Gauging The Mobile Sophistication of a Target Account 

In my previous post, I discussed what precisely mobile SaaS sales is. In essence, it’s selling technologies and services (e.g. mobile analytics, push notifications, data storage) to companies who build mobile apps. In this post, I want to discuss an essential aspect of selling in mobile, which is gauging the mobile sophistication of a target account.

Mobile has only been around for ten years. In comparison, PC’s have been around for 4x as long, and browsers for 2.5x. Naturally, companies are at varying degrees of mobile sophistication. Some have entirely embraced mobile (e.g. 85% of Facebook’s ad revenue is from now from a mobile), while others are just starting to dip their toes.

Selling to these two different customer profiles requires two completely different approaches.

As an exercise, let’s look at data pulled from MightySignal for two different apps.

Exhibit A

Selling to Exhibit A

Let’s say you are hypothetically selling an A/B testing software to Exhibit A. Your approach needs to take into account that this company is high in mobile sophistication. They’ve tried many SDKs from many different vendors: Tune for ad attribution, Adobe, and Swrve for mobile marketing, New Relic for performance management, Branch for deep-linking, and Foresee for voice-of-customer, to name a few. They’ve removed a swath of SDKs as well. This account is likely familiar with the nuances of user acquisition, segmentation, and marketing, so your pitch should assume as such. Also, this account already has an SDK embedded that offers A/B Testing. They’ve even tried another SDK, Apptimize, before and removed it. You’ll want to understand quickly whether they are using Swrve’s A/B testing functionality because it offers a suite of marketing solutions; and, you should emphasize not only the power of A/B testing but why your solution is better that Swrve’s which is already embedded.

In general, even if you aren’t selling an A/B testing solution, your strategy selling to this company needs to account for the fact that they are pretty far along in the mobile sophistication curve and familiar with many of the tools out there.

Exhibit B

Selling to Exhibit B

Let’s say hypothetically you are now a sales rep who comes across Exhibit B. In this case, it’s probably more productive if you do not engage at all, and instead, add this account into a nurture list until they become more serious about mobile. This company has invested in no mobile architecture and is likely very low on mobile sophistication. If hypothetically this account were assigned to you as a target account, and you had to engage, the first step would be to understand if this app is even a priority for them, and if so, what the first milestones for it are. What you should not do is assume they know the nuances of A/B testing, or even has enough users for statistical significance. Regardless of the solution, you are selling to this account, they are starting from square 1 in mobile, and will likely need a lot of hand-holding and education.

Cues for Mobile Sophistication

SDK data is only one data point to gauge mobile sophistication. Other signals can include the number of people working on the app, the number of users on the app, how often the app is updated, and more. All of this data are cues for you to gauge mobile sophistication, and leverage in your mobile SaaS sales strategy.