Monthly recurring revenue (MRR) is one of the most critical metrics Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) providers use to see if their business is earning a profit. Companies must ensure their MRR is good enough to ensure sustainable growth.
The best methods to grow your SaaS MRR include search engine optimization, enhancing your advertising strategy, influencer marketing, networking, SaaS collaboration, a SaaS insights app, and revisiting pricing plans. Other methods include stopping free plans and upselling.
Boosting your MRR is a sign your SaaS business is growing. This article will explore these methods in more detail so you can increase the monthly recurring revenue of your SaaS.
1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is an outstanding way to attract potential customers to SaaS firms. While it is crucial to deliver a quality SaaS product, it is also essential to get the attention of your prospective customers on search engine pages by getting the right keywords that will lead people to your website and learn about your product.
Suppose your product or brand appears at the top of the search results. In that case, potential customers will be able to visit your website and learn about your product, which in turn helps create word-of-mouth marketing, raise the traffic volume to your website, and increase the MRR of your SaaS business while reducing costs.
To utilize SEO to boost your MRR, here are the things you need to consider:
- You must consider your goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) in developing your SEO target, so you will have a clear picture of achieving your MRR target.
- Identify your target audience so your SEO strategy can turn them into your customers.
- Learn the SEO strategies used by your direct and indirect competitors.
- List problems and challenges experienced by your prospective customers that your platform can help resolve.
- Produce relevant, helpful content that is longer than your competitors’ and contains the right keywords to direct people to your website.
Where can I learn SEO?
There are a few great places to learn SEO. You need to be careful as there are a lot of bad actors in the space. Here are a few good ones:
2. Advertising
Advertising your SaaS product can also help increase your monthly recurring revenue. So it is vital for businesses providing SaaS to ensure the appropriate marketing strategies, including advertising, are in place to attract potential customers.
Some of the techniques that SaaS businesses can employ through advertising and marketing include:
- Increasing traffic to the website by creating content around topics relevant to the SaaS product and utilizing SEO.
- Investing in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising to attract potential customers and generate leads.
- Promoting your product through email newsletters and social media posts.
Some well-known places to advertise are:
- Google Ads
- Meta ads (Facebook and Instagram)
- TikTok Ads
- Pinterest Ads
- LinkedIn Ads
- Twitter Ads
- Reddit Ads
- Taboola
3. Influencer Marketing
A famous and influential person endorsing your SaaS product can help boost your MRR. A 2016 study has found that influencer marketing can bring 11 times the return of investment compared to other forms of marketing.
This kind of marketing utilizes endorsements and product mentions from people with expertise in a particular topic and a following on social media. The costs for influencer marketing vary from one influencer to another.
Therefore, SaaS firms must identify the appropriate influencer who will carry their SaaS product to users who will be interested in the product. Companies must ensure that the influencer’s followers fit the prospective customers they seek. They should also check if the influencer is familiar and knowledgeable with the SaaS provider’s industry.
4. Networking
SaaS businesses must attend conferences and relevant events to help them develop their businesses and exchange information about the trends in the industry. Some of the topics covered in these events include growth and marketing, user experience (UX) design, product development, and customer success.
These events are also an excellent opportunity to meet potential customers, interact with industry leaders, and foster business relationships.
Some of the important upcoming events that cater to SaaS businesses include:
- INBOUND 22 (September 2022)
- SaaStr Annual Conference (September 2022)
- Mind The Product #mtpcon (October 2022)
- SaaStock (October 2022)
- CES 2023 (January 2023)
- MWC Barcelona (February 2023)
- SXSW (March 2023)
Find out more about the top SaaS events coming up.
5. SaaS Collaboration
Creating a SaaS product that can collaborate with other applications can boost your MRR. It can entice potential customers who are looking for a single application that can cover multiple tasks.
Here are some of the top collaboration tools that people can use:
- Slack
- Zoom
- Trello
- ClickUp
- Link Sorcery
- Atlassian Confluence
- Google Analytics
- Google Drive
- Canva
- Mockplus
- Asana
- Monday.com
- Figma
- Encrypt.me
6. Use of the SaaS Insights app (Shopify SaaS)
Customer insights are essential for any business to improve its products and services. Insights can help companies identify what actions they must take to enhance product development, retain their customer base, and increase their MRR.
Using SaaS insights, you can help your business get information about what customers want to see in your product, which will help you identify the right objectives, resulting in increased MRR and sustainability.
7. Pricing
A SaaS provider must consider their products’ pricing plans. This is because the cost of using a product or service is one of the primary considerations for potential customers.
Increasing your price will also mean an increase in your MRR. However, you must improve your product or service; otherwise, your customers will look for a cheaper alternative which will impact your MRR.
Some of the pricing strategies SaaS companies use include:
- Charging a flat fee for access to your products and services.
- Having more than one price point with different levels of services provided.
- Providing discounts to customers who opt to use your products and services for the long-term.
8. Stopping Free Plans
Free plans are an excellent way to promote your SaaS products to potential customers. However, while you may potentially get a satisfied customer who will purchase a plan, this method does not directly increase your revenue.
Therefore, you may have to decommission your SaaS product’s free plan if you intend to increase your MRR. You can also opt to keep the free plan, but you may have to limit the features and capabilities to boost the promotion of your paid plans.
9. Upselling or Add-ons
You can grow the MRR of your SaaS product by implementing subscription upgrades and introducing add-ons to your products.
You can do this by implementing an automated reminder on your software to inform the users of the benefits of subscriptions or add-ons. And you can also utilize your email list to notify users and customers about software updates and features of paid subscriptions.
You could also show the high-end features on lower plans but show them as greyed out or have a banner saying to upgrade to access this feature.