10 SaaS Marketing Tactics You Can Use Right Now
SaaS is considered by many organizations the most important technology for the success of their business. Gear up your SaaS marketing activities and discover the top tactics that will help you create a rhapsody of success and change your business forever
How do you get successful as a SaaS company in an industry when there are approximately 17,000 businesses offering software as a service in the U.S. alone? How can you convince potential buyers that your product is the unique solution to their problems? How can you keep your customers engaged to maximize your profits and grow your SaaS business?
All of these questions can be answered with the right SaaS marketing tactics. But, in a market dominated by big names earning millions like Adobe, Salesforce, Atlassian, and Shopify, it’s easiest said than done.
In our previous article, you’ve learned the meaning and the basics of SaaS marketing. Now let’s step things up and discover 10 killer SaaS marketing tactics that’ll kick your sales into overdrive.
An Overview of the SaaS Marketing Funnel: Your Gate to Success
Attract, convert, experience, close, delight… rinse and repeat. This is the merry-go-round of the SaaS selling process that goes ‘round and never stops. It’s the backbone of any successful SaaS business.
The carousels at the funfair need ad-hoc tactics to attract customers — they have to:
- Catch their interest (convert into leads),
- Sell the tickets (close the deal), and
- Ensure that they have fun so that they’ll come back (keep them happy).
The same can be said about the SaaS marketing funnel. Each stage has its own specifically tailored tactics. And if those tactics aren’t good enough or are used at the wrong stage, your prospective customers will go elsewhere (likely turning to your competitors).
Want to make sure this doesn’t happen to your organization? Let’s break down some of the best SaaS marketing tactics that’ll help you ride the wave of SaaS success like a pro!
10 SaaS Marketing Tactics You Can Put to Use Right Away
Selling and promoting a service that can’t be touched can be tough. However, SaaS marketing doesn’t have to be complicated. If you nail the right marketing tactic at the right moment (i.e., the right funnel stage), you’ll get the results you aspire to as part of your overarching SaaS marketing strategy. Ready to grow your SaaS business? Let’s get started.
Too busy to read through the whole article? We got it covered! Check a summary of the tactics and related examples in the table below:
SaaS Marketing Tactics | Examples |
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Create Content That Stands Out on All Devices |
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Invest In a Website Security Certificate |
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Engage With the Community |
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Offer Free Trials/“Freemiums” |
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Make It Easy (and Safe) to Sign Up |
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Enhance Your Onboarding Process |
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Proactively Reduce Customers’ Grievances |
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Digitally Sign Your Updates and Patches |
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Get Featured on SaaS Review Sites |
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Watch Out for Cyber Trends and Keep Your Customers Informed |
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Did this list pique your curiosity? Then keep on reading and find out more about each of these SaaS marketing tactics.
1. Create Content That Stands Out, on All Devices
Content is king and can be a very powerful tool to attract your target customers (first stage of the funnel). It’ll show them how your software can solve their problem and help them understand the ins and outs of your product. But how can you create the right content?
- Provide authentic, honest, and credible content. Exaggerated or vague claims are never a good idea and lies have short legs. Eventually, customers will discover the truth and you’ll likely lose them. Add practical examples and valuable industry-related or internal data instead. You could share a recent original study you did or a report on specific trends.
- Got a problem? We have the solution. Using the data you gathered from personas, create content that addresses your potential customer’s pain points. Do you want an example? If you’re a cybersecurity SaaS company, you could explain to your potential customers how to avoid the risks of a real-life cyber attack or how using strong cryptographic algorithms can protect the security and integrity of their data.
- Compare and sell your unique features. Why is your product better than others? You know the answer but your prospective customers don’t. Comparing your product with other similar ones available in the market is a good way to highlight its uniqueness as well as those top features you worked so hard to release. For example, are your software products developed putting security first? Let them know.
- Leverage SEO. What do you do when you have a question or a problem? You probably do a search on Google. So do your potential customers. Make sure you create content that targets the right keywords and matches the right search intent. Recent research has proven that internet search is the biggest source of leads and traffic for SaaS companies.
- Optimize your content for all and all devices. Is your website accessible on a mobile device? If the answer is no, then you should be concerned because you’re losing a lot of potential customers. And if your website is not accessible to people with visual disabilities, then you may be cutting out potentially 2.2 billion people worldwide.
