The SaaS industry has been growing in leaps and bounds. Given the increase in the number of companies incorporating SaaS solutions, SaaS has proven its effectiveness and advantage in this digital age.
According to recent research, by this year, nearly 73% of organizations will have utilized SaaS solutions for their businesses. Also, take note that the mobile SaaS market is predicted to reach $7.4 billion by this year as well (Strategy Analytics, 2016).
Software as a Service or SaaS provides end-users with the ability and convenience to use cloud-based applications over the web. So the method to market and promote SaaS is what defines SaaS marketing.
In SaaS marketing, you don’t have a physical or tangible product involved. Although you may say that the service in itself is the product, you will need specific and special marketing thrusts for it to be recognized and most importantly, for people to purchase your service.
Major on your Metrics
We can all agree that you can ensure your SaaS marketing strategy success by the way you track and monitor your metrics. But not just any other metrics—you’d want to focus on the ones that will give you a stronger data baseline that can help strengthen your business thrust.
So What Should Your SaaS Marketing Strategy Focus On?
SaaS marketers can sometimes overcomplicate processes but today, let’s just simplify things. Here is the trinity of SaaS marketing metrics that you should prioritize above all else:
1. Website Traffic
Tracking website traffic reveals your user trends. Using website analytics to keep track of your number of views, visits, whether daily or monthly, provides you with great insight on how to improve your customer engagement.
Learning a great deal about your end-users utilizing your service can give you a clearer picture of what you need to enhance in your core marketing strategies.
2. Email List
Having an email list allows you to market your service in a more targeted fashion. Your customers need the information to help or assist them in their buying decisions.
Increasing brand awareness and having the right content can push end-users to make the purchase.
You can get creative with this because it allows you to have a one-to-one touch base with your client. From newsletters to announcing features, free trials and demos, surveys and online events, getting it through email can produce breakthroughs for your business.
3. Leads
An increase in qualified leads means that there should be an increase in sales. However, this doesn’t happen most of the time because there are a lot of factors affecting this. To ensure that your leads can guarantee sales, you need to have solid lead generation strategies.
Improving These Metrics to Move Your Business Forward
Website traffic. Email list. Leads. Now that we have pointed out what metrics you need to work on, let’s discuss the actional steps that you can take to actually improve them:
1. Growing Your Website Traffic
Strategy #1: SEO or Search Engine Optimization
SEO is all about positioning. It basically helps get your site or service on the frontlines for rank and search optimization.
For you to be able to grow your SaaS marketing strategy, you need a solid foundation that’s predictable, sustainable and scalable. SEO is what drives you forward in this. If you execute your SEO strategy well, you’ll witness exponential growth in your site targeted traffic which then can be converted from leads to customers.
Strategy #2: Content Outreach
If you want to provide relevant content to your market, you have to keep things engaged with your end-users. Content is key. Also, an effective SaaS Marketing strategy must be supported and matched with sufficient marketing research.
Aside from focusing on producing valuable content, you’d want to make sure that you have a strategy that will bring it to greater heights.
What’s important here is:
- Aligned campaign goals and optimization of campaign results
- Knowing your target audience
- Content distribution
Strategy #3: Co-marketing
In the SaaS Marketing world, it’s a known fact that most services share the same target audience. When services join forces or possible pool in resources, diverse and dynamic marketing campaigns are produced. This allows the services that have joined forces to share in the results—whether it be for lead generation optimization or gaining a steadier trust outcome from the customers’ end.
With seamless cooperation and partnership from parties involved, success can result from having leveraged co-marketing strategies.
2. Growing Your Email List
Strategy #1: Give Freebies
Who doesn’t want free stuff? Especially if the free stuff is valuable to start with. One great “hook” for your possible buyers is giving out freebies.
From free trials, downloadable audio or E-books, free masterclasses or coaching sessions—you’re keeping these end-users engaged, providing them with enough info they need to make that purchase. And at the same time, this is a smooth way to permit you to keep sending them emails.
Strategy #2: Write Headlines that Open Emails
Talk about not getting “seen-zoned” in the email world. You need to come up with something creative and intriguing or else your email’s headed to the spam section or the trash bin.
The digital world has shortened people’s attention span, so even in scrolling through emails, unless it’s something catchy, interesting or urgent, then it won’t get read. Your email headlines need to send a message of urgency. So, KEEP. IT. SHORT.
Timing is essential. Research on the best timings your target audience would most likely open these kinds of emails. The “when” is as important as the “why” in this strategy.
You must test this out first. Find tools for where you can perform A/B testing on the emails you send out. Decide what data you want to get from this so you can analyze the results better and enhance your email marketing strategy.
3. Increasing Your Leads
Strategy #1: Study Your Target Buyer’s Journey
Behind every successful purchase is a buyer’s journey. How did they get to the point of buying your service? What drove them to make that decision.
