Ad media in the realm of SaaS may appear to be a sophisticated, inaccessible black hole. There is an abundance of information and knowledge available on SaaS in the form of blogs, direct question answers, free webinars, and even research papers. However, advertising for your SaaS company can be frightening, and we are here to assist you.
Advertising in the SaaS market is unique since consumers and sellers are all transacting in a virtual, online arena. As a result, SaaS digital marketing looks to be the only realistic option for broad product promotion. SaaS digital advertising and marketing brings up a whole new universe of possibilities: a nice website, content marketing, search engine traffic, email campaigns, social media, and so on.
It is also likely that you, as a SaaS business owner, are not particularly fond of digital advertising; but, with organic reach steadily declining, digital is the only way forward. Paid acquisition is critical, and the sooner you start figuring out how to avoid it, the better your chances of success!
1. Tailor-Make Your SaaS Advertising Campaigns
Entrepreneurs, at large, tend to take an uncreative approach to advertise, using the same old techniques and formats across various channels. This, however, does not help the advertisers since when it comes to SaaS, context matters just as much as content does.
An ideal SaaS advertisement should outrightly point to the problem that the product is aiming to solve, thereby building an instant connection with the audience and making them curious to know more about you. For example, if you are a SaaS product that is aimed to reduce the operational costs of a restaurant, your advertisement should clearly address how restaurants are infamous for lower profit margins and how you, your product can help blur the generalization.
It is also recommended to tweak your ad campaigns as per the target audience and as per the platform you wish to advertise on. If you are a SaaS application targeting web-users, it will hardly make any sense to advertise on mobile platforms.
2. Build Brand Awareness
SaaS advertisers and marketers often tend to undermine the power of brand awareness. Though brand awareness could be argued as a less important factor when compared with measurable growth in sales conversions, it is an important concept for long-term goals.
If you are a SaaS company that your targeted audience has already heard of somehow in the past, the targeted audience naturally will be more likely to sign up for a demo or for a consultation as a result of familiarity bias.
Brand awareness campaigns can be carried out with awareness-focused content around educational topics. When you put out information-rich content under your brand name for the targeted audience to read, you already make more sense to them and appear as authoritarians of the industry who know what they are into. Brand awareness also comes in handy when reaching out to pitch to that set of targeted audiences that is already in a contract with your competitor.
3. Look Out For Click Fraud
An important point to keep in mind before launching your SaaS advertisement campaign is to be proactive against click fraud. Click fraud, essentially, is a fraud that occurs in the world of pay-per-click online advertising. Click frauds are usually done via bots and can amplify your advertising costs by having the bot repeatedly click on a PPC advertisement to generate fraudulent charges. As much as $5.8 billion was lost globally to click ad frauds in 2019!
Hence, stop assuming that only human beings would click on your SaaS advertisement and instead devise a plan to protect your advertisement campaigns against click fraud. Multiple click-fraud prevention tools on the market like ClickCease can also be utilized that help detect and block fraudulent clicks on Google and Bing ads. ClickCease and multiple other similar software Click Guard, PPC Protect help save funds of your advertisement budget with AI that picks up on suspicious behavior patterns, automatically banning offensive IPs, and even submitting refund requests to the ad networks for the fraudulent clicks on your behalf.
4. Underutilization of User Generated Content
User-generated content or UGC refers to the positive content about your company or your SaaS product generated by your already existing clients. UGC, if utilized to its optimal possibilities, can help drive some major traffic to your company and help you sign up so many more clients as UGS is the ultimate form of persuasion. Human beings naturally tend to believe what is told to them by their peers of known people and hence, UGC works on the line of worth-of-mouth advertising.
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When it comes to the operations of SaaS that take place completely on a virtual platform and as a product itself that cannot be seen or touched, advertising the UGC could be a smart approach. Since UGC is created voluntarily by the customers (actual users) based on their experiences, opinions, and feedback, it helps potential consumers gain some faith in your product and helps them feel safe from frauds or scams. Testimonials on an industry-specific platform by your current users could be a good start to UGC advertising for your SaaS company.
5. Build Nurture Funnels
A practical approach to convert a great number of clients over time would be to build out ad funnels that nurture your prospects over a period of time. With a sequence of interlinked content and clickable CTA buttons, you can boost your advertising efforts at each stage of the buyer’s funnel and also influence your targeted audience from one step to the next. This tactic is particularly effective for SaaS products because in the SaaS industry, though you can reach out to a lot of your targeted audience via various methods, it is still difficult to convert the potential to actuals due to the long sales cycle.
As per Profit well, the SaaS sales cycle “can take up to 90 days on average if your product is at the higher end of the pricing scale” and since SaaS is supported, maintained, and engineered by an external company, you would know, the price anyway is usually on the higher end.
6. Invest In Branded Keywords
A branded keyword, or a branded search, can be defined as “any query via a search engine that includes the name of your company, business or brand, such as ‘Go Up’. Fundamentally a branded search includes your brand name as part of it.”
