The Software as a Service (SaaS) industry has grown substantially over the last few years as more companies continue to enter the market. In fact, Garner estimates that the SaaS segment of the global enterprise IT market is expected to grow to $117.7 billion in 2021.
In a market rife with competition like SaaS, differentiating your brand and the solutions you offer is key to your success. Instead of marketing using a traditional strategy, your marketing strategy and the tactics you use should be in line with the level of innovation your solutions offer.
To remain competitive and continue on the path to success in the year ahead, give these 8 digital marketing tactics for SaaS companies a try.
1. Utilize Content Marketing
SaaS companies are uniquely suited to take advantage of content marketing to generate leads and increase conversion rates. To attract and convert new leads into customers, educating the market about your software offering and its distinct benefits is not only an exciting opportunity, but a necessary one.
But one benefit for companies in the SaaS market is that many people are already searching for solutions to their needs on the internet, making them perfect candidates for adopting your software or platform.
Getting started with your content marketing strategy isn’t difficult. You’re likely already familiar with your buyer personas and what questions they’re asking. And if you’re not? We can help guide you through creating buyer personas you’ll actually use.
Once you have your buyer personas in mind, you’ll need to get started on keyword research and build your content marketing strategy around that. After all, in this day and age, your content means nothing if it isn’t optimized for search engines.
Ultimately, though if you’re providing content that is relevant to your buyer personas, answers their questions, and educates them on how you can meet their needs, you’ll be successful.
2. Focus on SEO
It’s important to optimize your blog posts for SEO, but you cannot neglect your website. SEO is one of the best digital marketing tactics for generating relevant organic leads for your company. If you’ve done the keyword research for your content marketing strategy, you can work towards optimizing your website, images, and metadata with them to improve your ranking.
Additionally, you’ll want to focus on winning high-quality backlinks to your website and referrals from top industry websites. These tactics will help you improve your domain authority which goes a long way towards improving your ranking.
3. Invest in PPC Ads
Pay per click (PPC) advertising is one of the easiest ways to generate leads—so don’t leave it out of your digital marketing plan. However, if you target keywords that are too competitive, your costs will increase significantly, and in just a few short ads, you could lose your entire PPC budget. Instead of bidding on high-competition keywords, focus your SEM efforts on the low-hanging fruit for quick wins.
It’s also a good idea not to invest your entire PPC budget in one place—like Google, for example. Instead, consider investing in ad campaigns on relevant social platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook in addition to those on search engines. Sponsored posts also provide another unique opportunity: you can easily increase content marketing engagement while simultaneously promoting your website.
4. Don’t Neglect Email Marketing
If you’re looking for a way to engage customers and improve customer retention rates while generating a positive return on your investment, don’t neglect email marketing! It’s a great tool for customers in the later stages of your SaaS sales funnel and can even help turn happy customers into your advocates.
Letting your customers know just how much you appreciate their business is a great way to retain them—and it never hurts to remind them over email, either.
5. Consider Offering a Free Trial
Offering free trials is an easy way to incentivize qualified leads to move the needle and give your software or platform a try. And for SaaS companies, offering a free trial can provide great returns with very little (or no!) investment.
A free trial is also a wonderful way to demonstrate to potential customers just how beneficial your product is, in addition to dazzling them with your outstanding customer service and support. And if they’ve found value in what you have to offer, your free trial participants may even decide to convert to actual customers.
If not? There’s still a benefit for your SaaS company. You can survey participants after they’ve completed your free trial and gain immensely valuable insights into what is and isn’t working.
6. Make Signing Up Easy
If you do decide to offer free trials, you need to make the signup process as quick and painless as possible. Because conversions happen on your registration form, it’s critically important to make it easy for people to sign up for their free trial!
This means you need to make the forms on your website and landing pages short and sweet. Keep the amount of information you ask for to the absolute bare minimum, and you will ensure maximum conversions.
7. Take Advantage of Affiliate Marketing
Another way to guarantee a steady stream of new leads is to dip your toe into the pool of affiliate marketing. It’s an ideal tactic for your SaaS digital marketing strategy because you only have to pay affiliates (your existing customers) after you’ve received a trial signup or a won a new subscriber.
And if you think about it, it’s a win-win scenario. You continue to provide benefits to your existing happy customers, and in turn, your company receives many new leads you may not have otherwise. You can even incentivize your affiliates further by providing the option of recurring payouts. Who doesn’t want to earn more money?
8. Provide Top-Notch Customer Service
What’s one of the main reasons people switch to a different software or try out a platform? If you guessed poor customer service experiences, you’d be right. Don’t risk losing customers because of bad experiences with your customer service team.
Make contact information for your customer service department easy to find, and don’t automate the entire customer service process. Make sure that customers experiencing issues have the option of talking to a real, live person when needed.
For easier questions and concerns, provide an easily-accessible FAQ page on your website. Tutorials for troubleshooting are helpful too. In fact, the more information you can arm customers and free trial participants with, the better.
SaaS digital marketing may be different from other types of marketing, but if you utilize the right digital marketing tactics, you can reel in a lot of leads in a short time span. And if you invest in providing an excellent customer service experience to your customers, keeping them on board is easy.
Need help getting started on your SaaS digital marketing plan? We provide B2B digital marketing services every day and would love to help you accelerate your SaaS digital marketing.
As you continue refining your marketing strategies, download the 2021 B2B Marketing Mix Report as a resource and guide for other B2B trends and tactics your peers are considering in 2021.
So, what are you waiting for? Get in touch with us!
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