At the pandemic’s beginning, SAAS companies experienced a nearly unprecedented hot streak. Are you a SAAS company looking to improve your marketing strategy? In this article, we’ll cover the best SAAS marketing strategies for you to consider. These will help you increase your conversation rates, decrease your churn rates, and explode your recurring revenue.
SalesForce grew by 51%, Shopify grew by 225%, and the industry as a whole seemed to be completely unstoppable.
But by the end of 2021, things started to cool down. SAAS companies saw a 46 percentage point drop in overall growth.
Nowadays, SAAS is far and away one of the best business models out there. However, the industry as a whole is still experiencing a post-pandemic market correction. The SAAS industry is becoming increasingly competitive and saturated.
This means, now more than ever, your SAAS company needs to use your marketing budget wisely, and in a way that creates the best ROI.
Let’s get started on the best SAAS marketing strategies for your SAAS business. You will be increasing your conversation rates, decreasing your churn rates, and exploding your recurring revenue in no time!
Table of contents
What’s the difference between SAAS marketing an regular marketing?
You might be wondering to yourself…
“Is there really any difference between SAAS marketing and marketing for any other company?”
And the answer is sort of ‘yes’… and also sort of ‘no’.
No matter what kind of company you run, or which niche you are in, marketing principles are tried and true. You need a solid brand, a well-oiled funnel, persuasive copy, and the ability to execute a campaign at scale.
But having said that, SAAS companies do run by a different set of rules, and because of that, there are unique marketing strategies that can help optimize your growth.
Let’s look at our 5 favorite SAAS marketing strategies.
#1 – Measuring the right data
This might seem like a strange place to start, but honestly, it’s the most crucial aspect. We guarantee that the large majority of your competitors are focusing on the wrong data.
Why is data so important?
Because recurring revenue is a game of its own, and because of this it needs to be tracked in its own unique ways.
Once you know how to properly track your most important KPIs, you can then focus on optimizing every step of your funnel. This, in turn, lowers your customer acquisition costs.
Here are the metrics that your competitors are probably tracking…
- Traffic to website
- Monthly revenue
- Churn rate
- Costs per click
- Keyword rankings
- Number of social media followers
While these metrics are important, they only show a small part of what’s really happening to your SAAS business. To get a true look under the hood of your engine, you need to also be following metrics such as…
- Activation rate
- MRR/ARR
- Average revenue per account
- LVT-to-CAC ratio
- And more
Only when you look at the most granular (and important) metrics, will you be able to see the bigger picture of your SAAS business. Therefore, you can make data-driven decisions that improve your marketing funnel.
The best way to do this is by working with an experienced CRM expert, preferably on a proven platform like Hubspot.
Once the CRM expert fully configures your account, you can invest in growth in a way that is primed for optimization and sales.
#2 – Content Marketing
If there is one thing that all SAAS companies seem to invest heavily in – it’s content marketing.
And there’s good reasons why. SAAS companies that utilize content marketing report 30% higher growth rates while it costs them 62% less than traditional marketing.
Content marketing doesn’t refer to the copy on your homepage or the landing pages that you may be A/B testing.
Content marketing is the process of creating, and scaling, content that is aimed to educate prospects, nurture leads, and retain customers.
This in turn creates awareness, trust, and eventually, sales and brand loyalty.
Content marketing is a vast umbrella that refers to the publishing of many different types of content. This includes, but is not limited to…
- Blog posts
- FAQs
- Webinars
- Instagram photos
- YouTube videos
- Emails
- Tik Tok videos
- Tweets
- And more
But to get the most out of your content marketing, you need to go in with a fine-tuned strategy. This means doing the right research, setting concrete goals, analyzing the data, and iterating where necessary.
While the initial response for most SAAS companies is to invest in SEO, success can be found in other platforms.
For example, while Hubspot is renowned for their world-class SEO strategy, they also launched the Hubspot Marketing YouTube channel that has over 220K subscribers….
… and generates over 380K views per month.
Or how Elementor (SAAS website builder) has focused heavily on Instagram.
On IG, Elementor posts helpful content for business owners – some of which has to do with building websites, but other more general tips as well.
Overall, by investing into content marketing you will be able to establish a solid brand identity, attract high-quality leads, and lower your churn rate very quickly.
#3 – SEO
SEO isn’t as easy as it used to be, but that’s because it arguably has the best ROI in all digital marketing. Simply put, it’s hard to beat organic traffic that comes to your website on autopilot.
In fact, nowadays over 80% of consumers do an online search before they make a purchase. By investing in SEO, your SAAS company has the ability to get in front of the customer when it matters most.
But to do SEO right, you can’t just look at it as a way to generate immediate sales. Sure, you need to target transactional keywords that will generate revenue, but SEO is best tackled as an entire funnel in itself – where you target all customers in every part of your their buying journey.
