Article's Content
Article's Content
A lot of the focus in the SaaS space goes towards converting customers into new users, whether it’s capturing those new adopters who are the first to cross the chasm or finally motivating the late adopters and laggards. But what we often forget is that, after a certain point, retaining your existing customers is actually much more important for long-term success—particularly after passing the $1M annual recurring revenue threshold.
In its most recent SaaS Growth Report surveying over 2,000 brands, ChartMogul finds that after achieving $1 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR), expansion of brands’ existing customers accounts for at least 30% of ARR gained.
Sure, it doesn’t seem as impressive as the new business numbers that represent 55–60%. But there are some other SaaS sales and marketing metrics we have to take into consideration alongside ARR gained, customer acquisition cost in particular: It costs considerably more to acquire new customers than it does to retain existing ones.
And it doesn’t stop at retention.
The same report from ChartMogul finds an interesting downward trend in new business as a percentage of total ARR added for larger SaaS companies, dropping nearly 10% over the past three years. It turns out that expansion—measured in revenue over initial purchase—is the real secret sauce for SaaS brands bringing in over $5 million in ARR.
So, now, the question is how can we help drive expansion in existing customers?
In the SaaS world, there are currently two main ways of accomplishing this: upselling and cross-selling.
So, regardless of whether you take a product- or -sales-driven approach to growth, there are plenty of expansion options available to help you reach that unicorn status.
Now, let’s get into the ways that marketing and content teams can support this type of expansion-led growth.
3 Ways Marketers Can Support SaaS Upsells & Cross-Sells
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Blog and Landing Pages
Feature pages are crucial for upselling and cross-selling as they provide detailed information about the specific functionalities and benefits of software products. By having dedicated pages for each feature or service, software companies can clearly and effectively communicate the value propositions and advantages of their offerings.
When existing customers are educated about the capabilities and benefits of new features or services through well-structured and informative feature pages, they are more likely to see the value in them and consider additional purchases or upgrades, facilitating upselling and cross-selling opportunities.
The product-led cloud computing giant HashiCorp is the perfect example of a tech company that’s also built cross-selling into its strategy. It currently offers eight different tools that help support cloud operations across four domains: infrastructure, security, networking, and applications.
Two of HashiCorp’s top organic growth drivers are product pages for the top tools in its arsenal: its Terraform cloud infrastructure platform and its Vault identity-based security tool.
But in addition to selling the core products in question, each page also contains information on how other tools in the HashiCorp universe, such as the HCP Consul observability tool, can be used in tandem to increase efficacy and ROI. For example, the Terraform product page includes a section explaining how integrating it with HashiCorp’s other infrastructure tool, Packer, helps standardize cloud environments.
The HashiCorp team uses a similar strategy on the Vault product page, including a section that cross-sells its Networking app.
The ultimate goal for HashiCorp is to convert customers using its individual tools into users of its fully managed service: HashiCorp Cloud Platform (HCP). Each individual product page, and many of its blogs and case studies, include sections that funnel both potential and existing customers towards HCP conversion pages.
It’s straightforward, meat-and-potatoes marketing content, but it’s effective in moving users from open source to the commercial scale product usage HashiCorp needs to sustain success.
It’s hard to argue that these assets aren’t effective, especially considering the results from HashiCorp’s recent Corporate Overview for Q2 of its 2024 fiscal year:
- A 26% year-over-year increase in Q2 revenue, reaching $143.2 million
- 851 customers at or over the $100,000 ARR threshold
- Over $150 million increase in annual revenue between FY2022 and FY2023
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Video Content
Video content has now reached must-have status in the world of content marketing strategy. Why? Because it’s the ultimate form of “show, don’t tell.” Even the best copywriter or sales development rep can’t do justice to your product in the same way that a screen recording can.
A picture says a thousand words, so a video says exponentially more than that.
Video significantly enhances upselling and cross-selling efforts by offering dynamic and engaging demonstrations of software features and capabilities. Through well-crafted videos, software companies can visually present the benefits and functionalities of their upgraded products or additional services, making it easier for customers to perceive the value. Videos can effectively convey complex information in a digestible manner, allowing customers to see the software in action and understand its practical applications and advantages. This visual and interactive content type can drive customer engagement and interest, encouraging existing users to explore and adopt more advanced solutions and features, ultimately contributing to increased revenue.
HubSpot provides the perfect example of how SaaS brands can use various HubSpot integrations including video content to upsell and cross-sell customers quickly and effectively.
