SaaS Growth Optimization
Market 8 is a growth marketing agency 100% focused on helping SaaS firms establish their brand and sell more software. Market 8 offers consulting, strategy, and execution of programs to help solve 3 critical problems of scaling SaaS:
Get the message right - Increase your product’s perceived value with the right message, to the right people, at the right time.
Improve close rates - Sell more software by matching your marketing and sales to how your customers buy.
Optimize CAC:LTV - Acquire customers that stick with you for the long term, through cost-effective channels.
Dozens of B2B SAAS firms, from high-growth SaaS firms to enterprise category leaders, have generated millions in additional ARR and lower their Customer Acquisition Cost with the help of Market 8. Market 8 clients range from startups in the traction stage to mature enterprise clients such as Siemens PLM, Lucidchart, and ZynBit.
Focus
Recommended Providers
Portfolio
Siemens PLM, The Entrust Group, Hype Innovation, Ubiq, Raven360, ZynBit,
How Raven re-positioned from Standard LMS to Training-Led Growth
Challenge
Raven360 was a standard LMS struggling to differentiate in a crowded and unsexy space.
They’d previously attempted to move out of this market and into the realm of Sales Readiness but found it hard to stand out.
They needed to change their approach and find a new angle in which to thrive.
Approach
Over a series of workshops, we took them through our positioning framework and dived into the business to find a series of insights that enabled them to reposition themselves.
We found that the biggest ways in which customers get value from Raven360 was by them using the software to solve a problem within the business, rather than simply having a repository or materials.
The central idea became to empower experts by using Raven360 to grow.
Solution
Raven 360's new positioning now informs the way they think and act in terms of marketing and their strategy has shifted to Training-Led Growth (as opposed to product-led growth)
Now when new users come to Raven360 they’re encouraged to use the product as part of their daily workflow to improve onboarding, partnership management, and sales-readiness.
Key Results
- 230% increase in demos
- 30% increase in organic traffic
- 1900% increase in users via Paid Social
Branding and Growth Optimization for ZynBit
Challenge
ZynBit is a SaaS company established in 2017. As a SaaS with a wide range of functionality touching different levels in their clients’ organizations, ZynBit had inconsistencies in their positioning, messaging, and voice. The company needed to develop a comprehensive brand strategy, a stepping stone upon which their whole marketing would be built.
Solution
Market 8 did an in-depth customer research and competitor analysis to understand the market landscape. Developed a brand story, and a messaging architecture identifying unique value propositions and key messages for each key persona. We then helped ZynBit propagate the new message across website pages, advertising campaigns, and collateral content for sales.
Key Results
- Penetration of key enterprise accounts
- 150% Organic traffic
How Effectly Captured 5 new deals using their site
Challenge
Effectly was launching a strategic customer acquisition strategy presenting their solution to prominent company executives in Norway. A well thought out and compelling website that could demonstrate their value to company executives was needed.
Approach
With Effectly needing a website that satisfies its enterprise-level customers, Market 8 had to get involved on a strategic level. In addition to defining the website design, we helped define the company positioning, value propositions, translating advanced features into benefit-driven messaging for buyers, and communicating the value of their consulting services. Then, we evaluated their sales process and made sure that the website fit into their sales workflow.
Solution
The design process followed a solid iterative methodology:
- Conduct qualitative and quantitative analysis
- Identify buyer’s behavior online c. Redefine objectives of key pages
- Draft the revised copy & layout d. Wireframing and user testing
- Final design & development
- Performance measurement against objectives
Key Results
- 5 New Clients
- 6-digits in new ARR
- 600% More organic visits
- 20x Increase in leads
How Cim-Team Increased SQL’s by 700%
Challenge
Cim-Team’s main audience is electrical engineers that need to collaborate across large teams to do electrical design. Cim-Team was getting leads from their website, however, because the website did such a poor job at presenting the software, most buyers would give up their online research and schedule a demo or trial. The issue was that a lot of leads were getting the trial without having an idea of the key software capabilities. As a result, the demo sessions were unproductive and increased the cost of customer acquisition.
Approach
Market 8 implemented its customer-centric methodology to identify what was exactly the expectation of the buyers when reaching key website pages both from campaigns and organic traffic. Then laid out a plan to improve those pages and test assumptions, which resulted in a 7X increase in leads. Key parts of the process included: In-depth buyer’s research Quantitative research Conversion-centered design User experience design
Optimization
As soon as the research process began to uncover areas of improvement, we began an agile process of executing on improvements. Through this process, we identified a long list of possible improvements to key pages on the site, then ranked them by potential impact to the business.
