You need to validate your SaaS product before launching it to ensure that it’s needed and valued by users. Gaining insights before its launch will also help you differentiate your application from your competition to increase the likelihood that you can gain market share quickly.

Validate your idea to ensure it works with these tactics that also can be used to help launch your SaaS product.

1. Develop a clickable prototype and conduct user testing.

Engaging in user testing with a clickable prototype will help you gain user feedback in the early stages, including its demand. Your company can easily do this by sending out a simple survey to potential users, facilitated by email lists of past customer or email lists generated from the other marketing initiatives mentioned in this blog post. Develop the survey to include questions that will garner key insights from targeted users about their needs, the demand for the product and feedback on the prototype’s functionality.

2. Offer early access to users via a landing page.

Generate interest and awareness of your soon-to-launch SaaS product by adding a landing page to your website that includes an option for visitors to sign up for early access and updates like the example below.

Doing this will help you determine if there is interest in your idea before you launch your product. This email list can also be used for conducting surveys and user testing.

3. Grant early access to existing customers via social media and email announcements.

If you already have social media presences and an email list, you can offer early access to your existing customer base or those that are interested in your company and its offering by promoting your product through social media and email announcements. Building your audiences on these channels prior to launch will only add to your success in gaining new users quickly and generating buzz.

4. Host a webinar in partnership with another company to discuss topics related to your product.

You can also leverage a partner’s audience to help validate your idea and launch your SaaS product. Look for a partnership where you’re targeting the same type of users, but there’s also little to no competition. Develop a joint webinar that addresses topics relevant to your product and the audience. Make sure to include a live demo of your offering, whether it’s a clickable prototype, a minimum viable product (MVP) or beta version of your SaaS application.

5. Generate interest in your SaaS product with video testimonials.

Create short, simple video testimonials to generate interest in your SaaS product and provide social proof to encourage viewers to become early adopters. These videos should highlight users sharing their stories on camera, touching on why they chose your SaaS product and how it’s improved their work or life. Use these video testimonials when launching your product, too. This social proof will encourage users to purchase the SaaS tool when it’s available. While it’s on the longer side, this video testimonial for Slack does a fantastic job of highlighting why one company chose the platform and how it helps their company.

6. Generate interest in your SaaS product with video testimonials.

Create short, simple video testimonials to generate interest in your SaaS product and provide social proof to encourage viewers to become early adopters. These videos should highlight users sharing their stories on camera, touching on why they chose your SaaS product and how it’s improved their work or life. Use these video testimonials when launching your product, too. This social proof will encourage users to purchase the SaaS tool when it’s available. While it’s on the longer side, this video testimonial for Slack does a fantastic job of highlighting why one company chose the platform and how it helps their company.

7. Introduce your product with an introductory or explainer video from your CEO.

Humanize your product by having your CEO explain why the product was developed, emphasizing what problem it solves. The video can then highlight your product’s details, showing screen captures of the SaaS application or recorded demos. Views and other video engagement metrics can provide insight into early interest. Leverage this asset in conjunction with the other tactics in this blog post, such as a landing page, social media posts, email announcements and PR outreach.

8. Use social ads to validate, promote and test your product.

You can reach targeted users by placing cost-effective ads on social media platforms that hone in on key demographic, behavioral or interest-based criteria. You can advertise your landing page, encouraging this audience to sign up for early access, or you can promote some of these other ideas, such as surveys, webinars, testimonials or explainer videos. While these campaigns often can be launched with a small budget of $100 or less, you can also use social media platforms’ campaign builder tools to validate your idea. Leverage these tools to determine the estimated audience size by using specific targeting mechanisms that align with your target market to gain insights into the volume of your product’s likely user base. If there are a significant number of people on social media sites who would likely be interested in your SaaS solution, that will serve as a strong indicator that there’s a market for your idea.

9. Gather feedback and generate interest via Product Hunt.

We also recommend list your product on Product Hunt, which is a helpful channel that allows you to reach fellow entrepreneurs, product developers and designers. Using this platform, you will not only receive insightful feedback from other professionals, but you can also generate interest and reach potential users.

10. Generate press coverage with PromoteHour.

Hiring a PR agency can be a significant investment, especially if you’re still validating your product. Generate buzz before launching your company’s SaaS application by teasing its release in the press for a fraction of a PR partner’s fee with Promotehour.

With this service, you can access a tailored list of more than 100 targeted journalists’ verified email addresses for $49, and $150 more will get you a step-by-step guide, a press release, an email pitch template, and ideas for PR angles.

With the market for SaaS products growing and consumer demand for these useful tools increasing, there are many opportunities for companies to build SaaS applications. However, developing these products can be a significant expenditure for any company, so it’s essential to validate your idea before committing financial resources to its production. Taking the time to do this research will ensure that you’re making the right investment and that you can successfully launch your SaaS product when it’s ready.

At Geekbears, we take an end-to-end approach of validating and testing SaaS applications. This starts with validation and user testing via a clickable prototype, progresses to either closed/internal or beta releases, and then shifts to continued testing using analytics tools like Mixpanel and Google Analytics to monitor traffic patterns and traction.