5 Ways To Increase Your SaaS Signup Conversion Rate
If you’re managing a SaaS business then sign-ups are your bread and butter. More than 70% of SaaS businesses are offering free trial sign-ups and if you’re part of that group then you’ve definitely thought at least once about how you can increase the your conversion rates.
We’ve tested several SaaS sign-up pages and have found that some elements work more than others. That’s what we’re doing today, showing you five validated elements to test on your SaaS sign-up page.
1. A clear and memorable Value Proposition
Your value proposition is what defines your product and makes it stand out. The value proposition should be clear and memorable, you want your visitors to understand from a quick glance what your product is offering and how it will improve their lives.
By looking at CRM products, we can see the headline Pipedrive use:
The benefit here is very straight-forward, without any unnecessary words. What do you need to do for your sales team? Get them organized. Pipedrive can help you do that.
Another compelling value proposition I found was the one Close.io are using. It doesn’t get more to the point than that — Close More Deals. This is addressing a pain point that 99% of sales teams have and that’s only because that remaining 1% are too proud to admit it. Sales teams need to close more deals so that’s what makes Close.io a great contender for the browsing visitor.
My attention was also drawn to the Zoho CRM value proposition which actually convinced me to try out their tools. This proposition speaks directly to any business owner and any sales team. The sub paragraph does a great job at reinforcing the benefits of using their CRM. You will observe that there is zero focus on their features at this point, it’s benefits all the way.
2. Use customer reviews and testimonials
A good testimonial from a reputable client will present almost all the social proof needed for any new visitor that is considering giving your product a go. One survey done by Dimensional Research shows that 90% of the users questioned declared that their buying decisions were impacted by reading positive reviews and 86% by negative reviews.
Don’t know how to get reviews and testimonials? One way is to simply ask for them. What you can do is to send out a quick email to your customers and ask them for an honest feedback. I recommend you do that after at least one-two months of working together or at the end of the trial period and ask them for an honest feedback. When you get their answers, there are two things you should do:
First, address ALL negative feedback in a conciliatory manner and find out what went wrong. Use that information as a great fuel for progress and improvement.
Second, gather all the positive feedback and ask for your clients’ permission to publish that information before using it on your site.
Shopify shows us a good example of a way to present customer testimonials:
The pictures are professional, the people in them look successful and happy and it makes the visitor instantly associate that status with the use of Shopify.
WooCommerce also use big numbers and logos to demonstrate how their tool makes the best choice for any prospecting customer.
When a prospect sees that number, “over 30 million downloads”, it all really comes down to pricing or compatibility.
You can also try a highly visual and design focused approach, like Optimizely who have brought out big names in bold colors to showcase their testimonials:
I think one of the smartest thing they do on this particular section is that they also give you the reason why you should test, in case there was any doubt.
3. Explain the trial/on-boarding process — What will happen after they sign up.
One common issue I have encountered with clients so far was the fact that they were getting leads but almost none of them would answer the phone the sales rep would make after each signup to qualify that lead.
The main reason behind that is that new users don’t expect an immediate phone call, they don’t know the number that’s calling them, many times the sales representatives call from a different country so the sources of friction here are countless.
Ease all anxiety by letting your users know what to expect. You will see how the onboarding process will be so much easier afterwards.
Here is one example used at POS.com:
The guys at Hotjar are doing an amazing job at walking you through all the features of the software while you’re in trial, to make sure you really understand how you can benefit from using their software.
Besides from using a well timed email sequence, they walk you through the qualitative research process and highlight all the benefits you would get from using their tool. For example, they promote their incoming feedback feature by mentioning how it will help you find out what people love or hate about your website/app. These sort of elements get users engaged with the app which is bound to bring an increased “trial to paid” conversion rate in the end.
4. Social Proof is stronger in numbers
One other aspect that is important when presenting your SaaS, besides the happy clients and benefits, is the number of people/companies that have validated your product.
You can borrow a page from TagVenue’s book — I just love how they mention the smart customers — subtle and powerful.
Or from Shopify:
Or from Close.io:
However you choose to do it, make sure the number will have a positive impact. What businesses should stop doing is to use social widgets that show very small numbers. These obtain the opposite effect actually and might damage your conversion rate.
5. Show screenshots and use cases/ preview to your features
After running several on-site surveys for SaaS businesses, I found out that, after having a clear pricing page, showing screenshots or demos of the software is the most important element on a presentation page.
Almost 60% of users responded that they would want to see some more screenshots of the app before signing up for an accounting software. The main reason was that accounting software can be less intuitive and they wanted to make sure their team would be able to use it and pick it up without too much effort.
Not sure what format works best for you? I recommend testing between a video demo and some screenshots on the page, especially on various devices if your app can be used on mobile and desktop, for example.
PandaDoc have a typical explainer video that walks you through the problem, agitates it and then offers the solution with a brief walkthrough in the app’s features.
You can use this type of video or go for something with a bit of humor injected into it, like this video from PadMapper (bonus points for the accent of the voiceover):
Explainer videos used to be very expensive so they were not an appropriate solution for any starting business but now you can use something like RawShorts and create a great looking video with less effort and resources.
However, if video is not your thing you can use screenshots to showcase your product.
Check out theses examples and get inspired for your next test:
Zoho CRM present the sales flow and how their app can help on each step of the way:
Pipedrive do a similar thing and display use cases for the app.
Rubberstamp.io show the app on each device so that it is clear that it’s a portable app and you can use it from any device.
Of course, these are only scratching the surface of the complex issue that is SaaS website conversion optimization but they are a great place to start and see improvement.
As soon as you have that uplift, you should be able to decide if you should employ full-time conversion optimization, whether it is in-house or you pick an agency to your liking.
You can also contact us for a free no obligation page evaluation to find out how we can help you reach your business goals.Just drop an email at [email protected] or hit the free evaluation button on our homepage and we will get back to you in less than 24 hours.
Now it’s your turn, tell us what obstacles you’ve encountered with your SaaS sign-ups and what you have done to increase your conversion rates.
