The business model SaaS is becoming more popular than ever. Based on its current popularity and growth rate, FinancesOnline estimates that this sector will be worth $623 billion by 2023. If you’re part of this industry, this opens up amazing opportunities for you. It means that you’re on a booming stage with your business.
But, it also means that you have tons of competition – and that competition will keep growing. At this time, it is more important than ever to figure out ways to stand out from the crowd. What you need is a brilliant marketing strategy for your SaaS business.
That’s exactly what you’ll get in this article. But, first, let’s see what SaaS marketing strategy encompasses.
What Does “SaaS Marketing Strategy” Include?
If you think about it, your SaaS strategy is no different than any other marketing strategy that businesses use for growth. You have a product, though a bit more different than others, and your strategy includes methods for promoting it on the market. The success of your strategy, as well as that of others, depends on how many leads you’ll attract, and the customers you’ll get.
Still, there’s one difference – your SaaS product is not a product in the traditional sense. It has no physical presence, is not an object, but it’s also not a service per se. You have a digital product, something that’s not tangible, but can be very useful to your customers. Your services include updating that product.
Based on this, the tools you use in the process, as well as your approach can differ greatly from those of others.
Tried and tested tricks for your SaaS marketing strategy
What are your goals with the SaaS marketing strategy?
First is the matter of attracting more people to your site, ideally organic traffic. Next is the promotion of your amazing service. This should result in your visitors purchasing your SaaS product.
If you want to achieve this, you should definitely try out these proven tips for your marketing strategy.
1. Create microsatellite content hubs
Microsatellite content hubs are the next great step. Starting from one magazine, you should work toward creating several. But, what is microsatellite content?
Shopify’s SEO Director Indig defines microsatellites as “content hubs that revolve around a topic. They live on the website, but they have their own UX, their own look and feel”.
Quality magazines are hyper-focused on a specific area of knowledge and can still include elements of your unique brand. In other words, you’d be building different content areas to attract different groups of your target audience. It makes for a more personalized, more direct marketing approach.
According to this SaaS marketing guide, to boost your current success, you need to start fresh and “delete your blog”. In its place, you should create a magazine. The concept revolving around magazine content should elevate your content strategy. There is a brilliant trick that works – build multiple magazines that focus on core topics related to your business.
2. Never, ever forget about SEO
SEO has been the most important thing for online marketing and branding since the beginning. Odds are, this will remain the top priority of marketers for a long time. Nothing works better for boosting your website’s traffic and attracting your audience as a great SEO strategy.
This is no time to slack off when it comes to your SEO moves. Every day algorithms are updated and every day new trends emerge. You need to tailor your marketing strategies and goals regularly in order to appear – and stay high in search results.
It is as simple as it sounds – if your site has good SEO, it ranks higher. If it ranks higher, you get more traffic and more customers.
But, implementing good SEO techniques is not as simple. The job of every marketer is to figure out the best SEO moves that could increase the interest in every page, impress Google, and get the site out there for everyone to notice.
If there’s something that you should definitely spare time and money on, it is SEO. From using the right tools to analyze your site’s success to hiring experts who know how to get your site somewhere at the top, this should remain your priority even today.
3. Limit their choices
When you first hear it, this advice makes no sense. Why would you limit your consumers’ choices? You want to offer them as much as possible, and sell as much as possible as a result.
Even if it sounds counterintuitive at first, this advice has proven to be very successful. Today, it is much better to limit your options and simplify your marketing than to keep throwing things in your customer’s direction.
Let’s consider an example. Have you heard of Mailchimp? This is a SaaS brand, one that has been trending a lot in the past few years. Even though they offer plenty of different features, you’ll only find four plans as options to choose from.
Why did they decide to limit the choices?
It’s because it makes things simple for everyone. Customers don’t have to spend tons of time trying to figure out what fits them best, and there’s little room for error. It’s not overwhelming, but practical.
4. Invest in referral marketing
One particular branch of marketing has been yielding amazing results in the last years – referral marketing. Word of mouth has always been the strongest tool that brands have. Now that people have testimonials and advice at their fingertips, all thanks to technology, this is more useful to you than ever.
Think of referral marketing as word-of-mouth digital advertising. The idea behind this is to convince your happy customers to recommend your SaaS products and services to people they know. For this, they can be encouraged to use platforms like LinkedIn, emails, or other social media channels.
When a person from your target audience receives a referral from someone they trust, this gives you a stamp of approval and is more convincing than any content or promise you make.
Great referral marketing strategies will require some time, quality content, and of course – investment into incentives. People might want to spread the word around on their own, but to convince more of them to do so, you should offer rewards and incentives in return.
You may offer them an additional feature for free when using your software. Take, for example, Dropbox. Those who refer it to others get extra storage space if their referral prompts an action.
5. Collaborate with the right brands
Great marketing strategies don’t necessarily require a large budget. There are plenty of things you can do to boost your brand’s recognition and attract more people to your SaaS product without spending a fortune. One such thing is a collaboration with other brands.
For starters, you need to look for brands with similar interests. Your collaboration should be beneficial for both sides. Seek brands that solve the pain points of your users and offer them the following:
· Co-marketing. This is when more brands promote a special offer, event, or piece of content together. If you have an overlapping audience with a brand, they are perfect for this. Non-profit organizations and groups that are popular with your communities are also a good idea for co-marketing. Not only will this appeal to more people, but it will also split your costs in half.
· Event partnership. Ever since COVID-19 disrupted the way we live, people’s contact has been limited to digital contact only. This prompted many businesses to join forces and build event partnerships. Find a similar brand and plan online events. If done right, this should help both sides get a broader reach.
· Partner program. From reselling products to partner portals to co-marketing, you can achieve great things if you join forces with the right businesses and organizations. The idea is to partner up with similar brands, offer co-marketing support, and build your partnership from the ground up.
6. Invest in PPC
PPC or Pay Per Click is paid search advertising, a great avenue for you to explore. The important thing to note is that this should not – and cannot – replace your SEO strategies. Your main focus should still be on creating original, SEO content, and this is the plus trick that you use to promote that content even further.How much and where you’ll invest depends on your budget and your needs. However, you should always set at least a bit of your marketing budget for a PPC campaign. In it, figure out which are your branded search terms, find the right platforms where your target audience hangs, and monitor metrics as often as you can.
Wrapping up
Digital marketing is the strongest tool for reaching a wider audience and promoting a brand these days. For SaaS companies, it is more than a good strategy – it’s a prerequisite. Since your products are not tangible items that are sold in stores and markets, an amazing digital marketing strategy should be your priority. This article has shown you where to start – now it is up to you to build an amazing strategy that brings the desired results. Good luck!
