You already know that you need to have a clear marketing plan in order to generate more leads and subscribers for your SaaS brand.
After all, they can’t purchase if they don’t know who you are. But how do you know which campaigns to pursue and which ones to avoid altogether?
Finding that winning SaaS lead generation strategy really comes down to innately understanding both your buyer persona and your particular industry. Simply put, you need to know who you’re trying to target and their unique needs.
That said, there are a variety of both online and offline methods for effectively gaining new leads and potential subscribers.
These methods all center around basic marketing elements, such as overall brand recognition, value positioning, and problem-solving.
If you can use one of the seventeen different marketing strategy methods we’ve outlined below to get a potential customer to know your company, see the value in your SaaS, and solve a problem they’re facing, then you’ll have no problem getting them to become long term paid customers.
Are you ready to get started? Let’s go!
1. Find the Platforms Your Customers Are On
There’s only so much time in the day and available resources to try to connect with your SaaS target leads. In that case, you want to make sure you’re on the platforms that your customers are using.
To do this, think long and hard about where they would go to look for answers within their industry.
For example, if you create a sales solution for B2B commercial construction companies, then you would likely want to be on LinkedIn or another similar platform.
Likewise, if your solution helps beauty consultants and day spas book more appointments, then you might want to consider advertising on Instagram or TikTok.
Chances are better that you’ll connect with someone in that industry more so than if you were to look on LinkedIn or Facebook.
The main point here is to know your audience and use that to your advantage when deciding on which marketing channels to pursue.
2. Build Brand Credibility with Testimonials
Another great SaaS marketing strategy is to build brand credibility with testimonials. Make sure you’re always asking satisfied subscribers and clients for an endorsement that you can use on your website and in your other advertising.
Testimonials are generally taken with a grain of salt from most decision-makers, as they understand that there’s no way a company is going to share negative comments.
But it does give hope that at least someone finds your SaaS solution a good one, which opens up the idea that it could also work for someone else.
If you’re just launching and don’t have a huge subscriber base yet, you can still use testimonials to your advantage.
Have a few beta testers provide their feedback and ask for permission to use bits of their comments as testimonials. Most will happily oblige.
3. Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Referrals
There’s no doubt that the internet reigns supreme when it comes to finding new products and services. But don’t be afraid to ask for referrals, too.
More often than not, SaaS customers are more than willing to share a special offer with others in their industry if they know they’ll receive a special incentive, like a coupon or discount.
Furthermore, highly niche industries usually have business owners that work together to find common solutions. In that instance, asking for a word-of-mouth endorsement or connection can really be a solid way to get in touch with numerous leads.
While modern sales really depend on a lot of digital aspects, getting the information for a potential referral and picking up the phone to call them directly still has a lot of power.
Especially if your SaaS solution is on the more expensive or enterprise end where it might take a personalized sales approach to close a deal.
4. Leverage the Audiences of Influencers and Affiliates
To get more quality SaaS leads, consider leveraging the audiences of influencers and affiliates.
What this means is working with someone else who has a large email list, follower count, or subscriber group to try to market your platform.
In a B2B situation, this might not always mean using social media influencers. However, it could include aligning with certain consultants in your niche and giving them an opportunity to promote your SaaS product to their customer base in exchange for a small affiliate income.
Why does this work? Much like word-of-mouth testimonials, working with influencers and affiliates means they’re going out on a limb and endorsing your business.
Their audience trusts them, which means they now also somewhat trust you. In the end, this can mean a steady string of quality SaaS leads.
5. Create Killer Informative Content
You can also build a solid SaaS marketing strategy by consistently creating killer content. This means publishing informative articles and blog posts about your industry on at least a weekly or bi-weekly basis.
By doing this, you’re positioning your brand as an expert in the type of solution your SaaS provides.
It also shows that you know what your target market is going through and can help guide them to find the right answers pertinent to their particular industry.
Furthermore, Content Marketing is an excellent way to boost your SEO rankings. In the end, anyone searching the internet for the knowledge you provide can then become a potential lead.
Ready to upgrade your content strategy? Start your WriterAccess free trial right now to get in touch with professional writers and content strategists!
6. Try Video Marketing
Most Digital Marketing experts agree that video marketing is hotter than ever before. With the global pandemic making it super easy to obtain videography tools like a quality webcam and lighting, now is a great time to start using this medium as a way to reach potential leads.
Whether you’re just doing live stream sessions to answer general questions or creating a series of how-to videos to help users navigate your platform more effectively, this type of media can be an excellent way to reach a broad audience.
Not sure where to begin? Consider working with a Digital Marketing team to come up with a list of ideas that you can turn into individual media or a special series of videos.
7. Offer Downloadable Bonuses
To gain more SaaS leads, you can also offer downloadable bonuses in exchange for joining an email list.
This can be anything from a coupon or free trial to an industry white paper, ebook, or something else of value that makes sense for your particular SaaS vertical.
While you might get a few people that will immediately unsubscribe after receiving their download, most people do not.
From there, you can create a series of marketing emails that offers follow-up advice and offers reasons why your SaaS solution is the best choice for their particular needs.
8. Use Gated Bonus Content
Much like a downloadable offer, using gated bonus content is a great way to expand your SaaS lead list.
How this works is you create a landing page that relates to your particular niche. Once someone adds their email address and/or contact information via a special form, they’re given a login and password to access more content.
This can include a wide range of different elements. Several examples include access to a particular knowledge base, a free consult call with a consultant, special training opportunities, and so much more.
Ultimately, how you choose to go about this will generally depend on your SaaS niche or vertical and how it relates to your target customers. But the whole idea is to collect information for contacting leads in the future in exchange for something they find valuable.
