How to Promote Apps on B2B Marketplaces: 3 Scenarios
Let's talk about a major trend in B2B technology that is developing quietly, but is increasingly influencing the go-to-market strategies of almost every company.
This is the rapid growth of platform ecosystems — especially SaaS app marketplaces or subscription software stores. These are collections of relatively easy-to-integrate third-party apps, tools, and widgets that allow customers to get more value out of the platform they paid for.
Main features of ecosystems:
multiple users;
user-friendly, well-documented APIs that allow third-party providers to participate;
SaaS application marketplace where customers can find new and interesting solutions.
The platform ecosystem model has exploded in popularity over the past decade because it benefits all market participants:
The platform can quickly update its functionality and enter new market niches.
Clients can extend the platform's value into more and different areas.
Application providers gain access to a huge customer base across various target segments.
What are the opportunities of B2B platform ecosystems?
They are huge and growing rapidly.
Let's look at the results of three companies with their own app marketplaces:
Salesforce offers over 3,000 apps and components. About 90% of customers have installed at least one app. In total, they have over 10 million installations to date.
HubSpot has over 1,000 apps in its ecosystem. Around 90% of customers have installed at least one app, and the average customer has installed over 7 integrations.
Slack contains over 2,400 apps in 19 categories, from Security to Social & Entertainment.
It’s not just the big, successful platforms that have app marketplaces. A whole group of vendors are expanding their own SaaS app marketplaces and actively recruiting other vendors to fill their virtual shelves.
For exampleBlue Prism is a pioneer in robotic process automation. Under the leadership of rock star Paul Nerger, they created the Digital Exchange (DX). It has resources for everything from small tasks (like optical character recognition) to entire business processes.
If you're in the B2B tech space, you probably offer at least one app, tool, or widget in one of the app marketplaces.
And if your products can be called a platform, you too can create your own ecosystem.
In fact, you can play both cards: SaaS app marketplaces often have vendors who have their own SaaS app marketplaces.
It's time to stop focusing solely on your core B2B market and put ecosystem building on the back burner.
It's Time to Get Serious About B2B Ecosystem Marketing
It is no longer just another sales channel. It is becoming a standalone B2B discipline with its own teams, tools, and processes.
Like any market organization model, the B2B ecosystem can be used for different purposes.
Early versions of each strategy were fairly basic: a section of the platform's website listing available app integrations.
These early SaaS app marketplaces weren't even sold—the apps were simply showcased during the sales process to hype things up (“Yeah, our dashboard sucks, but check out this Domo integration”).
Today, all three strategies are becoming more complex.
In Strategy 1, affiliate programs make it easy for third-party vendors to join and start selling. As Scott Brinker said in a recent post, “It's not just about playing well with other kids in the sandbox. It's about creating a sandbox where other kids want to come and build their own castles.”
The platform's app marketplaces are becoming more and more like Amazon:
They use various marketing techniques to promote applications;
help users find what they need;
help app partners promote themselves (strategy 2).
And sellers who successfully sell ecosystems are promoted not only in marketplaces, but also outside of them (strategy 3).
Let's look at all three strategies in more detail.
How to Use B2B Ecosystems to Your Advantages
Ecosystems are becoming a major source of revenue for some software providers. But there is a danger here: we have all seen companies fail when the market leader decides to create a new version of its own widget. Or buy a competitor so that its integration is chosen.
As B2B companies grow, they improve their ecosystem marketing. To do this, they use the following steps:
Strategy 1: Grow your ecosystem.
To do this, you need to answer the following questions:
Who should we attract to our ecosystem? What features/functionalities add the most value to the product?
Can we add our own modules and add-ons there?
Are our customers creating something that other customers might need?
How can we create the best and most convenient ecosystem for users and app providers?
How will our ecosystem change our product roadmap?
By the way: you don’t have to build these hypermarkets yourself. You can do it with the help of ecosystem management platforms.
Strategy 2: Promote your ecosystem to existing and potential users.
To do this, you need to understand the following:
How do we help every customer see the value of our ecosystem?
Which apps are most important to promote and sell?
How and where will we advertise the app marketplace to our existing customers?
How can we best leverage our growing sales and marketing ecosystem?
Helpful tip: Find and ask people who are already promoting their ecosystem.
Strategy 3: Promote your app in other ecosystems:
Which app marketplaces should we be present in?
How can we succeed in each of them?
How to find us in the app marketplace?
How to optimize conversion in our micro marketplace (App Store optimization: ASO)?
How to attract platform clients to our application?
Simple advice: visit as many app marketplaces as you can and analyze which ones work. Then evaluate your target ecosystem and see which apps are the most popular. Then analyze your competitors.
Ecosystem Marketing Could Be Your Next Big Growth Driver
Only you can determine how relevant each of the three ecosystem strategies is for you.
But I suspect at least one of them deserves more than to be a memory of a missed opportunity or a note on a to-do list. Gone are the days when registering for an app marketplace could be put off until later.
It's time to get serious about this.
The main point of the article
Platform ecosystems are collections of relatively easy-to-integrate third-party apps, tools, and widgets.
Main features of ecosystems:
multiple users;
convenient, well-documented APIs;
SaaS application marketplace.
The platform ecosystem model is beneficial to all market participants:
The platform can quickly update its functionality and enter new market niches.
Clients can extend the platform's value into more and different areas.
Application providers gain access to a huge customer base across various target segments.
A company can use B2B ecosystems in different ways:
Promote your own ecosystem or app marketplace to potential suppliers.
Promote your own ecosystem and its applications among your customer base.
Promote your own applications and tools among users of other platforms.
Ecosystem marketing can become a growth driver for companies.
In the comments, tell us if you have placed your listings on marketplaces. If so, what results did you achieve?
