Table of Contents
In the hypercompetitive SaaS world, fighting for the attention of new customers is crucial. However, retaining them and inspiring their loyalty in the long-run is even more important.
When people sign up for your SaaS product and start using it, you should focus on delivering value to them and engaging them regularly to keep them around.
Here are a few powerful tips on how to boost SaaS customer engagement and enhance your retention rates.
› Send Personalized Emails
For any relationship between a customer and a SaaS brand, commitment plays an integral role. One of the most effective ways to build and nurture strong relationships with your target audiences is to have a solid email marketing strategy.
If you are already sending out welcome messages and regular product updates, it is time to start personalizing your emails. For starters, consider sending weekly reports to your users to show their progress and keep them engaged.
This is exactly what Grammarly does with its weekly reports. They inform each user about their productivity, language mastery, unique vocabulary, and the number of words they checked over time. The report also highlights the top mistakes a user makes and, in this way, helps them improve their language knowledge.
Real-time triggered emails also deliver value to users because they are highly targeted and relevant. Think about the users that signed up for your app and have not logged in since then. Those users are more likely to churn. Your goal is to grab their attention and encourage them to visit your SaaS platform again.
Duolingo is a perfect example of how this is done. Apart from their comprehensive weekly reports, they also let you know about your progress in real-time. In the screenshot provided above, you will see that they also provide a large and clear CTA button that inspires a user to login to their accounts.
Transparency is critical and sending out regular personalized, data-backed emails is one of the easiest ways to achieve it. Track user behavior and use it to build more personalized relationships.
› Keep Blogging
Blogging is one of the most effective ways to build trust with your audiences and deliver value to them. It lets you showcase your knowledge and position yourself as an authoritative brand in your industry. Sure, to run a successful blog, you need to mind the quality of your content. Once a customer invests in your SaaS tool, it is important to nurture relationships with them and provide continuous education.
Precisely because of that, each blog post you publish on your blog needs to be highly insightful, unique, and trending. It should cover the topics relevant to your target audiences. Above all, it should not be keyword-rich. Focus on writing natural and informational content pieces that engage users and help them solve real-life problems.
To encourage your customers to keep coming back to your blog and reading your posts, make them fresh and intriguing enough. For starters, diversify the types of content you create.
The blog of SaaS reporting software, Reportz, is a perfect example of how creating authoritative content and diversifying it can improve user engagement. Namely, the guys behind Reportz divide their blog into several sections:
• Templates, where they provide actionable guides on how to create detailed digital marketing reports and what to include in them. The Templates section is further broken up into subcategories, such as SEO Reports, PPC Reports, Ecommerce reports, Social Reports, General Traffic Reports, etc.
• Dashboard ideas explain how digital marketers can get the most out of their reporting dashboards – what KPIs to track, what sections to include, what information to prioritize, etc.
• Founders Insights – In this section, the founders of the app provide insights into the tools and strategies they used to achieve certain results.
• Help – this is where helpful articles and guides are delivered, explaining to users how to get the most out of their SaaS tool.
• News – logically, in this section, the company informs users about the major updates they rolled out and their recent achievements.
› Provide Exceptional Customer support
Customer support is the nerve center of user satisfaction. Today’s customers expect brands to provide spotless support across multiple channels. In addition to emails, phone calls, and live chat, most users rely on self-service. And, your goal is to help users find answers to their questions effortlessly.
One such example is Wrike, a project management tool. They have an extensive customer support section, where users can find answers to frequently asked questions, as well as access a perfectly optimized knowledge base. It is broken up into several categories. Each of them consists of detailed guides and explanations, supported by screenshots. They also provide an online community, where users can ask questions and connect with other customers.
However, probably the most important part of the page is the video section. Namely, Wrike creates video tutorials for admins, project managers, groups, individual users, etc. If a customer has paid for the tool and is not sure how to use it, those simple sections will help them find answers faster and start using the tool more productively.
No matter if you are creating how-to videos or writing a knowledge base, start with users in mind. What do they want to learn? How to convey a message so everyone can understand it? Above all, just like with your blog, this is an opportunity to use storytelling techniques to connect with users on a personal level and make their experiences memorable. This way, you will deliver value to your users continuously and inspire them to keep using your SaaS tool.
› Reward Customers for Loyalty
Your customers expect you to reward their loyalty. This is why you need to listen to their needs continuously and provide the right incentives. To work, your loyalty program needs to be adapted to your users’ needs, while your rewards should be valuable and relevant. Apart from traditional contests, focus on those activities that generate product stickiness and turn prospective users into active brand advocates.
For example, you could provide beta test opportunities for your most loyal users. They will be thrilled to know that they are among a few elite users that have a chance to try out new app features before the rest. Or, you could build an elite online community that lets your loyal SaaS customers network and share tips and experiences.
Another great way to reward customers for loyalty and, yet, grow your brand awareness is to throw a referral program. There are many excellent examples of brands that are taking this tactic to the next level. For example, Dropbox provides extra storage space for everyone who invites new users. Uber lets its users give their friends gifts or free rides. In turn, they get Uber credits.
› Conclusions
Customers are the backbone of any SaaS business. Inspiring them to sign up for a free trial or download your app is just half the job done. The other half is engaging them and turning them into loyal customers. Sure, there are numerous customer engagement tactics to apply. I hope those examples and tips provided above will serve as your solid starting point.
