Katarina Stamenković
Content marketing manager
Katarina Stamenković
May 05, 2023With the global Software as a Service (SaaS) market size expected to reach $883.34 billion by 2029, it’s more important than ever to have a solid SaaS marketing plan. At Quoleady, we help our SaaS clients grow, and in this article, we’ll share actionable tips on creating a winning marketing plan that will bring you more customers.
A SaaS marketing plan details how a software company promotes its product. It includes a comprehensive analysis of the company’s:
A well-crafted marketing plan:
Let’s look at a table comparing traditional and SaaS marketing:
\ | Traditional marketing | SaaS marketing |
---|---|---|
Product type | Physical products and services | Subscription-based digital solutions |
Customers | Mostly B2C | Mostly B2B |
Goals | One-time purchase | Regular payments and customer retention |
Of course, this is a general breakdown and doesn’t apply to every traditional and SaaS business, but it should help you understand the primary differences between these models.
Key takeaways:
Creating a SaaS marketing plan is not a walk in the park but will save you time and money in the long run. Follow the steps below to create a marketing plan from scratch.
Speaking to everyone is a recipe for disaster. It is crucial to know who you’re speaking to and that someone should be your ideal client that you can help with your product.
Answer these questions about your target audience:
Image source: Stratwell
Here are additional steps you can take:
Competitor research allows you to see what’s working and what isn’t and how your product compares to that of your competitors. Here’s what you can do:
Now that you have done your competitor analysis, think about what makes you different from the competition and craft your unique selling proposition (USP). Do you:
Make your USP clear, concise and easy to understand for your potential SaaS customers.
Also, list all the features that make your product awesome and how they help solve customer problems. Why would customers choose your company over your competitors? Sell yourself on the product first to be able to present it to your target audience confidently.
The average percentage of ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) SaaS companies spend on marketing is 10%. Do your research and define how much you can spend on marketing and what resources you have. You can choose to hire in-house marketers or outsource marketing to another company.
What is a plan without goals to check how successful the plan is? Here are the two goal-setting frameworks that can help you.
1. SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) goals
Example:
Increase the website traffic from 0 to 20k and bring 1,000 new leads in four months with an SEO content marketing strategy (by the way, you can read about how we reached this goal here)
2. OKR (Objectives and Key Results)
Example:
Objective: Increase website traffic
Key result: Increase website traffic from 0 to 20k by the end of this quarter
Content marketing strategy involves creating and sharing valuable content with your audience to promote your brand. We love SaaS content marketing and offer B2B copywriting services because it’s about promoting your product through education and providing value for the customers. It can include:
You can choose the content type that appeals to you the most, ask your audience what content type they find the most valuable or engaging and experiment to see what brings the best results.
Check out the best SaaS content marketing blogs to get inspired.
When choosing marketing channels, it’s essential to consider your target audience and where they spend time online. You can ask your existing customers how they heard about your company. Focus on one channel your audience uses the most, then scale for the best results.
Here are the marketing channels you can use:
Here’s why your blog can be an excellent marketing channel:
Using a blog as a marketing channel can provide fantastic results for software companies, generating more traffic and leads.
For more information, read our B2B SaaS blog writing tips or check out our guides on B2B SaaS copywriting and SaaS content writing.
Search engine optimization (SEO) involves increasing your website’s and content visibility by optimizing them for the keywords your buying personas are searching for. SaaS marketing agencies create a long-term strategy that can help you attract organic traffic.
Here is how you can optimize your website and SaaS blog for SEO:
For a more detailed explanation, check out our complete SaaS SEO guide.
In an interview our client Stefan Smulders from Expandi gave, he talked about the six ingredients of their success, one of which is SEO:
Whether you are looking for a SaaS blog writing company or a SaaS SEO agency, we are happy to help. Book a free call to learn how we can get you signups with quality content!
It’s no secret that social media is a great way to build brand awareness, engage with your audience or promote content.
Here’s what the statistics tell us:
Follow these steps to get started with social media:
The best way to learn is by analyzing examples, seeing what you like and testing it. Let’s look at some examples that can inspire you:
Semrush, an online visibility management platform, is an excellent example of a fun online presence on LinkedIn. They post memes and jokes while also sharing valuable information, resulting in high engagement.
Image source: LinkedIn
Canva, a design tool, is another fantastic example of a SaaS company with a huge following on Instagram. They make great use of videos, sharing design tips and presenting new features in a fun way.
Image source: Instagram
Asana, a project management software, is another example of a company sharing jokes, unicorns, productivity motivation and valuable information.