2. Invest in a Website Security Certificate
Security is a big deal for customers investing in SaaS software. A secure socket layer/transport layer security (SSL/TLS) certificate issued by a trusted third-party certificate authority (CA) will help you attract visitors to your website, convert them into leads, and close deals. How?
- Asserting your organization’s digital identity. The customers will immediately know that they’re dealing with a verified business thanks to the information included on the certificate.
- Certifying that all information transferred to and from your website is encrypted. Websites using security certificates are easily recognizable: their addresses start with “HTTPS” and they have a small padlock near the URL. Customers will know that your website is safe for browsing and when entering credit card information or sensitive data to close a deal.
- Helping your site rank on search engines. Did you know that Google counts HTTPS as one of its search engine ranking factors? Since 2014, Google favors websites using an SSL/TLS certificate giving them a small ranking boost. Isn’t it a good enough reason to switch to HTTPS?
3. Engage with the Community
Online communities and virtual events are great ways to engage with potential buyers and established customers. In fact, if correctly tailored, this SaaS marketing tactic can be effectively used at every stage of the funnel.
- Set up ask me anything sessions on social media. Get one or two of your product experts live on one or more of the social media platforms your personas prefer to use. Customers will get their questions answered and learn from others’ experiences with your product during an engaging discussion.
- Organize webinars and virtual or in-person events. Have you ever participated in an Atlassian community event? It’s a terrific way to share your expertise and start a conversation with the participants. Pick a topic highlighted by your personas. Show how your product can solve their problem or how they can get more value out of it. Engage with greater audiences and turn them into potential leads.
- Create a forum or a group on social media. People love discussing their passions and their issues. Forums and discussion groups are fantastic for networking, boosting your brand, and showing off your product.
- Unleash the power of influencers. Find the right ones for your niche and use them to promote your brand. They can share links or participate in a case study, for example. And you can do that even on a tight budget.
4. Offer Free Trials/ “Freemiums”
Once you have attracted your potential buyers, it’s time to convert them into leads. Offering free trials or freemiums is a brilliant way to do so with little money. To paraphrase Marlon Brando’s famous line from The Godfather: make them an offer they can’t refuse.
- Feature time-limited free trials. How can you lure a potential customer to buy something intangible without letting them try it out first? It’s impossible. That’s why nearly every SaaS product offers one. It’ll enable you to showcase your solution’s key features, demonstrate its value, and reach up to 62.4% of the conversion rate.
- Promote freemiums. Free trials are for a limited time; once the trial period expires, the customer has to pay a fee to keep on using the product (service), “freemiums” (a catchy combination of the words [portmanteau] “free” and “premium”) are free to use, forever. Yes, customers will only get the basic features but that’ll be enough for them to experience the benefits and for you to win them over. Let your product do the talking. It’ll help you decrease your customer acquisition costs (CAC).
5. Make It Easy (and Safe) to Sign Up
Sometimes, less is more. And this is exactly the case when it comes to requesting personal details from prospective customers. In the digital world, customers have become much warier about the risk of sharing too much sensitive data. And they’re right. I know many people who, if a form for a free trial requires a phone number, just abandon it and look for something else. (This writer is one of them.)
- Keep your sign-up form short. Did you know that, based on research from Jotform, forms with fewer than five fields to fill in have higher conversion rates? Even if you’re tempted, ensure that your sign-up process is as straightforward and quick as possible. Name, password, and email address — that’s enough to convert a visitor into a lead. You can always ask for additional information later when the deal is done.
Jotform
- Transform your sign-up button into a call to action. Instead of using a plain “sign-up”, pimp up your button with a captivating CTA like “try it free,” or “claim your free trial.”
- Protect your sign-up forms from attacks. When a customer enters his data on a form, the application transfers its input to the database. However, if there isn’t any kind of control over what data the application can process (input validation), an attacker could add a malicious code to the form and get access to sensitive records (code injection).
6. Enhance Your Onboarding Process
Now that the customer has signed up for their free trial/freemium, they must understand your product. Not only how it works, but also (and above all) the value of it. Get it right and they’ll soon realize that your product (service) is the solution they were looking for in the first place (aha!). Thus, you’ll have good chances to close the deal and win a loyal customer that may stick with you long term. Get it wrong and your churn rate will increase.
- Give a product tour. Did you know that a Wyzowl survey showed that 55% of customers returned a product because they couldn’t understand how it worked? Short tutorial videos walking the user through the product and its features, supported by additional links to your knowledgebase can be very efficient. Make it interactive and it’ll be even more interesting.
