Customers will be more likely to return to your SaaS product after they have completed their trial.
Your customers may need some help to find the hidden gems, both essential and advanced.
What can you do to help customers see the value of your SaaS products faster?
Use milestone messaging to take your users on a journey that allows them to explore your product from A-Z.
What is milestone messaging? How can SaaS companies use it? Let’s take a look.
What is milestone messaging?
Milestone messaging identifies specific actions that users should take to enjoy product value.
Imagine that you are selling invoice software.
You must first get your customer to create their first bill. This is their first milestone.
Next, you want to remind them to create automatic invoice reminders. They will now be paid every time before the invoice expires — that’s nice!
Your clients will be closer to their goals once they have achieved these milestones. Invoicing becomes easier and more efficient for them.
There are greater chances they will pay for it and continue to use it daily. Instead of being an expense category, your software can be a time-saver and a tool to better deal with unpaid invoices.
How do you determine which actions are crucial to achieving product value? First, learn how to identify milestones.
How do you define milestones for a product?
Before you start looking for a SaaS tool that can set up milestone messaging, you need to know your milestones.
It is worth putting down the essential actions first-time users must take to be proficient users of your product.
Also, you should ask yourself: What sequence of actions must users take?
These two points are now clear. It’s time for the next step.
How do you create milestone messaging?
Either through email marketing, or in-app messages, you can create milestone messaging. Both are great. You can choose to go to either one or both depending on your audience and preferences.
Tip: TestBox allows you to compare different marketing automation software.
Setting up messaging within your app can help you grab your users’ attention while they use your software. Users who actively use your app are more responsive to your messages, and more likely to respond to them.
It’s all different with emails. Many companies have made email marketing their primary practice.
Many companies send marketing emails, which has caused users’ inboxes explode. It’s possible that your niche has this problem. In that case, it might not be a good idea to set up email messaging. It’s worth trying it out.
After you’ve decided where and how you want to display your milestone messaging to the world, it is time to start creating messages.
A good copywriter might be helpful in this endeavor. You must be concise when creating messages. Write short, clear sentences. Don’t bore your readers!
Automate your life
Automating milestone messaging is crucial. Different users consume content in different ways. They learn at their own pace and in different ways. Your messaging should be tailored to the individual’s style.
This means that you will need to personalize how messages are displayed in your app and sent in emails.
It is essential to create conditions that allow for different actions. What does it look like in practice?
If a user doesn’t respond to a message, they can either repeat it or display a modified version next time they open an app.
You can also send an email with different content if your in-app message is not effective. This encourages the user to take one action that they haven’t yet taken.
You should not send a follow-up message to a user who has already completed a desired action or reached a milestone.
It’s now time to send the messages to users that will help them reach the next milestone.
You should think through trigger conditions before you start creating them. Before you can implement them in an email or other messaging app, it is important to understand their structure.
Examples of milestone messaging for SaaS
Although it may seem difficult at first, the implementation of your SaaS milestone messaging should not be difficult. Let’s look at some examples to help you plan your milestone messaging strategy.
- Start a free trial
It is best to begin educating users as soon as they start using your product. You should ensure that both email and in-app automations are being used correctly. They should not be repeated.
If a user has interacted in-app, you shouldn’t send another email with the same call to action. This channel can be used to share tips and guide users to the next milestone.
You can email a follow-up message to a user who has not responded to your messages in-app. This will encourage them to take one action.
You might set up different conditions depending on the situation that you are dealing with.
It shouldn’t take long to set up the conditions for messages with so many omnichannel automation software tools on the market.
Use calls to action to drive users to reach their first milestone when creating your first message. Use bright buttons that stand out with enough white space between them, the text and the buttons.
How much information you have about your user will determine how effective you can create automations. Before users sign up to your services, make sure you ask the right questions. You can tailor your experience to them by learning more about their preferences and past experiences.
PolicyMe, a Canadian insurer, uses an interactive form to gather information about its users before they send a quote.
The same applies to a SaaS company. You can improve your personalization by asking qualifying questions. This will help you drive your users to their next step on their journey.
- Let’s make sure they succeed
As soon as users reach their first milestone, guide them on the way to greater product understanding. First, congratulate them for achieving their first milestone. Next, suggest that you explore another feature (the second milestone).
Together, for example, encourages users to be more active during their first session using gamification. By displaying tasks on the welcome screen, they let users verify that their onboarding was complete. After completing the task, users can view their progress.
It’s possible to ask: Is it too much for the user to explore in one session? It all depends on the user type.
In-app walkthroughs are a favorite feature for some users. Some users prefer to explore the platform at their pace. They might choose to explore the platform at their own pace, and they may use some of your guidance to reach their core milestones.
Don’t rush them in these situations. Allow them to take small steps.
You might be able to display in-app messages more often if users close them. Or, they can follow up by email with a longer message communicating your product’s value.
To find the perfect timing, you should experiment a little more.
- Encourage them to be super users
You can upgrade your product knowledge and become a super user by engaging users who have completed all of the onboarding steps.
Consider the features that will delight your customers but are more complicated in their operation.
Most users don’t find it useful to discover these features while not learning more about the essential ones.
Your most engaged users will appreciate it if you show them everything.
Who are these users? Your super users should be selected according to your own criteria. Each digital product is unique, but one thing is common: they all need to know how to use their basic features.
By collecting and analysing product information, you can determine if users have reached all the basic milestones. This data can be collected by you or if you use an in-app messaging or email tool that provides this information, it is enough to access the analytics dashboard.
Next, create a group based on your criteria. Then send your email message or display in-app message for users who have completed the previous steps.
- The trial is over
Clients should be able to trust milestone messaging and move to premium plans.
All customers are different, so sometimes it is necessary to remind some customers that they need to upgrade.
Your messages should be activated a few days prior to the trial’s end and on its final day. Explain to customers the consequences of quitting your product. This should be closely linked to explaining the product’s value.
Wrapping up
Milestone messaging can be a powerful tool for engaging your users, educating them on core features and familiarizing them with your tool. This communication approach is more than a way to get trial users to upgrade to premium plans. This approach to communication helps users stay with your product longer by demonstrating the product’s value.
Milestone Messaging: What is it? And how can you use it in SaaS Marketing? The post Milestone Messaging: What is it and how to use it in SaaS marketing appeared first on Scoop.it.
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