The ultimate aim of sales as a service (SaaS) marketing is to fuel your business so it can increase its success and keep expanding. With an effective SaaS marketing strategy, you can sustain your business for the long term and gain many trusted customers.
Customer loyalty is of top concern for SaaS companies, since you are selling services and rather products. You aren’t trying to get customers to simply make a purchase decision and walk away; you want them to stay with you for the long haul.
Creating a competent SaaS marketing strategy isn’t easy, but it plays a pivotal role in catalyzing your company’s growth. Here is the ultimate guide to creating a stunning marketing strategy for your SaaS business.
Importance of an Effective SaaS Marketing Strategy
If you don’t market your SaaS business, you will not be successful, nor will you grow your customer base. If you do not market your business, people will simply not be aware that your solution exists. SaaS marketing is not like other marketing types, mainly because you are marketing your intangible service.
You are marketing a service that is in the cloud and not in the hands of people. It could be loan tracking software, software for examination proctoring, software for running a restaurant, or anything else. It is essential that you craft your marketing strategy very carefully. You need to promote every single aspect of the service to be competitive in the market.
Prerequisites for SaaS Marketing – A Pre-Marketing Plan
Before getting into crafting the actual SaaS strategy, it is important to have a pre-marketing plan ready. Having a solid plan in place before you start prevents confusion later.
Your pre-marketing plan should encompass the following.
1. Goals of the company
It should offer specific business marketing goals and a high-level understanding of what the company wishes to achieve.
2. Budget
The total spend that the business is ready to take on SaaS tactics and strategies.
3. Clear customer personas
Before creating an effective SaaS marketing strategy, it is essential to develop detailed customer personas that reflect your potential customers. What is most important to them? What motivates them? What are their pain points? How do you reach them?
4. Strong website design
Before driving traffic to your service, have a sound website ready and make sure that it represents the brand appropriately. Optimize your website to have a strong call to action and lead generators.
5. Marketing strategies
Think of the marketing strategies that you would incorporate in your strategy, such as pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, email marketing, social media marketing, content marketing, link building, and other strategies.
Creating an Effective SaaS Marketing Strategy
The SaaS marketing strategy is the overall game plan for your business, and it must encompass both high-level business goals and specific marketing goals. You will need many specific marketing strategies within the overarching SaaS marketing strategy.
Here are some SaaS marketing strategies to consider.
1. Content marketing
Only 15% of the major SaaS companies don’t have a blog as part of their content marketing strategy. Informative content for a B2B business is the best way to get a service known to the larger public. But the content should be informative, not entertainment-oriented. It should offer trusted information and communicate informative ideas. You can utilize blog posts, case studies, white papers, and even a podcast.
2. SaaS inbound marketing
The goal of inbound marketing is to create opportunities for prospects to find you by providing valuable experiences. Today’s customers often perform a lot of research before making a purchase, and if you can prove that your brand is trustworthy, you will see traffic marching toward your site.
3. Outbound marketing
You can also try ad-based marketing tactics to make your product known to the larger public. You can try including a sponsored advertisement on social media or even digital signage to attract prospects.
4. Email marketing
Email marketing often has high ROI potential, and you can run thousands of email marketing campaigns for your SaaS business. Remember that with any email campaign, follow-up emails are essential. Use tools for lead generation and collect email addresses. You can then channel them across your sales funnel and offer them content pieces to help them understand your services better. It also gives you a chance to educate your customers on the benefits of upgraded software.
5. SEO email marketing
This is mandatory for a SaaS marketing plan, especially when you rely on inbound marketing. You could leverage technical, on-page, and off-page search engine optimization (SEO) to have a positive impact on your SaaS website.
Crafting A Clear SaaS Marketing Plan
This should be your first step in initiating a SaaS marketing strategy. The marketing plan book will detail every single aspect of the plan and the person who will be taking part in each role, as well as a realistic timeline for certain goals to be accomplished.
It should also encompass the goal to be achieved, the marketing strategies that will be employed, and the teams that will best suit each of the strategies. It should also outline the tools that will be used for marketing and for accomplishing SaaS sales.
Marketing Tools
SaaS marketers have a lot of challenges to tackle, and luckily you have several marketing tools to help. Salesforce, Typeform, Hootsuite, GoToMeeting, and Mailchimp are some handy tools that can help keep track of leads and contact details, and help you run social media campaigns.
With the help of these dedicated marketing tools, you will be able to automate your internal processes and manage website insights such as bounce rates and the time spent on a page.
A Clear SaaS Sales Strategy
Since you’re selling software, your strategy should focus on acquiring new customers. It should also include working with new customers to improve your service so you can increase customer retention and brand loyalty.
Make sure your focus is on the individual needs of the businesses and the best way for your product to solve them. Ensure that your sales strategy works with your marketing strategy and focuses on the goals of the company, its sales activities, training and development of personnel, and performance measurements.
Optimize Lead Generation
Of all the marketing strategies that you consider to promote your SaaS brand, lead generation is an optimal metric. It’s essential for SaaS marketers to monitor this, as it is vital for the success of your marketing efforts and your SaaS company.
Without leads, there is no opportunity for sales.
The best ways to generate leads are through content marketing, social media marketing, and your business’s website. However, here are some other ways to establish your SaaS brand.
1. Brand logo and design
As a SaaS company, you need a defined branding strategy. This is how you grab customers’ attention and create a lasting impression. Do not overlook elements such as brand voice or a logo design when you are trying to materialize your service with loads of features. Create a distinct logo so your customers can recognize your company immediately.
2. Project your brand values and culture
Even the software brands have to project their values and sometimes address serious issues, and your culture and values can set you apart from your rivals.
3. Define your proposition
Your marketing plan should define your value proposition to the point. Articulate the service you’re providing your customers. Are you saving people time, money, or energy? Though this value proposition is known to you, it should be communicated in your marketing plan so it is spelled out for end customers.
Bottom Line
There are a lot of loose components when it comes to a SaaS marketing strategy, and it is important to craft a strategy that brings all of these components together. Experiment extensively and study your analytics to figure out the best strategy for your business.