Digital Marketing

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) marketing focuses on reaching and acquiring leads for subscription-based products and services. This guide will detail the nuances of SaaS digital marketing, outline the top priorities of SaaS marketing strategies, and discuss how SaaS companies can effectively market their subscription-based products and services.

How is SaaS Marketing Different?

Unlike companies selling physical products or one-time purchases, SaaS businesses must constantly prove to current and future customers that their subscription service is worth paying the monthly fee. To be effective, SaaS digital marketing strategies must consider both current and potential customers.

Dependency on long-term customers

Customer retention is always important, but it’s mission-critical for SaaS companies. Because subscription-based services must earn their customer’s continued patronage each month, the cost of acquisition is higher than in other industries. It takes one year or longer for SaaS companies to recoup customer acquisition costs (CAC), meaning short-term customers don’t result in profit for the company.

To be successful, SaaS companies must strategize a marketing plan to turn current customers into long-term loyal subscribers.

Complex customer journeys

The sales cycle for a B2B SaaS company varies depending on the customers, product, and cost. A subscription-based product priced at $50 per month won’t take as long to close as one that comes with a monthly fee in the thousands. In general, as the cost of the product increases, so does the length of the sales cycle.

SaaS businesses selling to new markets, offering extended free trials, selling to enterprise companies, or have complicated products will generally experience longer sales cycles.

SaaS industry competition is high

The SaaS market was worth $130.69 billion in 2021 and is expected to grow exponentially through 2027. According to MarketStudyReport, growth drivers in the SaaS space include the growing use of smartphones, laptops, and tablets, rising cloud adoption, increased corporate outsourcing, and a rise in the adoption of micro SaaS.

This forecast is promising for SaaS companies and tech startups, but a growing market value means increased competition. Subscription-based brands must stand out from competitors while offering a superb product consistently. Digital marketing can help SaaS companies communicate value to current and potential customers as a way to differentiate from the competition.

Pricing transparency is expected

Customers generally expect subscription-based businesses to disclose pricing information publicly. When pricing is not transparent on a company’s website, it creates friction for the customer and can cause them to seek a similar product elsewhere.

SaaS brands can acquire better-qualified leads, build trust with customers, reduce sales and marketing costs, and deliver a flexible customer journey by displaying subscription costs on a website. With publicly available pricing, subscription-based companies can even adopt a self-service model enabling customers to subscribe to services via the website.

 

Top priorities with a SaaS marketing plan

Now that we’ve covered how it differs from other industries, let’s dive into what to include in a SaaS digital marketing strategy.

Provide support for customers and leads

First things first: to capture the long-term customers critical to sustaining a SaaS business, companies must develop the best possible support for customers. While customer support is important in all industries, it’s vital to SaaS.

Excelling at customer service increases customer loyalty, retention, and even sales. Reviewing a company’s online reputation and presence is a large part of a SaaS customer's purchasing journey, especially when evaluating higher ticket products. And because subscription-based businesses tend to have more vocal users when things go wrong, prioritizing excellent customer service will go a long way in supporting the customer journey and sales.

SaaS businesses need to also prioritize customer service for leads. Free trials, for example, are a great time to showcase the level of attention and support leads can expect when they become a customer. Leads are less likely to convert if customer support is subpar during the free trial phase.

Showcase customer success

Perhaps more so than in other industries, SaaS customers are quick to take to the internet when they are displeased with their experience. Sharing positive feedback? Not so much. 19 percent of reviews a business receives are negative — and with 92% of B2B buyers more likely to purchase after reading a trusted review, collecting and showcasing positive feedback is key.

Collecting reviews should be easy enough for SaaS companies. Websites like Capterra, G2 Crowd, and GetApp offer free and paid options for businesses to manage their online presence on key SaaS-specific review platforms. Collecting positive reviews outside of these sites can include emailing current customers with a 2-5 question survey or asking directly in other ways.

