The SaaS industry is growing at a fast pace. The global SaaS market is anticipated to reach $60.36 billion by 2023 at a CAGR of 9.22% between 2019-2023.
This rapid growth indicates a rise in competition for your SaaS company. To stay ahead of your rivals, you need robust marketing strategies that help attract your core audience and increase the conversion rate.
Marketing helps the sales process to acquire quality leads. Inbound marketing helps to educate the customers and pulls them towards the end of the buying funnel easily.
Here are the five best marketing strategies that can help your SaaS business generate more sales.
1- Leverage the Skyscraper Technique
Skyscraper technique refers to the process in which you look for content that is performing well both the search engine and social media. You then create a piece that is better than the existing one.
The skyscraper technique’s biggest benefit is that it boosts your website’s online visibility and gets backlinks. This, in turn, helps you attract high-quality leads and convert them into customers.
Here’s how you can leverage the skyscraper technique:
Step 1: Find a High-Performing Content
Remember, the skyscraper content is something that provides excellent value to the reader. Therefore, look for topics that address your customers’ biggest pain point.
Use tools like Ahrefs or Buzzsumo to find content that’s worth working on. For example, visit Ahrefs Content Explorer. Enter a broad topic related to your product, choose a language, and set the minimum referring domains to 50.
You will see something like this. It shows the best performing content along with their number of social shares, total words, date published, and number of referring domains.
Step 2: Create a Better Piece
The next step is to create a better content piece than what’s floating on the internet. Focus on these three aspects to improve your content:
- Length: How many tips the longest content provides? Check if you can add something to them.
- Freshness: Are the articles outdated? Do they contain old stats or images? Add the latest statistics, images, or screenshots to make your content fresh.
- Depth: Do the articles discuss the topic in-depth? If not, fill in the details to make your content stand out. If yes, check how you can add more value to it.
Step 3: Promote Your Content
Lastly, reach out to the right people to get backlinks and increase your content’s visibility. To begin with, send outreach emails to webmasters who have previously shown interest in the topic.
Then, find and reach out to well-known websites and blogs in your niche. Tell them how you think your content would add value to their customers. Also, share your posts on social media to drive more traffic.
2- Leverage Channels Your Competitors Don’t
Identify the platforms your competitors use to promote their products. Check if there are other channels that they are not focusing much on. Leverage them to build a robust presence on those platforms and attract customers.
For example, sites like Quora, LinkedIn, and Reddit help you reach your target audience, build authority, and generate more sales. However, very few SaaS companies use these platforms to their advantage. Quora and Reddit do not encourage self-promotion, but you can build a community of engaged users, which can bring customers in the long-run.
Follow the best practices when leveraging new channels to increase sales:
- Avoid direct marketing of your products. Instead, engage with the community to build a long-lasting relationship with them.
- Provide feedback on other’s posts and ask reviews of your products on LinkedIn and Reddit.
- Answer questions related to your industry and products in depth.
- Irrespective of which platform you choose, stay consistent. It might take a few weeks (or months) to get your first customer.
3- Consider Co-Marketing to Reach a Wider Audience
Co-marketing refers to collaborating with other businesses that have a complimentary audience to your own. Here you promote their software, and they do the same for your product.
For example, if you sell a social media tool, you could partner with a company that offers SEO or email marketing software. Because someone who uses an SEO tool might as well need social media software.
Once you identify the companies to partner with, follow the below-mentioned tips to generate more sales.
- Host a webinar together with your partner addressing your customers’ pain points. Continuing the above example, you can conduct webinars on topics related to digital marketing.
- Produce an in-depth research report with your partner. For example, you can publish whitepapers on how using SEO and social media marketing together can prove beneficial for businesses.
- Promote your partner’s products or content to your subscribers and on social media.
- Make guest experience on your partner’s platforms. You can appear on their videos, podcasts, conferences, and live events. This will help you demonstrate authority and build trust with their customers.
4- Build Custom Integration
Custom integrations help you expand your SaaS product’s reach and attract qualified buyers. For instance, when you partner with third-party app integration platforms like Zapier, you increase your app’s reach. Zapier promotes your product to its email list and inside other software, thereby helping you attract more customers.
You can also build an extension that works with major browsers like Google Chrome and Firefox. Since extensions and integrations are accessible almost all the time, the chances of churning are also less.
Major SaaS companies like Hubspot, Buffer, Ubersuggest, and Salesforce have already built Chrome integrations of their products.
5- Demonstrate the Effectiveness of Your Product
When prospects know how exactly your product can solve their problem, they are more likely to purchase.
The best way to do so is by offering a free trial of your SaaS product. This way, they can check and see if your software fits their requirement. However, to increase the free trial to conversion rate, make sure to engage with customers (via email) and help them get the most of your product.
For example, after a few days of signing up for Buzzsumo, I received an email from Eric (head of customer success) asking if I need any assistance. The email also consists of a link to a live training that teaches users about using the product effectively.
Another way to show what customers can do with your product is by creating in-depth blog posts for each feature of your software. Add screenshots, show real-life examples about how customers are using that specific feature to their advantage.
Final Thoughts
SaaS is a rapidly growing industry. This means the number of people using SaaS products is also increasing. With the right marketing strategies, you can easily attract and convert them into customers. Follow the five tactics mentioned in the article to widen your reach and generate more sales. Happy SaaS marketing!