How SaaS Companies Can Embrace Evangelist-Led Growth

Drive New Customer Acquisition with a Community of Passionate Users

“Without a community, you are simply a commodity.”

Sangram Vajre, Co-founder and CEO of GTM Partners

The SaaS market is growing fast, with Gartner predicting end-user spending to reach $195,208 million in 2023 (up from $167,107 in 2022). In this highly competitive landscape, how will your SaaS company increase brand awareness and improve customer retention?

By embracing evangelist-led growth. This strategy develops and leverages the enthusiasm and advocacy of a company's most passionate users to eventually drive new customer acquisition. These "evangelists" are customers who are highly satisfied with a company's product or service and are willing to recommend it to others. Evangelist-led growth strategies focus on identifying and activating these customers, tapping into their social networks and personal brand to raise awareness in authentic ways. 

Today’s most successful businesses will be built on a community of evangelists who refer new customers at a higher rate, retain current customers at a lower cost and embody the intangible elements of a brand. This approach can also provide peace of mind to industries facing a looming recession. As budgets tighten, SaaS businesses are seeking ways to reduce churn and accelerate growth without making big capital expenditures. 

There are four steps to embracing an evangelist-led growth strategy:

Identify

Evangelists are hiding within your ecosystem. While your Net Promoter Score® (NPS) and product usage data are good places to start, evangelists are not necessarily your most vocal community members. They can also be quietly yet consistently interacting with your company, product, or service. If you already have a community, your “lurkers” can be a goldmine.

Engage

Once you have identified your evangelists, define and document their personas. This will help you understand who they are and what motivates them so you can offer opportunities that will encourage them to further participate in your brand. Your evangelists may be seeking advice from peers, new product information or decision-making support. As a community “owner,” it’s important for you to create a compelling value proposition for your members.  

Empower

Next, enable your evangelists to speak about your company. Whether it’s a one-on-one discussion or informational one-pagers on your product, you need to give your supporters the tools to refer your company to others. They also need to feel a genuine sense of gratitude and appreciation from you. 

Amplify 

At this point, your evangelists have been speaking about your company and even creating other evangelists. It’s time to return the favor. How will you deliver real value to your evangelists? Is it a public shoutout on LinkedIn, an opportunity to serve on a product feedback council, an invitation to an event or even a simple note of thanks and some swag? Your conversations and persona exercise will guide you. It’s absolutely imperative to bring value to your members time and time again. 

The key to the evangelist-led growth strategy is that a company's most passionate customers are the most likely to drive new customer acquisition. They are more apt to authentically talk about your product/service and recommend it to others. It's a powerful way to acquire new customers in a cost-effective manner while building a loyal customer base.

Meet the Chief Evangelist

Leslie Greenwood is the Founder & CEO of Chief Evangelist Consulting. She has been in startups and B2B SaaS for over a decade. Leslie was the VP of Member Success for Pavilion (formerly Revenue Collective), a global membership community focused on go-to-market executives. She built the playbook that created passionate evangelists out of current members and was instrumental in growing the community from 2K - 10K members in just under two years.