Being a software leader is hard. If you want to compete and stand out in today’s saturated market, you’ve got to know all sorts of different areas of your business and master them.
In this episode, SaaS-Story in the Making host Matt Wolach interviews Jordan Behan, the CEO of Narrate Creative, specializing in SaaS marketing. He also developed a training program called The Lean Marketing Playbook for SaaS, where he shares a systematic nine-step approach to building out your marketing and sales foundations to help you gain traction.
Jordan walks you through how to set up your lean marketing so you can get a ton of leads coming in. With lean marketing, Jordan ensures that you get to the bottom of your goals and set spot-on strategies that bring quality leads.
PODCAST-AT-A-GLANCE
Podcast: SaaS-Story in the Making
Episode: Episode No 177, “Here’s Why You Should Try Lean Marketing to Generate Better Leads and Faster Sales – with Jordan Behan”
Host: Matt Wolach, a B2B SaaS sales coach, Entrepreneur, and Investor
Guest: Jordan Behan, CEO of Narrate Creative – a content strategy and growth marketing company that helps SaaS companies
TOP TIPS FROM THIS EPISODE
Cut to the Heart of the Matter
Lean marketing is all about setting realistic goals by executing straight-to-the-point strategies. It’s about eliminating the fluff and just cutting to the heart of the matter.
When it comes to identifying your target audience, Jordan says it’s crucial to have an ideal client profile and buyer persona. Matt agrees, saying it’s always important for SaaS startups to niche down. If you don’t have a niche and your target audience is everybody, it will fail.
Speak directly to your market. Understand what’s essential for them and what makes them tick.
Once you’ve identified your ideal customer profile, the next step would be to build a content offer that resonates with your specific audience who are ready to buy. Tell a story and show client success in that specific niche and hammer that message home– that’s where the traction comes from.
Just be Specific, Really
Jordan says the major mistake he sees most SaaS companies usually do that hamper their marketing efforts is being too general.
Attempting a bunch of different tactics to get your message to your market might be a misstep that could hinder your marketing efforts in your growth. You have to recognize that there are short-term tactics and long-term tactics, he says.
For long-term tactics, you have SEO, social media, branding, and relationship building. However, Jordan says these are not necessarily going to deliver you immediate results to build customer acquisition.
Enter paid acquisition, wherein you absolutely need to have a clear messaging to your clear audience. Be specific. Focus on a content offer that resonates with a very specific niche.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
What is Lean Marketing?
Like lean manufacturing and lean startup, lean marketing focuses on what is necessary, eliminating waste at every opportunity with software or service companies, Jordan explains.
Narrate Creative specializes in lean marketing. The company’s strategy entails creating a system where you strip away all the fluff and focus strictly on converting leads and taking care of them along the customer journey. Lean marketing is worth the shot if you are a SaaS leader with finite resources and limited budgets.
About lean marketing, Jordan stated: “It’s that lean notion of creating a minimum viable campaign of sorts and either iterating it or evolving it over time, but it’s like go to market as quickly as you can with purpose and intent and improve as either as your revenues or your resources improve.”
How Lean Marketing Works in the SaaS World
With a marketing strategy, Jordan’s main thing is to get to the root of his client’s needs. He asks a series of questions to get to the bottom of his client’s goals.
“What are you looking for? What are the results you’re hoping for? What’s the objective of this content? The kind of questions that they hadn’t considered,” he explains.
To make the strategy easier for clients, Jordan created a system they could follow. First, answer the strategic questions. Second, answer the customers’ questions. Third, make a case study. Lastly, talk about client success.
By making these strategic considerations part of the equation, Jordan creates beneficial solutions for SaaS leaders. Every client, even the excellent ones, still benefit from being asked those questions, he adds.
With lean marketing, Jordan creates content that’s in the service of improving the chances of better leads and sales.
The Lean Marketing Playbook for SaaS
The Lean Marketing Playbook for SaaS is a nine-step process created to take B2B startups from a lack of traction toward a market fit and predictable growth.
With lean marketing, Jordan shifts the narrative for your service or product. Rather than featuring what your product looks like on the inside, this strategy encourages you to tell the story about how your product will make things better for your customers and how you intend to help.
TOP QUOTES
Matt Wolach
[12:41] “You’ve got to niche down. I had this all the time: clients come to me, and I ask them, ‘You know, what’s your target?’ ‘Oh, everybody,’ Everybody, like, what? What is that like? You’ve got to find a niche, especially as a startup.”
[13:34] “Finding that niche, defining your ICP, and really nailing that is supercritical.”
[25:29] “You’re not selling your product. You’re selling the results.”
Jordan Behan
[12:12] “Show clients success in that specific niche and really just hammer that message home until you have lined up 100 sales that look just like your best customer, and that’s where the traction comes from.”
[20:47] “Make sure that the story that you’re telling and the information that you’re sharing is going to resonate with all the people involved in that decision-making process that before check get signed.”
[24:47] “Tell the story about what’s going to make things better for them, how you intend to help, and what success looks like for them, rather than what your product looks like on the inside.”
LEARN MORE
To learn more about Jordan Behan and Narrate Creative, visit: https://narratecreative.com/
You can also find Jordan Behan on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanbehan/
For more about how host Matt Wolach helps software companies achieve maximum growth, visit https://mattwolach.com/.