Once gathered, these positive reviews should be displayed in various places for maximum performance.
Key pages of the website, including Home and About Us, as well as on social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram, are effective places to show off great reviews. Positive reviews should also be showcased anywhere the company’s personas are present online.

Eliminate friction in the customer journey

Another way to boost marketing for SaaS companies is by making it painless for people to download, register for, and use the product. While this ties back to the importance of excellent customer service and more favorable online reviews, it can also help retain customers.

According to G2, 67% of customer churn is preventable by simply resolving a service issue during a customer’s initial interaction. By removing friction from the service experience at the onset, customers feel more satisfied, confident in their purchase, and are more likely to become long-term loyal customers.

How to market SaaS products

Most of what’s been discussed up to this point has been foundational — setting the stage for marketing B2B SaaS products. Digital marketing, like SaaS, is nuanced and multifaceted. While no two businesses will journey down the same path, there are a few key elements companies have found successful when marketing their SaaS products.

Inbound marketing

A key component of any modern-day digital marketing strategy is what’s known as inbound marketing. Focused on providing value that pulls buyers toward a product, inbound marketing is a softer, more welcoming approach in today’s tech-saturated environment.

Inbound SaaS marketing focuses heavily on customer retention, upsell opportunities, and converting new customers. Customers are supported in all three stages of their buying journey with strategic content offerings.

• Awareness stage sits at the top of the funnel (TOFU) and focuses on providing high-level value around
  a problem, question, or job that needs to be done. Content types include blog articles, social media posts, and calls to action (CTAs).
• Consideration stage represents the middle of the funnel (MOFU) and functions to address common sales questions, introduce a brand’s positioning, and address any potential pushbacks. Email workstreams, landing pages, case studies, testimonials, and comparison guides are examples of MOFU content.
• Decision stage is the bottom of the funnel (BOFU) for sales. At this point in the journey, customers are nearing a decision. Content to support BOFU can include free trials, demos, emails, case studies, and sales calls.

To help support customers through the funnel, SaaS companies should keep the following top of mind:

Customer proof points
We have already discussed how important testimonials and reviews are for the general sales process, and they are just as critical in supporting inbound marketing efforts. Because of how powerful and versatile customer testimonials are, they can be effectively leveraged in all three stages of the buyer’s journey.

SaaS brands should claim review site listings to better manage incoming customer feedback and get the most out of customer reviews and testimonials.

Content is key
Inbound marketing and content marketing are synonymous. Producing search engine optimized (SEO) content that prospects find valuable, compelling, or otherwise helpful is essential for SaaS digital marketing.

Companies should focus on building core content pieces for each journey stage and publishing where prospects can easily find it. The most important thing to remember when creating content for inbound marketing is to make it about the customer, not the brand.

Customize emails
Keeping contact data organized and hygienic in a CRM will make inbound marketing efforts more efficient and easier for internal teams to manage.

SaaS companies can use email marketing as an opportunity to connect and further reinforce value with customers. By customizing messages and segmenting lists, subscription-based businesses can cater to individual customers' needs, drive value, and help boost retention.

Outbound marketing

Inbound marketing pulls buyers toward a product and generally includes any content that’s published and found through organic (unpaid) channels. Outbound marketing, on the other hand, pushes products toward buyers using mostly paid efforts. Outbound marketing can include:

• Podcast advertising
• Google Display advertising
• Paid search advertising
• Television commercials
• Trade show participation
• Direct mail
• Email marketing to cold lists

Account-based marketing (ABM)

According to HubSpot, “Account-based marketing (ABM) is a focused growth strategy in which Marketing and Sales collaborate to create personalized buying experiences for a mutually-identified set of high-value accounts.”

With ABM, your team works to align Sales and Marketing initiatives to create a bespoke experience for potential high-value customers as they travel the customer journey with your brand. ABM campaigns are customized at the account level and factor in potential lifetime value (LTV) of a sale when deciding how much to invest per account.

The result? A hyper-targeted SaaS marketing approach that leads to expedited sales cycles and higher conversion rates.