Image source: LinkedIn
Email marketing can help you stay top-of-mind, nurture leads and drive conversions.
You can use email marketing to:
Image source: Target Audience
Here are the steps you can take to launch an email marketing campaign:
Paid search involves placing ads on search engines, social media platforms and other websites to increase reach.
It can be a good decision if you:
Follow these steps to start with paid marketing:
Here are some tactics you can employ in your SaaS marketing strategy.
Make it easy for potential customers to sign up and start using your product instead of jumping through hoops. Get feedback on your sign-up process and check for ways to make it simpler or shorter.
Image source: Arengu
Offering free trials is a tactic many SaaS companies employ to increase conversions. A free trial provides free access to all or limited features of the product for a limited time, so customers can see whether they like the product and want to pay a monthly or annual fee.
Freemium or a free plan is similar to a free trial but differs in that it provides free access to some of the product features without a time limit.
However, you should be very careful with the freemium as it’s a huge load on the support system and infrastructure. We wouldn’t recommend bootstrapped companies to use this approach.
Another option for showing your product’s features and benefits is through a product demo that allows your customers to try the product before buying.
77% of people are more likely to buy a product when learning about it from friends and family. Referral programs help you expand your customer base by incentivizing customers to recommend your product to people they know.
Image source: ReferralRock
B2B buyers are 57-70% through their buying research before contacting sales. Before buying a product, most customers check software review websites to help them make a buying decision. Reach out to the editorial teams of major software review websites such as G2 or Capterra and ask them to be featured to increase your reach.
Share success stories, testimonials and case studies, highlighting what results you achieved and how. Real-world examples of how your product helps can build credibility and increase conversion rates.
Your call-to-action (CTA) should be clear, eye-catching and compelling. You can make it prominent by using a color contrasting the rest of the website.
The way to make it compelling is to use strong wording that will actually encourage your customer to act. You can do this by transforming your CTAs to CTVs (call-to-values), emphasizing what the customers will get if they perform a specific action. For example, instead of saying, “Download now,” you can say, “Get your step-by-step guide.”
Image source: Saastitute
We vouch for transparent pricing that will help you build trust and create less friction in a buyer’s journey. It can also help you reduce sales and marketing costs as you won’t have to deal with pricing inquiries and waste time on customers who cannot afford your product.
You can use tiered pricing, which allows you to offer different levels of service for different prices and appeal to a broader range of customers. Value your customers’ time and explain clearly how your pricing plans differ and what they get with each.
There are many SaaS marketing metrics you can track to measure the success of your marketing efforts depending on the marketing channel you use, but here we’ll list the marketing metrics we track for our clients:
To measure these, you can use:
The ultimate goal of your SaaS marketing strategies is higher ARR, but this metric is dependent upon many factors and, as such, cannot be a standalone marketing metric, even though marketing can help you increase revenue.
Another helpful metric to determine the health of your marketing strategies is CLV:CAC ratio. Let’s see first what CLV and CAC are.
Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is the cost of acquiring a new customer. These are all the expenses you spend to attract new customers and convert them into paying ones, such as advertising, promotion events and salaries of the sales and marketing teams.
CAC = Total sales and marketing costs / Number of new customers acquired
Customer lifetime value (CLV or CLTV) is the revenue a company expects to generate from a single customer throughout their relationship.
CLV = Average annual revenue per customer x Average lifetime of a customer
Now that you know what CAC and CLV are, we can explain the CLV:CAC ratio, which would be a more useful metric than CAC and CLV alone. Divide your CLV by your CAC to get your CLV:CAC ratio.
A ratio of 3:1 or higher is considered good because it indicates that the profit is three times greater than the cost of acquiring a new customer. A high CLV:CAC ratio means you are getting a good return on investment (ROI) for your marketing efforts.
Here’s how our team of SaaS marketers can help you:
Hop on a free call with us to discuss your specific needs!
Creating a winning SaaS marketing plan requires time and hard work, but the direction, clarity and better resource management you get as a result are worth the effort. In short, you should:
If you want long-term and sustainable growth content marketing provides, we can help you. Book a free call to see how.
Your marketing plan should include a comprehensive analysis of your:
Marketing for SaaS is different because its goal is to promote subscription-based digital solutions instead of physical products or services, which makes it more important for SaaS companies to build long-term relationships with customers through content marketing and exceptional service.
Let us know what you are looking to accomplish.
We’ll give you a clear direction of how to get there.
All consultations are free 🔥