Let’s take a look at Clickup – a project management SAAS company.
As you can see, Clickup has a DR of 84, has generated 3.1 million backlinks, and gets over 1.1 million organic visitors per month. It’s clear that Clickup has invested heavily into SEO over the years.
But what’s so interesting about Clickup is their dedication to creating a wide-range of content. They target transactional obvious keywords like ‘team management software’ and ‘project management template’.
But they also target top-of-the-funnel keywords like ‘team building activities’ and ‘calendar on Google doc’.
These keywords result in traffic, and while the traffic probably doesn’t convert as highly as the more ‘transactional’ keywords, they still make searchers aware of their product, therefore bringing more qualified traffic down their funnel.
Also, Clickup has a cheeky SEO strategy where they target branded competitor keywords – often quite aggressively.
You can see in the screenshot above that they are targeting the ‘vs’ keyword in regards to their competitors. This means Clickup can influence people who are comparing two competitor products, like Asana, Monday, Evernote, Airtable, and more.
Clickup are masters of creating awareness through SEO, and because of the evergreen nature of SEO, the traffic will keep coming in on autopilot day after day.
#4 – Email marketing
For SAAS companies, email marketing should be at the core of all your marketing strategies.
This is because email marketing is the best way to directly engage your customers, and it can deliver a staggering ROI of $36 for every $1 spent.
Email marketing helps you accomplish two things…
- It helps you convert leads who are already signed up to your email list
- It helps you nurture customers who have already converted
But while most SAAS companies have an email marketing strategy, few are taking full advantage of the power of email marketing tools.
For starters, to explode your conversation rate, you need to have an email onboarding sequence. The goal of this sequence is to educate leads about the benefits of your product, while gently pushing them to sign up. In general, this sequence should be 4-7 emails spread over the course of a few weeks.
The best way to optimize your sequence is by testing different variations. Simply create a hypothesis and run a test to see if your hypothesis is correct. Then, run A/B tests to see which copy, headlines, buttons, and images, help to deliver the best overall conversion rates.
And for existing customers, your goal should be to create so much value for them that they could never dream of leaving your platform.
Be sure to share tips and tricks with them that not only help them get the most out of the software, but that also helps with other problems they are trying to overcome – both in their work and personal life.
Simply put, the more value you create in your email marketing – the more loyal your customers will be to your brand.
#5 – Branding, messaging, and positioning
How much time is your SAAS company putting into branding?
How about its overall positioning?
These are things that are often overlooked by SAAS companies as theytend to focus on acquisition, sales, and metric-driven growth.
But given the competition in the field, focusing on branding and positioning can provide tremendous advantages.
The goal is to distinguish yourself from your competitors. This can be done by practical means (creating a special offer, or USP) or by emotional means (slogans, colors, animations, etc).
Either way, the goal is to create more powerful connections with your customer base.
Be sure that your USP is unique, well-crafted, and immediately identifiable. By doing this you will help further distinguish your brand from your competitors, and create a more unique value proposition for prospective leads.
Another way to do this is by focusing on your positioning and pricing.
Are you moving upmarket? Aka, have you implemented an ‘enterprise’ subscription option?
Are you moving downmarket? Aka, are you offering a ‘freemium’ option?
By putting your brand first, you’ll be able to distinguish yourself in the market, and by testing out different price points and subscription offerings, you’ll be able to cast a wider net and increase your monthly revenue.
SAAS marketing strategies FAQs
What is SAAS content marketing?
SAAS content marketing is the process of strategizing, executing, and measuring a content marketing campaign for a SAAS business. Content marketing can help all kinds of businesses grow, but it’s considered especially important for SAAS companies to invest heavily into it so they can educate, and grow, their user base.
What are some SAAS marketing channels?
The three most common are probably content marketing, SEO, and email marketing. These create the trifecta of SAAS marketing, and should be at the top of any SAAS company’s priority list. From there, be sure to look into social media channels such as Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.
What are the top SAAS marketing strategies?
Some of the top SAAS marketing strategies are very well known – such as content marketing, SEO, and email marketing.
But one of the most effective (and misunderstood) SAAS marketing strategies is tracking, measuring, and analyzing your data correctly – preferably in a CRM like Hubspot. By doing this you will be able to grow your SAAS company smarter, and optimize every step of your funnel one part at a time.
Final thoughts on SAAS marketing
As SAAS has gotten more competitive, coming up with a SAAS marketing strategy is more important than ever.
By investing in content marketing, SEO, email marketing, and your positioning, you’ll be able to generate new brand awareness, and grow faster than ever before.
If your SAAS business is looking to explode its growth by working with a proven SAAS agency, be sure to reach out to a First Page Digital Strategist today. The call is 100% free, and we’ll show you how we can help take your brand to the top of the SAAS world.
