How Do I Promote My SaaS LTD Campaign?

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You’ve finished your software and you’re now ready to promote it. It’s about time that you look into the different options to spread the word about your product.

The good news is that there is plenty of room for growth in the Saas sector which is projected to become worth more than $60 billion by 2023.

The problem is the stiff competition that you are facing. There are a lot of SaaS companies offering similar features to your software.

One way that you can promote your software is through a Lifetime Deal (LTD) campaign. This article will go through the different ways to promote your Saas LTD.

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What is a Lifetime Deal?

How Do I Promote My Lifetime Deal Campaign

SaaS LTD Campaign Success Stories

How Do I Promote My SaaS LTD Campaign and Make Money?

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What is a Lifetime Deal?

Before we go any further, it’s essential to go back to the basics and discuss what an LTD is.

Normally, SaaS companies charge their clients a monthly subscription fee. They will get access to the software during the period covered by the subscription.

With an LTD, the customers will just pay a one-time fee that will give them perpetual access to the software. Some SaaS providers even give lifetime customers extra capabilities that aren’t available to the general public. Because of this, lifetime subscriptions are an excellent investment for SaaS users.

Benefits of an LTD

The customers who get the LTD will gain benefits as the software becomes more popular. Their savings will grow as the value of the software increases.

But Saas companies also benefit from running an LTD. It’s a great way to inject cash into a struggling startup. When customers see that software is really good, they will not hesitate to get a lifetime deal.

Those customers will also be helpful when it comes to providing feedback. There will always be glitches and bugs when developing software. And it’s next to impossible to identify all of those

The only way to find them all is by using the software, and the early adopters buying your LTD can provide useful information that developers can use.

Other SaaS companies use an LTD campaign as a marketing tool. It can be a beneficial way of building a loyal customer base that will draw users. A campaign like that will attract people who might become interested in using it.

Drawbacks of an LTD Campaign

While running an LTD campaign has some undeniable benefits, there are a few drawbacks as well. First of all, you will be required to provide customer support to all those who will sign up for your LTD long after you have ceased making money from them.

The price of an LTD is usually computed based on the projected average time that a customer will use your software.

Let’s say that period is two years.

When a customer who signs up for your Saas ends up staying and using your software for five years, you’ll be losing a lot of money. If you have to provide extensive customer support to them, the cost goes higher.

Many LTD campaigns are run on platforms like AppSumo.

Those platforms are perfect for promoting software or app because they draw high-quality traffic. The problem is that those platforms will get the majority of the proceeds from the sales.

The split can be as high as 70/30, with 70% going to the platforms.

In other words, you will be losing money right from the start, and it won’t matter if you sell a lot of your lifetime deals. It’s already a problem that you will not get 100% of your sales, but there is also the fact that running an LTD campaign will force you on a growth urgency.

What does that mean? It means you need to start growing immediately to pay for the cost of all your LTD subscribers.

Make no mistake about it, lifetime deals can be very beneficial, but it comes with a price. You need to be conscious of that cost before signing up for anything.

How Do I Promote My Lifetime Deal Campaign

While an LTD campaign has its downsides, it has some undeniable benefits.

Besides, if you’re running a startup and you’re low on cash to continue your operations, you may have no choice anyway. You might be forced to run that LTD campaign just to get enough money to finish your project.

As such, if you’re wondering, “how do I promote my lifetime deal campaign?” Here are a few ideas that you can use.

Determine the offer
Pick the platform
Determine when to stop
Join groups on social media
Affiliate marketing
Influencer marketing

Determine the Offer

There are several lifetime deal variations. The most basic one, of course, is to ask for a one-time payment and then give your customers perpetual access to your software.

But having that sort of deal would open up problems for you in the long run.

You can also have variations in how your deal is offered, like giving perpetual access to limited features. If the customer decides to upgrade, they will have to pay for the subscription.

The pricing is another matter.

A simple way of getting that is by multiplying the cost of your monthly subscription by the average time that a customer will use your software. If someone’s average time using your app is 24 months and your monthly subscription is $10, you can set your LTD at $240.

That’s a relatively simple way of determining the price, but it should give you an idea about the many factors that should be considered when finalizing the offer for your LTD.

Pick the Platform

After you have determined the price of your offer, the next thing to do is to pick the platform or platforms where you will offer your LTD. AppSumo was mentioned earlier, and you should consider it because it has a considerable following.

