As part of the ritual of examining local commerce and SMB Saas strategies, Localogy goes right to the source: SMBs themselves. How do they feel about marketing and operational software? What features do they want? And how has their hunger changed in a pandemic? This is all a moving target.
Localogy’s Modern Commerce Monitor (MCM) answers these and other questions across the SMB SaaS product set, which we preview in this Benchmark Bytes series. And we recently entered a new chapter of this series, with highlights from the latest wave (8.0) of Modern Commerce Monitor.
After examining the degree to which SaaS tools free up SMBs for revenue-generating activities, last week, we switch gears to examine the biggest benefits they gain from SaaS. Are they saving money? Boosting revenue? Improving customer satisfaction? These are key selling points for SMB Saas.
Data Dive
– Diving in, the top reported benefit (53%) among SMBs who switched to SaaS was saving money.
– This speaks to SaaS ability to fulfill key business functions in ways that are more streamlined (and cheaper) than legacy methods.
– It also speaks to SaaS monthly pricing, as the perception of value to SMBs is greater because payments are spread out (as opposed to upfront software pricing models that pre-date SaaS).
– The second highest-rated SaaS benefit among SMBs (46%) is being able to spend more time with customers.
– This gets back to last week’s Benchmark Bytes installation that examined SaaS’ ability to free up busy SMBs for revenue-generating activities. In this case, customer face time is a highly-valued benefit.
– Going further down the list, gaining more capabilities resonated with 36 percent of SMBs.
– This benefit continues to be a hallmark of SaaS tools, as unlocking previously-unavailable functions is a top adoption driver.
– Other top responses from SMBs include improved customer satisfaction (23 percent), increased revenue (23 percent), unlocking new customer segments (19 percent) and reducing errors (18 percent).
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Long-Tail Opportunity
Stepping back, SMB online marketing – as well as operational and fintech tools – continues to grow rapidly. SMB SaaS startups and online services providers are correspondingly thriving as it continues to grow as a leading subsector of the broader SaaS universe. There’s a long-tail opportunity at play.
Meanwhile, new SMB SaaS users could represent permanent adopters – a concept that accelerated in the Covid era as SMBs were forced into digital transformation. This sent them into the arms of SaaS providers (where many have stayed) to accomplish a range of marketing and operational functions.
We’ll return in the next installment to go deeper into Localogy original survey research. That will include SMB goals and success factors. Let us know what additional insights jump out at you from the above data, and stay tuned for more breakdowns in our Benchmark Bytes series.
