How to put together a top-tier SaaS marketing strategy

The SaaS (software-as-a-service) space is anything but static.

Sounds like an understatement, right?

In fact, recent data from Blissfully notes that the average business should expect almost half of their software stacks to change within the next two years.

Translation? Customers are cycling through SaaS products like crazy.

Even so, the cloud market is scheduled to grow a staggering 17% in 2020. This signals a massive window of opportunity for SaaS companies looking to stake their claim.

Doing so means nailing down your SaaS marketing strategy, though.

In this guide, we've broken down everything you need to know about SaaS marketing. This includes defining what SaaS marketing is and providing actionable tips and tactics your company can roll out to drive demos and subscriptions ASAP.

What is SaaS Marketing?

To kick things off, let's talk about what sets SaaS marketing is and what sets it apart from other industries. Because comparing SaaS marketing to ecommerce (or pretty much any other market) is apples and oranges.

SaaS marketing (Software as a service) is a specific type of marketing that focuses on building awareness, generating leads and acquiring and retaining customers for a SaaS product.

Below's a quick rundown of what defines SaaS marketing versus other industries.

SaaS marketing is all about long-term customers

In short, SaaS companies are looking to acquire and retain customers for the long haul – years at a time.

Once someone becomes a customer, SaaS companies are responsible for consistently communicating and marketing to them to prevent churn.  When someone churns, they've basically dropped out of your funnel. According to data from Recurly, the average voluntary SaaS churn rate sits around 5% annually.

Whereas a traditional company may treat a transaction as a 'one and done,' SaaS companies are laser-focused on long-term retention after a demo or download.

That's exactly why so many SaaS companies operate on a 'freemium' model or give away a free version of their product to reel in users.

The SaaS customer journey is complex

Food for thought: it can take anywhere between six to eighteen months to close an enterprise deal in SaaS.

That's because the customer journey through a SaaS marketing funnel is anything but straightforward.

For starters, SaaS marketing requires a company to create and promote content at varying levels of awareness.

Let's say you're marketing an SEO tool. Some of your target audience may not even know what SEO is yet. Meanwhile, you might have customers at later stages of the funnel comparing your product to competing SEO tools and others who are ready for a trial.

In other words, what a customer 'looks like' is anything but one-size-fits-all. This translates into creating a wide range of content and marketing materials based on what your prospects know (or need to know).

Notable for companies in the SaaS B2B marketing space, Gartner recently observed that the average buyer is more overwhelmed with information than ever before. SaaS marketers today must find a balance between educating their audience and drowning them with information.

The SaaS space is crowded with competition

Another major understatement.

Take a peek at the SaaS 1000 or the MarTech 5000 and you'll see just how crowded the SaaS space is.

Heck, simply looking up 'CRM' on the software review platform Capterra returns 770 results as of writing this.

It doesn't matter what subset of SaaS you're working in: competition is fierce.

But again, this level of competition speaks to the need for new solutions and software. Keep in mind that the average business relies on dozens to hundreds of SaaS apps. There's always room to provide new solutions to the challenges companies are facing.

What are the staples of a SaaS marketing strategy?

Hey, good question!

Putting together an effective SaaS marketing plan means understanding the best ways to attract and reach customers.

And again, there is no single way to make it happen. Instead, there's a combination of channels and tactics that successful SaaS brands have proven work time and time again. Let's break 'em down.

Email marketing

Email marketing might seem old-school but it's integral to SaaS.

Remember what we said earlier about the customer lifecycle lasting a long time? Email remains one of the best channels for making frequent, one-on-one touchpoints with customers.

Here are some typical SaaS marketing emails that most companies send on the regular:

Note that approximately half of SaaS customers log in or use a product less often than once a month. Yikes.

Email is the perfect way to give customers a nudge and likewise make sure that someone is satisfied with your product.

For example, this email from Sprout that announced Instagram scheduling gave recipients a new reason to check out their content calendar and spend some time in Sprout's platform.

Meanwhile, this message from Squarespace serves as a general check-in and webinar invitation to make sure customers aren't sleeping on their platform's best features.

See how that works?

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SEO

The importance of SEO and organic reach really can't be stressed enough.

As illustrated in his research regarding the best traffic sources for SaaS, consultant Mike Sonders notes that organic traffic accounts for the bulk of leads and traffic for top-tier SaaS companies (up to 68% total).

The previous Gartner study highlights the fact that folks are doing more and more independent research when looking up SaaS products. In many cases, this means turning to a quick Google search. This is why so many companies are looking to get featured on 'best of' lists in addition to creating their own blog content for SEO.

Beyond educating customers, blogging is a prime way for SaaS companies to target keywords and attract leads via search engines. That's exactly what we do here at Sprout.

Webinars

Webinars are all the rage right now for a reason.

Data gathered by GoToWebinar notes that a quarter of all webinars are created by SaaS companies. Meanwhile, the same data notes that nearly three-fourths of B2B and sales leaders cite webinars as the best method for generating high-quality leads.

Webinars and digital events are great for driving demos, showing off your product and likewise promoting thought leadership.

Webinars can either be presented live or downloadable 'on-demand,' perfect for prospects and current customers alike. Plus, replays and broadcasts can be uploaded to the likes of YouTube to help build out your channel and score search traffic at the same time.