15 Best Tips on How to Market a SaaS Product Like a Pro

According to BetterCloud, the average number of SaaS apps used by different businesses has doubled from 8 to 16 between 2015 and 2017. This only means that the SaaS market is even more crowded than it was before. This means two things for SaaS companies. The positive side of this study shows us that businesses are now recognizing and relying more heavily on SaaS solutions in their operations. The downside is that, in recent times, the SaaS market has been greatly crowded by different solutions for businesses and customers to choose from

In order to increase the chances of success, you should make sure that you are able to do everything right. This includes making every aspect of your SaaS product marketing strategy crystal clear to your customers. 

However, marketing a SaaS product can be challenging if you’ve never done so before and don’t know where to start. The same goes for SaaS companies who have tried several strategies but found nothing that worked…yet. So in this article, we laid down some tried-and-tested tips on how to market a SaaS product like a pro. But before that, let’s take a look at the top 3 mistakes that SaaS marketers make.

Top 3 Mistakes That SaaS Marketers Make

SaaS is a fast-paced industry with a constantly changing landscape. As a result, it’s important for every SaaS company to be flexible and adapt quickly. However, sometimes we get so focused on adapting that we forget about the fundamentals of an effective SaaS marketing strategy itself. 

Below are the top three mistakes that every SaaS company and marketer should know and tips on how to avoid them: 

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

This is the idea that a belief or expectation can influence the outcome of events. In other words, if you believe something will happen, it will. You may have heard of this phenomenon before-it’s known as the “self-fulfilling prophecy.” 

This can be applied to your digital marketing efforts and product development cycle by understanding how every potential customer thinks about your brand and not just what they say about your brand. In order for your marketing campaign to truly resonate with customers, you need to understand their motivations behind purchasing from you in the first place.

Understanding your customer’s motivations can be a difficult task. Why do they buy from you? What do they like about your brand? How can you develop products that reflect their needs? 

By using neuromarketing techniques, you can better understand how customers think and feel about your brand. This will help shape future campaigns that drive sales and build loyalty with customers.

Hiring for Skills Not for Fit

One of the most common mistakes that SaaS marketers make is hiring people who are a good fit for their culture. They’re usually great at what they do but they don’t mesh well with the rest of your team. If you focus on hiring employees who have specific skills instead of people who will fit in well with your current culture, then there’s a good chance that you’ll end up with an employee who isn’t a good cultural fit.

Hiring people who are a good fit for your B2B SaaS company’s culture will help to ensure that they’re happy and productive. And in the long run, it’ll save you time and money because you won’t have to spend so much time training new hires or dealing with employees who aren’t performing up to par because they don’t fit in well with the rest of your team.

Not Investing in Education

Don’t ignore the importance of education.If you don’t invest in learning, you won’t be able to stay on top of trends and best practices. You’ll be forced to guess when it comes to marketing your business, which could lead to a lot of mistakes.

The best way to avoid making these costly mistakes is by staying up-to-date with the latest trends and learning from others’ mistakes.

You can’t be an expert at everything. It’s impossible to know everything about your industry, so it’s important that you find someone who does. This can be a coach or mentor who has been in your shoes before, or it may be a friend who is willing to help with your business.

Saas marketers need to do stuff differently from other marketers

That means focusing on the customer, not the product. It means being metrics and data driven rather than just hoping for the best and seeing what happens. And it also means approaching your job as an experiment: if you’re doing things the same way you did them last year, or last week even, then how are your results going to be different?

That being said, below are some of the best tips for getting started with marketing your SaaS product.

Best Tips on Marketing Your SaaS Product

There are many different B2B marketing techniques that you can use to promote your SaaS product. Here are some tips on how to market your product like a pro:

1. Set goals

The first thing you need to do is set marketing goals.This may seem like an obvious tip, but it’s worth repeating: before you can start marketing your SaaS product, you need to define what success looks like. 

If you don’t know where you’re going, how do you expect to get there? The goal doesn’t have to be the big picture or anything fancy; just decide on one or two measurable outcomes that would show that your SaaS has been successful in meeting its core use case.

For example: if your company created a CRM for small businesses, a possible goal might be to sign up 5 new customers to your SaaS within six months of launch.

For most SaaS businesses today–especially those with seed funding–the ultimate objective should be about growth rather than revenue alone: i.e., increasing both quantitative and qualitative feedback loops such as user engagement metrics and user reviews and ratings; driving more traffic through SEO optimization techniques, and more.

2. Know your audience

One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a SaaS business owner is to assume that everyone has the same pain points and needs. It’s important to know your audience, so let’s take a look at how to do that.

