📂 The future of how people will buy SaaS software

​

​

Today's newsletter is proudly supported by Supermetrics 🙌

What if I told you there was a way to get back days of work every month? Robust reporting requires an insane amount of integrations and data aggregation, which is why Supermetrics created 70+ marketing data connectors to do all the work for you.

Once you go Supermetrics, you won't ever go back. Supermetrics is the #1 G Suite marketplace add-on for marketing data with over 17,000 customers. It's time you start making use of all that data you're sitting on! Check out their pre-built template library and start a free trial.

​

​

Today's newsletter is by my friend and SaaS growth marketer Andrew Capland.

Andrew is one of my go-to's for B2B SaaS growth. He's worked for premier SaaS companies like Wistia and consulted with dozens more.

And for the Swipe Files audience only, he's sharing some thoughts on where he sees the industry headed.

I'm seeing a new playbook emerge in product-led growth. I think it's the future of how people will buy SaaS software. It's all about leading with product value - not gating it.

The old playbook was pretty straightforward:

1. SaaS company makes valuable offer (typically free plan or free trial)
2. User visits website
3. Signs up for the offer
4. Receives value from the offer
5. Upgrades to paid plan

The main product value is gated behind a signup form in that playbook. Which means 97.5% of website visitors don't experience it. A huge missed opportunity.

I'm seeing innovative companies flip the script. They're not gating product value. They're LEADING with value.

Their playbook looks like this:

1. SaaS company makes valuable offer
2. Embeds a interactive version of product offer on their site
3. Site visitors play with it - and get value
4. After some amount of meaningful interaction - company suggests user check out the offer

The new playbook leads with value. It engages a much larger percentage of your website visitors. That means, way more people experience the value of your product. That's good for visitors. Good for your brand. And good for your conversion rates.

My PLG friends are all buzzing about this. We're seeing example after example of companies running this playbook. Even enterprise folks are launching interactive tours now.

If you're sold on the idea but not sure where to start, here’s a few ideas to get the creative juices flowing 👇

Form has an incredible tour of their MarketX product:

Accord shows off their sales & onboarding playbooks:

FunnelIQ walks user though their revenue command center:

We're at the very early stages of this shift. But I suspect we'll see this on most SaaS websites over the next few years.

—Andrew

Thanks again to Andrew for sharing in this newsletter edition.

What did you think?

—Corey

p.s. did you see that I launched my new course, Marketing Like A Media Company? Would love for you to check it out →​

Thanks again to our featured sponsors:

1. ​Agorapulse: “The Zappos of social media management platforms” helps you plan, schedule, and report on your social presence.
2. ​Ahrefs: Ahrefs Webmaster Tools is a free SEO toolset to help you build backlinks, improve your site, and rank for keywords.
3. ​The Juice: “Spotify for marketing & sales content” to discover blogs, podcasts, and videos to help you grow your business.
4. ​42/Agency: My #1 recommended demand generation agency for SaaS to help you drive demos and signups.
5. ​Supermetrics: Get all your marketing data into your reporting tool of choice. Push data from 70+ integrations into Google Data Studio, Sheets, and more.

​

​

​