This a concept that every marketer faces, but I think smaller SaaS marketers feel it especially acutely for reasons I’ll dig into in a moment. The idea is simply this:
There is a limit to how much information a SaaS marketer should give a potential user.
At some point, you pass some peak level of information. After that, more information is only going to hurt your chances of getting them to click “register” or fill out that lead form. In fact, if you thought about this idea on a long walk like I did, you could probably apply some general buckets to these areas of the curve to better explain what is happening at each phase.
- You start out with your core: “We can do the thing you’re looking for.”
- They you ramp it up with some differentiators. “We can do things nobody else can.”
- Likelihoods start to level off as we get to parity, “We can also do what others do.”
- Finally are detractors, “We wish these things didn’t exist.”
When you look at this chart that I totally didn’t draw on my touchscreen Chromebook in 60 seconds (sadly it took closer to 5 minutes) you start to visually see the question I started with:
Where do you draw the line and stop giving someone more information?
There are four things that are worthy of exploring as we think on that question.
1. Humans vs Non-Humans
The first is that, generally speaking, humans are better at giving information to other humans than non-humans are (like websites).
This may change one day thanks to AI, but a website simply can’t understand and adapt to a humans individual needs like a good salesperson can. But salespeople are expensive, they can’t interact with every single person in the market individually. There has to be a balance which, to my point above, is another way to say you have to draw a line.
2. Self Service vs Lead Gen
Which leads to a key point: because some smaller SaaS platforms are more self service. They don’t rely on a sales team to close deals, their audience has to make this decision all on their own.
For a simple product? Maybe just a few details will suffice. More complex? That could be a lot of info. For enterprise, however, you’re not selling the product you’re just selling the idea enough to get them to talk to a human. And that, in my experience, usually don’t take much info.
3. Slope Matters
But there’s another point that I think is interesting which is the perception of your audience about where they are on the curve.
For example, if you’ve just dropped three big differentiators then they likely feel that positive momentum. For all they know there could be another 3 of those ready to knock their socks off. If, however, you’re working through the plateau of parity? They can probably feel that too. If I’m going to ask some to act, I want to do it with as much momentum as possible.
4. So Does Maintenance
Marketing, however, doesn’t write (or update) itself. And smaller SaaS platforms are typically have smaller teams wearing a lot of hats.
Which means that every page on your website you build also has to be updated when that screenshot is out of date or you find a better way to say things or that testimonial can’t be used because the client left or…you get the idea. Every hour you spend updating some page that 12 people saw last year is an hour you’re not doing something more impactful.
I Err on the Side of Less
When I’m writing copy for the smaller SaaS products I’ve marketed, I’ve found that brevity is my friend:
- It’s easier to create so I can focus all my storytelling powers on the differentiators
- It’s easier to maintain, which means I have time for other efforts
- It keeps the prospect on the upslope so they feel momentum around my story
- It saves parity and detractors for a human who can better handle their nuance
- It aligns with the short attention spans we find in virtually every modern audience
It’s always tempting to keep telling the story, to add one more feature, to go further up the curve, to really try to drive that point home or nail them with that clever line you love…
…but…
…at least for me, when in doubt? I say less.