It is a recognized authority when it comes to SaaS offers. In other words, the people looking for the kind of software you have are probably there.

AppSumo is a site that offers mostly B2B deals for digital products. You sign up there and agree to the terms and conditions, including the split on the sales that we have mentioned.

The great thing about the AppSumo platform is you don’t have to do promotions there. People will find you and sign up for your deal because they need your service.

Determine When to Stop

You cannot run an LTD campaign for a long time. It removes the exclusivity of the offer, which decreases the value of the software in the eyes of the users. Also, running the LTD campaign for too long can burden you with more LTD clients than you can support.

Remember, you will not be making money from your LTD clients after a certain period.

So, you need to know when to stop your LTD campaign. You’re probably wondering how long lifetime access actually lasts. It’s usually taken into account for the product’s lifespan, not yours or the customer’s.

Fortunately, your terms of service allow you to limit the duration of your lifetime access. You can pick a time frame that appears generous but is also feasible for your product. One year to three years are unlikely to persuade them to purchase LTD access. Five years may.

Join Groups on Social Media

A helpful idea that you can use when promoting an LTD campaign is to join relevant social media groups. Suppose you have developed software that can help small businesses organize their inventory. In that case, you can look for social media groups where small business owners are. On Facebook, for instance, some of the groups you can join are SaaS Growth Hacks, SaaS Products & Marketing, SaaS marketing automation, and more.

LinkedIn is the best social media platform that you can use to promote your LTD offer. You don’t need a glitzy social media campaign to catch people’s attention. It is enough that you make the features of your product clear and what the terms of your LTD are.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is another helpful model that you can use to promote your LTD campaign. Under this model, people who will promote your LTD and your affiliates will get a commission for each sale that they generate. It is relatively easy to set up an affiliate program on your website.

The great thing about affiliate marketing is that other people will be doing the work for you. They will be the ones spreading the word about your offer.

Influencer Marketing

Another helpful marketing method is influencer marketing.

Now, this method might not work for all types of SaaS companies. It will really depend on the kind of product you have. If your software is meant to be used by businesses for accounting, then influencer marketing might not be very effective in promoting an LTD for it.

But influencer marketing can be a very effective means of promoting your LTD campaign, provided you pick the right influencer.

Someone who is a big name in the industry where your application is used is a good choice. You are basically tapping into an existing audience, and the influencer’s credibility should help your sales.

Influencer marketing works. In fact, 90% of survey respondents said that they believe that influencer marketing is effective.

SaaS LTD Campaign Success Stories

But is there any assurance that running an LTD campaign will succeed? Can it bring in the money or the exposure that you need?

There is no assurance, but it’s good to hear a few success stories of SaaS companies that ran LTD campaigns and how they benefited from those.

Here are a few success stories that you should know about.

Juphy

Juphy is a tool for customer support. It basically brings all the messages in one inbox allowing for easier access and faster response. The company created an LTD campaign and hit the goals they were aiming for. Here are some of the results of their LTD campaign:

The campaign generated $35,000 from over 327 users when they promoted the campaign on their own.
After launching on AppSumo, they gained over 1600 new users.
They were able to build a solid and loyal community of users.

In the case of Juphy, the campaign resulted in creating brand awareness for them.

HockeyStack

HockeyStack is an analytics tool that ran an LTD campaign. That campaign gave them the following results:

They got 1900 new users for the tool.
They were able to generate $130K in total revenue.
It also allowed them to find bugs in the system, which they missed when testing the tool.

These are just some of the good things that HockeyStack was able to get from running an LTD campaign. The one downside that they reported is that the whole campaign placed tremendous pressure on the support.

Sertifier

Sertifier is a tool for making smart certificates. They ran an LTD campaign on AppSumo, which produced some interesting results.

The company was able to gain 244 new customers during its LTD campaign.
They generated $44,000 in total revenue.
It helped them to create a better user experience and a more robust product roadmap.

If there is a downside to the LTD campaign of Sertifier, it was the demoralization the support team experienced because of the harsh negative feedback from some of the early users.

These are just some of the companies that tried to run an LTD campaign. And there are many other firms that have experienced growth using this method. But that’s not always the case, because sometimes the campaign will bring in more problems than it can resolve.

One example of a startup that didn’t hit its LTD goal is MoovBuddy, an exercise app.

They launched their LTD campaign on AppSumo.

Unfortunately, the campaign only generated $1,000 in revenue while gaining 50 users. That revenue will not pay for the support that all those users will require down the line.