The inbound marketing software platform has a range of specific tools that it offers at freemium, paid, professional, and enterprise pricing levels, alongside a complete suite subscription—plenty of opportunities to upsell. But HubSpot also has a marketplace of paid integrations that connect it to other key platforms in its customers’ marketing and sales stacks.
Taking a look at some of HubSpot’s most popular YouTube videos, you see that these integrations are a major focus:
In the last year, HubSpot’s marketing team has put out video content that shows off integrations for Aircall, PandaDoc, Intercom, Typeform, and more. Together, these videos account for well over 500,000 views from existing HubSpot customers interested in improving their sales and marketing performance.
Let’s take a look at the PandaDoc integration video:
In just under three minutes, the video provides users with key information about the benefits of the HubSpot-PandaDoc integration, including:
- How the average HubSpot user relies on more than seven integrations
- How to create PandaDoc documents directly in HubSpot
- How HubSpot automatically personalizes contracts with client information and data
- How HubSpot centralizes document status and tracking for a simple sales process
The video itself adds a mix of custom graphics and animations, screen capture footage of the integration in action, and various shots of satisfied users.
At the end of the video, viewers are met with a clickable PandaDoc icon, which takes them to the HubSpot app marketplace product page. It lists PandaDoc as a “HubSpot Certified App” and contains an overview, feature list, shared data, pricing, and reviews. The integration pricing is $49/month for Business users, while Enterprise users are directed to book a sales call.
Now, consider that information from the YouTube video—the average HubSpot user has more than seven of these integrations.
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Social Distribution
As you’ve no doubt seen us say before, social media distribution is crucial for getting key marketing assets in front of customers—Distribution Rules Everything Around Me. One of the most effective ways to get upselling and cross-selling content in front of your existing customers is through social platforms like LinkedIn, YouTube, X, and Reddit.
By leveraging this professional network, companies can target existing customers with tailored content and promotions, highlighting the benefits of additional features or upgraded services. Sharing content like case studies, feature announcements, and promotional videos on LinkedIn can help in reaching a wider audience and establishing credibility.
Engaging posts and targeted updates can spark interest and discussions around the software’s enhanced capabilities and additional services, making existing customers more receptive to upselling and cross-selling propositions. In this way, effective LinkedIn distribution strategies can drive awareness and demand for more advanced and diversified software solutions among existing customers.
OpenAI competitor Cohere is fighting an uphill battle against ChatGPT. It also offers an LLM solution similar to ChatGPT, with a limited free option, a pay-by-usage paid version, and an enterprise version requiring sales contact. Cohere positions itself as the ideal enterprise solution, bypassing the everyday users that flocked to ChatGPT to head straight for executives and leadership.
With ChatGPT, OpenAI has a stranglehold over this exploding tech niche, which means alternatives need to leverage as many channels as possible to help drive upsells and solidify a presence among enterprise companies.
Cohere currently drives nearly 8% of its overall web traffic through social media, relying primarily on X and LinkedIn.
Despite all the upheaval going on over at X, the platform still has good penetration and is commonly used for industry-specific news. Considering how fast the generative AI space moves, X still offers one of the best opportunities to keep pace. The team at Cohere knows this, leveraging the platform to position itself as the go-to AI brand for enterprise companies.
For instance, Cohere recently posted about its new strategic partnership with Oracle, one of the most well-established tech companies in the game. At once, this post strengthens the Cohere brand and positions it as a top option for enterprise AI.
Today at @Oracle CloudWorld, @aidangomez (Cohere CEO & cofounder) & Greg Pavlik (SVP, OCI) unveiled Oracle’s new Gen AI service in collaboration with Cohere. Using Cohere’s LLMs will transform business operations & user experiences, ensuring data privacy.https://t.co/4DRewEdYqB pic.twitter.com/3owAAvb97z
— cohere (@cohere) September 20, 2023
That said, there are a few steps between building brand strength and expanding customer accounts. That’s why Cohere takes a more direct upsell approach on LinkedIn.
One of its top posts from this year is a post announcing one of Cohere’s latest enterprise features: an AI-knowledge assistant named Coral. This post includes a one-minute screen-recording video showing how Coral leverages enterprise data to more efficiently complete tasks like:
- Identifying and ranking emerging players in the healthcare tech space
- Displaying the financial statements for top investment options
- Drafting a memo explaining why the top investment option is a good choice
The post links to an introductory blog post about Coral on the Cohere site and includes a call to action where customers can request private access to the feature. So, even before the new tool officially rolls out, Cohere is leveraging social distribution to identify potential upselling opportunities among its enterprise users.
