Crafting Your Product Messaging with Your Best Customers | Aaron Krall, SaaS Growth Hacks
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About this episode
In today’s episode, Melissa sits down for a (virtual) drink with Aaron Krall, the founder of the largest and most active community of SaaS founders called SaaS Growth Hacks and the SaaS Accelerator. After Aaron pours his coffee mixture and Melissa her grass jelly drink, Aaron shares his professional background. He began SaaS Growth Hacks 7 years ago as a way to build an audience and figure out how to address their needs. In its initial stages, he began cold emailing people to recruit new members and the group grew exponentially over time. There are currently 30,000 members, the majority of which are people who have an idea for a SaaS but need help launching it.
In the beginning stages of the group, Aaron’s intentions were solely to find a market to build a business around. Over the course of his career, he has recognized his ability to grow communities and how much he enjoys helping others. Many of the founders involved in the group are at lonely points in their lives working from home and have no one to bounce questions and ideas off of. Thus, his intention for SaaS Growth Hacks is to be the place founders can go to feel a sense of community, get help from like minded people and feel supported. Next, Aaron and Melissa unpack how they both ultimately found their career calling. Melissa stresses the idea that it is okay to change your mind and take major career pivots in other directions.
Over the last several years, Aaron has recognized that it is becoming easier and easier to actually build a SaaS product. He has witnessed many people build an amazing and well thought out product, but struggle when it comes time to find a buyer for it. Looking towards the future, Aaron predicts we will begin to see founders building very specific products to solve specific problems for specific niches. It is much easier to find your audience first and then build a product for them. In terms of what is top of mind for founders today, Aaron shares that nearly everyone is focused on either growth or scaling. His plan for SaaS Growth Hacks is to start creating small, more niche-focused groups.
Next, the conversation shifts to discuss product marketing messaging. eWebinar recently revamped all of their content which, Michelle shares, was the most impactful project they invested in. They worked with Aaron to fix their messaging issues and ensure that a customer would know exactly what they were offering just by looking at their website. Aaron reveals that it takes lots of time, research and energy into crafting the most effective brand messaging. The easiest and most simple way to crack the code is by talking to the people who are using your product and hearing the pain points it is solving for them. The ability to explain your product and its uses to a potential customer is crucial.
When interviewing customers to determine how they are using your product, Aaron shares, there are a few things you must figure out. First, you want to figure out what was happening in the business that made them look for a new tool. Then, find out the process they were using to solve this issue before finding your product. Finally, you should dig deep into the results your tool gave them. After finding out these things, Aaron recommends building a database of customer feedback. This ultimately will become the content for your website. When you find a specific claim is doing particularly well in advertising, you should stick with it for a while. Listen as he shares the best content structure for home pages. He urges founders to address the objections and false beliefs people have about your product on your home page. The more you address these concerns and get them out of the way, the less people will feel hesitant about signing up or purchasing. In closing, he urges founders, even brand new ones, to begin talking to their customers as soon as possible. Finally, he offers one final piece of general advice.
Timestamps
0:55 - Welcome to this episode, in which host Melissa interviews Aaron Krull
4:19 Aaron shares about his background
9:00 Aaron’s changing intention for SaaS Growth Hacks
14:12 Trends Aaron has observed
18:36 What are the top concerns of founders today?
20:19 The future of SaaS Growth Hacks
24:17 Discussing product marketing messaging
30:00 Questions to ask existing customers about how they are using your product
35:21 How to turn this new data into web content
37:10 The best content structure for home pages
41:16 When should companies have product messaging interviews?
43:03 Aaron’s final words of wisdom
About ProfitLed
Welcome to the ProfitLed podcast, where we discover proven growth strategies for bootstrapped entrepreneurs from the people who have done it before to help you accelerate your business! The ProfitLed podcast is brought to you by eWebinar, the leading automated webinar tool, and hosted by eWebinar Cofounder and CEO, Melissa Kwan.
ProfitLed is forum for the unsung heroes of SaaS, the founders and others behind the bootstrapped startups who are creative and resourceful enough to forge a pathway to success. Here’s where they get to share everything they learned along the way, so you can benefit from their expertise and find success in your ventures, too!
Learn more about your host, Melissa Kwan, and the ProfitLed podcast.
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Tags
eWebinar, webinar, SaaS founders, bootstrapped, startups, entrepreneurs, founder, CEO, Aaron Krall, SaaS, product messaging, customers, SaaS Growth Hacks, technology, career pivot, platform, product developers, product audience, customer expectations, tech founder, investor, marketing, product messaging, branding, ROI, pain points, website development
