How Envoice learned to succeed in global SaaS marketing [Case Study]
I am proud to present Envoice and their CEO - Jaanus Põder. They were one of my earliest clients and I’m really excited to share their success story.
Company: Envoice
Industry: Accounting & Bookkeeping
Team: 10+ people
Location: Tallinn, Estonia
Services Ott provided:
Consulting, SaaS growth marketing roadmap, workshop
Envoice as a SaaS does something that every company needs - they automate the arduous process of bookkeeping. Their AI powered software extracts data from your purchase invoices or receipts and organizes them into a neat expense report.
Jaanus Põder - CEO
He is enthusiastic, systematic and motivating - all the right characteristics to build a successful company.
Envoice was founded by Jaanus Põder, a serial entrepreneur who has been involved in several tech companies already from early 2000´s. Jaanus as a person has all the right characteristics you need to be a successful founder and a CEO.
He is enthusiastic and seems to have an endless amount of energy. At the same time, he is very systematic in his approach to running a business and has much needed recruiting skills. It has been an absolute pleasure working with him and the Envoice team.
Why Envoice needed help in marketing?
By January 2021, Envoice had built an amazing tool and already market tested it on their home market - Estonia. Their main marketing tool was word of mouth, which is a real testament how great their product is.
Their SaaS solution was ready to scale on a global level.
Back then, they had done some marketing experiments like visiting conferences, online ads and radio marketing on the local market. Nevertheless, there was no systemized effort. They needed help.
"We understood with our team that we are focusing too much on building the product and not on sales and marketing. We understood that this area is so important that doing marketing can't be a side project for one of the core teammates, but a full-time job and effort" said Jaanus.
They began to look for a full-time CMO who would help Envoice to:
map out the necessary activities to succeed as a global SaaS
create a marketing plan
start executing in a few key areas and outsource the rest
"We the founders didn't actually know what was needed to succeed in marketing. We needed marketing orientated person to guide and advise us what to do, see the big picture and coordinate our marketing activities" said Jaanus.
Why did Envoice consider hiring a marketing consultant?
Throughout the recruiting process my CV also landed on their desk. "From the CV I saw that Ott had exactly the expertise and former experience we needed. With his experience at Weekdone and Comodule, he knew how to build B2B SaaS marketing in a cost-efficient way" said Jaanus.
Unfortunately, I couldn't join full-time at the time, because me and my wife just had a newborn. So, we agreed that once they have found a person in marketing, I would help them to set a clear roadmap in order to scale with their SaaS globally.
Meanwhile, Jaanus and Envoice kept looking for a head of marketing, we regularly kept in touch. We mainly discussed the ways Envoice should go about their marketing.
“Ott guided us towards starting with content creation and SEO, rather than start burning money with online ads. Throughout our conversations, I understood more and more about the value of creating SEO content and how we can build a lead-generation system for us at Envoice”
The value of having a step by step roadmap in SaaS marketing
Later in the year Envoice had hired a head of marketing and Jaanus contacted me again. He wanted a clear vision and a 1-year plan for their marketing. With the input from Jaanus and the head of marketing, I developed a tailored roadmap for their 1 year marketing plan. It consisted of:
a step by step plan;
templates and how-to guides on how to execute each individual marketing effort;
goals for the year and metrics to measure their success;
"Now looking back, I am glad that we didn't go just for the workshop, but let Ott prepare a roadmap document for us as well. Every up and coming start-up should have a playbook like this. I still have it in my bag and every once in a while I pull it out and go through it" said Jaanus.
Envoice core team
How Envoice established an action plan and got the whole team on one page in just 1 day
"My personal expectations for the workshop was to get more knowledge in the field of SaaS marketing. Secondly, get the team members on the same page so they would know what is needed to succeed in marketing. And most importantly, establish a clear plan. At the time it was one of our biggest pain points" said Jaanus.
After I had delivered the blueprint, we agreed to do a workshop with the whole team. The agenda for the workshop was:
to establish Envoice's marketing vision, strategy and a 1-year action plan;
what marketing channels need to be established and how;
what kind of content to create and how;
practical exercises with the team to create an initial content calendar and define their target audience.
"We got what we wanted - an educational lift, came together as a team and thanks to Ott, I now know what is needed in marketing to succeed on global markets. I also liked the practical exercises we did together. Within one day we took a huge step forward - established a content plan and also created a blog post topic list" said Jaanus.
He also noted that sometimes it is good to have an outside expert to come in and say or confirm what to do. Sometimes people take it more seriously, rather than the information coming from the CEO.
Need help with marketing?
What has changed for Envoice in marketing?
The Envoice team wasted no time and after the workshop they immediately started to implement the established plan. Within a few months they:
Outsourced and interviewed writers to start creating useful SEO blog posts about accounting and bookkeeping
Have created 90+ articles in 9 months. Goal - create at least 100 articles by the end of 2022
Started building backlinks and some articles have already started ranking on Google search
Are in the process of creating a new website
Launched additional marketing channels
Built a newsletter
"Workshop was a great starting point for us. We have got so much done already and I am impressed how good our content is. I have also applied the lessons learned to my other businesses. Ott has completely changed my mindset and how I see marketing" said Jaanus.
Jaanus, what is the single biggest reason you would recommend Ott to other companies?
"First of all, Ott is a great guy to work with. He is a specialist and an experienced expert in B2B SaaS marketing. He is able to give you a clear plan. With many other workshops you get amped up during it, but there is no particular plan or outcome. It wasn't the case with him. He creates a structured plan that is easy to follow" said Jaanus.