Key Results
- 700% More qualified leads for the sales team
- 400% More site visits
- 4700+ contacts generated
- 4000+ trial and demo requests (SQL’s)
How The Entrust Group Increased Revenue by 7-digits
Challenge
The Entrust Group is a mature company whose website was already delivering results in terms of traffic, leads, and sales before engaging with Market 8. They wanted to improve the quality and quantity of leads and improve marketing’s contribution to sales. They engaged Market 8 to help them run a continuous optimization program.
Approach
We followed a Growth-Driven Design (GDD) approach to making improvements to the site: GDD is a data-driven approach that starts with research which informs an action plan, then prioritizes actions based on the level of impact to the business. Over time, small improvements are made to the copy and design. We identified a series of landing pages that were critical in the user flows and campaigns being run.
Continuous Optimization
As soon as the research process began to uncover areas of improvement, we began an agile process of executing on improvements. Every 8 weeks we select new items to work on, beginning with the ones that have the highest expected positive impact on TEG’s leads and revenue. We also evaluate the results of the action items from the previous 8 weeks, and noted lessons learned that could improve other areas of the website.
Key Results
- 53% Marketing contribution to sales
- 7-digits in additional revenue
- 60% more MQLs
- 2617 Leads generated
Reviews
the project
Full-Service Digital Marketing for B2B Software Company
“They’re able to bring forth ideas and thought strategies that have worked well.”
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
We’re a sales enablement and acceleration software company. We are two companies that have recently merged, and we develop applications that help sales managers and leaders do their jobs better and easier. I’m the director of marketing, so I lead up all of the marketing efforts.
What challenge were you trying to address with Market 8?
We have a small internal team; it’s just me and one other internal marketing manager that works on the demand generation side. With almost a hundred employees and over 4,000 customers, we need to fill many gaps that we weren’t able to do as an internal team.
What was the scope of their involvement?
Market 8 acts in some ways like a CMO for us when we need them to. It goes all the way down to creating blog posts, website updates, Google Ads, and social media.
They also do website design and development work, services around copywriting, email campaigns development, and administrative tasks for marketing automation tools.
The team provides content development services, including written and animated content. They also take on our social campaigns, SEO strategy, and execution.
What is the team composition?
On average, we work with at least 5–6 members of their team weekly.
Depending on the area that we’re tackling for different projects, there might be an individual on their team that we work with specifically for SEO efforts. For launching the social campaign, there might be another member of the team. If we’re looking at a branding type of work, it would be someone else. It just depends on the projects that we have going on.
How did you come to work with Market 8?
Market 8 was referred to us by another customer of theirs. We evaluated several firms in the process. At the end of the day, we felt there was a match between us because they specialize in B2B SaaS businesses, which is what we are as well.
They knew and understood our taxonomies, the way we think about our business, and how customers interact with our products. It’s very different from a B2C or a more consumer-based business. That was one thing that really attracted us to them.
The second reason we hired Market 8 was their approach to making decisions based upon data. That’s something our company is all about. The way they operate matched well with how we operate and the objective and goals for why we developed the product. Their data-driven decision-making process was well aligned with our organization.
How much have you invested with them?
We’ve spent between $75,000–$125,000 on an annual basis.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working with them in October 2018. They do a lot of work for us, and they’re maintaining all of that at the moment.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
We’ve seen a more than 200% increase in terms of web traffic since bringing Market 8 on board. Before their involvement, we didn’t have anyone focused on the work they’re doing. That’s been a huge difference to our business.
We’ve increased our lead channels from one major channel to 4–5; we previously had just one main channel from which we were receiving leads. Now we’ve diversified quite a bit, resulting in an increased lead flow. I don’t know if I could quantify that number off the top of my head looking at year-on-year averages, but the channels have certainly increased.
They’ve been able to mostly deliver any and all services that we’ve ever needed, whether that be brand competitive analysis to boarding the strategic items around that. I would consider them a wholly integrated marketing firm that has lots of different skill sets we could pull from when needed to help the marketing strategy and revenue objectives that we have.
How did Market 8 perform from a project management standpoint?
Market 8 has a nice process in place using the same project management tools that we use internally. They have the Atlassian suite, including JIRA and Confluence. From that standpoint, there’s a nice flow and understanding of how they organize the work. We can very quickly go in and see status updates of what things are like.
