The Software as a Service(SaaS) industry is thriving. Recent studies have shown that the SaaS industry has increased in size by around 500% over the past seven years. With growth like this, SaaS brands must take extra measures to bolster their marketing efforts. In this article, we will explore what SaaS is and the effective marketing strategies to make it thrive.
Importance of Effective Marketing Strategies for SaaS Businesses
Effective marketing methods are essential to dominate the saturated SaaS market and connect with your target audience. Studies have shown over 10000 private SaaS companies, indicating the industry’s heavy competition. Additionally, SaaS businesses may find it challenging to reach their target market, compete, and accomplish their goals without good marketing. Let’s examine some effective marketing strategies SaaS companies can embrace to dominate the market.
Content Marketing for SaaS Businesses
Brands worldwide leverage content marketing to build, attract visitors, generate leads, and engage with their customers. Content marketing for SaaS businesses is a great tool to educate visitors on why the Saas product is the right solution for the job. Content serves you long-term by continuously driving leads, unlike PPC advertising, that’s only viable as long as you continue spending.
Furthermore, it builds trust among the audience. No one likes spam emails and cold calls, but content marketing helps to soften the blow and help customers make better buying decisions. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 73% of B2B marketers and 70% of B2C marketers, respectively, employ content marketing as a component of their entire marketing plan.
Content marketing has gained tremendous popularity, which makes it a viable option for SaaS users, and since the pandemic, content usage has increased by 207%, according to Mediafly. Do you need some ideas for your content marketing? These are among the three SaaS companies that employ content to get leads: Dropbox, Moz, Hubspot, Buffer, and Intercom. They offer in-depth blogs, ebooks, podcasts, and webinars for their content strategy.
Leveraging Social Media Marketing
According to Spoutsocial, Facebook has 2.96 billion, Instagram has 2 billion users, Linkedin 900 million, and Pinterest has 450 million monthly active users. Other studies have shown that internet users spend more time on social media than ever — 151 minutes daily.
With such numbers, SaaS businesses from every industry can leverage social media platforms to create content, create awareness and promote their offers.
Because of social media’s zero barriers to entry, any business can create an online presence and be exposed to the many opportunities social media offers. Some tools to finetune your social media marketing include Hubspot, which offers scheduling and analytics tools, and Buffer, a social media management platform.
Slack, for example, has effectively leveraged social media to engage with its audience. They maintain an active presence on Twitter, Linkedin, and Instagram and share customer stories, product updates, and tutorials to educate their audience. Some other top SaaS brands doing great with social media are Canva, Hootsuite, Zendesk, and Buffer.
Furthermore, your focus when using social media should be on relationship building. And this involves responding to comments and engaging with your audience. One mistake many brands make is they turn their social media into landing pages. This limits you. Make your SaaS business’s social media page an avenue to entertain and educate, and your audience will grow.
Utilizing Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is one of the most popular and effective marketing strategies businesses use today. It is a great route to follow to build trust among your customers. Influencermarketinghub says, “61% of consumers say they trust recommendations from influencers as much as their family, whereas only 38% say they trust recommendations from brands.” ProfitBlitz also says, “80% of consumers have bought something recommended by an influencer.”
Your efforts in influencer marketing will be well-spent because 1 in 4 marketers that use it today claim it has the second-highest ROI of any marketing trend. Also, the social proof and awareness influencer marketing greats for you is second to none. According to a Hubspot interview with Annabelle Nyst of Brand Social, she says, “Influencer marketing can be an impactful tool for building brand awareness for your company and trust for your products or services. The power of influencer marketing lies in word-of-mouth marketing.”
They add, “Think of it this way: on the one hand, you have a brand telling you how cool it is and how its product is far superior to anything else on the market. On the other hand, you [audiences] have an individual you’re already familiar with and whose opinions you trust and respect, telling you they love this brand’s product. Which are you more likely to trust?”
Salesforce, a customer relationship management software, has collaborated with experts in the technology and business space to amplify their thought leadership and expertise to share stories and tips related to customer relationship management, sales and marketing.
There are several areas to consider when choosing the right influencer; these include:
- The audience type – are their followers your target audience?
- Preferred social network – What social media do they use?
- Content quality – Do the materials they produce reflect the principles of your company?
- Authenticity – Would they appear believable when they promote your SaaS?
- Brand Personality – Does their communication style fit your brand values?
- Engagement rates – Do they get good engagement from their followers?
- Fees – What type of payment do they prefer to receive (CPA commission, CPC traffic, or flat fees—to receive? Does this fit your objectives or budget?
Email Marketing for SaaS Businesses
Email marketing is another effective marketing strategy for SaaS businesses. Studies have shown that there are 4 billion daily email users, and utilising this channel can improve brand awareness, ROI, and sales for your SaaS business.
Dropbox employs email marketing to interact with its users and advertise new features and upgrades. They send tailored emails depending on user behaviour, such as sharing or storage activities, to deliver pertinent material and entice consumers to explore their platform more thoroughly.
By using email segmentation and marketing automation, you can send subscribers highly-focused content that will prompt them to take action sooner. The SaaS email marketing plan section will go into more detail about this.
Some steps to take to start your email marketing for your SaaS business include:
Setting your goals helps you create better campaigns that attract new and old customers. Some suggestions on where to focus include sales/conversions, brand awareness, customer success/retention, and upsell/cross-sell.
Choose your email marketing software: There are many, and picking the right one depends on your needs and capabilities. According to Moosend, some of the best email features to look for include Ready-made email templates, email deliverability, automation/segmentation, mobile responsiveness, A/B testing, flexible pricing, reporting and analytics, and behavioral tracking.
Grow your list: Some methods to grow your list include sharing free resources, adding an opt-in box during the purchase stage, building a landing page with a CTA, running social media giveaways, and including a signup form.
Create different segments: Segments help you create personalized emails, which improve your open and click-through rates. You can segment your SaaS email list by demography- (age, gender), firmographics (company size, industry), geography (country, city), technography (android, ios users), psychography (values, interests), and behaviorally (feature use, lifecycle stage).
Share value: You want your subscribers to be fond of your emails, so make the headlines and content as catchy as possible. Also, adding relevant visuals improves the reader’s experience.
Build automated sequences: Drip campaigns help to move your leads down the sales funnel and convert them into paying customers.
Analyze your email performance: It must be studied frequently to see what’s working and what should be changed.
Implementing a Customer Referral Program
Software firms use a SaaS referral programme to compensate existing customers for referring new consumers to increase their client base. According to Nielson, it is an effective strategy because people are 4 times more likely to buy when referred by a friend. But implementing referral programs. Some benefits are low acquisition costs, increased customer loyalty, and increased brand awareness. To create a great SaaS referral program, you can follow these steps.
- Decide on the reward.
- Make your referral program as straightforward as possible
- Implement your referral program
Here are some referral programs to help you decide.
Monitoring & Analyzing
This step is as important as every other step as it helps you decide what’s working and what should be dropped. By constantly monitoring and analyzing your marketing strategy, you find better ways to engage with your audience, generate leads and improve sales.
Many tools are available to help you better your marketing analysis and the insights it yields. Here are some examples that are either free or inexpensive for businesses.
- Ahrefs
- Crazy Egg
- Google Analytics
- Semrush
- SpyFu
Wrapping Up
Growing your SaaS business takes consistent implementation of different strategies simultaneously. It can be quite the effort to do it all yourself, which is why top companies outsource marketing to digital marketing agencies.
If you need any assistance with digital marketing for your SaaS business, get in touch here.
