Creating an effective SaaS marketing strategy is not a cakewalk. And we get it.
From managing creativity and creating budgets to demand generation, several things go on simultaneously. It is only natural to feel overwhelmed and confused at times.
That is why we are sharing this SaaS marketing guide exclusively curated using a collection of examples from SaaS companies across the globe and in-house knowledge.
Hope it helps!
What is a SaaS Marketing Strategy?
A SaaS marketing strategy revolves around the concept of selling software products and services through various digital channels, such as organic search optimization, paid advertising, and content marketing, among others.
Creating an informative and engaging customer journey is one of the primary criteria of a SaaS marketing plan. It involves creating content that speaks directly to the needs and interests of potential customers.
Why do Businesses Need SaaS Marketing?
SaaS marketing strategies focus on finding the right audience, demonstrating product value, and delivering the right messages that influence your customers to purchase.
Here is why you need it-
1. Branding
Branding should be the priority in a SaaS marketing plan if you want to achieve long-term and consistent success. It fosters brand recognition, establishes credibility, and builds trust with the target audience.
The first step towards branding is understanding long-term goals and identifying the organization’s strengths and weaknesses and the value proposition. SaaS marketing best practices in branding include incorporating elements such as a unique logo, carefully selected colors, fonts, messaging, a consistent tone of voice, and clear brand values.
2. Identifying target market segments
Identifying target market segments is important because it helps businesses concentrate their marketing efforts on customers more likely to purchase.
You can start by researching and analyzing the demographics, psychographics, and behavior of your ideal customers. This will help you personalize your marketing efforts to align with your targeted prospects’ needs, preferences, and pain points.
3. Standing out from the crowd with a value proposition
A clearly defined value proposition helps you shine in the crowd. A compelling value proposition gives prospects a solid reason to choose your products or services over your competitors. Your SaaS marketing goals should focus on developing a unique value proposition revolving around the specialties of your products with additional benefits that surpasses similar offerings.
SaaS Marketing vs. Traditional Marketing
Compared to a traditional product, a SaaS product is more dynamic - in the sense that it is always updated with new features or improved infrastructure.
There are many notable differences between SaaS and traditional marketing. Here are a few major areas where they are different from each other
12 Winning SaaS Marketing Strategies for Businesses
As promised, here are our top 12 winning marketing strategies exclusively curated for you-
1. Content Marketing
Content marketing is a primary strategy undertaken by a SaaS content marketing agency. Businesses around the globe utilize content marketing strategies to build their brand, attract visitors to their websites and generate leads. In Fact, 91% of marketing pros surveyed by Semrush achieved success with their content marketing in 2021.
Content continues to drive leads even if you stop spending on it. Due to its compounding power of return, the value of content marketing has increased over time. Content marketing is not just creating content but also ensuring that it provides value to your target audience.
Here is a SaaS marketing strategy example of how Dropbox used content marketing to generate leads.
Dropbox attracts potential customers with targeted content for file sharing and storage services like Dropbox Business, Dropbox Tech, and Dropbox Developer blogs. They also host several webinars to communicate their credentials to prospective clients.
2. Pay-per-click (PPC)
PPC is yet another effective SaaS marketing strategy example. It allows you to bid on specific keywords related to your products or services. This SaaS marketing strategy uses organic and paid search to reach your target audience, attract qualified leads and drive traffic to your website.
An effective PPC strategy comprises the following elements-
- Keywords
Use keywords that are relevant to your business. If too many keywords are in the list, try to narrow them down to 3-5.
- Budget
Start small and gradually increase spending. Set an appropriate budget for your campaign.
- Landing Page
Make your landing page attractive and put clear CTAs. Make sure it aligns with your campaign goals.
Here is what a PPC ad looks like
Check out how TripleDart helped Fincent generate $150k in pipeline through paid search campaigns here.
3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
One of the SaaS marketing challenges is to keep your page continually visible on the search engine. Enter SEO that works parallelly with content marketing to make your content discoverable on search engines like Google, Bing, etc. It comprises two important categories-
- On-Page SEO
On-page SEO is optimizing parts of your website to make it rank higher and get more search engine traffic. It includes keyword strategy, internal linking, use of titles and descriptions, load time, and UI optimization.