We look at Market 8 as a member of our team, so they are on various weekly stand-ups with us. They’ve had some changes on the team and shifted new people, so the process seems to shift and change project by project.
By and large, it’s fairly easy for us to get a sense of what they’re working on and where they’re at with it. They actually brought on someone on the team that specifically manages the project and provides status updates. That’s a good addition to their team in terms of helping us as a client better understand where things are.
What did you find most impressive about them?
Market 8 is the only one I’ve worked with, so it’s hard to say what distinguishes them from others. However, their level of expertise relative to SEO has been very valuable to our business; they’re very knowledgeable in that area.
I would say they’re also very knowledgeable as a B2B SaaS organization — it’s something that sets them apart. Because they only work in organizations like ours, they’re able to bring forth ideas and thought strategies that have worked well and that they’ve done with other clients.
That aspect of the engagement has been really good in that they have good examples and work history that align directly with our business.
Are there any areas they could improve?
Their content development service would be an area for improvement. We’ve had to do a little bit of handholding relative to copywriting and content development, so that would be an area where they could bring in some different skill sets to help.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
Make sure that you spend the time to outline what your core objectives are.
Is your core objective to increase your brand awareness? Is it to increase your lead flow? Is it to develop pieces of content?
Know the core objective that you’re trying to achieve, and focus on that one thing with Market 8 first. If you try to throw too many things in the hat at one time, it’s going to be difficult to quantify and see success in the timeframe that you’re looking for.
Focus on the core objective first so that you and the Market 8 team can understand your business in working together on that objective, and then move on to the next one.
the project
Branding & Digital Strategy for Management Consultant Group
"The website is generating leads, and we are positioned well on Google."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the CEO of Evolutionplan. We are growth experts for IT companies in our region.
What challenge were you trying to address with Market 8?
We were looking for an agency that understands the IT industry to assist with digital marketing.
What was the scope of their involvement?
They have done two projects regarding branding and digital marketing. The first project was to help build our website, developing a new story. They gave us the structure for block strategy and helped with content strategy. Recently, they did a project to extend, redefine, and shape our story to include our mergers and acquisitions which have been added to our business model.
At the start of the engagement, they looked over the website and came back with a completely new approach to redefine our story. They also defined two subpages for company owners and investors.
They also reshaped the entire internet presence for our new story and helped us add a subplane under our main logo, to fit as we expand internationally.
What is the team composition?
We worked with a core team of two people: Eduardo (CEO), and Matthew (Growth Strategist) who was the project manager.
How did you come to work with Market 8?
A good friend of mine recommended them to me after working on a project with them. I was impressed by the structure of their company.
How much have you invested with them?
We invested between $40,000–$50,000.
What is the status of this engagement?
We worked together Summer 2013 –December 2014, and again October 2019–January 2020.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
The website is generating leads, and we are positioned well on Google. We have already received our first request regarding M&A, which is what we were hoping for.
We were able to generate six-figure revenue as a result of the work done by Market 8.
How did Market 8 perform from a project management standpoint?
They did a great job. Matthew brings a lot of IT experience and is very polite while still pushing for deadlines to be met. We used Bootcamp in the first project and Jira in the most recent one.
What did you find most impressive about them?
They understand the IT industry, have a clear understanding of how to manage a positioning and website project based on templates, and use innovative tools for fast communication. For example, when they do UX design, they have a software platform that we can put comments into for them to see and make adjustments. They are also able to work around the globe.
Are there any areas they could improve?
I would recommend they use fewer tools, maybe only one or two.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
They are a remote team, so there is no need to worry about travel time or on-site meetings. You have structure and control over the project, and will get outcomes quickly.
the project
Web Dev & Market Strategy for SaaS Platform
"It’s very clear that Market 8 wants to see the people they work with succeed."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m a co-founder of PipeGen.ai, a SaaS company.
What challenge were you trying to address with Market 8?
We hired them to address our go-to-market positioning and website.
What was the scope of their involvement?
The main key deliverable was to get someone to come in and teach us what we need to do. I was looking for a partnership. After that came all the web pages, positioning, market research on competitors, and graphic design. But the big thing for me was a partner to advise me on strategy. Market 8 taught us what quality looks like.
