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March 15th, 2010, Summary Results from the Softletter 2010 SaaS Survey
June 30, 2009 - The Community of Users: A concept Whose Time is Coming, Part I of II.
May 31, 2009 - SaaS Multi-Tenancy: The Business Case, Part II of II by Lincoln Murphy, Sixteen Ventures.
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May 15th, SaaS Multi-Tenancy: The Business Case, Part I of II
Multi-tenancy is the database buzzword of the new millennium, the rightful heir to the 80s “relational” and the 90s “client/server.” For most software customers, multi-tenancy (and the lack thereof) is absolutely of no concern. But for SaaS vendors, lack of multi-tenancy is becoming a critical business issue.
Why are you a SaaS Vendor? Have you stopped to consider the reasons why your company is building a Software-as-a-Service product? Why are you opting to take on the burden of infrastructure management, instead of letting your often much larger clients run their own data centers? Why are you going to deal with support, disaster recovery, compliance, security and governance issues that for decades have been the responsibility of the client? Just so you can deliver cheap software on-demand? That doesn’t make sense [more]...
In the interest of full disclosure: My clients are SaaS vendors and their success is my success. It’s for that reason that when I first engage with a client, I ask this very basic question: Why are you developing a SaaS system? I tell them that if they’re not going to extract all the value of being on demand, then they should seriously consider not moving to SaaS.
February 28th, Are Your Business Relationships Strong Enough to Survive in Hard Times?
by Ed Emde, Wilson Learning
As you read this, your customers are most likely delaying projects and looking for ways to cut costs. At the same time, it is becoming more challenging to develop new business as companies scale back expenditures and use competitive bidding processes to get better deals from suppliers.
This is a good time to take stock of the relationship-building capabilities of your team. Are current relationships strong enough to withstand the destructive pressures of today’s tough economic environment? Do your salespeople know how to leverage personal assets and the assets of your company to “competitor proof” their customer relationships? To build enduring connections with customers requires two distinctive kinds of skills focused on two distinctive kinds of relationships. [more]...
January 31st, The Lowdown on Down Market Marketing, Part I of II
By Alyssa Dver, Author of No Time Marketing
6. Realize that value is not ROI.
People pay for many things: service, brand, trust, confidence, and other intangible benefits. When pricing your product, it is so important and difficult to assess the overall value to your prospects. However, doing some very simple primary research can really help. Ask customers, prospects and most importantly, lost sales accounts. These people will most honestly tell you what they think of your value proposition and how it should be positioned and priced.
For example…[more]...
January 31st, The Lowdown on Down Market Marketing, Part I of II
By Alyssa Dver, Author of No Time Marketing
I bet you are as sick as I am of “down market” advice. It’s almost as bad as listening to another political campaign drowning us with repetitive negative messages. We get it. Business is slow. Expenses must be watched and if possible, altogether cut. Hunker down and prepare for lean, tough times. Think austerity, not prosperity. Same old, same old; move along, nothing new here.
So why on earth would any company spend available resources on marketing? It’s a cost center, not a revenue producer —right? Absolutely not (bet you figured I would say that)…but think about it this way: Marketing is really about making the sales process quicker. Marketing does this by producing qualified leads to sales and providing the relevant information for buyers to make their decisions more quickly and with greater satisfaction. That is how it should work. Unfortunately, both marketers and other business people so often are overwhelmed by the hype tossed out about marketing issues such as search engine optimization, social networking, and the latest in marketing research techniques that we often forget some of the basics that help us literally see straight. So here are ten valuable tips to make your marketing more efficient, more effective and overall more visibly worthwhile. [more]...
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