For many SaaS customers, adding credit card details for a free trial is a frustrating stumbling block, as a lot of them worry about being tied in or forgetting to cancel. Along that same theme, the next section is more social proof in the form of customer stories with a header that boasts how many users they have. If “over 1 million subscribers love Xero” then it’s got to be pretty good, right, but the videos themselves are also a great asset. It would have been easy to show the platform itself and highlight the features, but instead it highlights the benefit of using Xero – the fact that you can focus on what you do best. It’s also just one guy on his own, which is what it must feel like for a lot of small business owners.
They’ve then taken this understanding and applied it throughout their digital presence to ensure the message connects with their audience. Xero crafts their metadata in order to improve visibility potential of being discovered within the YouTube network by those who are on the platform looking at similar content. Small Business Guides – Video content playlist which illustrates the benefits of cloud-based accounting, tutorial and explainer videos of general accounting topics. The use of video is a great opportunity to engage new and existing customers which contributes to organic website visitors, sales and referrals. This also provides another juncture for Xero’s internal team to assist and collect information around customer product behaviours in real-time. Exhibition/Partners – The exhibition for participants is a key highlight of the multi-day conference. Illustrated above, connecting partners and customers within the network is where partnerships turn into fruition.
That’s because when a user gets to the stage of the funnel where they’re looking at price, you want them to hit purchase or trial and not really anything else. A company of Xero’s size must have an array of testimonials and case studies, and I’m sure they could have picked one where the customer was singing the praises of the features alone. The other interesting part is the image they use to visualise the features. It made sense to use icons on the home page to keep it simple, but by using mock ups of the features on this page it gives the user more insight into what the feature does. Remember how an image of the software was the wrong thing to go with on the home page? Someone on the features page wants to know more about what the software does so it’s a good idea to actually show it to them. Together they once again outline what Xero does, who it’s for, and what the benefits are.
Yes, they’re not easy points to get across, but there are cleaner ways to do it. The cheapest option has more text in bold than either of the other two options, making it slightly more noticeable. Maybe it’s a good thing that the eye sees how limited the options are, but I’d rather the user looks to the right as much as possible. Unlike on the home page, Xero hasn’t outlined that the middle option is the most popular. OK, it’s not the most creative approach to CRO but you want the potential “average” customer to know what the “average” customer buys. I don’t love how Xero has displayed the different options here – there’s an awful lot of text on the screen at one time and it’s hard to differentiate between the different packages.
Not only do they showcase their happy customers, they tag them and essentially provide free promotion for each one’s business. Advocating for your customers is just as important as them advocating for you, no matter what size your business is. I double-checked their Messenger presence to see if they have a Chatbot strategy in place and, just like their commenting, it would seem they have someone dedicated to answer those messages as fast as possible .
As users approach the end of the 30 day trial (assuming they still haven’t become a paying customer) Xero offers the user a discount on their first 4 months of use in order to close the sale. Once the user’s trial ends, a more aggressive discount is offered to the user (again assuming the user hasn’t already converted to a paid subscription). To drive urgency, both of these offers use time-based scarcity, expiring just 4-5 days after the users are notified of the offer.
By putting the customer at the centre of your content, you can both attract and retain a network of users. Look to speak to your audience and collect as much valuable data that provides insights into your customers’ journey, so you can hone your marketing strategy across their preferred channels. Accountant tools, Practice manager Xero Practice Manager 2 Accountant tools, Practice manager With Xero Practice Manager, you can seamlessly manage your jobs from start to finish in one system. Trusted by thousands of accountants across the world to efficiently run their practices.Payroll HR Xero Payroll Payroll HR Xero Payroll makes managing staff stress free and helps employers stay compliant. The cloud platform allows you to organise all your business information in one handy place.Bills and expenses Xero Expenses Bills and expenses Save time and admin costs. Capture, track and manage expense claims with easeInvoicing and jobs, Time tracking WorkflowMax 95 Invoicing and jobs, Time tracking A Xero product offering all-in-one workflow. It offers the same features as the Simple Start plan, plus project profitability tracking, inventory tracking, bill management, and a time tracking ability for adding up billable hours.
Meanwhile, a vertical sidebar takes users to more in-depth dashboards dedicated to topics including Workers, Taxes, and Reports. Like QuickBooks, Xero has a function to automatically calculate sales taxes for each invoice, as well as state or city taxes. A tax default can be set for any purchases, and Xero offers an integration with Avalara TrustFile in order to help users file their returns. Xero’s software also lets users map their accounts to different categories of tax form, keeping everything organized. Users can simply download the free Xero Projects app on iOS and Android, using it to record time and costs, as well as seamlessly and automatically feed the data into invoices and reports. All of QuickBooks’ plans let users track their expenses, sorting each one into the correct tax categories.