• Understand their pain points – Create a buyer persona and understand what features, benefits, and solutions they are looking for, how much they’re willing to pay for it, and how they can possibly find your SaaS.
• Know what they want – Some customers just want a simple tool that helps them automate certain tasks within a day or two, while others might be willing to pay thousands of dollars per month because they need top-notch security features in order to meet compliance standards at their company (and keep their jobs). It’s going to be difficult to cater to two types of customers with varying needs and wants. Your best course of action is to focus on the type of customer you want to sell your SaaS to. You’ll find better chances of success in doing so instead of trying to hit two birds in one stone. 

3. Articulate your value proposition

As you’ve probably guessed, the value proposition is the core of your marketing. It’s what people will buy into when they choose to use your SaaS over others like it. Your value proposition should showcase the main benefits your customers will  receive from using your SaaS, and why they should choose yours over its competitors.

In order to make sure that every step in your B2B SaaS marketing follows through on this core idea, it’s important to nail down exactly what it is. You can do this by writing out a simple sentence that sums up what makes you different from other SaaS in your niche (keep in mind: it doesn’t have to be perfect yet). 

Just start with “Our SaaS lets businesses…” or “Our solution helps individuals to…” and fill in the blanks from there. Remember that your value proposition must be clear and specific from beginning to end in order to avoid any confusion.

Once you’ve got a solid value proposition in place, it’s time to create your offer. The offer is what will be delivered when someone signs up for your SaaS; it’s what gives them the value they’re after, and what helps them justify investing in you rather than one of your competitors.

4. Establish a brand

Establishing a brand is an important first step to marketing your SaaS product. 

A brand is what people think about when they think about you. It’s how you want them to feel about using your SaaS. For example, Apple has built its brand around being innovative and easy-to-use. A brand is established in customers’ minds through consistent messaging across all channels (we’ll cover that later).

Meanwhile, A brand identity is the visual representation of your company and its values. It can be in the form of a logo, color scheme, or a specific kind of design that’s linked to you. Usually, it’s what people see when they first visit your website, how they recognize you in person or on social media, and more. A good brand identity will make it easy for people to identify with your business and understand what it stands for.

5. Use SEO

SEO is a long-term strategy. You won’t see results in the first few weeks or months, and it may take a year for your website to rise in the rankings. If you don’t have the patience for this type of marketing, then SEO probably isn’t for you. However, if you want to see real results over time without spending lots of money on advertising campaigns or other expensive marketing strategies, then SEO could be an excellent option.

You can hire an outside professional SEO agency to optimize your website’s content and structure so it’s properly optimized for search engines (which may take several months), but if all this sounds like too much work – or if hiring someone else doesn’t fit into your budget – then there are things on which you can focus within your own business operations that will help you  achieve higher levels of organic traffic over time:

• Create a blog that regularly publishes unique, valuable content around your industry.
• Write guest posts on other blogs in the same industry.
• Be active on social media platforms where people in your industry are likely to find you and share content with them.
• Secure backlinks from other reputable blogs or websites
• Improve the technical aspects of your website to give better user experience

6. Establish authority with Amazing Content

Content marketing is a great way to establish your authority. If your SaaS is solving a problem for your target audience, then this type of inbound marketing can be used to educate them about the issue and how your SaaS can help. 

Content marketing also helps build trust over time. As people see you as an expert in this area, they’ll start to believe that you know what you’re talking about and become more receptive to what you’re saying.

There is another benefit of SaaS content marketing: it allows you to build relationships with potential customers by sharing interesting stories or useful information related to their interests.

Staying ahead of the competition means having the right strategy for… creating engaging content that resonates with your target audience. This is especially true to SaaS companies, which must be able to create content that attracts and converts their website visitors.

7. Apply a data-driven approach to marketing and measure performance in every step

Your approach to marketing must be data-driven. You need to define what you want to accomplish with your marketing efforts, and then measure the success of your activities as you work towards a goal.

This is easier said than done, but there are two reasons why this is important:

• It helps you understand how well your SaaS is doing in the market
• It keeps you focused on what matters most (i.e., growth) while avoiding distractions like vanity metrics like total number of users or total number of leads generated

8. Get on social media and engage

We all know that social media is an incredible way to interact with your audience, but it can also be an excellent tool for engaging with potential customers. According to SproutSocial, 55% of consumers discover new brands through social media.

You can use social media marketing as a way to get feedback on how people are using your SaaS, what they like about it, and to know from your customers if there are any features you’re missing.

And don’t forget that social media provides a direct channel of communication between you and current or potential partners. If there’s something in your SaaS that would make their life easier, let them know!

Social media is an amazing way to build a brand, but it’s also a powerful tool for connecting with your audience. Whether you’re using Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, you can use social media as a way to get feedback from customers who have already subscribed to your SaaS.