- Off-Page SEO
It refers to SEO tactics applied outside of a website to improve its rankings and includes link building, guest posting, social media marketing, and more.
Here is an example of how ServiceTitan, a cloud-based service management software, successfully utilized link building to scale up their business.
ServiceTitan has built a content moat in the service management software industry and created free tools and templates that drive backlinks without manual link-building effort.
Here are some stats on ServiceTitan’s link-building efforts
They have acquired 1300+ backlinks only from free tools and templates. Eventually, these resources will keep earning links over time without manual outreach.
4. Co-marketing
Co-marketing refers to business collaboration where a company runs a marketing campaign with other companies. It happens when either companies complement their product offerings or share a similar point of view or approach to business.
There are set rules for co-marketing, but it typically involves creating content, such as an ebook, hosting a webinar, or publishing some research together. The companies participating share all the costs incurred and leads generated during the process.
Co-marketing is a great way to leverage each other’s following and reach a different audience. By joining forces, you can create highly desirable content and generate leads.
Here is an example of HubSpot and LinkedIn co-marketing with an ebook
5. Retargeting
Retargeting or remarketing helps address the 98% of visitors who leave a website without making a purchase. It helps your business dramatically increase conversions by re-engaging people that left your website without any action. Retargeting tracks your website visitors and shows them with online ads as they visit other sites around the web.
Most retargeting software enables marketers to target people beyond website visits. For example, you can launch a campaign based on events- such as opening an email or attending a webinar. It is a valuable tool for marketers as it gives your brand another chance to establish trust, credibility, and familiarity with website visitors.
Here’s how retargeting works
6. Invest in referral programs
Referrals are a great way to grow your business. They typically cost nothing to generate and are a great way to build long-term relationships. It works when someone refers a friend or colleague to your website while earning a commission.
With referral programs, you can encourage your existing clients to share your link within their circle of friends and family. This is a great SaaS marketing plan as it creates more opportunities for word-of-mouth marketing.
Here is how Trello, a collaboration platform, does it-
Trello’s referral program uses a simple cumulative structure: When you refer a friend who signs up, you get a free month of Trello Gold (their premium plan). You can refer up to twelve friends and get a year of Gold for free!
7. Get Listed on SaaS Review Sites
Review sites allow businesses to publish reviews about their products and services. It is a great SaaS marketing strategy, but before jumping in, you need to do these things first
- Identify which platforms work best for you. Options include Google Reviews, G2, Capterra, Trustpilot, Yelp, etc.
- Create content that engages potential customers. Include links to your social media pages and videos that showcase your products and services.
- Make your contact form intuitive and straightforward to make it easy for customers to leave reviews.
- Ensure your business is visible on every page.
- Follow up immediately when someone leaves a complaint, not making it longer than 24 hours.
Here is what Trustpilot looks like
8. Offer free trials
Some companies struggle to convert trial sign-ups into paying customers. Even if people browse their website for a while, they don’t bother signing up even for a free trial.
This is mainly because customers don’t want to go through the extra hassle of filling up credit card information. So a simple way to tackle this problem would be to offer a freemium model trial period with no credit card information.
Freemium models are proven to increase conversion rates and build trust among your target customers.
For example, Canva offers users free access to its advanced graphic design and editing tools. Users can create social media images, website banners, and more with their easy-to-use platform, which includes thousands of stock images and hundreds of templates. Upgrading to Canva Pro gives users even more templates, stock images, and various branding tools.
Clearly, Canva’s freemium model is working. The company has over 5 million Pro customers and is valued at $40 billion.
9. Improve customer experience
The customer experience (CX) includes everything from the quality of products and services to ease of ordering and delivery. It typically refers to the overall interaction between a company and its customers.
Here are some ways to improve your CX-
- More Personalized Experiences
Customers like to feel special, important, and heard. They love to have their preferences at hand. Make sure your website is mobile responsive and has a great design.
