If you were to make a list of the top 10 SaaS providers in the market today and in turn list what makes them so successful, having business partnerships would certainly be a common trait among them.

The end customer has many options when selecting a service provider, and you can be sure they’ll have done their homework via the Internet and social media when making a decision. Many customers today choose and implement a service without ever going through the traditional sales process. Winning these customers is more expensive than ever.

When it comes to acquiring new customers, increasing profits and fueling growth, strategic business partnerships can be one of the most powerful options available to SaaS companies.

Here are 5 reasons why:

1. Your service becomes more useful to your end customer. If you provide a SaaS for managing preschools, for example, you might partner with a company offering live camera monitoring. By doing so, you’ve offered parents peace of mind and your SaaS user has a competitive advantage.
2. You can stay focused on core product functionality. When clients demand new features, you can leverage a partner’s expertise rather than spinning your wheels starting from scratch on something you may not be an expert in.
3. You leverage the partner offering as a client acquisition tool. Each new enhancement offers the ability to upsell or cross sell within your customer base. You can promote new functionality via press releases, email notifications and blog/social media posts to attract potential new clients. If a platform enhancement solves a known pain point for your niche — for example, a billing solution that helps mitigate the significant problem of credit card declines for recurring billers — targeted advertising on Facebook, LinkedIn, or via an Adwords campaign could be a smart move. Your partners may also generate new customers for you by promoting your solution to their client base.
4. You’ll create new revenue streams. Your partners know that client acquisition costs are huge. Many of them are willing to share revenue derived from your end customers’ use of their offering, often as a percentage of the customer’s recurring payments.
5. You can create your own ecosystem that serves your clients. Just look at SalesForce and the hundreds of business services that have evolved to make that product more useful. If you have an API, this is easier, but you can certainly encourage partners to think about delivering more value to your users. This makes your application more useful and supports a more engaged end client.

Partnerships are the future of business. Those SaaS providers who embrace this paradigm and leverage its benefits will create more powerful, profitable businesses.

To get more information on how an integrated payment processing partnership can power your business’s growth contact us.

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