According to a report by Business Wire, the anticipation for Software as a Service (SaaS) market to grow during the 2018-2023 period, is 21.2%. That is because SaaS has become an essential part of how modern businesses operate.
In spite of the predicted market growth, whether your business will be successful or not – it all depends on marketing and effective SEO. 75% of internet users do business with one of the top three search results when shopping for a product or service. In order to appear as high as possible in the SERPs, your site must align with Google’s ranking factors — the variables it considers when determining a page’s position, or ranking, in the SERPs. Better rankings mean more people see results for your site, which means more clicks, which means more leads to convert into new clients and customers. This may sound simple, but getting your website to the top of the SERPs is no small feat, unless you invest in a high-quality SaaS SEO strategy.
Therefore, even though SaaS marketing is challenging, it is a necessity. Moreover, for your SaaS business to grow, your marketing strategy must focus on four key elements: attracting new visitors, converting them into identifiable leads, closing sales, and delight your users. For this reason, here is a list of the top five must-try marketing strategies that you can use to ramp up your lead generation efforts.
For more on developing effective B2B brand strategy click here http://bit.ly/2uxVZvu
Content Marketing
Practically all businesses around the world are using content marketing not just to build their brand, but also to attract visitors to their website, and generate leads. Now, you may ask why content? It is because content allows you to reach new customers and positions your brand as part of the research process. However, not any content. You need to create strategic content which aligns with their business goals. Also, think about what metrics you will use to measure success, who is the content for, what topics will you write about, and how you will plan, create, and distribute that content.
A key advantage of SaaS content marketing is that it increases in value over time. Meaning, unlike other digital marketing strategies, content doesn’t involve paying for space. For this reason, content is an asset that businesses own, whereas online advertising is rented. This distinction is vital for SaaS marketers to consider.
An extra tip: Embrace the hottest new trend in content marketing – podcasting. It’s so common nowadays for people to tune in to various podcasts. Alternatively, you can use customer testimonial videos for your product promotion. They have the highest effectiveness rating among other forms of content marketing.
Data-Driven Marketing
To reduce wasteful spending, and customize your marketing efforts in order to reach your specific target markets better, you can definitely use b2b saas marketing planning at scale to manage your pipeline marketing and increase your campaign effectiveness. Moreover, data is the lifeblood of any SaaS company. Investing in it will give you the possibility to make better decisions and help you grow faster. Through analysis of consumer data and how potential customers interact and engage with your brand, you can create robust and scalable marketing processes.
If you are a non-technical type of person, fear not. There are end-to-end cloud data warehouse and management programs that can help you. Using them requires no knowledge of specific IT skills. Products like MongoDB data analytics, offer you the possibility to quickly combine, collect, and integrate your data with an analytic tool of your choice.
An extra tip: Since SaaS businesses rely on a customer base of subscribers to maintain sustainable revenue, collect feedback that will help you to enhance and refine your product.
Product Trials
Offering a free trial of your product via your website is one of the most potent ways to simultaneously gain interest and new users. This strategy is fast becoming an essential source of lead generation for the SaaS industry. The reason is that product trials are typically self-serve. Meaning, you can continue to generate leads with little ongoing marketing investment. However, you must be confident that your prospects will love your product after they get their hands on it. Why? Because people running a trial have a higher propensity to buy. However, do not offer a free trial when your customer can not get a complete idea during the free trial period of how your product benefits them. Also, a free trial is not a good idea when your product is too complicated or complex. For example, your product has a complex integrated process, involves upfront implementation work, or it needs third party integration to demonstrate a complete flow.
An extra tip: When offering a free trial, consider customer support. Depending on the product, that could be either one-to-one calls, automated emails, or group webinars.
Referral Marketing
A positive review from a friend, a family member, or even strangers online, can go a long way in shaping your prospective buyer’s view of your brand. Moreover, referrals are typically the easiest and cheapest way to get high-quality leads and customers for your SaaS business. You may wonder why it is so inexpensive? Well, because you only pay for the customers that purchase your product or sign up. However, it is most probable that you won’t generate many referrals without offering your customers something back. Usually, this means providing an incentive (like Dropbox did) or giving points they can use toward their subscription costs (like Evernote did).
An extra tip: To get a good referral program, you need an efficient and effective referral marketing software for SaaS. Don’t hesitate to reconsider investing in one, but as a minimum, you must create a landing page on your website where people can make referrals.
Retargeting
Using retargeting (or remarketing) you can dramatically increase conversions by re-engaging people that left your website. It essentially converts window shoppers into buyers. How does it work? When a user visits your webpage, a cookie is attached to their device. This cookie allows you to retarget them with display ads as they visit other websites.
Though typical for many e-commerce sites, SaaS business can (and believe us, they should) use retargeting to turn website visitors into customers. It will give your brand and product another chance to establish trust and familiarity with website visitors. However, your adverts need to be creative. They have to have a clear call to action and where possible, promote an offer. Moreover, you can create lists and choose to retarget specific users from your database, who have previously engaged with your business. For example, you can target users who already tried your product on a free trial but did not go onto a purchase.
An extra tip: Think about retargeting potential in getting trial users to log back in and use their free trials. By setting up retargeting campaigns that target people who are already running a free trial of your product, you can promote webinars, special offers, and also include reminders.
SME Paid Under
About the Author
