How to Increase the Value of SaaS Subscriptions Without Acquiring New Customers in 2021

SaaS subscriptions can sell like hotcakes, but customers may not go beyond the trial period. This is why it’s important to recapture your customers. It’s essential to find ways to connect with customers and increase your value propositions.

How important is it to focus on your current customers?

• Increasing retention by just 5% can lead to doubling the profits.
• 82% of companies agree that retention is cheaper than acquisition.
• Acquiring new customers is 5 to 25 times more expensive than retaining existing ones.
• 77% of customers would recommend a product to a friend once they had a positive experience. 

Consider looking at building out other products and services. It’s possible to downsell to unsatisfied customers, cross-sell to satisfied existing customers, upsell on a discount to existing customers, and provide extra perks to existing customers to buy bundles. 

Among other features, PayKickstart provides one-time and subscription billing solutions and further insight into your reporting metrics including the customer lifetime value.

Cross-Sell to Satisfied Existing Customers 

Recommend Complementary Products to Your Existing Customers

Cross-selling is a crucial way to increase the revenue and value of a SaaS subscription. One of the best ways to increase the value of SaaS subscriptions is to introduce other products and services that complement your existing service. 

These products don’t have to be your products, but products and services that boost your customer’s needs for your SaaS subscription. Cross-selling can increase your overall revenue and improve customer retention. 

• Content and blogs generate almost 40% of affiliate publisher commissions in the U.S. 
• 76% of publishers feel the ease of monetizing is the best benefit of affiliate marketing.

A large amount of affiliate marketing is done through content and blogs. Many publishers feel that it’s an easy way to generate revenue and provide a valuable resource. With PayKickstart you can create affiliate programs for your SaaS business with up to two tiers in commissions.

Quick Steps on Starting with Affiliate Marketing: 

• Create a blog or other content-related platform.
• Create helpful content for your users. 
• Recommend affiliate products that complement your SaaS product.

By creating a blog or other content related to your software, you can increase the overall value of your own SaaS product by helping clients use your software more effectively. While this content is being made, you can offer affiliate products that complement your own SaaS subscription. 

PayKickstart will help you retarget any clients that have visited your sales funnel. That way you can bring more value to your customers and end up increasing future sales. 

Downselling to Unsatisfied Customers

Offering a Free Version with Limitations if a Free Trial Doesn’t Work

PayKickstart will help you monitor your revenue and churn rate. By addressing needs and offering multiple solutions, you can have customers turn to long-term paying customers. You can monitor new sign-ups and see if your traffic sources are generating more revenue.

A free version can get people to try your product with limitations. You can offer cross-sells as order bumps on your checkouts and upsells in your sales funnel to increase the overall value. At some point, customers can grow with your product and eventually upgrade when they have a greater need.

• 30% of SaaS companies reported their churn rates have increased in the past year.
• About 30% of all SaaS companies offered additional functionality.

Offer a freemium plan if you are finding that customers are not going past the free trial. If it has limitations, it can cause a number of the people to keep using the product. As they get more accustomed to the product and see more uses, they can later upgrade to a paid version. 

A Knowledge Base WordPress Theme Can Easily Catalogue Helpful Information

When customers can understand how to use a SaaS product, they will rely on the technology more for their business. A knowledge base can help customers find uses. Whenever possible, look at setting up webinars, videos, and articles to demonstrate how to use the product or troubleshoot problems. 

• 31% of customers want instant online help, while 40 percent of them expect to receive assistance in less than 5 minutes
• 51% of customers prefer technical support through a knowledge base

Customers want to be helped online. If possible, they want instant help. A knowledge base can give people the answers that they need. 

Upsell on a Discount to Existing Customers

Start Offering Add-ons For Existing Clients

Add-ons can be a good way to increase the subscription price. People want more knowledge, be protected, and have more tech support. These add-ons can be a good way to offer an upsell to existing customers. For example, you can set up a separate price for these features as a premium product for new customers. 

• 67% of customers prefer self-service over speaking to a company representative.
• 71% of consumers (age 16 – 24) believe that a quick response from your service team can drastically improve their customer experience.