Here are the different stages of this specific journey:
a. Awareness.
Everything begins with awareness. People need to recognize that your service exists and is of value. The end-user is possibly looking for a solution, an option or simply a desire that needs to be met.
Knowing their current level of awareness can help you carve out the right path for them to lead them to the purchase point. Through this, you’ll know what kind of content or campaign you need to push forward that they will respond to.
In using and optimizing the right data, you can come up with defined results that can pinpoint their level of awareness.
b. Consideration
As they narrow their searches down, they already have considerations as to what to buy. So that’s why this is critical because they’ll be weighing their options as well. It is important to note and ask “What makes your service stand out? Or what makes my product different from the rest?”
Effective communication, excellent customer service, and valuable content must be delivered so you can create an impact and drive them to choose your service.
c. Decision
The buyer now decides whether or not to make the purchase. Your goal then is to make sure that you minimize the customer’s hesitations. You need to keep them engaged not just with facts but with the emotional thrust: Trust and value.
People justify their purchases so they need to know that they’re making the right buying decision. That’s why you need to provide a solid basis for them to trust you. With a targeted market, with the right content, and having effective engagement strategies, you can optimize your lead strategies better.
Strategy #2: Create Targeted Content in Different Stages of the Sales Funnel
The sales funnel is a powerful visual tool in the context of the Buyer’s Journey. Imagine with me, the funnel is wide at the top because the variety of prospects are wide and the most engaged prospects are channelled in the middle of the funnel, and eventually down to the bottom where the conversion happens.
Key stages:
- Attract
- Engage
- Delight
You must put careful thought into the content that you produce for every stage of the journey for you to see a strong conversion rate.
1. Attract Stage. This is where you need to start conversations and create content that can boost customer awareness. Since the buyer’s still looking for options, they need to consume information that can direct them to a solution.
It’s not a guarantee that they’ll purchase after reading your content at this stage, but this can help direct them to make the right buying decision. Your optimized blog posts or social media content are usually used during this phase.
2. Engage Stage. This is the mid-part of the funnel wherein you’ve got them engaged to the point that they know they need a solution to their problem. Here, they’re looking for the right services as the best solution.
Consider this as an extended engagement stage where you need to build and strengthen client relationships. Ideal content platforms for this stage in the funnel include your targeted emails, landing pages, contact forms, CTA pages, comparison guides, and content promoting freebies and free samples.
3. Delight Stage. This is a crucial stage where you must show excellent customer support and experience that adds value to your service and as well as give your clients affirmation that you’re a trusted brand.
The key thing to remember is to go beyond the end users’ expectations. This is also the part wherein you kind of “pre-qualify” your prospects. That’s why customer support comes in so that you can help them understand why the service is a good fit for you or the best solution for their problem.
During this phase, you can use content like live demos or free trial pages, content promoting consultation offers, optimized e-commerce pages, live chat responses, or content offering coupons.
Strategy #3: Answer Your Target Audience’s Pain Points
In marketing effectively, you need to know and understand your client’s pain. If you don’t understand them, how can you help them? So what are these pain points? These are specific problems that they experience during their buyer’s journey. These are the client’s frustrations and certain inconveniences. But these can be converted into opportunities for you to work on.
How do we deal with these pain points more effectively?
a. Maximize your sales team
Find out what causes the attrition and get your sales team to work on finding solutions to enhance your marketing strategies. Get your team to take note of conversations or marketing interactions that didn’t land a sale. Then from there, create a more balanced and effective strategy to respond to clients better and drive them to make the purchases.
b. Do Surveys
The key to offering surveys is asking the right questions. A lot of surveys don’t get answered or get discarded right away because they don’t identify straight with the client’s pain points and some just don’t make sense.
You can keep these surveys simple and also, you can incorporate open-ended questions for clients that are ready to provide you with qualitative insights.
c. Review Reviews
Tracking client feedback and reviewing the reviews they’ve made on your service or of your competitors can help you find out which area of your business needs improving. This also helps you resonate with which pain points most clients are experiencing.
d. Strengthen Customer Service Support
This part of your marketing strategy must be prioritized. Optimizing live chats and answering email inquiries in real-time can help you respond effectively to their needs and touch base on that pain point they’re tackling with.
The more excellent the exchange of communication and the more convenient the platform is, the better you can address the issue.
Your turn…
Your marketing strategy is like your big game plan. You came to win, so you need to make sure that all areas of your plan are covered. Success doesn’t happen overnight and hard work must be put in.
Understanding your audience and knowing what they’re in for can help you create and craft the best content there is to strengthen your strategies at hand.
Track your metrics. Keep your end users engaged. Optimize data analytics. Enhance your customer service. Simplify your SaaS marketing.