- Value feedbacks
If a customer takes their time to give feedback, make them feel heard. Respond to them and try to resolve their issues at the earliest.
- Deliver Faster
You can try investing in technology such as AI-powered chatbots and machine learning to ensure customers are always engaged. These tools will help you automate processes so that you can focus on what matters most — providing exceptional service.
10. Hassle-free sign-up
No one likes tedious sign-up pages. It is frustrating, to say the least. Sign-ups should always be quick and simple. Here are a few things you can do to make sign-ups effortless for your customers-
- Keep the form short and simple. Only ask for essential information.
- Most people are afraid to take risks. Offer a free trial or money-back guarantee so people can try out your product without any worries.
- Have a clear and concise call-to-action on your sign-up page so that people know exactly where to go and what to do.
Here is a good example of a sign-up page from Workplace. It is simple and includes a title, a tagline, and a logo that sends the user back to the homepage.
11. Design your website strategically
Creating a design that provides a great user experience and is lively and attention-grabbing is crucial for SaaS companies. The most important element of a website is its ability to convert visitors into leads.
Let’s talk about Jotform’s homepage here. It is short and sweet yet accomplishes two goals very well-
- It clearly explains their service and the value provided.
- It offers an easy way to start with the free version.
12. SaaS account-based marketing
Account-based marketing (ABM) or target account selling is a great way for B2B SaaS companies to increase leads, personalize marketing materials, and close bigger accounts. It allows you to tailor your marketing messages and content to the needs of each individual account, increasing the likelihood of conversion.
Additionally, ABM provides SaaS marketers with valuable insights into what is working and what isn’t so that you can make necessary adjustments to your campaigns.
What Are Some Common Digital Marketing Channels for A SaaS Platform?
Marketing channels are tools and platforms that help you spread the word about your products and services. They help you overcome the barrier between you and your potential buyers.
Have a look at some of the best B2B SaaS marketing channels-
1. Your Website
The first and very obvious channel for digital marketing is, of course your website. It is the ultimate medium to reach out to your customers, but there is only one catch: you have to rank on Google.
Having a better rank on Google means your prospects have a better chance of discovering your existence. Effective content marketing is a great way to ensure your website ranks well on Google.
2. Social Media
If you want to reach millions of users then social media is the right marketing channel for you. According to Forbes, 94% of B2B SaaS marketers use Twitter, and 93% actively use Facebook (2016). Using at least one of these social media platforms can help you improve your company’s overall presence.
Also, keep in mind that you’re not limited to just one SaaS platform because it’s possible to use both Twitter and Facebook simultaneously, or you can be present in other platforms like Instagram, Youtube, LinkedIn. But remember to separate your personal brand from the business if you choose this route.
3.Emails
Email marketing is a great way to stay on the mind of your customers and prospective users. You can even create different incentives for people to sign up. But be sure not to send out too many emails or you might end up in their spam box or even get unsubscribed. Some good examples include newsletters about upcoming events, new offers, new launches, coupons/discounts etc.
4. Video
91% of consumers want to see more online video content from brands. This is a compelling enough reason to start with videos. You can start by adding promotional videos on YouTube or even embed them into your website using the “YouTube iframe” function. Additionally, you can also create custom ads if you have a Facebook page so people can see all different kinds of content about your company.
5. Blogs & Newsletters
Blogs are a great way to deliver informative content or inform your customers about new products and services. B2B marketers who use blogs receive 67% more leads than those who do not, and blogs have been rated the 5th most trusted source for accurate online information.
Closing Thoughts
SaaS marketing strategies are vital to the growth and success of any SaaS company. It needs to be continually updated, monitored and analyzed, making adjustments to as needed in order to maximise ROI. However, it is not easy to practise these strategies without knowledge, expertise or a guide as there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
If you are looking to implement effective SaaS marketing strategies, look no further.
We at TripleDart, tailor make effective SaaS marketing strategies for your business to help you attract your ideal buyers. We plan, create, and optimize content to help you acquire leads, build market awareness, and nurture opportunities.
Book an intro call now!
