Updated 12/9/2020
What if you had a great SaaS product and nobody knew about it?
The quality of your product and services is obviously important. But it's equally important that you have the right marketing strategies to let the world know what your business is capable of.
Do you need new SaaS marketing strategies and you're not sure what to try? Keep reading to discover our top marketing strategies that will help your company grow to its full potential.
Post Contents:
*Attract
-Content Marketing
-PPC
-SEO
-Email
-Affiliate Marketing
-Influencer Marketing
*Convert
-Forms
-Free Trial
-Gated Content
-Upselling
-Exit Intent
-Site Notifications
Content Marketing
What is the average internet user hungry for? In a word, content. And you can leverage that hunger for content into some very successful SaaS marketing strategies.
What does great content for SaaS actually look like, though? In most cases, it's a matter of "working backward" when it comes to customer understanding of your company.
For example, customers must see your product as a solution. But most of them don't understand how your solution works or even that they have a problem in the first place. Things like podcast and Youtube videos help you target specific demographics, articulate their problems, and then walk them through how your SaaS solution works.
The more you can target consumers by location, needs, job type, and other categories, the better. And you can focus on simple content such as user testimonials that help provide "social proof" of your company's quality.
Speaking of social, don't forget to share your thought leadership blogs and authoritative e-books via social media. This helps establish your company as an authority, all while making it easier for your biggest fans to share your content with other people.
Down With PPC
When it comes to generating new hits to your website, PPC can be a double-edged sword. While organic SEO (more on this later) is a better long-term solution, PPC has some very specific short-term marketing uses.
First off, if you want your PPC budget to last, you need to go after lower-competition keywords. The right words, combined with the right incentive (such as a free-ebook when they register), may be enough to seriously boost site traffic.
Second, stretch your budget even more by focusing on sponsored post campaigns via social media. Targeting platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn help you get more people to sign up regardless of your budget. Keep in mind these sponsored posts are best used to show off your top-notch content and bring more visitors to your site.
Third, don't be afraid to advertise via Google Display Network. Prices are more competitive here than the Google Search Network, and this is a great opportunity to leverage your video content in a new and dynamic way.
Fourth, use Gmail ads to really reach customers where they live. And this goes nicely with any e-mail marketing campaigns that you create.
Fifth, run some remarketing campaigns that focus on getting the right ads to customers at different stages of the sales funnel. Things like a free trial offer, for example, are a great way to move the needle for hesitant customers.
Finally, don't be afraid to think outside of the PPC box. You can advertise on growing platforms like Quora for a fraction of the cost of other platforms. And as more people flock to Quora, the value of your ads only grows.
Organic SEO
By definition, PPC marketing can only be temporary or sporadic. It involves ultimately paying for every click that comes in, and that starts eating into the marketing budget. That's why any long erm SaaS marketing strategy involves organic SEO.
SEO may seem very complicated, but there are a few successful strategies you can focus on. For example, research the keywords that your target demographic uses when searching for similar products. With the right research (and a bit of help from Google), you can discover all of the possible keywords your customers might use and focus on all of them.
What happens when you land a new visitor on your site? Ideally, you should prompt them to action sooner rather than later. That's why CTA banners on every page of your website should prompt users into actions such as downloading a free trial of your product.
Don't forget that visitors to a new site tend to be impatient. You should remove large images and streamline the design so that it is both mobile-friendly and fast to load. This reduces the bounce rate and helps move them closer to your CTA.
Finally, don't forget that half of the marketing struggle is using the right keywords in the right places. Placing keywords in titles, headers, descriptions, and even metatags can help your site move up the site rankings.
We'll be honest: organic SEO may take more time than you'd like. But it is essentially free, and once you succeed, much of the work that goes into maintaining organic SEO rankings will take care of itself.
{{cta('a6a2ecb3-8c04-4105-af3b-b98af5bc7bc9')}}
E-mail Marketing
If you're looking for a digital marketing strategy for SaaS software, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. There is nothing wrong with relying on a classic strategy such as e-mail marketing.
It may sound old-fashioned, but e-mail is still the cornerstone of modern digital communication. And no matter your marketing budget, e-mail marketing provides a rocksteady ROI year after year. With a little effort and the right software, you can also craft custom e-mails that feel less like form messages.
But what does good e-mail marketing look like? Sometimes, it's as simple as sending appreciation e-mails to customers. This simple step fosters consumer loyalty and encourages repeat business.
Additionally, showing your current customers how much you care is one of the best ways to generate word-of-mouth and recruit new customers as well.
Streamlined Registration Forms
Sometimes, even the best SaaS companies miss the forest for the trees. And the best example of this is long, clunky registration forms.
In many ways, the registration form represents the "finish line" for your company. All of your marketing efforts have led to this moment when a new customer decides to check out your product. But what if they just don't want to cross the finish line?
In an age of lightning-quick communication, customers don't like a long and complex form. They will hit the back button very quickly rather than feel like they have to write an essay to join up. Fortunately, you can improve your registration form in two easy steps.
First, streamline the "Registration" part as much as possible. In most cases, you don't really need more than their name, e-mail address, and password.
Second, put a streamlined list of product benefits right next to the form. These should be like your most persuasive bullet points, and they help reassure customers of the value of your product even as they sign up.
Sometimes, SaaS marketing can really be that simple. If you want more to easily have more people sign up, you just need to make signing up very easy!
