority for yourself Authority

for your domain so you can start ranking

for different keywords and getting

traction on different videos or content

that you post is all going to get

eyeballs to your product other Founders

were also focus on tools such as X and

building a following there now to note

these strategies are ones that are going

to take time it's going to be consistent

posting and figuring out what works on

that platform but they can pay huge

dividends especially as you start to

increase your following and can be much

more sustainable than focusing on paid

advertis iing next up is going to be

cold Outreach it's going to depend on

the product you have but it might be

worth it to go and cold email or cold

call certain individuals at companies

that could use your product sometimes

products will need more of a salesy

approach we are speaking to people in

finding the decision makers at certain

companies where you can set up a call or

a meeting and then sell them on your

product Partnerships can also be a great

way to get distribution as you're

building functionality with existing SAS

products that are out there you can do

co-marketing from there where they're

advertising in you and your advertising

your partnership with them lastly there

are paid advertising or PPC ads these

are payperclick advertising on any of

the big social platforms such as Google

Facebook Snapchat Pinterest and Tik Tok

they all offer paid advertising again

it's really going to come down to where

your audience is located one popular way

to start is to use Google search ads is

you can have really targeted keywords so

if someone is specifically searching for

your product maybe it's a budget planner

and you can advertise for the keyword

budget planner application or budget

planner product if you've gotten this

far in the video I'm sure you want to

build your very own micras but first

you're going to need an idea and that's

where I have you covered with fre micras

ideas you can steal for free there's a

link in the description below all you

have to do is enter in your email I also

have a complete course on how to build

your very own micras even if you don't

have any SAS experience it's a

step-by-step Academy that's going to

show you how to build scale and profit

from your very own micras there's also a

link for this in the description below

so make sure you check that out

generally those are some very common

marketing approaches to advertising your

SAS product so this is going to conclude

the video here on how to get your first

100 customers to your SAS product if you

enjoyed this video I would love it so

much if you smash that like And

subscribe button below if you have any

questions leave a comment but thank you

so much for watching and I'll see you in

the next video

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