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Your customers don’t look at your product the way you do: and that’s probably hurting your MRR! Learn why positioning your SaaS product matters and how to do it right.
The year was 2017. The earth was scheduled to end (AGAIN) on the 23rd of September. (Spoiler Alert: It didn't.)
I was in the middle of a SaaS rebrand— the one that's all about the new additional snazzy game-changing features, the new swabs of colours and trendy illustrations, the less 2002 design, more now: the 'Version 2.0' that has a new name, a new direction!!
It was fun, it was exciting and everyone on the team was infected with joy.
This question really switched up the chess board for me (as the saying goes).
But I brushed it aside. I was a young designer and was easily excited by conversations about fonts, excuse me.
But over the course of two years, my job often went beyond design: sometimes I'd find myself brainstorming with CEOs about churn, learning pricing strategies, doing customer interviews for insights—all with a (sorta) design point of view.
By the time 2019 dawned, I realised there was a core problem with how a lot of businesses went about their...business. All companies wanted a few things: higher MRR, lesser churn, more and happier customers...things YOU probably want.
But here's the thing: I've run special seasonal offers on products, A/B tested pricing pages, done customer interviews, social media engagement—all of it.
I've assisted product improvements and competitor analyses.
I've seen companies give out discount coupons if customers rate them 5 stars.
I've seen hundreds of tactics tried—both smart, and cheap, to push customers to buy more.
There's thousands of products in the market, pitching to YOUR customers.
Right from market giants to newer start-ups, everyone is trying to grab a slice of attention of a broad group of target customers through ads and other viral marketing tactics.
But you don't have to do that.
You don't have to cater to wide, generic audiences with vague, generic messaging.
You don't have to fall into the same indiscriminate mass of mediocre SaaS companies.
What you really need to do is define yourself.
And you only need customers who say that about your product. Stop selling to lukewarm people, stop selling to people who don't want your product.
Now, looking at the SaaS companies I was working with: We had let the default positioning run us over—we failed to actively mark ourselves out to customers with a loud and clear market category, we did not chalk out our best customers and we certainly did not channel all our marketing efforts in the same direction.
That didn't kill the businesses. Sure.
But it stopped us from getting to the top. Because when you allow the tide to take you where it goes, it can easily go WRONG. Really, not-market-leader, insignificant product wrong.
As soon as I had realised this, I knew I couldn't just continue doing design: I simply HAD to make a difference!
Amazing user experience and breathtaking animations and the right colours just could not cover the huge gap left behind when visitors did not understand the product.
They fell flat when visitors didn't understand why the product was worth buying.
They didn't change the visitor's decision to NOT buy a product.
And I wanted to change their mind.
So I switched gears and combined the two. Designing websites and product positioning.
I decided to make websites that focussed on the best customers of the SaaS product, their pain points and their needs, websites that differentiated the product from the rest of the competition using the best features of the product and its targeted audience.
Websites that were an extension and reflection of the product's value.
Because positioning and messaging can change the way the world looks at you. Like how you look at Christopher Walken once you know he was a lion-tamer before he got into the acting biz.
I suppose you're thinking: Sure, Sumit, a kickass, high-performing, customer-centric website can makeover how my product looks.
But what about the numbers? Does it really change anything? Is it worth spending my time and money on?
To that, I say: Patience, Bernard. I'm coming to it.
After that, you only develop your product further for customers who actually use your product—customers who won't churn after a few days of giving feedback.
You develop for customers who are dedicated to your product.
Your customer support team doesn't have to explain what your product does a thousand times.
Your sales and marketing team can get straight to the concrete business stuff and skip the small talk: and your marketing efforts are 100% more rewarding—because now they know who they're trying to convince and about what.
I KNOW RIGHT?
It's just a better way of working!
I seriously considered before hauling my entire career path to this new road, but in the end, it NEEDED to happen. There were too many companies with websites that didn't tell the customers the right things, and I didn't want to sit around and NOT help that.
It was time for a....
I had been working as a semi-positioning angel for years: only, I wasn't getting paid for it. TIME TO CHANGE THAT. Jk.
But I simply did not fit as a designer anymore, due to the variety of roles I picked up with the companies I worked with.
I was doing more than creating banners or beautifying websites, and the experience had given me a lot to work with.
I had the capacity to take on positioning, and make an actual impact on a business's MRR through it.
But taking on positioning as a whole would mean letting go of design. And I was not ready to do that.
I wanted a way to combine the two to provide optimum value, and voila! My new career path was forged.
Nice of you to ask. I now make pancakes on a street in NYC!
Just kidding!
I take on the end-to-end process of creating a website that makes people go: Shut up and take my money! (Did someone already use that? Please tell me this is a Sumit original. Yeah, no)
And that folks, is what I do! Value-based websites over pretty ones!
Think this is totally your jam? Are you struggling to convert visitors? Not sure what your customers think about you?
Let's talk about it! You can book a free Clarity Call with me anytime: and we can discuss your business's specific requirements and audience and how you can make your website rad!
Orrrr....you can learn my process for yourself and apply it to your website, for free.
Either way, LET'S MAKE IT HAPPEN!