9. Create a sales funnel

Having a SaaS sales funnel will allow you to market your SaaS without spending as much money on ads or other marketing strategies. But how do sales funnels work?

A sales funnel is a sequence of steps customers need to follow before they make a purchase decision. After they land on your website (the top of the funnel), they’ll go through several stages-for example, by watching videos or following social media accounts-until they reach the bottom and make their purchase decision. A well-designed sales funnel helps guide users through these stages and helps ensure that everyone who enters makes it all the way through to the end in order for them to be able to buy what it is you’re selling.

You’ll want to build a sales funnel that focuses on educating your customers and showing them how they can use your SaaS. Here’s an examples of what a sales funnel could look like: 

A landing page with a video, followed by an email campaign that teaches people the benefits of your SaaS product, then a webinar event that allows people to ask questions live.

10. Give them a free trial

This is one of the most important ways to market your SaaS product. You will want to give them a free trial so they can test out your product and see the value of your SaaS pricing. They will also be able to see how beneficial it is for their business, which in turn makes them more likely to become paying customers once their trial period is up.

Giving them a taste of what’s in store for them with your service or software means that they get a chance to experience all its features before making a decision on whether or not they want to purchase it long-term. 

11. Partner with a reseller

Partnering with a reseller can be a great way to reach new markets and customers at a lower cost. This is especially true if you are selling into the SMB market or you have an enterprise product that requires additional services from partners.

One of the benefits of partnering with resellers is that they have direct access to their target audience and have proven processes for reaching them. They also know how to create compelling value propositions (VUPs) that appeal directly to this audience based on what your product does and how it helps them solve problems within the customer’s business model.

Resellers can also help you reach new markets and customers that you might not otherwise have access to. Since resellers are already selling into these markets and know the customer’s needs, they can create compelling value propositions (VUPs) based on what your product does and how it helps them solve problems within their business model. By focusing on how your solution benefits the channel partner’s customers, they will be able to more effectively position it in front of this market segment.

12. Optimize your website for conversions

Your website is the face of your business, so it’s critical to make sure it’s optimized for conversions. An optimized website is one that has:

• A clear navigation menu with links that directs customers to your most important pages 
• A user-friendly design that focuses on making your content easier to read and discern. This includes making sure your font is big enough and doesn’t include too many different colors or styles.
• A clear CTA, whether it be a button, a form, an email opt-in, etc.

13. Use the power of influencer marketing

Influencer marketing is a strategy where you enlist the help of influential bloggers and other individuals to promote your SaaS. The idea is that these influencers have a large following and when they recommend your SaaS, their followers are more likely to take action. The most common type of influencers are bloggers who share their experiences with products in their niche.

Other types of influencers include social media stars like Instagram models or video game streamers, who can also be leveraged for promotional purposes. You might not think that these people would be interested in promoting your SaaS product but if it’s relevant to their audience or fits with their overall brand then they may be willing to work with you! 

You can also pay celebrities or athletes who have a huge fan base on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook – this isn’t as common though because most celebs/athletes want money upfront before working together (i.e., getting paid first).

14. Promote via email marketing

Email marketing is a great way to promote your SaaS product, especially if you’re not sure how to market it. It can be a powerful tool for attracting new customers and communicating with those who have already purchased from you. It’s also easy to use, because it’s automated-you don’t need a huge budget or staff in order to make effective use of email marketing campaigns.

If you’re just starting out with your email marketing campaign, here are some things that will help ensure success:

A good rule of thumb when writing subject lines is to keep them short and sweet-no more than 10 words, preferably fewer. This way, they’ll be easier for people to digest without having to spend too much time reading through them (which could cause them to get distracted by something else).

15. Sell benefits too, not only features

When your selling points are features, then you’ll want to focus on the benefits that they bring to your customers. Understanding the difference between features and benefits is crucial for marketing success. 

Features are what your SaaS does. It’s typically a piece of functionality that you provide to your customer, such as one-click payments, video chats, collaboration, etc. 

Benefits are what your customers get from using those features: they’re the reason why people will want to buy your SaaS in the first place!

For example, if you’re selling a CRM software that helps companies manage their sales teams, then your feature might be a “lead tracker”. With this lead tracking features in your CRM, you can then say that one of the benefits of using your SaaS is that it will save companies time by streamlining their sales process! Selling features alone won’t help you generate leads or convert them into customers. You need to sell benefits too.

Final Thoughts

Use the tips above to guide your product led growth marketing efforts and don’t forget that you can always reach out if you have questions or need advice. If you need more tips on how to market your SaaS effectively, then do check out our blog.