Developing The Perfect Digital Marketing Plan For Your SaaS Business

The uniqueness of the SaaS industry means a generic digital marketing strategy will hardly work. It doesn’t matter if such an approach worked for other industries; their effectiveness in the SaaS environment will be significantly limited. In the same vein, SaaS digital marketing plans do not work for other industries, including other B2B industries. 

This post discusses how you can build a performing SaaS digital marketing plan that delivers the desired results. 

Also, if you’re considering outsourcing your SaaS Marketing and hire a SaaS marketing agency, this guide will help you to ask the right questions during the selection process.

4 SaaS Marketing Mistakes To Avoid

Before we get to the main tactics, let’s identify the common pitfalls digital marketers face regarding the SaaS environment.

1. Focusing on unqualified leads.

Unlike other B2B products with a long sales cycle, the SaaS industry is characterized by a short sales cycle. This can either be an upside or a downside, depending on your approach. However, the short timeframe means it is better to focus on qualified leads than unqualified ones. 

You can check top digital marketing hubs like HubSpot, Inc.com, and Pardot for a comprehensive guide on qualifying leads.  

2. Having a poor or no content strategy.

SaaS businesses thrive on content marketing. The best way to target your potential customers – mostly professionals interested in a solution – is to roll out informative, high-quality, and competent content that helps build a strong reputation. 

It is common to see SaaS businesses just publish low-quality or random content. This hurts the overall content marketing efforts. 

3. Not tracking progress. 

The dynamic nature of the SaaS industry leaves no guarantee for outright success. This is why you should monitor your progress and identify rooms for improvements in your strategy. If you are not on a big budget, you can use free analytic tools to see how your campaign strategies are faring. Google Analytics is a good way to start. 

4. Ignoring competition. 

You are not the only company in the game – you should expect potential clients to compare offers and go for the best. So, instead of ignoring these competitors, you should acknowledge their presence and find ways to beat them. 

You can draw a comparison page showing visitors why they should choose you over your major competitors. Asides from facilitating a positive purchase decision from your potential clients, it improves your website’s search visibility and possibly the dwell time. 

5 Hacks To Implement In Your SaaS Digital Marketing

Now that we have identified SaaS digital marketing’s common issues let’s move on to the hacks you should implement in your SaaS digital marketing strategy. 

1. Inbound Marketing

The current digital world is experiencing a rise in the struggle to get heard. More companies are doing all they can to get into the faces and minds of their potential customers. But the results do not match the efforts. Despite the incessant online ads by companies, customers are not interested. 

There is only a little we can do with traditional, outbound marketing. This is why we need to shift to inbound marketing, i.e., producing relevant content and making it available to clients looking for such information through search engines. These clients are the qualified leads. 

Inbound marketing entails content marketing and SEO. The right content creation strategy costs less than advertising and gives you the option to reduce your Customer Acquisition Cost. It also gradually and steadily builds your authority as a brand. Likewise, customer retention is an essential aspect of the SaaS environment. Content marketing helps with client retention and increases the lifetime value (LTV) of the existing customers. 

How do you get started with inbound marketing?

2. SEO – Search Engine Optimization

We have talked about the non-technical part of inbound marketing – content creation. The other part – the technical part – is SEO. Search Engine Optimization (SEO), as the name implies, helps to increase the visibility of your content via search results on top search engines like Google and others. It also drives organic traffic to your website.

There is a lot to say about SEO – we recommend that you do extensive research to know more. However, below are the main steps of SEO for the SaaS industry:

3. Freebies

Whether in the form of free trials or lower prices, freebies is one of the widely-used marketing strategies in the SaaS environment. We recommend that you introduce a free trial for your software or any other form of freebie you know clients will find irresistible. 

Offering these free trials is half the job – the other half is ensuring the beneficiaries enjoy the best customer experience during the trial period. This is in line with prioritizing the ‘service’ in SaaS – Software as a Service. 

If your potential clients get the best possible customer service, it encourages them to make the purchasing decision in the end.

Finally…

Coming up with a perfect digital marketing strategy for your SaaS business can be a tricky one. The options are many, and they look appealing. However, you can take your time to combine the variables into a proper plan that works for you. 

Alternatively, you can hire an experienced SaaS marketing agency to create and execute a customized SaaS marketing strategy for your business. They know how to leverage inbound strategy to drive traffic, leads, conversions, and ultimately, revenue.