- Make it personal. Customers signed up because they’re looking for a solution to a problem. At the beginning of the onboarding process, ask them to select the most important goal or pain point they want to address (provide a few options) and tailor the onboarding experience to their selection.
- Talk about security. Security is a major concern for businesses and users alike. Setting misconfigurations, having expired website security certificates on your site, and experiencing data breaches — anything can happen. During the onboarding process, let your customers know that your product and its data are secure. Teach them some security best practices like using strong passwords and knowing what to look out for regarding phishing scams.
7. Proactively Reduce Customers’ Grievances
There is no point in shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Instead of fixing issues once they’ve happened, prevent them.
- Get your software right from the beginning. Design and build your software correctly. Give your customers an excellent experience right off the bat. How? Ensuring a secure design, embracing security as a code, and implementing high-class secure coding best practices. This way, vulnerabilities and issues will be addressed during the development process.
- Monitor and log any suspicious activity. Monitoring and logging suspicious logins and events will help you identify undetected vulnerabilities. Thus, reducing the risks of data breaches and attacks. Tools like Grafana and Elasticsearch are examples of monitoring solutions.
- Learn from negative reviews. Don’t be afraid of getting bad reviews. At the end of the day, nobody is perfect. But there are ways to turn the negative into a positive. How? Ensure you always give a polite reply and acknowledge your customers’ concerns. Use their feedback to improve your service and products.
8. Digitally Sign Your Updates and Patches
To keep your customers happy, a patched and updated system is paramount. As an SaaS company, you’re also responsible for handling updates and patches on behalf of your customers. In fact, this is one of the major reasons why SaaS is so popular: it takes the weight (and costs) of managing patches and updates off your customers’ shoulders.
- Schedule regular patches and updates. This will give you enough time to test them and ensure that your software is always up to date.
- Sign your software programs’ updates and patches with a digital certificate. If you’re a company that offers proprietary software others can download and must maintain, be sure to keep it regularly updated with patch releases. Also be sure to digitally sign your software so customers know that the update or patch is really coming from you and that it’s unaltered.
9. Get Featured on SaaS Review Sites
Every time I have to buy something online, it doesn’t matter if it’s a product or a service, the first thing I do is check online reviews. I bet you do it, too. TrustRadiuas reports that 45% of surveyed buyers checked reviews during their buying process and 92% of survey respondents said they shared the reviews with at least one other person.
- Encourage referrals and reviews. This is an essential part of the delight funnel stage that’ll also have an impact on the attract and convert ones. Request reviews through automated digitally signed emails or through CTAs like “rate us” and “recommend us to your friends.”
- Have a page on the most known SaaS review sites. Make it easy to leave a review. Set up a profile page on SaaS review sites like G2, Capterra, SoftwareSuggest, and other popular resources.
10. Watch Out For Cyber Trends and Keep Your Customers Informed
Staying abreast of the latest cyber trends will help you be proactive about the latest vulnerabilities and patches and, at the same time, show your customers that security is at the heart of your organization.
- Actively participate in security-related social trends. Keep an eye on social media for trending security keywords that’ll fit with your audience. Participate in discussions or use trending hashtags like “#security” or “#cybersecurity.” This will enable you to reach a much wider target audience, bringing more traffic to your website.
- Be active and responsive in your communications. When a new vulnerability or attack is announced, everyone’s first question is, “Am I at risk?” (For good reason!) Proactively reassure your customers that your product isn’t impacted by that particular incident (if that’s true) or respond to their questions promptly — not after waiting a week or even a few days. You owe them that transparency. They’ll appreciate it and you’ll show the world that you care.
Final Thoughts on 10 SaaS Marketing Tactics You Can Use Right Now
Now you’re ready to make your SaaS marketing really rock. You don’t need to sweat bullets to get customers to know, understand, buy and love your products. Just nail the right SaaS marketing tactics and you’ll see your business fly:
- Build a relationship with your customers,
- Expand your network,
- Offer a freebie (or two),
- Be social and engaged with customers, and
- Leverage influencers.
These are just a few tactics you’ve just learned about that can effectively help you stand out from the competition. Get ready to conquer the SaaS market now!
Are you afraid that these tactics won’t fit your startup? Then you’ll love our next article on How to Build a Winning Marketing Strategy for a Startup Software Company.