10 B2B SaaS Digital Marketing Mistakes By Startups

Marketing your B2B SaaS startup can be tricky. You want to make sure you’re targeting the right people, and that you’re reaching them in the right way. But making mistakes is all too easy – especially when you’re starting out. Here are 10 of the most common B2B SaaS digital marketing mistakes, and how to avoid them.

Mistake #1: Too Ambitious and Too Focused on the Short Term

Digital marketing is a key aspect for any SaaS startup to achieve success. As such, it is crucial to get this right and make the right choices early on. When it comes to selecting the right digital marketing strategy, there are common pitfalls that SaaS startups make.

One of these is being too ambitious and too focused on the short term. You might have heard the saying that “you can’t build a house in one day”. Too many SaaS startups are trying to get too much done at the same time. This is a mistake. You  need to understand that it will take time to develop the traction necessary to achieve your desired results.

SaaS startups need to focus on their objectives and milestones that will lead them to success. In simple terms, start with the end in mind.

Mistake #2: Not Setting up a Digital Marketing Funnel

A marketing funnel is a process or a series of steps you put in place to lead your visitors to the conversion. It is a must-have for any SaaS startup that wants to make money with its website. In fact, it’s considered the most important digital marketing strategy to attract and convert new customers. SaaS startups that don’t have a funnel are usually doing a lot of things right, but they aren’t able to get their desired results.

It’s vital that you establish a lead funnel that pulls new leads into your pipeline. Whether it is a marketing automation campaign, a drip campaign, an autoresponder series, or a referral campaign, the funnel is the marker that tells you whether your B2B SaaS marketing is working.

If your marketing funnel isn’t working, you need to identify why. Is it because the sales team isn’t picking up the leads? Is it because you’re targeting the wrong types of leads? Is it because you’re too vague in your messaging? It’s entirely possible that the sales team isn’t executing. If that’s the case, you need to address that.

Is it clear and concise? Does it say what you want it to say, and does the final call to action speak to your target persona well enough? These are just some of the questions to consider if you want to optimize your SaaS sales funnel to the fullest.

Mistake #3: Picking the Wrong Metrics to Track or Not Tracking KPIs at All

Let’s say you have a new SaaS product you want to sell. You’ve put together a list of the best inbound marketing strategies you can afford, and you’ve been able to get your product in front of a lot of people. Congratulations! But before you start celebrating, you need to figure out if your B2B SaaS marketing efforts are actually working.

This is where metrics come in. Metrics are indicators that you can use to determine how much traffic you’re getting and how well your B2b SaaS marketing strategy is doing. It’s important to choose the right metrics so you don’t get discouraged or wonder if you’re doing the right thing.

For example, you might choose to measure the number of visitors you get to your website each day. The problem is, if you don’t get any visitors, it’s hard to say if your product marketing efforts are working. Instead, you might want to measure the time people spend on your website or the number of people who sign up for your product.

When you’re just starting out with your business, you may not have a lot of data to work with. When you have no data, you don’t know what to measure. When you don’t know what to measure, it’s easier to pick a few metrics that you can measure. But if you’re not careful, you’ll end up choosing the wrong ones.

If you don’t understand what’s happening behind the scenes, you might be setting yourself up for failure. It’s important that you know how your data is being collected, and how you will use it to make informed decisions.

Some of the most important SaaS metrics to track include conversion rates, customer retention rates, customer acquisition rates, and recurring revenue.

Mistake #4: Picking the Wrong Channels

There are several channels out there to choose from when it comes to promoting your SaaS business and product. You will hear a lot of advice on some channels being better than others and while that’s true, it’s not the whole story. The truth is, you have to pick the channels that are right for your business, your customers, and most importantly, your budget.

Most SaaS startups follow the same path when they first enter the market. They begin by marketing their product on social media channels where the target audience is already present. In the beginning, this is a good strategy. However, if you continue to market your product on social media, your audience will grow tired of your constant posts.

Instead, you should be targeting the most appropriate audience for your SaaS business. For example, if your business sells enterprise-level software, you should be focusing on your lead generation efforts towards ideal prospects like the executives, not the general public.

If you’re using marketing terminology like this, it may be time to get help. While there are many types of help, the most appropriate type of help is that of an experienced marketing professional. Having the right person with the right expertise to augment your business will pay off in spades.

Mistake #5: Not Tracking Conversions

Not tracking conversions means that you don’t understand which marketing efforts are actually working and which aren’t. You don’t know what is driving your leads, and you don’t know whether to double down on a certain marketing channel or cut it off. When you don’t see results, you don’t know how to improve your marketing efforts.

Don’t let your SaaS startup fall into this trap. As mentioned earlier, metrics are the numbers you use to determine how well your strategies are working. Conversions are the ultimate metric. They show you that people are interested in what you have to offer, and they are moving towards becoming customers or users. If you don’t track your conversions, you’ll never know how well your product is doing.

It may seem like a daunting task to track every conversion, but it’s not too difficult. For starters, you should keep a spreadsheet where you list down your conversions and track them over time so you can see their performance. You should also add in a column for the source of your conversions so you’ll know where they came from. While this process may seem generic, it should be fairly easy to implement.

B2B SaaS companies should not underestimate the power of web analytics because they may not be accustomed to this type of process. The truth is, web analytics is standard practice in most B2B SaaS companies and it’s the most important of the marketing metrics. Just be sure that your web analytics solution is able to support your business needs.

