Your Guide to Creating a High-Level SaaS Marketing Plan

A strong, high-level digital marketing plan is a must for any software company looking to increase revenue. With technology demand on the rise, your SaaS marketing plan needs to meet the needs of your customers head-on.

Data collected by Google shows that 90% of shoppers who visited online stores in the past week, started with online research first. What's even more eye-opening is that 74% of tech shoppers spend most of their time researching online compared to 26% who research offline.

If you want your software company found by warm prospects who are looking for your product solution, then your marketing strategy needs to include an optimized online presence.

And as a software development company, you're in a unique position. Your products are online, so that means your clients are online. Your marketing strategy needs to focus on developing an online brand exposure. One that highlights all the areas you help your customers.

According to Blue Corona, statistics show that 62% of online buyers make business decisions based on online content. This means that a marketing plan for a SaaS company should optimize for digital assets. These might include social media profiles, blogs, landing pages, emails, etc.

The challenge in creating a high-level SaaS marketing plan is that you're not a marketer. So we're providing you with a clear guide on how you can go about crafting a digital marketing strategy that helps you stand out in your industry. Even if you've got no marketing skills to begin with.

Step 1: Set clear goals

It doesn't matter if you're serving B2B or B2C, the first thing you'll need to do is answer this question: What result am I looking to achieve?

Your marketing plan should be reviewed often. Make sure you're still looking to get the same result when you started. Right now, it's about understanding what your biggest need is and how your marketing plan can help.

Are you looking to attract more quality leads, gain more customers, raise brand awareness, or promote a new software product?

Whatever it is you're looking to achieve, defining your goals allows your entire team to know where you're heading.

Step 2: Who is your target market?

Once you've got clarity on your marketing goals, the next step is to define your target audience. Who is most likely to get results from what you're offering?

This step is important. Based on whom you're trying to attract will determine the marketing tactics you use to get traffic to your sales funnels.

You need to know who is going to use your software as well as who the buyer is. They might be different. This is often the challenge for software companies that have a B2B model. More often than not, the user of your SaaS isn't the person responsible for buying your product.

This means you'll need marketing activities that target those different audiences. This may include the end-user, the person responsible for buying, and the C-suite. This is why buyer personas are important. They allow you to develop content that is targeted to meet their expectations and requirements.

How effective your marketing tactics are will depend on how well you are able to define these buyer personas.

You'll need to think about criteria such as:

- age

- gender

- income levels

- personality

- values

- sales patterns

- business size, and

- structure to name a few.

Now that you've got your goals and audience defined, you can create a successful SaaS marketing plan.

These three areas are where you will focus your efforts:

1. Traffic
2. Conversion
3. Measure, Optimize & Scale

Let's dive into the traffic part first.

How To Attract The Right Traffic

When it comes to a digital marketing strategy, traffic is the first place you'll start.

There are many ways that you can drive traffic to your website.

The most effective way is to create a sales funnel that starts with paid traffic drivers.

At HookLead, we create marketing campaigns using search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) ads. We use Google and LinkedIn Ads because they offer the most robust results for SaaS companies.

We recommend a strong content marketing strategy in conjunction with your paid ads. This allows you to meet the needs of your buyer personas while also providing value. This increases brand awareness and builds know, like, and trust factors needed for new leads to convert into buyers.

Not convinced paid advertising is right for you? Did you know that 75% of online shoppers prefer to click on paid search ads? Why? Because it makes it easier for them to get access to the information they are looking for.

Imagine if your ideal target customer is searching for a service you provide. Right in the search results, your ad shows up. It's optimized with keywords and language designed to invite them to click and learn more.

So they click. They land on your optimized landing page or blog content. It meets their needs. They turn into an email subscriber or buyer. Your ROI metrics increase. Your marketing plan is working!

This scenario is far more likely to happen than if they didn't click at all.

This is why we recommend allocating some of your marketing budget towards paid search ads. LinkedIn ads offer great results for B2B SaaS companies too. You can reach your target audience faster and increase your conversion rates.

Ads help increase brand credibility and awareness. Even if a prospect doesn't click on your ad the first time, they will see your ad in the places they are searching online. And eventually, they will click and visit your website.

How To Increase Conversions

Now that you've got targeted traffic coming to your website, what's next? You need to know what to do with that traffic to increase subscribers and sales.

That starts with reviewing the landing pages you have in place. Are they optimized to meet the needs of your buyer personas?

Are you using the language that your audience is familiar with? We see a lot of SaaS companies using jargon to explain their offers. This repels their target audience.

You want to focus on using simple language. The language that you would use if you were talking to a potential prospect face-to-face or over the phone.

One way to make sure that your messaging isn't confusing? Share your landing page link or piece of contact with someone that doesn't have any software experience. If they understand what you were trying to explain, then you're good to move forward.

If the person has no idea what you're trying to say or they appear confused, then it's likely that your language needs work.

A great online tool you can use to check any content is The Hemingway App. This app allows you to drop your content into their page and then assess it for readability.

You'll receive an initial reading level grade. If your reading level is 10 or higher, then you'll want to tweak your copy to get it down to around grade 7 reading level. This means that most people can understand your copy.

At HookLead, we focus on ensuring every page on your website optimizes conversions. Each page might need different conversion goals. We'll use this to determine the conversion rate optimization strategy we use.

If you're focused on getting quality leads this month, then focus on a clear call to action that shows "above the fold" on your pages.

Looking to increase sales? Focus on content that shares things like successful case studies and testimonials from customers.

We're also huge fans of split testing, especially when it comes to your landing pages. We test things like:

- headings

- images,

- copy, and

- video content to see what connects best with your audience.

"What you focus on grows" ~ Robin S. Sharma

Measure, Optimize and Scale

Now that you've had your marketing plan in place for 30-60 days, it's important that you measure it.

Once you understand your data, then you can optimize and scale what's working. And remove any of the tactics that are not getting you the results you're looking for.

We use closed-loop reporting to help you make decisions as you tweak your SaaS marketing plan.

Closed-loop reporting is a collaborative practice. We provide you with your recent data. You review the information and take any action and then report back to us with results. We then make any necessary tweaks as needed.

Every high-level marketing plan needs to have reporting built-in. So you can make informed decisions but also so you can understand what is working well and what isn't.

You'll receive a higher ROI when you're measuring your marketing efforts.

We follow this strategy when creating a new growth strategy for our clients:

Get Your Marketing Plan For SaaS Company

If you've tried to create your own SaaS marketing plan or even if you have one in place and it's just not getting you the results you're looking for, it's time to figure out the strategies that will work for you. Once you have the right marketing mix, getting quality leads into your sales funnel becomes easy.

Are you looking for ways to accelerate growth for your SaaS company? We're here to help you grow. Reach out to learn more about increasing sales opportunities.