When starting or expanding your SaaS business, you should always spend time creating a strategic marketing plan. This can seem daunting when you consider that there are new SaaS companies sprouting almost daily. The market is predicted to be worth $164.3 billion by 2022.
You need to put in the work to make your SaaS firm stand-out. It’s a daunting task, so make the process easier by setting up an effective B2B SaaS marketing plan.
The methods used for SaaS marketing are different to those associated with traditional marketing. As the goal is to retain subscriptions, your marketing strategy has to focus on earning and continuously maintaining your client’s trust.
Now that we’ve addressed the importance of the customer relationship you may be wondering how you get those customers in the first place. The base of a customer relationship always begins with a solid plan. We’ve broken down some key steps for creating an effective B2B marketing plan for your SaaS company.
Lead clients to you
This sounds like we are stating the obvious, but there’s more to it than meets the eye. You need traffic to your website to make sales. But there are dozens of other sites potential customers could access over yours.
Search engine optimization (SEO) has become the leading way clients find their resources. B2B purchasers will often go straight to Google to find what they’re looking for. The use of SEO is technical and relies a lot on smart analytics and continuous work. Go beyond standard SEO and you’ll find different ways to reach potential clients.
A creative strategy you could use involves content marketing. This is generating engaging and thoughtful content to drive people to your site. Content can be anything from funny videos, social media posts, or informative blog posts.
Content marketing for SaaS can be a whole world in itself. It’s more than plugging in buzzy keywords to the articles you share. Clever content gives potential B2B buyers a better sense of the kind of creative and personal service they can expect from your company.
Once you’ve come up with a content strategy and engaging content, start sharing it all over the internet. Think of it as digital fliers for the 21st century. You can market them on forums, social media or even guest blogs. The more accessible your site is, the more traffic you’ll get.
Focus on a seamless user experience
Now, when making B2B marketing decisions, remember that you’re selling to a large entity. It’s not just convincing one person, but also convincing a team of decision-makers. Even when in the earliest stage of marketing to B2B, the user experience is essential. The brand image your SaaS firm projects has to be consistent and compelling if you want to make a sale.
First impressions are vital. This means your landing page needs to stand out. It should provide potential clients with information to keep them interested. Showcase glowing reviews and give them a reason to trust your services. Or point them to easy solutions they can use for their business.
When selling SaaS you want buyers to feel welcome and that their needs will be taken care of. Focus on excellent customer service. If buyers are confused, give them chatbots they can interact with in real time. Earn their trust and in turn, earn their business.
Understand your clients
Remember that in SaaS marketing your product must continuously bring in money. What does this mean for your marketing plan? This means you must make sure your customers keep their subscription active for as long as possible.
Take time to understand what your customers want. Creating a buyer persona is a useful tool that helps you focus on customer satisfaction. An in-depth, detailed buyer persona can provide you with great ideas on how to strategically market your product.
A huge advantage of the internet is the ability to track customer’s actions. Businesses have key user insights needed to make smart and effective business decisions. Implement new technologies like unified communications services to better understand what customers need. These services can help in analyzing buyer trends that can be utilized in the future.
Keeping clients happy means anticipating what they need and going several steps ahead to deliver the services they deserve.
Pro tip: If you don’t want to invest into advanced analytics tools, you can consider installing chatbots that can automatically gather data about your website’s visitors behaviour and segment them based on it.
Give them a sample worth investing in
The free samples given out in grocery stores are more than tasty snacks. They’re an invitation to come back and buy the whole bag of cookies. SaaS customer relations can work the same way.
Even with amazing content, your customer won’t be able to make a decision until they’ve tested the product. It’s difficult to get a sense of what SaaS offers without a free trial. The trial is a great foot in the door, but it’s only the start.
Since many companies use free trials, really make yours stand-out. This is where your buyer personas come into play. Strategize every aspect of the free trial so you can make the sale. Figure out which services your customers need. Even the decision to use a credit card to sign-up can affect the buyers decision making.
Source: Neil Patel
Study churn rate
Understanding what works and what doesn’t is vital for any business’ improvement. Since SaaS marketing focuses on finding long term B2B customers, the business has to keep evolving to avoid churn.
Churn is the monthly number of customers who end their subscriptions. Losing business is painful but it provides you with some key insights on how to perform better. Since your churn is updated monthly, you will always have current data to study.
Focus on what makes your business tick and how customers respond to it. Churn is one of many metrics to take note of. Observe your Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) and Customer Lifetime Value (CLV).
When you have this information, you are able to focus on what issues to address in the future. Take advantage of the internet. Adapt a social media listening strategy to help track customer engagement. These improvements can be as simple as addressing bugs or developing new, more useful interfaces.
Really focus on the foundation of your B2B marketing plan. The SaaS industry is always moving and you should too. Keep up-to-date with the marketplace and focus on what consumers need. If you can anticipate their needs then you’re already ahead of the competition.