SaaS can be a complex landscape for marketers to navigate, so as a SaaS founder, you need to plan ahead and leverage the hottest marketing trends. The fact that countless startups continue emerging and some of the biggest players are also joining the SaaS bandwagon is only making things even more complicated. That’s why, if you want to set yourself apart from the competition, your marketing strategy needs to be planned to perfection.
At the start of a new decade, everyone tends to focus on what’s trending now, but why not be proactive and try to identify the trends that will continue growing in the years to come?
With this in mind, we’ve used today’s most efficient marketing strategies and trends as a basis to build a list that will help you scale fast in 2020 and beyond.
1. Email marketing Never Gets Old
While it is true email marketing is nothing revolutionary, it is a tried and tested strategy that always works. Email marketing is one of the best ways to tell clients more about your service and at the same time show that you really care about it. In fact, a study by McKinsey & Company revealed that email is a significantly more effective way to acquire customers than social media. Let’s not forget that, besides being an extremely valuable marketing technique for any business, email marketing is also cost-effective.
However, email marketing can be a double-edged sword. If it’s unhelpful or unwanted, your email marketing strategy can only manage to annoy and irritate. But if done right, it will help you scale fast, acquire new customers, and satisfy your existent ones. So, what is the right way?
Some of the best strategies for SaaS email marketing include:
- Sending emails that are mobile-friendly
- Segmenting your audience
- Testing different copy, buttons, and designs
- Using email marketing software like Mailchimp
Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to running an effective SaaS email marketing campaign and getting into more detail will require a whole new blog post!
2. Simplified Creation of Visuals
Marketing and graphic design go hand in hand. You can have the best marketing campaign, but it will never become successful if there is no well thought out creative to support it. Unfortunately, in the early stages, SaaS founders with no design skills are usually left with two options:
- Hire a pro graphic designer who will get the job done quickly but will cost tons of money
- Look for images throughout the internet, risking possible legal issues or, even worse, use stock photos (NO!)
Luckily, we live in a digital era and the internet comes to the rescue by providing startup founders with a wealth of free (or almost free) tools. Now, ambitious 7 bootstrapping SaaS owners can use simple automation tools like banner software to create professional-looking videos, static banners, and other visuals at scale and exceed their marketing goals.
3. Having a Podcast Is a Must
Still don’t have a podcast? Well, make sure to start one ASAP because podcasting is one of the hottest content marketing strategies right now! Just think about it, do you know anyone who isn’t listening to at least one podcast at the moment? Yup, the number of people tuning in to podcasts is continually growing.
Starting a podcast is fairly easy. From a technical aspect, the most important thing is to make sure that you have high-quality audio. Next, you need to come up with great content that will attract your listeners’ attention and engage them. This is the trickier part, so take your time to decide what topics you want to discuss on. Start by picking something that you personally would like to listen to, then ask yourself if you’re offering some sort of value to your listeners.
If you need an idea, interview-style podcasts are very popular due to the fact that they’re easy to follow and don’t sound promotional. Your goal is to establish yourself as an expert in your industry, not to sell your software. Look for potential interview guests among your existing customers. Try to find someone with a rich background that could share interesting stories and teach your listeners something new.
4. Webinars? Sure, Why Not?
Wanna know a thing or two about webinars? Here goes:
- More than 60% of marketers use webinars as a tactic for their content marketing strategy.
- Nearly 75% of B2B marketers say webinars are the best way to generate high-quality leads.
- B2B companies hold more than 60% of the total webinars held in a year.
In SaaS, the most successful way to close a deal is by selling your software via one-on-one demos. But what if you think bigger and had about a hundred people attend that demo? What a way to scale your sales!
5. Invest in online advertising: Google Ads and Social Ads
Investing in Google Ads is something that almost all e-commerce do. Advertising on Google is one of the most trafficked. But you have to do it right! Doing Google Ads campaigns requires effort, money, and resources.
How about saving your time and effort and optimizing your campaigns for free? With tools like Clever eCommerce, you can save time to focus on growing and developing your business free and automatic.
6. Quora is the Place to Be
As mentioned earlier, being perceived as an expert in your industry is key to creating an effective marketing campaign and Quora is one of the best places to start building authority and credibility.
Quora is a Q&A platform where you can find answers to pretty much any question you can think of. So, here’s what you need to do: look for questions related to your industry and start answering them. Offer detailed, in-depth answers and don’t forget to add links to your site. Even though these links aren’t beneficial SEO-wise (links on Quora are no-follow), they can still help you attract relevant traffic to your site, which can be converted into email subscribers or prospects.
The more questions you answer and the more upvotes you get, the more your visibility will increase and you’ll be able to establish yourself as an expert in your field.
Final Thoughts
If executed properly, the strategies outlined here will definitely work. However, you don’t necessarily have to use all of them; in fact, trying all these strategies at once may prove to be pretty time-consuming. Pick one or two you believe will work best for your SaaS and test them out.
2020 is your year to grow your SaaS business. Forget about the same old marketing tactics you repeatedly used in 2019 and be open to learning something new. Don’t stop trusting in your vision and keep pushing forward.
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