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The SaaS Growth System Video - 3 Steps 🎥

Each Monday I'll be sending out videos on how to scale your SaaS firm. This week, I introduce the three steps of the SaaS Growth System (ABM list building + outbound + ads) and explain how they work together to create predictable revenue growth.

Hi there,

Over the next 26 Mondays (starting today October 7), I’ll be sending out short videos for The SaaS Growth System, one module at a time, along with personal commentary designed to help your company grow even faster…

There’s a LOT of free valuable videos and content coming over the next 6 months that I’ve spent 22 years learning and turning into The SaaS Growth System, the growth process we teach inside the SaasRise community.

Just look out for emails from me, Ryan Allis

In today’s module one, I’ll be explaining how the three key steps of The SaaS Growth System all work together to drive repeatable customer acquisition growth… 

If you give me 5 minutes of your time, you’re going to learn a lot by scanning the below message… and you can also forward this to your Head of Marketing or Head of Sales for implementation and to get them on this list.

If you’re not yet a member of SaasRise, you can apply here. We’re the #1 community just for experienced SaaS CEOs & Founders with $1M to $100M in ARR – now with 360 members representing $2.2B in ARR.

Now let’s jump into today’s content, explaining The SaaS Growth System and how it all works together to create a predictable sales and marketing machine.

The #1 System for Scaling & Exiting a B2B SaaS Company

Here’s today’s video, followed by a written explanation for easy scanning…

The SaaS Growth System is designed to be the best system in the world for successfully scaling and exiting a B2B SaaS company. 

And it’s yours at no cost… (coming free weekly for the next 26 weeks)…

If you want it all at once, just join SaasRise and you’ll get all the videos here inside the member portal right away.

I created this system as I noticed when scaling iContact to $50M ARR and then consulting with fast-growing B2B SaaS firms like Instantly, Seamless, Clearstream, Tatango, and dozens of others – that there was a pattern for how to attract and acquire B2B customers – and build a repeatable and predictable revenue machine. 

Properly implemented, The SaaS Growth System makes your brand omnipresent within your target market using a combination of digital ads and outbound emails, exposing your entire ICP to your messaging at least 10x per month via outbound prospecting messages and advertising impressions.

Over the last year, I’ve documented the system through videos and slides so that ANY software company can implement it.

This system still works for B2C firms, but the outbound step won’t be relevant as outbound prospecting requires a high enough ACV to make the payback worth it — and thus only works for mid-market and enterprise B2B SaaS firms.

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The difference between a $3M and a $30M ARR SaaS firm is whether they’ve implemented a scalable growth system — whether they’ve implemented outbound prospecting and scalable and targeted profitable ads. That is the holy grail.”

- Ryan Allis, founder of SaasRise

Here is the table of contents for 26 modules of The SaaS Growth System… (as mentioned we’ll be sending out one per week for the next 26 weeks — each Monday free of charge).

We give the videos and articles away for free to drive more members into the SaasRise community — and to drive more members into hiring us to implement the growth system inside their company.

That said, we’re committed to giving away enough where even if you don’t hire us, you can implement this system successfully… so that your firm can grow. We want you to succeed and to build a long-term relationship.

How Did This Growth System Get Created?

First, some background…

I founded iContact in 2002 as a freshman at UNC… and it really started taking off by 2006 once we figured out our unit economics…

We built a sales and marketing machine at iContact that got us up to 70,000 paying customers and 4,000 new customers per month before we sold…

By making the product easy to use and building a marketing machine, we became the #2 SMB email marketing software in the world. It was Constant Contact, iContact, and MailChimp when we were acquired.

Here’s the staff photo for iContact, in front of our Raleigh, NC offices. We grew to 250 team members, 70k customers, and $50M in ARR.

I’m standing on the far left, in front of our offices in Raleigh. NC

Since selling iContact, during my career building and advising fast growing B2B SaaS firms, something I’ve noticed over-and-over is that ALL companies go through four stages, shown below. 

At SaasRise, we focus on helping companies through stage 3 and 4, helping SaaS firms scale up revenues from $1M to $100M and then exit for a nine or ten figure valuation ($100M-$1B+).

By combining 22 years experience helping B2B SaaS companies grow, I’ve developed a system that works nearly every time for any B2B SaaS company with $1K+ ACVs – a system that is summarized below.

Now let’s go into the nuances…

The Three Key Steps of the SaaS Growth System

  1. Build Your ABM Lead List - Step one is to build your Account Based Marketing Lead List using tools like Instantly, ListKit, Apollo, or Seamless

  2. Create Your Outbound Machine - Step 2 is setting up an outbound marketing system that can reach your entire target market.

  3. Turn on Ads Targeting the Same Audience - And Step 3 is turning on matched audience ads and retargeting ads to make your brand omnipresent within your target market.

Once you’ve done those first three key steps, you can turn on other types of digital ads that we’ve found to be very effective for B2B SaaS firms including paid search, lookalike/predictive ads, content boosting ads, and software review site ads.

These steps all work together in B2B customer acquisition harmony.

For example, if you do an outbound prospecting campaign WITHOUT a matched audience/retargeting ads on – it will usually get average results (0.5% reply rates, 3% click rates). However if you do an outbound prospecting campaign WITH matched audience/retargeting ads on – we see MUCH BETTER than average results (more like 1% reply rates, 6% click rates). 