Free Trial
Digital marketing often changes from generation to generation. But there is one four-word phrase that excites every generation of consumers: "try before you buy." That is why offering a free trial of your SaaS product is so important.
As we said before, much of your content marketing should focus on how your product is the solution customers need to take on a major problem. No matter how good your marketing is, though, some customers won't believe it until they experience it.
And with a free trial, you can give customers a free taste of as much or as little as you want to. For example, the free trial should have a limit (like one or two weeks) and also be limited in what it can do. This helps serve as a good reason for consumers to check out the full version.
Once you have a free trial available, you can leverage that into other forms of marketing. For example, it may serve as an incentive for those who sign up for your e-mail marketing list, or it can be the primary CTA on the landing page of your site.
The Power of Gated Content
Most of the time, SaaS marketing strategies boil down to very consumer-friendly tactics. Our next tip isn't popular among consumers, but it still serves a powerful marketing purpose. We're talking, of course, about gated content.
"Gated content" refers to any content that a visitor cannot access until they provide additional information. For example, you might have a pop-up prompting people for their e-mail address in exchange for content like an e-book.
The goal here is to provide the customer with useful and relevant content in exchange for their information. Those who sign up are likelier to see your company as an authority in your niche, and your willingness to give away great content will start to build their loyalty.
{{cta('a6a2ecb3-8c04-4105-af3b-b98af5bc7bc9')}}
Upselling and Cross-Selling
Our next tip can work wonders, but you may struggle to get everything "just right." What are we talking about? The art of upselling and cross-selling, of course!
Upselling refers to getting customers to sign up for more than they planned (like subscribing for one year instead of three months). And cross-selling refers to selling "add-ons" to the core product they have already bought.
Fair warning: you can only really do this if you know enough about the demographics and psychographic information of your customers. Basically, the behavior patterns around their SaaS purchases will help you understand what will work and what will not.
You may have more luck by targeting certain customers based on their position in the funnel. For example, customers you target via remarketing may be easier to cross-sell to than customers seeing your information for the first time.
Affiliate Marketing Programs
Joining an affiliate marketing program is a difficult decision for some companies. However, for a SaaS business, affiliate marketing is an instant "win."
For example, affiliate marketing helps generate the leads your business needs to stay on top. And the fact that you pay only after you make a sale makes this a very budget-friendly form of marketing.
One thing we love about affiliate marketing is that you can use it to recruit some of your most loyal customers. By offering them commissions, you may quickly find that your most loyal customers can recruit new customers better than anyone else.
Ultimately, affiliate marketing is capitalism at its finest. Everyone involves has a powerful financial incentive to regularly bring new customers to the table. And, right down to the recruited customers, everyone walks away as a winner!
Influencer Marketing
Part of what makes digital marketing so difficult is that it often feels like you are an outsider looking in. And if you've been in the SaaS game for a while, you may constantly find yourself wondering how to speak the language that today's "digital natives" find appealing.
There is a shortcut to this approach: you can work with influencers. These are the intrepid men and women who command small armies of loyal fans who hang on their every word.
Working with influencers is easier than you might think. It's just a matter of finding an influencer within the same niche as your product of your key demographic. You then work out an arrangement in which the influencer will recommend your product to their fans.
Some influencers may work in exchange for product samples while others will expect payment. But when you're trying to stand out in a crowded digital landscape, having popular influencers support your product is worth every penny!
Exit Intent
Pop-ups can get a bad rap. I get it, they can be annoying and obtrusive. However, you can't argue with the data, they work! What if there was a way you could get the benefit of a pop-up, without interfering with your visitor's experience? Lucky for all of us, there is!
Enter, the exit intent pop-up. This particular pop-up only fires when a visitor goes to exit the page. They're done browsing your site and are about to bounce, this is your last ditch effort to convert them.
Firing an exit intent pop-up can be a great way to increase website leads and maximize your traffic. They're an excellent quick win and can jump start your website's conversions.
Here are a few tips to get the most out of this unicorn of a pop-up:
*Test different offers - try promoting a free trial, demo, whitepaper download or webinar. I encourage you to test multiple offers over time and find the one that converts best.
*Test different designs - Once you're done testing offers and found the winning one, next step is to begin testing different copy and designs. Test elements such as headline, button call-to-action, colors and images.
*Optimize which pages throw a pop-up - An exit intent isn't a one size fits all. You wouldn't want it on every page. Also, you may want to promote different offers on different pages. For example, on your blog, a more top-of-funnel call-to-action like an eBook download might be more appropriate than a demo, but who knows, test it!
Notification Pop-ups
Aside from exit intent pop-ups, there are other types as well that can open up additional options for offers and pages you want to target. Here are a few additional notification pop-ups you can use to increase website leads and conversion rate:
*Social proof notification showing latest conversions
*Reviews widget
*Create sense of urgency in your offers with countdown notifications
*Call-to-action pop-ups can be used to promote webinars, eBooks, demos or special promotional offers
*Promote promo codes with notification banners
Check out ConversionAlert for over 20 notification pop-up ideas to boost your website conversions
SaaS Marketing Strategies: The Next Level
Now you know about the best SaaS marketing strategies. But do you know who can help your company grow faster and further than ever?
We specialize in scaling and helping companies reach their full potential. To see how we can increases sales opportunities by 300% in only six months, contact us today!