June 2019 - Infinity Marketing Group

SaaS Pricing Models: Where Should You Start?

J.C. Granger June 27, 2019

In the world of SaaS, there is an overwhelming number of pricing models available, that it’s almost impossible to know where to start. Being the founder of a SaaS marketing firm, I’ve marketed or implemented almost every type of pricing model there is. However, the one pricing model that is beyond the best, is something I like to call “Benchmark Freemium.” According to Hubspot, the freemium pricing model, a combination of free and premium, is “a two-tiered user acquisition model that splits users into either a free tier or a premium tier depending on whether or not they pay for an account.” But there is a twist to Benchmark Freemium: your software or service is free until you’ve hit a designated benchmark.

Have you ever heard of Slack?

I’ll give you an example. Slack, a cloud-based messaging software for companies and organizations, has one of the most brilliant pricing models I’ve ever seen. Slack offers its software for free, all features included. That is until you reach 10,000 messages. 10,000 messages sounds like a lot, but is it? Slack carefully decided on this benchmark, because when you hit 10,000 messages on Slack, you’re already hooked. You’ve seen the value. You’ve adapted Slack into your day-to-day processes and most likely, you can’t go back to your pre-Slack office days.

The biggest advantage of using the Benchmark Freemium pricing model is that once your customer hits the benchmark, it’s almost guaranteed that the customer has already adopted your software into their systems. The conversion rate of trial users becoming paying users is almost always north of 90%. However, in order to attain this kind of success, you must choose your benchmark wisely.

One rule with SaaS pricing models: Never set your benchmark on a timeline.

Believe me, everybody is over the two-week trial periods. Instead, follow Slack’s example and set your benchmark on usage. Trial and test to see what is the right amount of usage before you start. If you set that benchmark too low, your users may have not used the software enough to convert the user. If you set that benchmark too high, you could potentially be losing money by not acquiring that paid user sooner.

Need help setting your benchmark for the Benchmark Freemium pricing model? Get a full understanding of your usage numbers with a pricing model expert.

J.C. Granger is the CEO of Infinity Marketing Group. Infinity Marketing Group is an inbound marketing agency headquartered in Denver, Colorado that specializes in helping SaaS companies achieve their lead generation goals.

Connect with J.C. on LinkedIn and download his free eBook, “3 Essentials of Inbound Marketing”.

SEO is Really Complicated (but it’s not)

J.C. Granger June 24, 2019

In my previous post, I talked about the number one lie that I’ve heard regarding SEO, and that’s the “promise” that you’ll be in the number one spot in a Google search. Although it’s one of the biggest lies out there, it’s also not the only lie. Here’s another lie- it’s tough to improve your search engine results without hiring a professional.

I’m sure right there you said, wait a minute Jason, what the hell? “Aren’t you in the marketing business and don’t you own a marketing agency?”

Why would you have even started a company, and why is professional SEO such a massive industry if it wasn’t complicated and downright something only a trained professional can do?

First, I’m not going to lie to you. Improving your search rankings, in general, is a pretty simple thing to do. There are specific things that Google places a lot of weight on when it’s determining search rankings for websites. Things like relevancy, backlinks, the format of your website, and the overall authority that it has compared to others in your industry.

Sure, people specialize in things because this allows them to train their minds to figure out all of those I mentioned, efficiently prioritize them, and then roll them out. It does take a lot of hands-on experience to understand how to go about the process in the most efficient and “graceful way”. Most business owners don’t have the bandwidth to do that.

But what you do have the bandwidth to do is make your website as relevant, and authoritative as possible, which right there is one of the biggest things that an SEO makeover does. So you’ve already done a lot of the hard work.

SEO Takes Time

I’m not going to lie- SEO takes a lot of time. By a lot of time, I’m not just talking about it taking a few months or a year. SEO takes a lot of work over the lifetime of your website/business. SEO is ever-evolving. To be on top of it means keeping track of constant updates, managing and building your own content, making technical improvements, having a consistent backlink outreach strategy, and a host of other things.

So SEO is hard, but it’s not super complicated (at least not until you get into the extremely small details). It’s no joke, it takes a lot of work, and it does need a dedicated person being a taskmaster for it. So if you don’t know how to manage your time and effort on SEO best, you’ll end up wasting both.