Add Users
From the moment a user starts watching a video on their site, the Xero marketing team uses Marketo and Brightcove to track how long their watch, where they drop off, and what actions they take next. The Guide is also available as a pdf download, but Xero has still not utilised this opportunity to capture email addresses and nurture these potential customers through an automated email sequence. Rather, they are focused on social media engagement and remarketing.
You’ll see throughout this article how Xero really focus their messaging and imagery across their website and marketing on small businesses. By doing this, they’re making the brand and product more relatable to their target audience, increasing the chance of converting and keeping them as a customer. Instead, Xero recognised the value of their product, and their customers, and decided to expand the product into providing even more value to their target audience – small businesses. We’ve just covered QuickBooks Online (and the QuickBooks Payroll add-on) in this article, but QuickBooks has a huge raft of products available to help businesses with all their accounting needs. To get it, they’ll just need to log in, visit Xero Central, and submit a query. They can then track its progress through a section called “My cases”, which details which specialist is working on it, the current status, and expected response time.
This is an advanced growth link tactic used by SaaS providers like Xero to have their partners advertise that their brand is the preferred platform. This also provides their customers with the ability to advertise their level of investment in their platform i.e Gold Partners, Certified Agency, etc. And as a result of this strategy, accountants and bookkeepers have become brand advocates for Xero.
Small Business
Then there’s the wording of the CTA itself – “Try Xero for free” and “Free trial”. It’s a low commitment action that I would probably want to do if I was interested in becoming a customer of Xero. And if you’re visiting Xero for the first time, you might consider learning more by actually signing up.
A well-rounded and entrepreneurial individual with more than 12 years experience in working with and launching startups, Tam is skilled at managing multiple products simultaneously. With a strong digital marketing background and broad business experience, he’s perfectly suited to head up Web Profit’s marketing initiatives as Head of Growth. I’ve always been a fan of Xero but after delving deeper into how they market themselves my estimation of them has still increased significantly.
High Level Features
Search engine optimisation is one of the ways Xero has been able to increase their discoverability and lead more potential customers to their platform. Accounting software is a big market, with multiple players clawing for their target audiences’ attention. There’s a lot of noise online, making it harder for brands to reach consumers. And it’s not simply enough to have a good product, good ad campaigns or to create compelling content – you must be able to get noticed.
By clicking ‘Get my free guide’ you agree to occasional follow-up emails, from which you can opt-out at any time. Using Xero’s wide range of apps and add ons is a great way to streamline repetitive processes and save yourself some time. Initially, when you’ve input some data, look at your Balance Sheet, Profit And Loss, Aged Receivables, and Aged Payables. Setting up payment reminders and organising your credit control systems can help you to get paid faster. If you are transferring payroll from another system in the middle of the financial year – don’t forget to add the opening balances.
This function allows you to keep payroll costs in one place rather than having to pull in information from a separate system. Another benefit of regular reconciliation is that you’ll be able to use Xero add-on apps much more easily, as your data will be up-to-date. Regularly updated invoices give you a clearer picture of cash flow. With a clear picture of your cash comes the ability to make better business decisions and avoid falling behind on outstanding payments. If you have an accountant, you can seek their help with this decision. However, if you are your own bookkeeper then we recommend using Xero’s default chart of accounts.
In addition, it can also drive retention and advocacy from existing customer bases. Advocacy – They want their customers to BE THE EXPERTS. It’s clearly stated in their community guidelines. Would you most likely become the customer of a product or service by being told by the sales team, or someone who is an actual customer? Xero are putting the power in the hands of the customers’ and partners’ hands – they are building an army of brand advocates to help continue to build the Xero ecosystem. Equipped with this knowledge, they can use this to understand the customer journey, from awareness through to conversion and retention. They can use this data to spark the next conversation and create content that speaks to users on social, or with a new video-centric landing page, or another sales outreach campaign.
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- The QuickBooks Advanced plan costs $150 per month, supporting 25 users.
- “Branded Imagery” is not used on IG – some would argue this point with me but I truly believe branded or “designed” imagery has no place on an organic Instagram strategy .
- For many SaaS customers, adding credit card details for a free trial is a frustrating stumbling block, as a lot of them worry about being tied in or forgetting to cancel.
- I don’t love how Xero has displayed the different options here – there’s an awful lot of text on the screen at one time and it’s hard to differentiate between the different packages.
In the beginning, this approach is really labour intensive because it requires people to be front facing, actively seeking new business relationships. The pay-off for Xero has been that once those relationships were built, they’ve been able to leverage the SEO focused strategy as well as build brand ambassadors. Since Xero already has a lot of reviews on a range of platforms they can either choose one of the sites and use this in the review snippets code and search results.
How Xero Is Using Xerocon As Part Of Their Marketing Strategy
Each needless error has an impact on time and cost by expensive bookkeepers to sort it out. More important is the hassle and unprofessional image it creates with your customers. No need to re-enter your customer, product, tax and order data into Xero. Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
