What is SaaS Sales Prospecting?  

SaaS sales prospecting involves the strategic process of identifying, engaging and qualifying potential customers for a Software as a Service product.  

This involves researching potential leads, reaching out through various channels, and communicating the value proposition of the SaaS offering to convert them into paying customers. 

This process is particularly important for SaaS companies as they rely on repeat business from existing customers. 

SaaS sales prospecting undergoes a number of distinctive features when compared to traditional sales.  The emphasis is on recurring revenue rather than just one time sales.  

Retention and the lifetime value of customers are therefore important for long term profitability.  

SaaS sales offer pricing flexibility, potentially influencing customer acquisition and adoption rates.  

In addition, the buying process is more of a consultative one, which requires understanding of the customer’s processes and demonstrating the software’s benefits at all stages of the customer lifecycle. 

The SaaS sales process includes the following steps:  

1. It starts with the generation of leads, which are potential customers who have shown interest in the product or service. This is done through various marketing activities such as:

• estratégia de e-mail marketing 
• social media  
• paid search engine marketing.  

2. Once potential customers are identified, the next step is to qualify them to determine if they are a good fit for the product, have the budget, and also need it.

3. The process concludes with finalizing the agreement and onboarding the customer, ensuring product comprehension and usage knowledge.  For example, after showing a product demo to a qualified lead and explaining its features, SaaS sales teams often follow up with a ‘land and expand’ strategy to encourage the first use of the product and later upgrade it as the customer’s needs grow. 

SaaS prospecting tools impact the sales process through lead generation, email automation, phone prospecting, and multi-channel marketing campaigns.  

The sales team may use these tools for sales pipeline management, identifying prospective leads, and facilitating engagement via different channels.  Some examples of such tools are: 

• Aircall for phone prospecting 
• Sarbacane Engage e Yesware for email marketing 
• BuiltWith e Leadfeeder for lead generation 
• Apollo.io e Cognism for complete prospecting data. 

Defining and qualifying SaaS leads should follow these steps: 

1. Define the criteria for a valid lead and include the variables of Budget, Authority, Need, Timee Interest in the process.  
2. Create a lead scoring model that takes into account various activities like website visits, content downloads, and form submissions.  
3. Based on these behaviours, leads can be classified as Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) or Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs), where MQLs have a high lead score and have shown interest in the product itself.  If someone downloads an e-book and requests a demo, they might be considered a SQL, while someone who just looks around the website is an MQL.  
4. Continuously refine your lead qualification criteria and scoring system based on sales performance data and feedback from your SaaS sales team. 

Key metrics for SaaS prospecting include: 

• response rate 
• conversation rate 
• meeting booking rate 
• time-to-first-response 
• lead velocity rate 
• taxa de conversão 
• o number of qualified leads.   

These KPIs need to be considered and tested regularly in order to enhance their effectiveness, which applies to all areas, be it among certain groups of the audience or the whole SaaS sales process.