How to Develop a SaaS Marketing Strategy

Developing and implementing a SaaS marketing strategy can be confusing and challenging. However, B2B content marketing strategies are fundamental to the success of a product that your buyers can’t hold in their hands. 

SaaS marketers are forced to take a different approach than traditional marketers in order to effectively acquire and retain customers. But in the end, your strategy should follow the same tenets of any worthwhile B2B marketing strategy: Education -- don’t sell. Don’t just talk -- listen.

Your SaaS Marketing Strategy, Simplified

Here are 4 tips for doing just that through a successful SaaS marketing strategy:

1. Product Branding
2. Customer Acquisition
3. Customer Retention
4. Create a Positive Customer Experience
   
   

1. Product Branding

Outline how you want your company/product to be viewed by consumers. (Tip: How your audience perceives you and how you think they perceive you may differ wildly.) Creating a consistent brand that resonates with your buyers’ values can drastically improve the success of your product.

We humans go with what we know. A strong brand keeps your company top-of-mind for potential customers. When customers have a good experience with your brand or product, they’re more likely to renew and refer. There’s also this: Many of your competitors simply don’t get B2B branding -- it’s an industry-wide issue. Strong branding can help you stand out from the competition. 

2. Customer Acquisition

Learning how to attract interest when your product is intangible and obscure is the most important part of the SaaS marketing strategy. This campaign will determine how quickly your consumer base will grow and at what cost to your company.

Although advertising campaigns can be costly, inbound marketing is much more ROI-friendly. Customers can be acquired through:

• Blogging
• Social Media
• Email
• Video
• SEO efforts 

After customers are attracted, using a call-to-action, landing page, or signup form can help convert website visitors into customers. 

3. Customer Retention

Acquiring a new customer can be almost 500% more expensive than retaining an existing customer. Developing marketing strategies that target existing customers is a concept that many companies overlook. 

Since many SaaS products are accompanied by monthly or yearly subscription plans, convincing customers to continue their subscription will lead to continued profit. If customers are cancelling their subscriptions because of poor customer service or product quality, you have to go back to square one to acquire new customers..

But there’s a silver lining! SaaS companies rely heavily on referrals and word-of-mouth. If your marketing does its job just a few times, that can multiply into several more qualified leads.

Customer retention should be a priority for SaaS marketing campaigns, seeing that it’s accompanied by very minimal cost to the company. Putting in the extra time and effort with customers can increase the probability of customer retention.

4. Create a Positive Customer Experience

There’s nothing more important to a business than a happy customer… but what does “happiness” look like to a SaaS customer?

Customer experience also involves positive user experience and interaction at all stages of the SaaS buyer’s journey. Having a user-friendly website that’s easy to navigate is one example. There’s nothing more frustrating than having to navigate through multiple, unclear landing pages to find a simple answer! 

Additionally, having positive interactions with customer service reps drives customer satisfaction. Depending on your product, that might not just mean manning the phones and email -- it could mean scouring social media for complaints about your product.

Remember, happy customers are basically free marketing for your company. The more satisfied a customer is, the more likely they are to tell their industry peers about your product.

Putting These Tips to Work

Incorporating all of these tips and tricks into your SaaS marketing strategy will impact your ability to increase demos, trials, and sales. Although developing marketing strategies can be time consuming, the results will be worth it. And with inbound marketing, the cost will be a drop in the bucket compared to the ROI!

To learn more about developing SaaS marketing strategies, download our free e-book: