In the world of SaaS, growth is king. Growing customer numbers quickly and sustainably is the best way to ensure your long-term viability as a business, so it’s no surprise that SaaS companies dedicate significant resources to improving their acquisition strategy. But what comes after you’ve acquired those customers? Well, now that you’ve got customers through your doors, it’s time to keep them engaged and encourage long-term adoption of your product. And the best way to do this is by segmenting your user base and sending targeted messages accordingly. Let's look at four ways segmentation can drive growth in your startup.

Segment your customers by how they use your product

A good place to start is by examining how they use your product. Segmenting customers by how they use your product has several benefits:

  • It can help you spot patterns in the way they interact with your software. For example, in the case of a marketing software, do the users use it primarily for email marketing or also for social media marketing or maybe some entirely different use case that even you didn't think of? It's a wise idea to segment users on the basis of their affinity to a certain feature or use case or maybe groups of those features.
  • It can help you better understand why certain users are leaving or churning at higher rates than others. If one type of user is clearly not getting enough value from using your product as intended but another type seems very happy with what the software offers them, this could be an indication that there are flaws in its design or scope—or simply that it isn't being marketed effectively enough through a sharp messaging.

Create a low-touch onboarding experience to attract the right customers for you

When you start to segment your customers, you can create a low-touch onboarding experience that attracts the right customers for your business. This is true for all types of businesses—from SaaS companies like UserTesting to consumer brands like Nike.

When you create an onboarding experience that's relevant, impactful and at the same time super easy to get started for each segment, you'll find it easier to attract customers who are more likely to succeed, pay, stick around and refer. They're also more likely to become advocates of your brand because they feel like they're part of something special.

Build an onboarding experience that is personalized for your most engaged customers

The most important thing you can do is make sure your new customers have a great experience while onboarding. If they don’t, there’s a good chance they won’t stick around for long.

To supercharge your SaaS growth by increasing customer retention, personalize your onboarding process for each new customer as much as possible. For example, if someone signs up and joins a free trial based on their email address or credit card information (meaning they didn't provide any real profile details), send them an email that looks like this: "Hey John! We're glad you decided to try out our product. I am sure you are going to love features X, Y and Z. Here's a 30-second video to get you started." To be able to tell what those X, Y and Z features are for each segment, you must be looking at the user's on-page behavior, product usage if it applies coupled with demographic and firmographic details.

When people fill out their profiles during registration (or later), show them how to get started with personalized emails like these: "Hey Jane! It looks like you haven't made any predictions yet in our Prediction Market feature. Here's how."

When users are engaged and using your product regularly, take advantage of that by asking questions about their preferences in certain areas of the user interface. For example: "Do you prefer dark themes over light ones? Would you like to move this widget around? We'd love to hear!" This kind of data is gold because it lets you know which UI elements users interact with most often—and what else needs improvement based on user feedback!

Segment your customers by the success metrics that matter to them

Customers want to know how they're doing. They don't care about your growth in revenue or number of users—they care about the success metrics that matter to them. If a customer wants to hit a certain number for their monthly revenue, then you'll want to segment your customers by whether or not they are on track for that target.

You can use segmentation to send these customers a notification when they fall behind on the goal and give them tips on how to get back on track. If they have multiple goals, segmentation allows you to group by any combination of those goals so that you can ensure everyone is getting the attention they need based on their specific needs and interests as well as what stage in the lifecycle they may be at currently.

There are countless ways to segment your customers, whether you’re targeting business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), or any other subset. Segmentation is a valuable tool for any SaaS growth marketer who wants to maximize their reach, engagement, and conversion rates. With the right tools and the right mindset, you can build segments that target specific groups of people, allowing you to offer them exactly what they want when they want it. This will boost everything from your customer retention rate all the way down to how many emails get opened—so if it’s not already in your playbook, what are you waiting for?