Saas Marketing: The Complete Guide

Saas-Marketing-The-Complete-Guide

Saas marketing or marketing for software as a service is a unique and developing area. The most important things in this area include product features, user experience, and the support you provide.

It is a distinct and challenging marketing subset, mainly because of its nature being intangible. Saas model work based on two key elements: competitive software and exceptional customer support.

Having these two elements makes your software easy to sell. But you need users who know about you, are interested in your product, and engage with it.

You just want to entice users to give it a try so that they experience your great product and support.

Besides being intangible, another challenge of Saas marketing is its different uses. B2B Saas marketing varies for each sector, and showing examples of each use case to various prospects is vital.

In this article, we will discuss Saas marketing definition, strategies to implement a Saas marketing plan, and insights.

What Is Saas Marketing?

Saas marketing refers to marketing that aims to generate leads and persuade them to subscribe to software. Saas is a method for businesses to offer their goods through cloud-based apps with frequent upgrades and enhanced features.

It is different from tangible and one-time purchase products. Instead, Saas offerings are intangible products that must constantly persuade existing and new users it’s worth the monthly charge.

Saas Marketing Plan

Building an outstanding product and establishing product-market fit doesn’t guarantee the success of a SaaS startup. However, marketing is critical for companies to achieve long-term success and development.

Here are the five steps that anybody can follow to plan and execute effective Saas marketing strategies:

1- Set Your Marketing Goals

Before considering techniques and channels, the first stage in any marketing plan should be to identify clear, quantifiable targets and deadlines for achieving those goals.

Simply consider the following points in setting your Saas marketing goals:

  • The Saas marketing goals should follow the SMART goal model. It means that they should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
Smart goals infographic
  • Focus on one metric that matters (OMTM) when setting your marketing goals.
  • Divide your ultimate goal into smaller, more manageable time limits (it guides you through setting your short-term targets and workflow).

2- Know Your Target Audience

Your next step will be identifying your target audience or target market. Determine your ideal user by first learning who they are, how they think, and where they are.

Moreover, try segmenting your customers based on various categories. Pivoting your Saas marketing strategies for each customer segment makes your marketing efforts effective. So, in this step, define your valuable customers based on the following attributes:

Hence, adding these characteristics to your Saas marketing plan helps you create weekly and daily tasks to attract each segment.

3- Select Your Channels

Using marketing channels is crucial to the success of your Sass business. First, identify the channels that will assist you in achieving your goals. As a Saas marketer, you should attract and keep profitable customers for your organization.

In other words, you need to check and analyze the profitability of each channel. Also, it is important to note the level of scalability for each channel.

4- Track your Progress

Track your progress while working through your Saas marketing plan. Remember that development is a dynamic process that evolves. And acquisition methods that are effective now may not be effective tomorrow.

You will know if you are on track and see new opportunities if you watch your progress. Thus, while implementing your marketing strategies, make sure you continually improve them.

5- Scale your Saas

After establishing your promotional strategies and channels and tracking them, it’s time to explore scaling opportunities. While looking for new opportunities to scale your Saas, it’s better to consider the following to prioritize the best options:

  • Profitability potential
  • Size of the market
  • Scalability

Don’t forget to scale your business only when your Saas business grows and not in the startup stage.

Saas Marketing Strategies and Tactics

The basis of the Saas marketing plan is the strategies and methods. These strategies provide you with the insights necessary to lead your business toward your goal.

The stage of your Saas business determines your marketing strategy. For example, if you are still in the early phases, your major plan should be to:

  • Brand awareness
  • Validating product-market fit
  • Lead and customer acquisition cost analysis

Product-market fit refers to when your product effectively meets the demand of your target audience. Therefore, it is important to know where you stand regarding product-market fit (PMF) to better define your strategies.

Also, there are some general Saas marketing tactics to help you promote your products:

1- Saas Inbound Marketing

Saas inbound marketingSaas inbound marketing is an approach that creates valuable content to attract Saas users. You may start a Saas inbound strategy by developing your buyer personas and defining main buyer qualities.

inbound marketing

These personas have an impact on every phase of the Saas inbound marketing. They provide information about their preferred communication channel, online behavior, and unique needs.

The next stage is to generate material for them to answer their needs and assists them in solving problems.

Successful Saas companies concentrate on their customer challenges and offer solutions to them by inbound marketing strategy.

Related Article: Persona Mapping: What Is It and Why It’s Vital

2- Facebook Ads

One of the greatest aspects of Facebook advertising is the ability to target users in various ways. Facebook’s data tracking is quite comprehensive. So, it allows you to target individuals who have visited your Saas business website without converting. Also, you can choose them according to their precise profile information.

You may refer to your buyer persona to describe exactly the customer you’re searching for. Then, you can target those prospects based on a range of variables such as purchasing behavior, interests, etc.

Other benefits of advertising on Facebook include its powerful statistics, and Facebook advertisements may be tailored to any budget. Moreover, businesses can also utilize the Facebook Ads Library to gain insights on their competitors’ advertising strategies and improve their own advertising campaigns.

3- Google Ads

Google ads have a massive reach that is beneficial to any marketing campaign. It allows for targeting users based on relevant keywords. That’s how Google ads can help you reach prospects with a relevant problem they want to solve. 

So, it provides you the chance to welcome to engage with your Saas product with a free-trial sign-up.

Moreover, you can use  WatchThemLive’s session replay to analyze how each visitor interacted with your business. This is essentially helpful for your next Google ads campaigns. Session replays can provide you with the prompt feedback you need to get from your Google ads.

WatchThemLive

Conclusion

Although Saas marketing differs from other sectors, you can still increase your profitability using robust marketing strategies.

This article discussed the SaaS marketing definition and steps to prepare your marketing plan. They include defining goals and your target audience to select the best channels to reach them.

We also introduced some tactics like inbound marketing, Facebook, and Google ads that help you promote your Saas company.

Cyrus Nambakhsh
Cyrus Nambakhsh
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