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Outbound Prospecting + Matched Audience Ads + Retargeting = B2B Marketing Success

- Ryan Allis

How to Get a Message to Lodge Into a Brain

Think of our method as a building a group of B2B targets who need what you offer where YOU are trying to get inside their brain (sort of like how I’m getting inside your brain right now) – in order to position your message.

It’s like neuroscience – but without the doctorate. 

Yes, the job of a marketer is literally to create a strong neuron connection in the brains of your prospects between a) problem awareness and b) your brand as the solution.

And you do this through EXCELLENT EDUCATIONAL CONTENT like this (that is actually worth reading/watching) combined with ABM list building, outbound prospecting, and showing digital ads to the same target audience (through matched audience and retargeting).

This is EXACTLY what we are doing with this message today. Free valuable expert-created content delivered exactly to those who can benefit from it — then promoted via retargeting and matched audience ads.

This is the way you make your brand omnipresent within your target market – AND create literal neuron connections in the minds of your future customers. 

So that when your customers are ready to buy – you’re the only brand they know.

Brand omnipresence within a carefully defined niche is our gospel.

How Much Does It Cost to Achieve Brand Omnipresence In A Niche?

The good news is that market dominance within a niche is cheap.

Let’s say you have a TAM of 25,000 potential companies who could buy your software, and there are 4 people each at these companies who influence the buying decision.

So you have 25,000 x 4 = 100,000 potential buyers you want to influence. 

How much does it cost to get your message in front of all 100,000 potential buyers. Not much.

Just export the list of potential buyers in your target market from a lead prospecting tool like Instantly, ListKit, Apollo, or Seamless.  

This will cost around $2000 to $3000 per 100,000 records to do. You can also buy custom industry target market lists from data brokers or find them in public records, depending on your niche.

Then, simply send out highly valuable content (PDFs, case studies, reports, articles like this, etc.) using an outbound prospecting tool like Instantly. This will cost you around $1200 per month to do on Instantly. 

Then, upload your lead list to Meta, Google, Adroll, LinkedIn, and Bing and start showing matched audience ads (also known as custom audience ads) to this same audience – making your brand omnipresent – and turn on 180 day site visitor retargeting so that anyone who visits your site once will see your ad again and again on social networks and major websites like CNN, ESPN, NY Times, etc.

It costs around $30-$50 per 1,000 impressions in B2B advertising. So to show 1,000,000 impressions per month (10 each) to your list of 100,000 targets, you’re looking at about $3000 per month.

How much does this all cost? Well for about $5,000 per month all-in (maybe $10k if you have a huge target market) – you can make your brand absolutely omnipresent within your niche via ads and outbound – and drive hundreds of additional qualified leads or thousands of additional trials to your software offering each month.

It all starts with getting clear on your unit economics (CAC/LTV/Lifespan/Churn) and target market, and then building an outbound prospecting machine and a digital ads machine to drive qualified leads into either your PLG led trial motion or your mid-market/enterprise sales team.

Who Is The SaaS Growth System For?

Unlike most programs/communities which are focused on launching a SaaS company and getting to product-market fit or the first $1M in sales, the SaaS Growth System we teach within SaasRise is focused on scaling (from $1M to $100M in ARR), building a repeatable growth engine, and preparing for a successful 9 figure or 10 figure exit. 

A $100M+ exit is what we’re passionate about teaching you how to achieve and execute.

In the coming months you can implement the SaaS Growth System… and see what happens.

And apply to join SaasRise if you’re not already a member where we talk about this type of stuff all day long – along with ALL topics related to scaling and exiting a SaaS business. It’s probably the best $197/month you’ll spend to accelerate your knowledge and join a mastermind of EXPERIENCED SaaS CEOs/Founders (only scale ups that are $1M-$100M are allowed in).

You can look through our latest Member Overview Deck here.

My Background & How I Got Here

Here’s my background for context… I’m 40 now and have been in the trenches since I co-founder iContact as freshman at UNC-Chapel Hill at age 18 back in 2002.

Every 6 months we put on a live online 16 week program on how to implement the SaaS Growth System inside your business. While we just started one in September, our next one will go live in February 2025 – and we’ll ping you to let you know before it goes live.

Next week, I’ll be back in touch to cover unit economics (CAC, Churn, Lifespan, LTV, Payback Months) etc. and the MATH behind creating a scalable customer acquisition system. 

Until then,
Ryan Allis, CEO & Founder
SaasRise
www.saasrise.com
The #1 Community for Experienced SaaS CEOs and Founders

About SaasRise Founder Ryan Allis

Ryan Allis is the founder of SaasRise, the mastermind community for growth-focused SaaS CEOs with $1M-$100M in ARR. He is a three time INC 500 CEO. He was previously CEO of iContact and grew the firm as founder/CEO to 70,000 customers, 1 million users, 300 employees, $50M per year in sales, and an exit for $169M to Vocus (NASDAQ:VOCS).

Since the sale of iContact, Ryan has been the CEO coach to high-growth SaaS firms including Instantly, Tatango, Seamless.ai, Pipeline, Datalyse, Green Packet, Revenue Accelerator, RXNT, Galleon, Clearstream, YouCanBookMe, Retreaver, and EventMobi. Ryan has been part of the EO and Summit Series communities.

He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. He’s passionate about helping recurring revenue software companies grow and exit for $100M+.

We’ll see you next time with more great SaaS growth and scaling content!

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