Ask HN: B2B SaaS Advice Please | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: B2B SaaS Advice Please

3 pointsKianT6 comments

Hi everyone, I'd appreciate some advice. Built a B2B SaaS (my first one) and have it working. It does a very specific thing for a very specific type of business (Car Dealerships). I've focused it on purpose so its value is clear. I'm starting to cold email the people who would make purchasing decisions (management). The pricing is $19/month for context. Bootstrapping btw.

Being that this is new for me I wanted to ask if those who have experience could share their tips or thoughts on what I'm doing. So far I've been doing outbound cold emails. The contact info for the people I need to reach is very easy to access. My first email is very straight to the point so they can understand what it is and how it can help. I plan on following up with a quick demo showing the tool in action (specifically for their business). And then going from there.

Is there anything else I should be doing, not doing? Am I doing this right overall so far? How many emails should I send out before looking at the numbers and deciding I need to change something or fuel what's working? Anything helps, thanks.

New or Used car dealerships? Foreign, Domestic or either? Sales or Service?

Just cold emails probably won't get much traction. Just a few simple ideas:

* Call the contacts rather than email.

* Does it/should it integrate with dealer systems? (ADP or R&R or Other?)

* Reach out to NADA (North American Dealer Association)

* Try Auto Care Association or similar.

* What about "service data providers"? (Motor information systems, Chiltons, etc.)

* Don't share details with some of these without an NDA.

* If you don't already, get to know the industry you are trying to sell to.

* Do car dealers frequent any sub redits?

* What about Facebook groups?

* Visit a local dealership, talk to people.

* Offer it for free 6 weeks or 6 months in exchange for feedback (positive or negative).

* Demonstrate that it solves problems, and get someone to corroborate the story,

Good luck.

Both new and used. Foreign and domestic. Sales.

Thanks for those ideas, I'll be looking into them.

If your SaaS is self-service, consider running some experiments in Google AdWords. You're going to want to target keywords searching for your solution or describing the problem. These are users with intent, so you should be able to convert a small % of them if your solution solves their problem.

If your product requires a meeting and demo to convince someone to sign up and give you $19, consider how you can convey the messaging from the meeting and demo in your website marketing (e.g demo video, trial version etc), so you can try more scalable approaches like AdWords.

It is self service and pretty self explanatory. It is pretty niche and specific though so not sure how many people would be searching for it on google, I'll look into it. Thanks

Call all of your target customers within a 10 mile radius, buy them a coffee, and arrange a next meeting where you install your software.

if you're into cold emailing, I highly recommend reading this blog post by Harry Dry (Marketing Examples) [1]

in short: write "advice emails," not sales emails. ask for advice for better engagement.

[1] https://marketingexamples.com/sales/advice-email

Reply on news.ycombinator.com