SaaS marketers have a tough job
It’s no secret that having a powerful product is important. But positioning and marketing in the right place to the right audience is critical for SaaS marketers to win the game.
Most of the SaaS marketers often tend to underestimate the real potential of the marketplaces like Salesforce Appexchange, Microsoft App source and Review sites like Capterra, Software Advice but do you know that they can be the biggest revenue driver?
Continue reading to know why we say so!
Did you spend a big chunk of time creating the app exchange listing? But How much time do you spend to ensure it is optimized? It isn’t just a one-time investment.
Here in this blog, let’s discuss the best practices to optimize Salesforce Appexchange Product listing and how to leverage the Appexchange analytics to improve performance.
Salesforce Appexchange
Haven’t you heard about this? Appexchange is the cloud marketplace of the world’s leading CRM - Salesforce built for SaaS businesses to sell apps that can extend the functionalities of the CRM.
When Salesforce users require certain functionalities that aren’t available by default in Salesforce and if they aren’t interested in coding from scratch, they hunt for add-on apps in the marketplace as a solution. Currently, there are thousands of apps in the marketplace developed to each and every department across industries.
You know what? Though millions of people install apps daily, the platform is often underestimated but if leveraged with the right process can be the biggest revenue driver for any Saas company.
So, whether you are new to the platform or already have an existing storefront, it will be exciting to build and enhance your profile.
Best Practices - App Listing
Building an attractive product listing and optimizing it can help you fetch maximum out of the app exchange program. So, here are the best practices which can assist you to stand out of the crowd for the right prospects.
All these optimizations can be done in your Publishing console.
1. Simple & Engaging Content
- Title - Selling in eight-word or less. Have a very short and highly clickable title for the product. You can also include the brand name but the words must be chosen wisely to convince someone to click on the listing.
- Tagline - Short phrase explaining the essence. Here, you can emphasize the user with your key selling point and the values of the product.
- Brief Description - The content for inspiration. Answer in short for the questions - What, Why and Who of your product i.e., the problem, solution, and the audience.
- Highlights - Key features and benefits. Explain the functionalities offered by your product and the outcomes or results the user will experience.
- Full Description - Storytelling is an essential element to draw the reader into your content and drive more engagements. So, try to fit in an engaging story in the context describing the situation before and after the product
Important: Don’t forget to include the keywords in the content which you would like to rank for. At the same time, don’t try to overstuff them that can negatively affect your ranking.
2. Appropriate Call to Actions
Strategic calls-to-action (CTAs) can help you guide your visitors through the buying journey and directly impact your conversion rates. In Appexchange, CTAs acts as a gate to receive the lead data.
- Test Drive - Provides a Read-only version for the users to experience the solution with sample data.
- Free Trial - Offers free trial to the user for a specific time period by when he can experiment with all the functionalities of the product.
- Get in Now - Clicking on ‘Get in Now’ takes the user to the complete installation process.
3. Useful Resources
Do you know that Content builds trust and boost conversions? Add useful content that can educate the users about their challenges and the benefits your solution can offer them. This will help build trust in your brand and also improve conversions. These are the resources that Appexchange allows you to add under your listing,
- Datasheets - Your datasheet document must list all the features of the product including both technical and nontechnical details and explain the users in an easily understandable language. This detailed information can help users to compare other products and make a purchase decision
- Case studies - Case studies are more effective than other sales materials as they include your customer stories that can evoke emotions and influence the decision-making of the users. Include case studies that focus on niche/specific industries that can help users easily relate and clearly understand the benefits of the product
- Whitepapers - Whitepapers acts as an authoritative report or guide to educate the user about the problem you are trying to solve, the possible solutions and how you are bridging the gaps. Your whitepapers must include facts and figures that can influence the decision making of users.
4. Quality Customer Reviews
79% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. The same concept applies to Appexchange also. Salesforce says
‘Nearly 80% percent of users who install AppExchange apps read reviews first’
Customer reviews are a form of social proof that conveys your product’s impact on the users. So, focus on getting quality reviews from your existing customers that can help in building trust and influence users. Also, remember that the number of reviews is also a ranking factor used by Appexchange.
5. Attractive Media
Visual elements added in the listing are really important to grab the attention of the short span user. Attractive visuals have the ability to improve brand awareness and even conversions.
- Title Logo - It is shown when the users hover over the listing. It can be your company logo or the product logo
- Tile Image - It is shown when the user searches browse for the product, It must contain the Product name and you can include the unique selling point if needed.
- Screenshots/Videos - Salesforce itself emphasizes on creating an attractive listing with screenshot and videos as the users are most likely to look into this before taking any action in the listing. So add product screenshots and video that explains the positive impact of your product. But make sure you don’t add the entire demo here as you can get the user data only if they click on any CTA after viewing this.
Appexchange Analytics
In mid of 2019, Appexchange has launched its own analytics tool to offer it’s partners the insights into how the users are engaging with the listings and apps which can help them optimize their profiles. Let’s have a look into the metrics it is offering.
1. Activity Source timeline
The Activity summary gives you all the key metrics of the user behavior on the product listing. Each metric also includes a tend indicator that you can use to compare how the listings are performing relative to the previous time periods. The default time period is 30 days but it can be altered.
- Title Views - Total views of the listing tile
- Title Hovers - Counts if the user hovers and the detailed pop up comes up
- Visitors - Unique users visiting the product page
- Lead Events - The total number of ‘Watch demo’, ‘Test drive’ and ‘Get it now’/’Installs’
- Installs - Number of successful completions of ‘Get it now’
The Activity Source timeline is a graph that gives data on how traffic sources drive activity over a period of time. The following filters can be used for deeper analysis,
- Traffic Source - Appexchange Browse, Categories, Sponsored, Recommended, Search, Google, Facebook, Web
- Activity - Title Views, Hovers, Visits, Lead events, Installs
- Timeframe - Day, Week, Month, Quarter
2. Activity Sources
Know which traffic sources contribute to the activity on the product page. Activities include visits, test drives, demos, lead events, and installs which can be viewed individually.
3. Customer Engagement
This gives the data of how the customer engages with the elements that you have added in the product listing over time. The Elements include Resources, CTAs, and screenshots.
4 Top Searches
This gives you the data of the search terms that users search to find your listing along with the number of searches. The filters on activities can help you out in finding what keywords have led to lead events and installs. The listings can be optimized based on these keywords to increase the ranking thereby increasing the visitors.
You must know that optimizing the product listings in Appexchange is not an overnight phenomenon. But with continuous monitoring of analytics data and following the best practices, the success in under the limits. Try implementing the practices suggested and let us know which worked and which didn’t.
