What is SaaS Marketing?

SaaS marketing, or Software as a Service marketing, is becoming more and more popular as a business model. SaaS marketing may be difficult to start, but the industry is booming. This means that there is a lot of competition, and this competition is only going to increase as time goes on.

Whether you’re new to SaaS marketing, or looking for some advice, you’ve come to the right place. This article is going to go over the basics of what SaaS marketing is, and share some worthwhile tips and tricks on how to optimize your SaaS marketing strategies.

What is SaaS marketing?

SaaS marketing is a term that you may have heard being thrown around more and more as of recently, especially since this form of marketing is becoming increasingly popular. But what is SaaS marketing, and how does it differ from traditional marketing?

With traditional marketing, there is a product that you promote and sell to customers. When comparing SaaS marketing to traditional marketing, there is not much difference.

SaaS products differ from other products because they have no physical presence, which is where things may become a bit tricky. Traditional marketing strategies rely on products that you can hold in your hand and advertise to customers. Due to the lack of physical products, there needs to be a different strategy in place to sell SaaS products, which is where SaaS-specific marketing comes into play.

Due to the SaaS products being (mostly) digital (hence, software), SaaS marketing focuses on selling products in a (again, mostly) digital space. Popular ways to do this include digital channels such as ads and social media, and content marketing.
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What is industry marketing?

The marketing strategies you use will be dependent on the product you are trying to sell as well as the platforms and campaigns that are used. Typically these strategies will be categorized as either B2C marketing (business-to-customer) or B2B marketing (business-to-business).

Industrial marketing focuses on B2B marketing, promoting services from one business to another rather than to individual customers. As the name suggests, industry marketing involves promoting and positioning a company's services or products to a specific industry.

Businesses are usually made up of a number of individuals as opposed to B2C sales, which may focus on one-on-one interactions between two parties. A business and a private customer may have a simpler sales process, but industrial marketing often involves larger orders and long-term relationships which can be beneficial in the long-term.

Businesses are usually made up of a number of individuals as opposed to B2C sales, which may focus on one-on-one interactions between two parties. A business and a private customer may have a simpler sales process, but industrial marketing often involves larger orders and long-term relationships which can be beneficial in the long-term.

How does industry marketing relate to SaaS marketing?

You might be wondering what all this information about industry marketing is doing in an article about SaaS marketing. The answer is pretty simple; the typical customer for SaaS marketing will be a B2B company, or a B2C company. The marketing that you do for your SaaS product should target the decision makers within these companies, or the industries they exist within.

Traditional marketing can’t always address the problems that occur when selling SaaS products. Often with SaaS companies, there are longer sale cycles in comparison to other products, with longer customer journeys and questions that are unanswered by traditional marketing strategies.

How can SaaS marketing help you?

It is obvious that marketing your business is extremely important. Marketing can build brand awareness, increase sales, engage customers and ultimately grow your business. But why is SaaS marketing important?

There are multiple benefits to SaaS marketing, here are a few:

• Bulk Orders - Business buyers tend to purchase enough goods or services to be supplied to multiple people in their company. Therefore, their orders tend to be in bulk.
• Less Expenses - When working with business there tends to be less buyers so less expenditure is needed to contact them and complete purchases. There is also less need for promotional items such as free gifts and demonstrations because the product will be shown to multiple people at once rather than one person.
• Customer Permanence - Once you have built a relationship with a business, they will typically continue to purchase your product for a longer period of time.

How can you make SaaS marketing work?

The major trick on getting SaaS marketing to work is to generate traffic on the product website. To gain more website traffic there are digital marketing techniques that can be used to help you succeed.
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Digital marketing refers to advertising which is conveyed through digital channels to promote brands in hopes to connect them with potential customers.

Here are some digital marketing techniques that will help your SaaS website to gain more traffic:

1. Content Marketing
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   Content marketing is proven to help SaaS websites excel. To get more traffic onto a website there should be high-quality content being shared. First, research the interests of your target audience so you can align the posts you make with their interests.
   