Market 8 built the site in the HubSpot CMS. It has different anchor links, hooks, high-level SEO, and automated demo scheduling. The team did a deep dive on the pricing page and created an advanced pricing model with sliders and a lot of features and functions behind that. They also spent a lot of time on the messaging and copy of the actual website.
What is the team composition?
We have a dedicated growth specialist and 5–6 people who work below them. We communicate every other day. Eduardo (CEO and Founder) is involved once a month in our conversations.
How did you come to work with Market 8?
I found them online. They stood out to me because of the processes in place that they marketed. They’re dedicated to SaaS startups and extremely process-driven, which I liked.
How much have you invested with them?
We’ve spent about $20,000.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started in January 2020 and it took 2–3 months to develop the website. It launches today, but the partnership is still ongoing. The next step is to have Market 8 support us in onboarding our products to the site and then do some digital marketing and content creation.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
I have no metrics right now because the site just is about to launch. However, I’ve gotten extremely positive feedback from people I’ve shown the site to in beta testing. It leapfrogs my competitors in the industry.
How did Market 8 perform from a project management standpoint?
They’re very tight and directly on point. Any delays have come on my side because my team couldn’t launch as soon as possible.
We’ve done everything in Jira. It’s very transparent: I can go to Jira, look at any task on our board, and make comments. I’m a hands-on player in the whole process, which I really enjoy.
What did you find most impressive about them?
Their knowledge base impresses me: they really know SaaS and tech startups. Their copy is on point as well; they helped me figure out the buyer’s onboarding journey and how to craft our funnels. The design is phenomenal, too.
What stood out the most to me is that when I came to them with a generic pricing page, they pushed back on me really hard. They instead came up with a solution that added two weeks to development time but didn’t cost me extra; they ate the cost themselves. It’s very clear that Market 8 wants to see the people they work with succeed.
Are there any areas they could improve?
Honestly, I don’t think so. Market 8 really delivered. We’re going to keep working with this team.
Any advice for potential customers?
Be extremely open to their feedback and have a dialogue. Don’t just hand them a statement of work; treat this like a partnership where they bring value to the table and educate you on what works and doesn’t work in the market. Market 8 does want you to be successful.
the project
Marketing Strategy for Corporate Learning Management System
“Their level of execution is truly above and beyond the standard for their industry.”
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I am the CEO of Raven360, and we are a corporate learning management system.
What challenge were you trying to address with Market 8?
We were trying to pivot our company to a new marketing and messaging in order to gain a better market presence and generate more inbound leads.
What was the scope of their involvement?
They worked with us to create an overall marketing strategy, which included new messaging and personas to sell into as well as a new website, blog, and digital podcast. From there, we set up a Google AdWords campaign and social media advertisements to link back to the new content we had created.
What is the team composition?
I’ve worked with about 6 people from their team.
How did you come to work with Market 8?
They were introduced to us by a third-party outsourced CMO. He put us in contact with a couple different types of marketing agencies, and I have worked with several different agencies throughout my career, so I knew what to look for. We interviewed them and talked about how they could help, and Market 8 seemed like the best fit for us.
How much have you invested with them?
In total, the project has cost about $200,000 so far.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working together in October 2018 and are continuing to do so today.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
They have completely transformed both the quality and quantity of our online presence. Our messaging is crisper and more concise, the look and feel of our website is more modern and engaging, and we were able to move from feature-based content to value-based and problem-solving content instead.
We have received a lot of very positive feedback regarding all the content we created with them, and our inbound leads have significantly increased as a result.
How did Market 8 perform from a project management standpoint?
They do a great job of managing all of our work together. They are organized, creative, and one of the easiest outsourcing agencies I’ve ever worked with in my career.
What did you find most impressive about them?
Their level of execution is truly above and beyond the standard for their industry. They say what they’re going to do again and again, they always measure themselves accurately against deliverables, and they provide completely reliable high-level work.
Are there any areas they could improve?
I honestly don’t have any improvements in mind. They’ve been great and continuously improved their metrics as they came up to speed on the project.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
Make sure that you have a dedicated liaison and marketing person in your organization to work with them on a full-time basis. We have at times been spread a little thin and not able to provide them the feedback or materials that they need as quickly as we would like, so maintaining that level of prioritization could be very helpful.
Since Market 8’s involvement, the company’s web traffic has increased significantly. Their lead flows have risen, as well as the number of their lead channels. The team has been leading a smooth workflow, using the same tools as the client, and adjusting their workforce to accommodate the client.