Srishti Panwar
Want to increase your leads and scale your SaaS business? We can help!
Request Free ProposalI am sure you have heard of Zoho, Atlassian, Freshworks, Shopify, Mailchimp and many more like these. The common factor is that they are all the top SaaS companies from India and across the globe.
But how did they become who they are today? With their product of course - but what else could help you reach where these brands stand today?
Think! Now think harder!
The answer is marketing.
All these brands have done exceptional SaaS marketing. From starting small to hiring the best SaaS marketing agencies in the world - at the end of the day, these brands made it big only with the help of marketing.
I am sure you have the vision to take your SaaS brand to that level too. So let’s discuss how you can do that with marketing for SaaS.
What is SaaS marketing?
Simple - it is marketing your software as a service.
But if we look deeper it is more than that. SaaS marketing is different from traditional marketing. Here you are offering your customer to buy a product, and keep buying it over and over again.
It is also different in the following ways -
That’s how SaaS marketing is different and also comparatively difficult but we are not going to look at ways to crack it.
I am sure building your SaaS tool must have been tough, but trust me marketing is going to be tougher! However, I am here to make things a little easy for you with expert tips on marketing SaaS products.
If you are running a SaaS business with the vision to scale it then the biggest mistake in SaaS marketing you can do is depending on just one channel for leads.
Marketing dynamics are changing everyday especially with Google’s greed of making more money. One day there are AI overviews coming up the next a new update. Organic marketing keeps fluctuating.
Similar is the case with paid marketing, one day the ads’ bidding price is low and the next it is off the shoot!
That is why, relying solely on one channel of marketing is not such a good idea, instead explore multiple channels. Figure out which one works better for you and double down on the same.
SaaS digital marketing on multiple channels have multiple benefits like -
Checkout below, how Topaz Labs uses multiple channels to market their AI photo and video editor.
Every business creates SEO content, but as a brand you need to ensure that you create ‘product-led’ SEO content.
Product-led content is the one where you create content for information and knowledge purposes but also ensure that your product is highlighted within it.
Your product is the main sauce of of your content and you need to leverage it as product led SEO content has several benefits -
Different types of SEO content can be made to acquire and make them aware of your product. You can create product led video content, infographics, and even base your SEO articles on your product by making it the hero of the content.
Hootsuite nails this by promoting the functionality and features of their products at every opportunity they get.
If you want to ace SaaS marketing then make sure your campaigns are curated keeping in mind your different kinds of customers. Not every customer is going to be the same. Each customer is going to have different needs, different expectations for your SaaS platform, and also different numbers of users.
Some might be looking for a one person SaaS tool while others might be looking for a tool that a team can use. Depending upon your SaaS platform, figure out which audience you can cater to and if it's both then curate your marketing campaigns accordingly.
For instance, both Trello and Asana are widely known team tools, but they also promote their product for personal uses. They have pages dedicated to team solutions as well as personal solutions. SaaS content writing done for each page is highly personalized based on the users they are trying to reach.
Similarly, target your marketing campaigns based on the usage of your product as well. For instance ClickUp is one tool providing a solution for product management but they have marketed it on the basis of industry and have personalized their marketing pages accordingly.
You have created a product, now all you have to do is sell it. You can’t sell it until you give your users an experience of what it is like to have your SaaS tool’s capabilities by their side throughout.
That is why free trials become a must when it comes to SaaS marketing. They act as a motivation for users to try out your tool and once they get their ‘Aha moment’ with your tool there is no backing down.
As per statistics, opt-out free trials have a conversion of 48%! That is almost half of the people who share their credit card information to take up a free trial, often end up buying the subscription.
Thus, free trials do work as a SaaS marketing strategy and why wouldn’t they, because who will deny a freebie? Here is an example from one of the top SaaS SEO tools - Semrush, offering free trial.
Another sure shot way of spreading brand awareness, getting more and loyal customers is building a community. An even better tactic for SaaS marketing is making this community exclusive and ‘insider’ base.
