What are SaaS marketplaces?
If you need extensions such as plugins, apps or integrations to further grow your main product and make it more accessible to users, you should consider making use of SaaS marketplaces. While not the greatest SaaS lead generation channel, listing your software on SaaS marketplaces can bring in a steady stream of high quality leads over time.
A SaaS marketplace can be described as an application marketplace where you can go to find, buy and manage cloud-based SaaS applications. Despite the name, a SaaS marketplace doesn’t necessarily mean money is changing hands. Free software directories are commonly classified as SaaS marketplaces.
Types of SaaS Marketplaces
SaaS marketplaces come in different forms, including:
Plugin Stores
Large marketplaces offer thousands of plugins for software professional communities to create extended functionality.
Integration Marketplaces
Integration marketplaces are usually located within SaaS applications. They exist to provide self-service integrations with various other applications.
Review Sites
Like all marketplaces, software review sites exist to categorise applications and offer easy access for users to browse apps in a vertical market.
SaaS platforms are no longer a series of isolated platforms but they are becoming a more close-knit ecosystem that offers increasingly more functionality for a variety of uses.
Some of the most popular software review sites include Capterra, g2 Crowd and CrozDesk.
The Most Popular SaaS Marketplaces
SaaS marketplaces provide a centralized approach to finding, buying and managing cloud-based applications. They can help you to obtain ‘add-on’ applications that are pre-vetted.
Github
Github is probably the most popular code hosting platform currently available. It offers a range of useful features such as payments, continuous integration, project management and code reviews.
Magento
Magento is an eCommerce web builder that's used to build more advanced and custom online stores. Their marketplace is advanced and includes features for customer support, payments and security, marketing, accounting and finance, shipping and fulfilment and site optimization.
Google Cloud
With Google Cloud's marketplace, you can offer production-ready stacks, datasets, products and services to stimulate development, so your users can spend less time installing software. You can also provide products with pricing features such as custom pricing, subscriptions and pay-as-you-go functions.
Salesforce AppExchange
This marketplace offers 4,600 prebuilt and customizable apps that extend Salesforce. It is often used to drive meaningful business results and extend Salesforce from anywhere. With a focus on security and data protection, Salesforce's AppExchange ensures listings pass a high bar of compliance. You can find a large offering of diverse apps from GDPR compliance software to embedded analytics software in their marketplace.
Zendesk
Zendesk's marketplace is a hub for apps to customize Zendesk Chat, Zendesk Support and Zendesk Sell. Here, you can find easily installable apps to enhance reporting, analytics, time management, agent productivity, and more.
Google Workspace Marketplace
This marketplace offers quality enterprise apps that can make project management easier. This is specifically beneficial for businesses working software engineering outsourcing. Some of these apps offer centralized management consoles to minimize IT complexity and make management of IT outsourcing easier.
RapidAPI
RapidAPI is an API marketplace that makes it easy and convenient for developers to integrate thousands of APIs. The marketplace allows developers to search for, test and connect to the APIs to create a variety of functionality.
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Benefits of SaaS Marketplaces
SaaS marketplaces can offer varying degrees of functionality for different types of software. They can bundle features into meaningful value propositions for both businesses and their customers. From improving the web design and marketing efforts for businesses to enhancing the sales experience and support for customers.
Let's explore some of the benefits of using SaaS marketplaces in different areas:
Customer Relationship Management
Salesforce's AppExchange can be used to boost Customer relationship management (CRM) software and provide a better customer service experience in many different ways. Some robust and rich applications support telephone contact centres, omnichannel customer service, live chat and more. Other applications can also provide service agents with the data they need to improve customer service.
Customer Support
With marketplaces from platforms such as Freshdesk and Zendesk, you can create a seamless integration between different applications. These integrations can allow agents to access data like web sessions, last contact date and more to improve customer support on different levels.
Developer Tools
Marketplaces for developer platforms such as Github and Amazon Web Services (AWS) can improve software development significantly. With the right tools from these marketplaces, software engineering seniors can have code quality reviewed and enhanced, integrate with different third-party apps, manage projects better and improve deployment.
Website Builders
Many web builders have extensive marketplaces that can improve web design. For example, Shopify's App Store offers thousands of apps and countless options when it comes to extending eCommerce functionality. These can include adding customer reviews, marketing automation, publishing products to social media and getting in-depth analytics.
Marketing Automation
Marketing platforms like Marketo can help you to improve your marketing efforts with its library of robust marketing tools. These allow you to invest in simple email marketing, create landing pages with data capture forms, team collaboration, improve lead management and develop social media marketing. The possibilities are vast and seemingly endless.
The Bottom Line
One of the most exciting features of the SaaS market is the growing number of applications that you can readily plug into as new needs emerge. The agility offered by SaaS and the ease of access to applications is clear. Today, they’re also being improved with chatbots and other innovative features to support the buying experience for consumers.
SaaS marketplaces like AppExchange provide everything from point solutions to advanced professional automation applications that empower businesses to achieve measurable goals. These platforms can be specifically useful to boost marketing efforts to gain higher quality leads and sales. Any business that wants to enhance its own software and offer better experiences to customers should consider using a SaaS marketplace and the tools it offers.
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