We won’t sugarcoat it. Marketing for a SaaS (software as a service) company comes with its own set of challenges. To give you an idea, here are some things to consider when marketing SaaS:
- Cut the jargon and technical terms
- Find ways to stand out in a crowded market
- Convince people that your product or service is worth investing in
- Keep customers happy
So, What’s the Key to SaaS Marketing?
It all starts with your website. After all, it’s probably the first thing people see when they discover your company. So, it needs to have the right elements to make a great first impression and generate qualified leads.
50% of B2B organizations are increasing their content marketing budgets in 2019, according to Content Marketing Institute.
With this in mind, here are some best practices we use with our clients. We hope these will give you the perspective you need to determine if your website is set up for success.
Let’s get started.
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1. Clear and concise content
Focus on being customer-centric as you’re producing your website or blog content. Remember, your software is highly technical, but your customers may not me. That’s why it’s important to speak their language when you explain your product. We understand that this could be a difficult task.
To help you, here are a few tips to keep in mind.
Create snackable content to make it easier for readers to digest. This means cutting down lengthy sections of text into smaller and easy-to-understand pieces that packs value. Consider this. People consume a lot of digital content on a daily basis and they’re always looking to save time. So, keep your content short. If you need to go into more detail or create long sections, you can instead make the additional text available by a hyperlink (e.g., Read more).
You have less than 10 seconds to grab people’s attention. At least according to some reports out there. To the contrary, the BBC did their own research and found no evidence of this. Still, your content needs to make an impact while taking up as little of people’s time as possible. Think of it as the marketing equivalent to the elevator pitch.
Blog: 3 SaaS Companies That Used Inbound Marketing to Grow
2. Focus on benefits
It might surprise you to hear that customers don’t care about the product itself. Sure, they might look at the list of software features and compare them to another product to make a decision. But, ultimately, they want to use the product to achieve a result or solve a real business problem.
For example, people don’t want to buy security, they want to keep their data safe. They don’t want to buy enterprise email, they want an easy way to send, manage and store messages.
That’s why personal benefits sell and products don’t. A great way to talk about the benefits of your product is through storytelling. How will your product (or service) meet challenges and solve problems? How will it improve their day-to-day operations?
3. Free demo or trial
Most people are not ready to buy when they discover your product. The best way to make them feel comfortable about their decision is to allow them to experience the value of your product or service first-hand.
A free trial or demo is also a good strategy to:
- capture their information (email address, company name, title) and begin the nurturing process
- build a relationship
- establish a connection
- increase your conversion rate
4. Social proof your brand
How can you prove to your prospective buyers that you’ll deliver on your promise? How can you gain their trust?
Add your social media channels as well as success indicators to your homepage, such as:
- Client testimonials
- Case studies
- Awards and recognitions
- Industry certifications
- Client quotes
5. Lead generation forms
To get leads from your website, offer extra content like an eBook, how-to guide or white paper that provides value to your reader in the form of in-depth and relevant information. When you offer valuable content, people are willing to hand over their information.
According to Demand Gen Report, 95% of buyers are willing to share their name, company and email address in exchange for content.
You’ll be left with a list of email addresses to add to your lead nurturing campaign, so you can start sending them a series of emails that contain useful information to help guide them through the buying process.
6. Strategic calls to action
Not to sound like a broken record, but we can’t stress the importance of a strong call to action (CTA) enough. It’s probably the most important element on a website that converts visitors.
Simple calls to action typically say, “Sign Up” or “Buy Now”. To make sure visitors can see it, place the CTA above the fold of your page so that they won’t have to scroll down the page and risk missing it.
7. Use Google Ads
If you want to promote your brand outside of your website, Google Ads is a good place to start. Create online ads to reach audiences that are searching for your kind of products and services.
All you have to do is bid on keywords you think people will use to search for your type of business. For example, you can go for the shorter keywords, such as “accounting software” or long-tail keywords (which tend to cost less), such as “accounting software for law firms.”
The best part is you have control over the budget of your ad campaigns, so you can decide how much you want to spend to get the results you want. Plus, you get faster results by using Google Ads than with SEO because these ads show up either at the top or the bottom of Google’s search results page. Although SEO pays off over time, it’s hard to get fast results.
Getting Started
We recommend putting yourself in your buyer’s shoes and understanding their needs. The better you know your customers, the better you’ll be able to speak to them effectively on your website.
Need to start somewhere? Here are some quick and easy ways to get clients right from the beginning.
