Member perk
The SaaS Marketing Handbook
13 chapters on getting customers for a software company: positioning, outreach, search, paid and organic social, launches, partnerships, pricing, the sales call, retention and how to measure any of it at small scale. Written by founders who have taken SaaS companies from nothing to revenue, for founders doing it now.
Answer three questions and the chapters reorder for your company. Skip them and read in the written order.
Foundations
- Positioning before spendName the buyer and the thing they use today before you pay for a click, or the spend comes back as bounce.members
Acquisition
- Founder-led outreach: the first 100 customersFounders win their first hundred customers by sending short cold emails to trigger-built lists and asking for warm intros themselves.members
- Founder-led social: an audience without ad spendPost from the founder account, about the buyer's problem, on the one platform that holds them, and hold the cadence past week six.members
- Organic search and content for SaaSSearch compounds on a four to nine month lag; write comparison pages first and read Search Console for signals before revenue.members
- Google Ads for SaaSSearch ads buy a demand verdict in two weeks: set a CPC ceiling from your margins and stop when the auction climbs past it.members
- Paid social, platform by platformPick the paid social platform that fits your deal size and put the first dollars into retargeting.members
- Launches: Product Hunt, Hacker News and newslettersTreat a launch as a one-day spike and spend it collecting the email list and backlinks that keep working for years.members
- Partnerships, integrations and marketplacesBorrow another company's distribution through integrations and partnerships, with each channel ranked by what it costs to try.members
Conversion
- Product-led growth for self-serve SaaSMake the product your acquisition channel: pick the free model by ACV and activation time, then place the pricing wall after value.members
- Selling the demo: discovery, objections and the closeDiscovery before the demo, the five objections and what sits under them, a one-page proposal, and a close that sounds like logistics.members
- Pricing as a marketing channelYour pricing page converts more visitors than any ad you buy, and you can rewrite it in an afternoon at no cost.members
Retention
- Retention, expansion and referralRetention is the cheapest growth channel: catch churn weeks before the cancel and price expansion at the moment of need.members
Measurement
- Measurement that stays honest at small scaleHonest attribution and metrics for a SaaS with 30 signups a month, with kill lines you set before you spend.members
Members read the whole handbook
13 chapters on marketing a SaaS company, ordered for yours. Part of membership, alongside the catalog and claim guides.