The fear of missing out (FOMO) is one of the ways to nudge your prospects to buy your product and in return get to become a part of your community.
Building a community also gives a sense of belongingness to your customers and users and once your customers start feeling that they belong somewhere, customer retention becomes easier. So from marketing SaaS to retaining customers for SaaS all tasks become easier than usual.
Here is an example of a community from Slack, to take inspiration from.
Inbound-led Outbound, is a term coined by RB2B founder, Adam Robinson. What it means is that your outbound marketing is fueled by inbound visitors for your website.
This is one of the new, fresh, and highly promising SaaS marketing trends.
Through this inbound-led outbound marketing you redefine the path of your lead generation. How? Let’s find out.
In words of Adam Robbinson -
“If a prospect visits the RB2B website and we identify them, we convert 10.4% via cold email. That means for every 9 emails we send, we get 1 user to sign up.”
Here's how it works:
1. Individual visits your website
2. RB2B identifies and enriches the data
3. Clay filters in your ICP & further enriches
4. Ai Analyzes data & enrichments, then writes personalized & relevant copy
5. Lead is sequenced in Smartlead
This is revolutionary! Because now you can reach out to customers who have semi-awareness about your product which increases your chances of conversion. Inbound-led outbound is the new age SaaS marketing tip that can get you assured results.
Just like you, there are many more SaaS tools and brands looking to market their products and drive sales. Find out those brands and collaborate with them strategically.
Partnered SaaS marketing helps you get access to a wider customer base and also increases your sales. Partnership can be both monetary and non-monetary.
In monetary partnership you have aspects like affiliate marketing and re-selling the products as a part of your deal while in non-monetary partnership you can just provide exposure to each other through collaborative social media posts. By creating content for each other and also by offering integrations to your customers.
SaaS marketing with your partners helps you increase your brand awareness and also make customer acquisition easy for both brands thus making it a mutually benefitting arrangement.
LeadSquared, a sales and marketing suite platform offers one such partner program to other SaaS tools and solutions.
The problem with SaaS is that getting sign ups is easier than retaining the customers. Why? Because they fail to make the user understand how to use the product.
While you might feel that your product is easy to understand, in reality it might be the exact opposite of that. As per a study by Whyzowl, 80% of users delete the application/software if they are unable to understand how to use that.
This should open your eyes and make you understand that to actually retain your customers you need to educate them about your product. Creating educational content based on your product has to be an integral part of your SaaS content marketing.
There are multiple types of content that you can create to educate and retain your customers.
Have a dedicated help center or details section like Trello does for all its integrations to explain what they can do for you.
Create demo videos or educational videos showcasing how users can utilize different features for different tasks. Freshwords uses this strategy to educate their customers.
Have a dedicated knowledge base like Ahrefs does which is all about their tool and SEO tips.
There several other ways like -
Once you start prioritizing your user’s onboarding experience and educating them, your customer retention program will fall in place on its own.
Last but not least, track your metrics like your business depends on it and your business truly does depend upon your SaaS marketing metrics.
Through metrics you can figure out what is working for you and what is not and allocate resources judiciously with immediate effect. Marketing metrics also highlight the gaps in your process that you might not realise otherwise.
For instance, you might observe that your content is getting enough traffic but not conversion then maybe you are not targeting the right audience. Or your social media posts are being shared yet there are no conversions then maybe you need to see how you have added call to action to your posts.
Your metrics give you the insights that you are unable to see with naked eyes. So keep your number game strong for your SaaS marketing to flourish and get you ROI.
SaaS marketing is one of the toughest nuts to crack but once done your business only grows after that. Marketing for SaaS is really demanding and no matter how many DIY tactics you do, at the end of the day you need an expert to take care of that.
ZeroAdo is that expert who can do it all for you. ZeroAdo’s Agile Growth Aggregator programme is designed so that entrepreneurs and decision makers do not have to spend time focusing on marketing.
We take care of everything for you and make sure that your SaaS marketing is getting you unexpected results!
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