Giving customers a premium experience is always appreciated and increases the value of SaaS subscriptions. By providing different services and products, your SaaS company can increase the value of subscriptions without having to acquire new customers.

Bundling Products and Services

Bundling Complimentary Products Via Cart

A platform like Paykickstart will help you set up your products and services for one payment or recurring payments. You can include upsells and order bumps to increase your overall revenue. Additionally, coupons can generate more traffic to your product with promotions. 

SaaS subscriptions can have multiple products available for purchase. It’s an excellent way to diversify your software products and increase your value. Even when savings are small, it gives the impression that they are getting a better deal. It’s also a way for customers to only focus on the features or services that they want. 

Create Value for Your Subscriptions By: 

• Creating complementary products
• Getting resale rights on different products and services
• Offering add-ons when checking out
• Create bundle products for existing clients that don’t know about your complementary products

Bundles are an excellent way to increase the perceived value of your products. It gives people more opportunities to stick with your SaaS subscription over time. 

Case Study: Adobe Creative Cloud Bundling Complementary Products

Adobe used to sell their software in boxes. They found that over time it wasn’t as effective a model. They have switched to taking subscriptions for their software products. It allows them to continuously update their software and better capture profits. Their primary pricing strategy has been to use bundles. Customers can choose specific software products, but for a little bit more, they can get everything. 

• Having multiple complementary products
• Bundle the products for an all in one package
• Many customers will end up getting the all in one bundle

By increasing their line of products, it bolsters their leading product for customers. Having more options increases the chance that they will continue their subscription. It’s a way to justify raising prices over time. 

Infoproducts, Consulting, and Done For You Services

Offering a Multitude of Business Services

Consider how your SaaS subscription can offer different services. Consider a variety of free and paid infoproducts that customers can utilize for more profits or save themselves time. Whenever possible, these services can include coaching and done for your services to enhance the value of SaaS subscription. 

• 86% of organizations saw an ROI on their Coaching engagements.
• The online learning industry is projected to be worth $370 billion by 2026.

Online courses, consulting, coaching, and done-for-you services can make a drastic difference for your customers. If you can increase their successes, you can charge more for your SaaS products. Different training and guiding your customers will increase loyalty to your products and deter competitors from taking away your customers. 

Case Study: Wave Bought By HR Block (Done For You Services)

Wave Accounting was bought by HR Block. The way they have monetized their product is by offering to do bookkeeping for those clients that have grown their business. For HR Block, it was an easy purchase because it complements their tax services. 

• HR Block accounts will recommend Wave Bookkeepers to grow businesses
• The bookkeepers will utilize the Wave Software and refer them back to HR Block
• They used their Free version of Wave to acquire new customers and retain their customers

By offering complementary services, SaaS products can increase subscriptions and increase the value of their products. Find partners that can create a symbiotic relationship and exchange existing customers. 

PayKickstart – The Recommended Solution to Track All Your Campaigns and Products

PayKickstart is the recommended solution for SaaS companies allowing you to set up your campaigns, products and understand where your revenue and churn rate comes from. You’ll also be able to track your funnels and get key metrics on how much you are earning per click or earning per sale. 

Conclusion

To increase the value of SaaS subscriptions, offer other complementary products and services. There are different pricing strategies and ways to enhance customer perception. It’s possible to increase the value of SaaS subscriptions by focusing on your customers. 

Leverage a tool like PayKickStart to handle all of your upsells, cross-sells, downsells, bundle products, and affiliates. Create or connect with partners to have a multitude of complementary products. In the end, a platform like PayKickStart will help you increase the value of your SaaS subscriptions.

Wesley Cherisien

Wesley Cherisien is a speaker, trainer, entrepreneur and tech investor who has penned hundreds of articles, books and training guides for organizations in the Fortune 500, consultants and authors spanning across multiple industries. Chief Editor of WesleyCherisien.com, Wesley is a creative and highly innovative thinker with 10+ years of experience writing for online publications.

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