   The topics that you can choose to include on your website are endless, though using tools like Keywords Everywhere will help identify topics that are suited to your target audience. When customers are coming to your page, they are doing so for an intent.
   
   They may be looking to receive information about your product, which should be answered fairly quickly. If they are looking to purchase your product, they should also be able to do so quickly.
   
   If the user is doing an informational search, they may stumble along your blog post. Once the user has found the information they need on your blog, typically they’ll stay around to look at what the website has to offer.
   
   Having the right content available is important as it can help bring in potential customers. The right content could include detailed case studies, a blog post, or a nice landing page, it really depends on your audience.
   
   
2. Your Website’s SEO
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   SEO stands for ‘search engine optimization’ which is pretty self-explanatory. The website you’re working on needs to be tailored to your target audience’s internet searches.
   
   Once you’ve made the necessary changes, your website should be as high as possible on search engine result pages. The higher the website is on the results page, the more website traffic it will get.
   
   There are numerous strategies to make a good SEO, though some strategies like using social media and guest posting work better for SaaS websites.
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3. Paid Search or Pay Per Click Investing
   
   Another strategy that is worth exploring is paid search or PPC (pay per click) advertising. Both paid searches and PPCs can be used as a nice addiction to content marketing and SEOs. If you’re looking for some quick traffic, this is the way to go.
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4. Referral Marketing
   
   Referral marketing is similar to word of mouth advertisement, and is pretty easy to do. All you need is current customers that are willing to recommend your product to others. Your customers could either do this one-on-one through email or share their recommendation publicly through platforms such as LinkedIn.
   
   This SaaS marketing strategy is extremely effective and can increase the number of qualified leads you receive. Referral marketing is an excellent way to get your name out because the referral will be coming from someone the prospective customers already know and trust.
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5. Generating Exposure
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   Most audiences tend to put a lot of trust into reviews and testimonials, even if the reviews are not from someone the client personally knows.
   
   Getting positive reviews on review websites will greatly help the amount of traffic your website receives. It is unlikely that you will get listed on every review website, especially if you're just starting up, but it is worth a try.
   
   Having consistency across many different review websites can convince potential customers that your business is reliable.

3 Tips for Successful SaaS Marketing Strategy

Now that you know how to gain traffic on your website, how can you turn the people that are viewing your website into customers? This may be harder than it sounds, especially if there is no physical product to be sold.

Here are 3 tips to make your SaaS marketing strategy successful:

1. Make sure customer’s choices is limited
   
   You may be wondering if you read that line right as it may seem counterintuitive. To provide the most customer satisfaction you’d want to provide as many options as possible to meet customers' individual needs, right? That’s actually not the case.
   
   It’s better to simplify the customer’s choice by limiting the options they have. You can have several features that your products provide, but ensure there are a limited amount of plans to choose from. Pricing should be easily available to the customer so they can compare and contrast your product.
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2. Offer customers a free trial or a free model
   
   It is a mainstream marketing strategy in SaaS marketing to offer clients free trials. It is actually extremely difficult to find a SaaS business that doesn’t offer clients free trials. This is because free trials are extremely effective in selling SaaS products.
   
   By providing your client with a free trial they can understand exactly how your product works, and how they will be using it once the free trial is over. Having a free model available for customers to use can also encourage a free trial, or purchasing a subscription.
   
3. Make signing up easy Signing up,
   
   whether it be immediately or after a free trial, should be easy and quick to do. You’ve gone through all the work of getting the customer to your website and convinced them to purchase your product. After this, there should be a limited amount of obstacles that would prevent the customer from following through with their purchase.

Putting Everything Together

Now you have the basics of SaaS marketing and the top strategies to make your SaaS marketing plan thrive, and to meet your marketing goals. You can pick and choose which of these techniques to use, or work through all of them. Remember - it’s your marketing strategy, therefore you should use the strategies that best reflect your brand.

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