We know that there is a scenario that is driving you to rethink your SaaS marketing strategies to sell software:
According to Technavio , the software as a service market has the potential to grow by $99.99 billion over the next 4 years. A scenario that shows the growth of the market at a compound annual rate of 11.35%.
Faced with such a situation, it is natural to think about improving what you have been doing so far to grow and sell better. Here we are going to help you improve your marketing strategy to sell software .
How to make a SaaS marketing strategy step by step
Creating SaaS marketing strategies without prior research that allows you to be aware of your shortcomings and growth opportunities is a risky action that will waste a lot of time, money and effort.
To guide your actions, we recommend applying this step by step:
1. Define your SaaS marketing goals
Like any marketing strategy, those of software as services have to start with defined objectives.
For example, due to what was mentioned at the beginning of this post, a goal that you surely want to establish is the commercial growth of your company.
Questions like how much do you want to sell? how much do you need to bill? They could help you define objectives in a realistic and scalable way in time to achieve said goal.
One way to grow and sell better is through the loyalty of current customers, so it would be worth setting goals to get them to be ambassadors of your SaaS company.
In any case, consider that when creating strategies to sell software, it is necessary to establish objectives that are in sync with your goals.
2. Research your main SaaS competitors
Due to the impressive growth of Saas companies, the competition between companies in this sector becomes more challenging.
The market suggests you to be one step ahead, but how can you be? The answer is simple: through competitor research.
Researching your competitors is the beginning to determine what is the trend of consumption in SaaS service and how you can take the lead with your competitive advantage.
It is not about copying the competition, rather it is about determining several key points :
- How does the competitor’s solution stand out?
- What is wrong?
- How can you unify the above points to enhance your solution and boost your SaaS marketing strategy?
3. Identify your ideal client
Attracting qualified leads in SaaS companies is a big challenge because in many cases the company depends on renewals, or leads that have a hard time recognizing the value of a software as a service solution .
But if you make an effort to identify what could be the audience segment interested in your company’s solutions, you will see that it is much easier to execute SaaS marketing strategies because you direct your actions in a personalized way.
How to do it?
There are multiple ways to do this, for example you could work together with your sales team. By his direct contact with the client, he recognizes what type of prospect they attract.
You could also contact and interview your current customers to find out why they connected with and hired your software company. As well as, it will help you recognize what challenges they are facing .
In general, teamwork with sales and direct contact with customers will be your information base to identify your buyer persona to create a personalized and effective SaaS marketing strategy.
4. Create an irresistible offer
Irresistible offers refer to the type of content that the lead, prospect or user values so positively that they cannot miss it, therefore, they will give you their contact information to access the download of said information.
They are usually created in pieces such as ebooks, whitepapers or any other type of downloadable document. An irresistible offer can also be a consultation call, a free test or demo, etc.
But that will depend on other aspects that in inbound marketing we usually call the buyer journey; a way to identify where a prospect is in the sales funnel and based on that, generate an offer that allows them to solve their problem through a lead magnet.
5. Define your digital channels
One way to define the channels through which you will execute your SaaS marketing strategy is through the recognition of your ideal client.
An exhaustive study on how they behave could help you recognize in which channels they prefer to do social, professional and business life. For example:
- Are you an active user on social networks? where do you interact more? Facebook? Twitter? LinkedIn?
- Where do you consult when you have questions related to SaaS companies?
- Are you a blog reader?
By answering these types of questions you will be able to know in which channels the interaction with your ideal client is more organic and where to invest your marketing efforts for SaaS.
6. Attract potential customers to your website
Let’s evaluate your behavior as a consumer of products (and content): What is the first thing you do when you have doubts about a specific topic? Surely you go to Google to make queries.
These searches return results in which you can view blog content, YouTube videos, links to social networks, etc. In your research process you click on the links that are most relevant to you.
The same happens with users who perform searches related to Saas companies.
What if your website appeared at the top of Google search results? That means you would get 65.5% of clicks.
But for that to happen, you need to consider optimizing your website for search terms that mean an opportunity to attract qualified traffic.
One way to do this is through a blogging strategy: based on the creation of useful and relevant content for the ideal client.
7. Generate leads
Once you already have traffic browsing your website, the next step will be to create an ideal ecosystem to convert completely unknown users into duly identified leads.
Initially, one of the ways to do it is through CTAs and landing pages strategically placed on the website and blog with the intention of facilitating the step to conversion and demonstrating the benefits of acquiring the offer.
Just as you can also invest in paid ads to promote the irresistible offer by remarketing to those who visited the blog and did not download the lead magnet, through the channels in which you discovered, your ideal client comes to life.
8. Start educating and maturing your lead base
Leads are not always ready, there are cold, warm and hot leads. But to make the most of the generated leads, it is better to start preparing them for the purchase and warm them up with lead nurturing strategies.
To develop a SaaS marketing strategy that perfectly understands the transit to go from cold to hot, you have to invest time in knowing what are the phases that lead goes through:
- Discovery – The lead is experiencing symptoms of a problem or opportunity for improvement.
- Consideration : The lead has already clearly defined their problem and investigates available methods or approaches to solve it.
- Decision – You have already established a strategy or method to solve the problem. It is possible that you will make a list of solutions (or providers) that fit your strategy. You may also want to narrow down that list to make a final purchase decision.
Building content for each of these phases has a clear objective: to make leads aware and recognize that they have a problem, to educate them about the solution and how it would improve their situation, until finally showing them your software as that ideal solution.
When you start to be aware of where your ideal customer is in that journey, you can start a SaaS marketing strategy that delivers the right content at the right time.
9. Offer demos of your software
As we mentioned before, demos of your software are part of the irresistible offers, but it will depend on where your prospect is in the journey.
A user who is barely aware of their pain is a person who is not ready to buy.
However, if you are making the offer to a hot, qualified, purchase-ready lead, having demos may be the best SaaS marketing strategy. Remember that people want to make sure they make the best decision.
10. Use an irresistible promotion to accelerate the sale
Let’s go to the basics of traditional marketing: special prices, discounts and promotions are always a good SaaS marketing strategy because we naturally push the lead to take the final step for the final conversion.
At this point you have to evaluate what is the margin that you can manage, analyze what is the competitor’s hook and determine how you can improve the competition’s offer.
Study the possibility of generating a powerful promotion where the only attraction to close the deal is not the cost.
Conclusions
As you can see, the trend on a SaaS marketing strategy is focused not only on your business goals but also on the value that your company brings to the ideal client.
So, before you start planning to sell software, you need to take a break and study with your marketing and sales team how you can sync up the two to create a winning strategy.
In general, teamwork with sales and direct contact with customers will be your information base to identify your buyer persona to create a personalized and effective SaaS marketing strategy.