SaaS companies usually tend to rely only on organic search listings, writing off branded keywords. You might not be interested in the idea of bidding for a term that you otherwise believe you can rank for organically. However, a SaaS advertiser should understand that search terms that use your brand name are basically a signal that there exists a readiness to close the deal and you should not be missing out on that opportunity.
For example, you might be a SaaS company named Blue Monkey. Blue Monkey, given the eccentricity of the name, may not really rank organically but you, as the company owner, might still want to capitalize on the name recognition. This can become possible only by striking a fine balance between organic and paid listings for more number of overall clicks on the SaaS advertisement. More clicks on the advertisement also mean an accelerated AdWords quality score.
If you are planning to run multiple advertising campaigns that involve various types of keyword targeting, you could also consider resorting to a management tool like WordStream. WordStream and similar tools like Marin Software, AdStage, SEMrush, and Adzooma can be utilized to segment the impact of any ad, regardless of pre-devised campaign structures, thereby helping reveal the value that your bids on branded terms are delivering.
Having said all of that, we would also recommend not to go too far and avoid a bidding war for your brand name. Always keep the limitations of the acquisition costs budget in the picture and bid as practically as you would for any other keyword.
7. Include Your Existing Clients
As a SaaS owner, you must already be aware that SaaS products and businesses heavily rely on customer retention. And so, it only makes sense to not overlook your existing customers in your SaaS advertising efforts.
SaaS advertising can be injected into your already existing customer retention strategy in multiple ways as follows-
- Onboarding communication
- Spotlight your client’s names and testimonials in emailers
- UGC (User-generated content) advertising.
For example, Snapple used their actual customers to introduce and sell Snapple’s teas in their commercials. - Content-based promotion of new product features
- Including the existing consumers in a new product or feature launches
- Establishing case studies and uses of your tool. Share the before v/s afters
- Building a referral ecosystem
If you really want to grab some attention as a goal of your SaaS advertising efforts, make your current user base a part of the advertisements. By doing so, you will not only effectively engage potential clients but also build relationships with and retain the current ones.
How do SaaS Companies Find Clients?
There has never been a better moment to establish a B2B SaaS company – B2B SaaS companies are seeing phenomenal client success. Following the epidemic, an unusually large number of startups modified their business models and began working from home. Of course, technology is a critical prerequisite for this transformation. B2B SaaS firms are highly committed to customer success by assisting their clients in achieving their business objectives. Customers are more likely to remain loyal to the SaaS firm when it succeeds.
There are frequently few or no customers in the early stages of any SaaS firm or startup. It is tough to acquire client trust without data and feedback to convert them to potential users. Acquiring early clients with similar features is frequently more difficult than when there is traction. It can also be difficult to determine whether consumers will convert to a long-term contract and profitable relationship.
If it’s a B2C offering, SaaS startups will normally undertake a beta trial with known connections, but B2B early pilots are usually landed from the founder’s existing network. A Minimum Viable Product (or MVP) is the starting point for conducting trials and implementing the learn-improve-release cycle. At this stage, customer feedback can dramatically improve the SaaS solution.
A startup is a blank canvas on which the success story of the startup is written by growth and client acquisition. We’ll look at several strategies for generating leads and acquiring the first ideal clients for a B2B SaaS firm below.
Create a Social Media Presence
Potential customers often use social media as a means to judge a SaaS startup or company’s credibility. A social media presence is a must and should be created on all the major platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, Linked In, Twitter, Quora, etc., to acquire a following and online presence.
Social media can serve other purposes as well. You can use social media platforms to do market research for customers. Additionally, you can use them to conduct market research for other SaaS products and companies. Thorough research can be undertaken on the type of original posts they make and the kind of content they share that engages their target community. The key lies in a clear narrative that clearly positions the product to meet customers’ challenges.
Create a Customer Database
You can create a customer database by using tools like SurveyMonkey. These allow you to gather important data, such as a company’s name and email address, from a simple survey. The survey can include questions that aim to discover information such as what challenges potential clients face and how your SaaS product may be the solution. If you find the sweet spot, customers are more likely to be open and won’t hesitate in sharing their answers.
Affiliate Marketing
The best way to scale up and gain your target audience’s trust and credibility is by working with other marketers. Many tech magazines, blogs, and podcasts promote tech-related products and services. You can reach vast audiences via these platforms by incorporating affiliate marketing. For instant access to a new audience base, affiliate marketers are usually paid a percentage of the conversion amount.
Content Marketing
Another effective inbound marketing strategy for startups and scaleups is content marketing. Make sure your blogs are relevant to your niche and reach out for guest posts from other websites. Traction generated by those websites can generate exposure and leads.
Generating Organic As Well As Paid Traffic
One of the most important steps to follow after content marketing is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). If you’re looking for organic growth, select and properly use the relevant keywords within your niche to increase organic traffic. Another way to scale growth is by generating traffic through paid promotions, for example, paid ads on Google or Facebook. An effective landing page should have a CTA (Call to Action) that aims to convert visitors immediately. This is one of the most common and effective ways to attract more visitors to your website.