That’s where an SEO expert comes in. An expert can tell you where your strategy needs to focus its energy and what’s going to get the most return on your investment because they’ve done it before and it’s what they eat and breathe.

In short, SEO isn’t all that complicated per se, but not complicated doesn’t mean it’s easy.

So if you’re not ranking high on Google search results and you want to benefit from all that free organic traffic, shoot us an email at info@infinitymgroup.com or message me on LinkedIn.

Connect with J.C. on LinkedIn and download his free eBook, “3 Essentials of Inbound Marketing”.

Let’s Get Personal: How Content Personalization is Changing in 2019

J.C. Granger June 17, 2019

Have you ever talked about a product, but never searched for it online, then later received an ad for it? There’s a reason for that. According to Evergage.com, 92% of marketers are using your personal information to customize their marketing strategies according to your behaviors and preferences. With help from Google Analytics and CRM platforms, marketers can easily identify key insights about their customer database. Everything from age and location to the products and services you book online is being recorded to provide customers with the ultimate personalized experience.

You might be thinking: “I already know this.” For years, marketers have used attainable information of their customers to target them with emails, social media ads, and website landing pages. But in 2019, marketers are using this information and more in ways that have never been done before, to provide their customers with unique and tailored online campaigns. Read below to find out how marketing personalization is changing the way brands are connecting to their customers online.

AI-Driven Personalization

In the Digital Age, computers may be decreasing in size, but their power and popularity are increasing at a rapid rate. Good-bye to the days of marketers segmenting email lists by hand and adding personal touches to content themselves. Now, machines comb through their customer database and implement AI-featured algorithms to find the best techniques to segment and personalize their database.

In 2019, we can expect to see much more personalized product recommendations, individualized incentive programs, predictive content modeling and automation in marketing strategies and advertising campaigns. Companies can stay ahead of this trend by investing in AI technology solutions in email marketing, chatbots, and programmatic advertising.

Voice-Activated Searches

With Amazon’s Alexa to the Google Home and now even Facebook’s Portal, virtual assistants are popping up in homes everywhere. According to TechCrunch.com, 2018 reached an all-time high, with close to 41 percent of U.S. consumers now owning one, up 54 percent from 2017 alone. The cloud-based smart speakers are being used for music, online searches, streaming videos, and even playing Jeopardy. And if you’re ever wondering if these machines are listening to you, you might not be wrong. While the machines start listening based on “trigger words”, they are still recording your requests and conversations once “triggered.”

So what does this mean for marketing? Marketers are making their products and services easier to search, buy, or use with voice-activated commands. They’re using this information to help create a language that you use and to make the most engaging experiences possible on voice-activated smart speakers. Although these smart speakers do not run paid advertising now, brands have found ways to ensure their brand is mentioned first in specific searches. With voice-activated marketing not going away any time soon, it is important that brands start looking into how to optimize their brand with smart-device speakers.

Facial Recognition Marketing

The new facial recognition capabilities of the latest smartphones are putting customers front and center in marketing campaigns. With the growing popularity of facial mapping and augmented reality features, marketers are now testing and creating immersive marketing experiences for their customers. For example, cosmetic companies like Sephora and Orly are releasing apps that give their users virtual makeovers with their products and Nike launched a campaign that allowed users to control the movement of virtual shoes with their facial expressions.

Not only do facial recognition features allow marketers to experiment with more innovative campaigns, but these features are providing tons of insight into their customers. Mood detection and facial expressions can provide data on how the customer reacts to products or campaigns, which can be applied to more customized advertisements that will perfectly fit the emotions, interests, and preferences of their audience.

With all of the new and innovative trends in data personalization, 2019 is expected to have some killer campaigns that will feature voice, facial recognition and more. To keep up with customer expectations, brands need to look into campaigns that are providing more intimate and personalized online experiences. How are you going to stand out with your marketing campaigns in 2019?

Connect with J.C. on LinkedIn and download his free eBook, “3 Essentials of Inbound Marketing”.

Do Financial Goals Matter? (Hint: They Don’t Mean Crap)

J.C. Granger June 3, 2019

Goals are weird. There’s a significant emphasis on having them in every part of your life. We even have a whole month that’s basically obsessed with setting new goals for your life and your business. The other day I was talking with a friend, and he asked about the financial goals that I had for Infinity for the year. I sort of blew his mind when I replied: “I don’t have any.”