What Is SaaS Marketing? 5 Tips to Do It Effectively

Right from 2010, the SaaS business model has been snowballing. Experts predict that by the year 2023, this market will grow by at least 60 billion USD. This $60 billion growth is excellent news for SaaS company owners.  But with this boost in the market, the competition in business will also increase significantly. To stay relevant in the market, your company will need strategies that make it stand out.

In this article, there are five tips to help you increase engagement, reach the core audience, and, more importantly, show them why they should work with you.

What Is SaaS Marketing?

Before getting into the strategies, it is essential to understand the concept of SaaS first. SaaS is an acronym for Software as a Service. SaaS basically allows the users to connect over the Internet and use cloud-based applications.

SaaS companies bring updates and add new functionalities to prove to their customers that the subscription is worth the fee. The different methods that you use to market this kind of service is what we call SaaS Marketing. The primary focus of SaaS marketing is to promote and acquire leads for subscription-based SaaS products. Marketing SaaS is not as straightforward as marketing a physical product development. When creating something new, agile product development is an effective present-day approach. Here, you have to sell something that does not exist physically and does not make sense to everyone. SaaS marketing is not only challenging, but it is different from almost every other type of marketing on the planet.

What Makes SaaS Marketing Different?

The most obvious and impactful difference between SaaS businesses and others is that people cannot touch software. Since it’s not tangible, it is tough to pitch it to a typical audience via social media platforms. Even using an influencer marketing platform does not seem to move the needle. Convincing people that some SaaS product deserves to be an integral part of their routine is a demanding task. On the contrary, persuading people to buy a piece of cloth is much easier.

In traditional marketing, retailers generate revenue even from one-time purchases. The SaaS model, on the other hand, depends much more on ongoing subscriptions. SaaS products are technically a part of the B2B umbrella. The sales cycles of these products have a three-step distinct process:

• Acquisition: Bringing new users and giving free trials.
• Monetization: Converting these free users into paying customers.

• Retention: Convincing these paying customers to stay and enjoy the party.

In traditional companies, the primary focus of the marketing strategy is on acquisition. But, if a SaaS company only focuses on the acquisition of their product, they’ll not make much profit. Unsurprisingly, monetization and customer retention play a much more important role than just acquisition. There is an analysis by Price Intelligently that shows the relative impact of 1% improvements in these three stages.

The impact of customer acquisition is not hidden. But, one cannot say that acquisition is more important than the other two- monetization and retention. A successful SaaS marketing strategy will always cover all three parts of the sales cycle.

Tips to Do SaaS Marketing Effectively

SaaS marketing strategies of the past decade are ineffective in today’s world. Just how software has changed drastically, the marketing strategies for them were bound to change too. The growth hacking tactics might still have some similarities, but the overall strategy needs a fresh look. Below are five tips for effective SaaS Marketing:

1. Use Content Marketing to Its Full Potential

The SaaS business is uniquely positioned to take full advantage of content marketing for its growth. There are potential customers out there who are searching for their pain point. When good quality content from a SaaS platform solves their query, they are most likely to adopt that new SaaS platform.

These potential customers mainly focus on the features that the company is providing. SaaS marketing companies are now following a strategic approach in deciding the type of content their core audience will be interested in. It is also essential to keep in mind that people of different age groups will prefer specific content.

Looking closely at it, content marketing for SaaS is not as easy as writing a few blogs. The company has to produce content that can bring value to the audience consistently. On top of that, the content should be keyword optimized to appear in the right places. Only when all these boxes are ticked will the consumer of the content be interested in selling the SaaS platform to their boss.

The key is knowing what doubt or questions the potential customers might have. Solve them with the content and see the results.

2. Who Hates a Free Trial?

One of the most significant advantages that SaaS companies have over traditional business models is their ability to give free trials. For example, a furniture store can’t offer free beds for a 30 days trial to all prospective buyers. This is not possible – not at least without encountering a logistical nightmare. For SaaS companies, this is relatively easy. There is nothing to return irrespective of the user’s decision to continue or not.

Free trials are well known to increase acquisitions because who does not like a free trial? The barrier to entry is low. The news of free trials should feature liberally throughout marketing materials.

3. Ever Did An Experiment With The Pricing?

In the traditional business model, marketing and pricing are two diametrically opposite points. Pricing never seems like a marketing strategy to those who are used to the conventional way. But in the case of SaaS, they go hand-in-hand.

Pricing plays a crucial role in converting trial users into paying customers. Other than helping in this conversion, pricing models can establish a steady flow of revenue for the business. A Chargebee study shows that the expansion revenue does not make more than 10% of the monthly revenue for subscription-based companies. Such results clearly mean that any SaaS company’s success depends on the ability to retain ongoing subscriptions.

The time it will take to run some experiments is completely worth the payoff.

4. Compel Users To Refer Your Product

Companies should know what customers would do for a free month of service. They will easily refer something to their friend or colleague if the referral is incentivized. There’s no better way to reach new customers than referrals.

The customers who are associated with the software for a long time are best to ask for referrals. They can be incentivised in the form of subscription discounts or even no-cost premium features. What a company can give as an incentive depends on what the software does.

5. Adapt & Execute

All these strategies are designed to generate more leads and retain the existing ones. But these tips and tricks can only save you for so long. Keep in mind that change is the only constant and now the rate of change has increased. Keep engaging with your audience to find ways to minimize the churn rate.

Conclusion

SaaS marketing, at its core, is still marketing a product. When practiced, it looks very different from what traditional marketers used to. But when things are broken down to the elementary level, the only thing that matters is if the strategy can address all three parts of the sales cycle.

If any of the parts – acquisition, monetization, and retention – fall short, the company won’t see the results they are looking for. For a successful SaaS business, it takes the will to invest time and create new strategies for each step. The results of making this investment will be worth it.