Typically, when we talk about mobile marketing the focus is on ecommerce sites. Many SaaS companies may not pay attention to mobile because they are under the impression that their business customers are not making B2B purchases from mobile devices. But the truth is that even B2B customers in the market for SaaS products will still use their mobile devices to do their research and sign up for SaaS trials.
In this post, we’ll discuss why it is vital for SaaS companies to have a site that is optimized for mobile devices and provide SaaS marketing tips for optimizing your company’s site for mobile conversions.
Why SaaS Companies Need to Have a Mobile-Optimized Site
There is no denying that mobile traffic is increasing when it comes to overall online traffic. In fact, a 2017 comScore report shows that all growth in internet traffic in 2016 came from mobile. On average, people are also spending more time on their mobile devices – about 3 hours a day. This makes mobile a vital channel for any business that wants to increase reach and engage their target audience wherever they may be.
Many SaaS marketing teams may ignore or neglect mobile, thinking that this trend only matters for ecommerce companies. However, SaaS brands need to consider that like any other consumer, SaaS buyers are not always at their desktop computer when they hear about a product or are searching for a solution to their problem. Neglecting mobile buyers means ignoring a significant group of consumers who may be the right fit for your company. That’s not to say that engaging and converting mobile consumers doesn’t come with its own set of challenges, which we will discuss below.
Why Mobile Conversions are Challenging for SaaS Brands
Though software companies can certainly reach their audience on mobile through SaaS marketing, conversion is still a major challenge. When it comes to retail, recent studies show that mobile conversion rates are significantly behind desktop conversions. Though software companies have different barriers than retailers when it comes to mobile conversions, there are still serious challenges in influencing conversions on mobile devices. Onboarding on mobile can be very difficult, leaving many software buyers to give up. Data migration is also impossible since there are no one-click APIs.
People who use their mobile device throughout the day may find your brand through a variety of different mobile channels like search engines or Twitter. However, if these visitors land on your home page to find that it is just a mobile responsive version of your desktop site, asking them to view pricing or start a trial, this can be problematic. Mobile device users often find that their attention is fragmented, which means that companies don’t have very long to catch their attention. Just jumping into a sales pitch is not enough to get these SaaS consumers engaged.
Additionally, mobile consumers may need to revisit your site multiple times before making a final purchase. It’s common for SaaS purchasers to discuss the purchase with their boss, team, or other key stakeholders before buying. This means that they will revisit your site to review key items like features. If your mobile site doesn’t facilitate these revisits, then consumers may be likely to find another site that caters more to the mobile consumer.
What does this mean for your SaaS marketing on mobile? Your mobile site content needs to match your mobile consumers’ motivations. Rather than jumping to pricing or offering a trial, your mobile site should work to build a long-term relationship with your ideal buyers.
4 Mobile Optimization Tips for SaaS Marketing
Now that you better understand the issues that many SaaS companies encounter with engaging mobile consumers, let’s talk about how you can optimize your mobile site effectively. Below are 4 tactics that you can start using today to improve the mobile experience for your target audience:
Mobile Optimization Tactic #1 for Your SaaS Marketing – Set up reminders.
As we mentioned above, many SaaS buyers will need to revisit your site multiple times before making a purchasing decision. Whether they are gathering information to put together a proposal or simply looking for the answers to team member questions, your ideal customer might need to make several visits to your site before they are ready to sign up.
In addition, some mobile consumers might visit your site from mobile search or another app, but decide that they would rather sign up for a free trial on desktop since they don’t want to bother with mobile onboarding. The challenge here is getting them back to your site on desktop so that they can continue the purchasing process.
One of the best ways to ensure that mobile visitors return to your desktop site is through an automated reminder. You can ask visitors for their email address when they land on your mobile site. Then, send out an automated message during business hours to remind them of the value your SaaS product provides and tell them more about how they can get started. By encouraging mobile visitors to check out your desktop site, you are helping them get one step closer to conversion.
Mobile Optimization Tactic #2 for Your SaaS Marketing – Ask mobile visitors to sign up for a demo.
Though most mobile visitors are not ready (or willing) to sign up for your SaaS product from their mobile device, you can encourage them to sign up for a free demonstration of the software. By providing a quick and easy mobile sign-up form, you can take the visitors contact information, which sales staff can then use to follow up and schedule a demonstration. You may even want to advertise a special discounted rate for those who sign up for the demo.
Remember, mobile users do not have time or patience to fill out a long lead form. Your goal is to capture just enough information to allow sales to follow up with the customer. Ask for at least an email address or phone number, and make sure that sales follows up in a timely manner. This tactic allows you to engage mobile users away from the mobile site, which can allow your brand to further build a relationship with these SaaS leads and later influence conversion.
Mobile Optimization Tactic #3 for Your SaaS Marketing – Offer mobile site visitors a free email course.
We’ve already established that emphasizing sign-ups on your mobile site is not typically effective. However, mobile customers who are in the researching phase of the buyer’s journey may be more likely to sign up for a free email course that helps them solve the challenge they have been researching. Instead of prioritizing sign-ups on your mobile home page, try offering a free email course instead.
This tactic not only allows you to engage interested buyers and move them further down the SaaS marketing funnel, but it also helps you gather lead contact information. This information is imperative if you wish to to later follow up in a more high-touch manner. The email course also enables you to reach back out to these buyers during business hours when they are more likely to take some sort of action from their desktop computer.
Entice the visitor to sign up with some basic information on the value that the course will provide. Remember, this is being read on a smaller screen, so it’s important to make the content as easy to read as possible. Use bullet points to break down all of the great information that you will offer in the email course. Again, you also want to make sure that the lead form is short and sweet, only asking for the essential information such as name and email.
Mobile Optimization Tactic #4 for Your SaaS Marketing – Include your phone number in the mobile site header.
By including your phone number in the header of your mobile site, you can encourage mobile visitors to reach out to you on the phone. This allows you to engage with mobile users in a more high-touch way by getting them on the phone and connected to a real person at your organization.
You can use Google Voice to get started. Just make sure that the team answering the phone is also able to address support inquiries from your existing customers. In addition, you will want to make sure that international customers are also able to call the number as well. By placing your company’s phone number directly in the header, you are able to encourage customers to call while also increasing visitor trust.
Final Takeaways
Though your SaaS company may have neglected mobile in the past, it’s important that you work to optimize your mobile site for conversions. This requires you to go beyond just implementing a responsive website design. You also need to develop effective messaging that will be compelling to your busy mobile audience. By rethinking the way that mobile plays a role in your SaaS marketing, you can take advantage of additional opportunities to reach and engage your target audience.
