The field of SaaS is one of the most crowded ones. Continuously developing well into 2023, SaaS businesses are forever transforming and changing how they communicate with consumers, especially from a marketing standpoint.
At its very core, SaaS marketing needs to create more revenue and a better bottom line for SaaS brands. However, a prospective buyer of a SaaS product goes through a little different lifecycle.
(Source)
How will you attract SaaS consumers as a SaaS marketer without breaking the bank? It’s all about generating suitable leads, building brand reputation, and bringing your A-game to maintain and nurture customers.
But let’s go ahead and find out more.
Give something to get something
Utilizing free trials and getting users to sign up through a whitepaper or a content upgrade is a very common tactic for SaaS businesses. And since the SaaS model is subscription-based, some businesses are quick to offer freemium accounts with limited use of tools, or free trial accounts for the user to determine if the brand is a good fit for them.
This is one of the core SaaS marketing tactics of lead generation. But is it worth it in the end, or does it just create unnecessary, cold leads?
The real magic lies in getting users to use your product after they sign up for your email list or a free trial or freemium account. After all, stale leads will not upgrade to a paid account.
To achieve user mobility, you can develop an onboarding series of emails. Like so:
To do that, invest in email automation software that will cover all of the basics:
- Personalization tools
- Segmentation tools
- A variety of email templates
- A/B testing and reporting
After that, study the data you already have and figure out how to be persistent without being annoying. This is the main element of all email onboarding efforts.
Set up a welcome email first, and then set up email triggers that will send users different content each time they complete an onboarding milestone. Lead them gently down the funnel and add a little tidbit here and there with every email.
Showcase the use of a tool that could not be featured in the freemium program—provided you offer one – and see whether this is a fruitful attempt to upsell.
What you’re trying to do with that is to have users engage and interact with your brand from the very beginning. Getting them hooked before they pay something will lead them to want to use your SaaS product further and invest in it.
Boost your SEO and content marketing efforts
Search Engine Optimization and content marketing do not come naturally to most SaaS marketers. And more often than not, they don’t recognize the value of SEO especially.
Using SEO techniques means that you have a better chance of competing for the first ten positions of SERPs instead of the first ten pages. This will, down the line, cut back on your ads budget and will allow users to bump into your content organically.
Achieving this isn’t easy. Start by studying the keywords users come up with to search for the experience your SaaS business offers. You can use keyword research tools, or head straight to Google, like this:
To make the most out of your SEO efforts, you’ll need to create content that will correspond with what your users will be looking for but will also be attractive.
You can create a wide variety of types of content, including blog posts, whitepapers, video tutorials, and infographics that will include all of your targeted keywords.
Also, create keyword-optimized web pages for your website. And remember to be as mobile-responsive as possible. Studies have shown that this is essential for better rankings on SERPs.
Remember that more and more brands use SEO and content marketing for their efforts. It’s better to start early, invest in the right keyword research tools, and check out what keywords your competition comes up with as well.
Don’t overdo it
When creating a digital campaign for a SaaS product, marketers tend to overdo it and offer more options than SaaS leads might be interested in.
Since SaaS products are based on repeaters and not entirely on new leads, like dropshippers, for example, you need to showcase the experience of a product that users will be able to handle. Something with a short learning curve and a user-friendly interface.
Don’t promote too many features simultaneously, even if they’re included in the free trial or freemium version you’re promoting. Let users discover these themselves, or show them on your onboarding email sequence, one at a time.
Create a user journey that will make sense to them and engage customers through this process. Too many different features and tools might have them play around your website for quite some time, but they’ll also make users forget why they need your tool in the first place.
Take it one feature at a time and create less friction. That way, your users will know they need to invest only a few minutes daily on your SaaS platform. This is a very lucrative thought, especially in 2023, when everyone leads busy lives.
The power of referrals
Referral marketing is not something entirely new, but it’s a very rewarding process, especially for all of the SaaS businesses out there:
(Source)
Word of mouth can make all the difference when we’re talking about purchasing a product or a service. Brands know that, especially SaaS brands, and they’re utilizing this to their advantage.
Make sure to get referrals from your pre-existing customers by giving something back – it could be a discount coupon or access to a very special feature that their plan won’t cover for a limited amount of time.
You can also use other referral incentives like early admission to trials of the next feature, being a beta tester for the SaaS brand you trust, or even being able to purchase your next plan at a lower price.
The above techniques can slowly but surely create a referral program or an affiliate/ambassador deal.
This is because you’re using customers who already trust you as ambassadors, and you’re willing to give something back for the trust they’re showing you at this stage.
The takeaway
SaaS marketing is not an easy feat in 2023, but it’s more than worth it if you know the tools you could use to nail it.
Just make sure you invest in the right platforms, study and understand your audience and their preferences, and penetrate a better chunk of the market through referral marketing and affiliate deals.
Top that off with fantastic content, SEO tactics, and some email marketing, and you’re guaranteed to boost your SaaS business’s traffic without breaking a sweat.
