Hello Lee.
Ok, well you are not the first, Google Custom Software as a Service, which is what yours is. So, I am not sure why it was called something that does not use a derivative of a well-used and understood term.
I checked out your site:
· The cheesy group photo needs to go, doesn’t work because it doesn’t mean anything, doesn’t convey anything, just looks like a diamonds heist; the heist went well, but not the diamonds part.
· The world’s first etc, etc, irrelevant self-promotion, you are not important, your customers are. This is where your UVP goes, do you have one?
· Scrolling down I come to Bespoke Software, Save £££’s, and 90 Day Free Trial. What is the problem you seek to alleviate? For what reason would someone want bespoke software? There is no mention of this at all, for you have assumed that they come to your site already knowing they need bespoke software. When and why do people need software, this is the first thing, then when and why do people need custom software. Third, why do people not go for custom software.
· “Cost is no longer an object!” this can be phrased better.
· I continued scrolling down your site, you, you, you. This needs serious work on. I am also struggling to see benefits, just features. You think that as you offer the 90 days with no credit card people will bite, as once they see how great everything goes, they will be customers, what data is this based on?
But there is no incentive at all to waste one’s time with the 90 day trial as you are not speaking to your audience clearly at all. It’s not the trial, it’s not the price, it’s the alleviation of problem, of value that will get you your customers. You know this which is why you offer the 90 day trial, but value has to be shown in order to even get them interested in the trial.
· The SEO and all that stuff, should not take so much billing, focus and refine the core message for the core business for the core customers
· From the text on the bottom about a full-featured CRM ready to go, that can then be customised, tailored, extended; I can’t recollect a CRM company that does this in the UK, although I know a UK company that does a full ERP system, base model, customized, tailored and extended to suit, so another reason to cut out we are the world’s first.
· By the way what analytics are on the site?
Facebook and social media is a slow process, as a B2B one has to put serious time and effort into it, and in most cases for clients who want quick figures, it is low down on the list, for it is a slow-burner.
Google Adwords & Bing: not enough data, maybe your ads are enticing but the landing page has issues, maybe your settings are not honed in enough on the buyers, maybe you targeted SME and said get a custom software solution, etc, etc.
You’ve got a client, congratulations, always a serious buzz when you get the first one, or one who pays a tidy sum. Talk to them, why did they choose you, what value have you brought to them, what problems did you alleviate (generalised and core), etc.
Your stage 1 could be problematic and a serious bottleneck down the line, not to mention how many trials can you give out, 60 days to build it, 30 days to refine and then they say no. I would say you need your sales funnel sorting out, friction, leakage, automate, make something once use again and again to take out the manual labour involved as much as possible, lack of incentivisation, lack of collecting emails, your CTA at the bottom of the page is absolutely appalling, I could go on, but too much analysis can come across as a tad offensive.
You need some starting points, that point is the problem. What is the problem? The fact is the problem is too big, to narrow down in anyway other than generic terms which become too abstract and lack the insight needed to be conveyed to the target audience, in order for them to think, damn this guy knows what I am going through.
So the choice is either provide more information on the generic stance, or from the generic stance hone in on certain problems, could be the low hanging fruit, could be the company who is paying you 54k pa, etc.
I would say you need to hone in on certain sections of the target audience for initial traction and growth, or specific pages and landing pages for specific target audience. You cater to everybody, you fill nobody. Once you get traction, you can then extend into obvious business areas. Which means you need to do some market research, who in the market uses out-of-the-box one size fits all, etc, etc, who are not happy with it, who need more from it? They are your audience. No point saying we are for SME, doesn’t actually mean anything as it is too big too vast, so you just end up talking in a way that people think, this company lacks insight into my problem.
The other thing is, time and again, I come across situations where a target audience doesn’t even know it has a problem, or thinks the problem isn’t that bad, or they have got accustomed to putting up with the problem and see it as par for the course. Frankly, you need to start from the beginning, anything else is just putting things onto a foundation that may well be incorrect. Stop trying to be everything to everyone, you may say no you are not, I would say from the language on the site, that yes you are. However don’t take my word for it, based on experience and instinct just gives a bit of weight to one’s words, and don’t count for Jack in the face of data, so you need to collect data.
I would also say, that thankfully you do see you are biased; that has come in the way of the message, the brand position, the target audience honing in on, lack of validation on many things, etc, etc.
My strongest recommendation is as already mentioned, start from the top, find segments within the audience that have the greatest problems with out of the box, these are your first customers; find out why you need to exist in your customers eyes, the data, at least what you have shared shows what is currently in place is not working. However you will also need to take into account you need money coming in, so you will need to find someone how can extrapolate and correlate multiple threads and is fluid in terms of creating what will bring money in, in the short term, and yet also sort out everything from the foundations up.
You also need to sort out some target personas, I would assume that with the SME you are targeting there will be a few employees, some that have greater insight into the problem than others, and yet the one who has the greatest insight, may not be the one who authorises financial expenditure. Mate, there are so many areas you need to cover, and my post itself lacks structure in terms of how to approach it, hahah.
Personally I think your actual business is needed, there are only a few CSaaS that I know of, but your marketing seems to have no strategy, no objectivity, no plan, and is just a bit of this, and a bit of that.
My regards, Ace.