Mistake #6: Not Having an Objective in Place

This is a mistake that we’ve seen SaaS startups make over and over again. They don’t have any specific goals or objectives in place when they go out to do digital marketing. It’s like they want to be seen as an authority or they just want to be seen, period. But unless you know what your end goal is, you won’t know if it’s successful or not.

As a SaaS startup, don’t commit the mistake of not knowing what your end goals are. If you don’t have an objective in place, you might have to make several attempts before you find something that works. And that can be frustrating, especially if you’re not sure what’s going on.

Starting a SaaS business without a plan is a recipe for failure. Starting without a marketing plan is just as bad. B2B SaaS startups should have a marketing plan and objectives in place before they start marketing. If they don’t, they are likely to make mistakes along the way that will be costly.

Mistake #7: Asking Everyone Else Who They Should Hire

A lot of SaaS startups often look up to the big guys. When looking for a piece of advice, they often turn to the most successful SaaS companies in their field. Here is the mistake that these SaaS startups usually make: They ask the big companies for advice on who they should hire and what digital channels are the most successful.

This is a common mistake because the big companies have no incentive to give you advice that would benefit your B2B SaaS company more than theirs. This can be easily seen when you notice that big companies are always on top of the charts. If they were not, they would have gone out of business.

But the truth is that these companies are successful because they know when to stop. If you are too busy focusing on how to get your foot in the door, you will never be able to focus on the stuff that matters. You need to focus on the things that will get you the most out of your company. This is why you should consider hiring a digital marketing company. They will be able to focus on your B2B SaaS marketing goals and the results that you need to get.

Mistake #8: Not Having a Growth Hacking Strategy in Place

Growth hacking is a term that’s been thrown around a lot lately, but what does it mean? Growth hacking is a digital marketing strategy that works by using a number of different tactics to help a SaaS startup grow exponentially.

The idea of growth hacking or growth marketing is to help a company use different resources to get the word out about its product. A lot of times, growth hacking also means using technology as a way to get your product in front of consumers so you can get more business. Growth hacking involves a lot of different facets and is somewhat of a mix between marketing, advertising, sales, and customer service.

But the problem with a lot of growth hacking strategies is that they can take a while to implement. That’s why it’s necessary to have a growth hacking strategy in place. If you don’t, your growth might stall out and you’ll miss out on the opportunities that are right in front of you.

Mistake #9: Asking Everyone Else What to Build

As a SaaS startup, you’re at a very early stage of your company. Chances are you aren’t an expert in all things marketing.But iInstead of asking everyone else what you should build, you should be testing different marketing campaigns from the beginning.

The first step is to create a hypothesis for your SaaS business. For instance, if you are trying to grow a high-value service business, the hypothesis might be that the value of your service is twice the average monthly price paid by customers. Once your hypothesis is proven true, you can easily grow your business by offering larger packages to your customers.

Google Analytics is essential to any SaaS business because it shows you what users are doing on your website. But it is not the only tool you should be using. If you’re SaaS business is relatively small, then you can use tools like SurveyMonkey or Zendesk to get feedback. If you have a larger company, an online portal where users can give feedback and feature requests is the way to go.

You may also want to consider using a product like UserVoice. Unlike a traditional survey, UserVoice is a feature request tool that allows users to vote on the best features for the product, and it gives you the data in real-time.

Mistake #10: Lacking of a Solid Content Marketing Strategy

Content marketing is one of the most important aspects of any online marketing strategy. But a lot of SaaS startups still don’t have a solid content marketing strategy in place. This can be a big mistake because it can stunt your growth and you’ll miss out on a lot of potential customers.

One of the problems with SaaS content marketing is that it can be difficult to produce high-quality content on a regular basis. This is why it’s important to have a content calendar in place so you can plan out your content ahead of time. You should also make sure that you are producing content that is relevant to your audience.

Another mistake that SaaS startups make is not promoting their content enough. You need to make sure that you are sharing your content on your website, social media profiles, and email newsletter. But you should also try to get the word out on other platforms like Quora, Reddit, and StumbleUpon.

Your content should be so compelling that it naturally spreads across the web.

Key Takeaways

The digital marketing world is a complex place where many SaaS companies are trying to get the most visibility for their products. While this is important, it’s also important that your marketing efforts are focused on the right core features.

If you are working on a B2B SaaS product, your marketing efforts should be working on educating your potential customers about the benefits of your product, which will help you get more B2B sales leads. This is where many companies go wrong. Instead of focusing on the core benefits of their products, they try to create a large buzz around the product.

While this can work in some cases, it’s not a good idea for the B2B SaaS industry. Customers in this industry need to know that your product solves a problem. It doesn’t matter if your product is revolutionary as long as it solves a problem. So when you are marketing your product, focus on the benefits and not the features. This will help you get more B2B sales leads

At the end of the day, your entire SaaS business depends on the success of your SaaS customer acquisition strategies. With this in mind, you shouldn’t make the mistake of discounting the importance of your digital marketing strategies.

In fact, you should be investing an appropriate amount of time and resources into your digital marketing strategies. Tapping the services of a reputable digital marketing agency or a SaaS marketing agency may also give you the boost you need to succeed.

If you wish to learn more about digital marketing strategies for SaaS startups and businesses, visit our SaaS marketing blog.