9. Utilize Chatbots for Better Responses
One modern way to achieve better SaaS lead generation is through the use of special chatbots.
These can be positioned on your website as live help or even just through a program like Facebook Messenger.
Essentially, this gives potential customers the opportunity to ask common questions. The intuitive AI then knows how to point them in the right direction.
In some cases where an inquiry is a little more specific or complicated, it can tell your sales team to reach out to the lead directly.
This works really well for a lot of reasons. If someone is willing to engage with your chatbot, you know that they’re truly ready to purchase or interested in what you’re offering. And warm leads like these are a lot easier for your sales team to close in the long run.
10. Partner with Complementary SaaS Firms
There’s no doubt that the SaaS industry is growing. But that doesn’t mean you have to operate your platform and business alone.
A great way to get in touch with more customers is by partnering with a complementary SaaS firm.
Notice we said complementary and not competing. These are companies that your target client is probably already using to solve a problem not related to the solution you offer.
For example, if your program does scheduling for plumbers, then you might want to work with a small business invoicing SaaS company.
The overall goal is to give your leads a solution that helps them in more ways than one. By pooling resources in this manner, you can easily reach a broader audience while stretching your advertising dollars further.
11. Pick Up the Phone
It might sound like such an old way of marketing, but a good method for getting more leads is to simply pick up the phone.
Don’t be afraid to have your sales team do the old-fashioned thing and initiate a call with a decision-maker at a company that you’re looking to work with.
Now, this doesn’t have to always be cold calls. Maybe that lead signed up for a free trial and hasn’t converted to a paid subscription, making them more of a warm lead.
A phone call from a platform expert might be just what they need to answer questions or other barriers.
12. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Of course, you cannot ignore the use of search engines if you’re trying to grow your list of SaaS prospects.
Simply put, your target market is always going to use Google to look for answers to their biggest questions. Optimizing your website for certain keywords and searches should always be a big part of your marketing strategy.
Following best practices like updating meta titles and descriptions, using keywords in your content, and otherwise ensuring your page speed meets standards are all good places to start.
As your SaaS platform grows, you’ll want to continue to keep up with your SEO to ensure you’re still outranking competitors.
13. Paid Traffic and Landing Pages
If you’re really looking to increase the number of SaaS lead prospects for your business, consider this double punch.
Create a landing page with a special offer or incentive, a video describing how your product solves their biggest issue, or any other information in an easily digestible format. Then drive paid traffic through social media or pay-per-click (PPC) ads to that page.
This eliminates the guesswork for your leads and makes it easy to tell what your SaaS solution offers. It also makes it simple for them to get in touch with you to schedule a phone call, sign up for a demo account, or just get on your mailing list.
What’s even better? This is a strategy you can pair with multiple other ideas on this list for a huge impact.
14. Direct Mail and QR Codes
If the vast majority of your target market is primarily offline, consider this SaaS lead generation strategy.
Send out direct mail with a special QR code. Whenever a recipient opts to point their smartphone camera at the code, they’re instantly taken to a specific landing page you’ve published ahead of time.
Again, we want to make it super easy for people to connect with your SaaS platform. This is a great way to make the process as instantaneous and error-free as possible while getting in touch with those in your niche in a direct way.
Need examples of when this would work?
Think SaaS products that deal with heavy B2B where they might not necessarily be looking for a solution, as they have no idea that one exists. By showing up in their mailbox, you’ll be able to catch their attention more quickly.
15. Industry Websites, Journals, and Magazines
Depending on your SaaS vertical, it might be a good idea to advertise in certain places where your target market is already viewing. This can be industry websites, journals, magazines, and more.
That said, it is important to remember that just because you’re a SaaS firm doesn’t mean you should always stick with digital advertising.
There is still a place for traditional print ads, which can further boost brand recognition and make your company seem more credible.
Does your particular niche have specialty organizations or trade shows? Make an attempt to be a part of those, too. You never know who will see your team’s booth and make a decision to go with your platform.
16. Position As a Knowledgeable Expert
Speaking of credibility, here’s another tip to help optimize your marketing strategy for better SaaS lead generation.
Work to position yourself as a knowledgeable expert within your industry. If necessary, create a section of your website just as a place to provide additional information and important news that your customers would want to know, even if it doesn’t directly pertain to your software offering.
This can create a buzz in two ways. First, it offers a good chance for sharing your content to bring in more traffic.
Second, providing useful and informative content really paints you as a company that knows what you’re doing. In the end, this helps push subscribers towards utilizing your SaaS solution.
17. Target Specific Clients Directly
Finally, consider targeting specific clients directly. This is especially important if your SaaS is high-level or enterprise, as you might be looking at a longer decision-making process or a chain of people you need to convince before final approval.
Have your sales team sit down and brainstorm a few dozen so-called big fish or dream customers for your SaaS.
Put together a plan to research finding the right people to discuss the details with and make attempts to get in touch. Cold emails and calls actually do work if you have the right overall strategy.
18. Get chatbots
We have already talked about chatbots, but it is essential to emphasize how important the resource is to several ends of your strategy. Through concepts of AI and machine learning, chatbots provide a quick and efficient experience for users who can access the support they need whenever they need it. After all, unlike actual employees, bots are available 24/7 and don’t get overwhelmed when there is too much demand to deal with.
Of course, these tools cannot fully replace a support team or sales representatives. It is always essential to keep the human factor present in your relationship with customers. Still, chatbots are perfect for performing repetitive tasks, leaving the most complex chores to your collaborators.
Depending on how they are set up, they can provide users with answers to FAQs, instruct them on how to use basic features of the software, or simply connect them with someone who can deliver whatever is needed.
Even though it is possible to set up chatbots on some of the most famous social media, it is a good idea to include one on your website or even on your platform. The idea is to provide a quick and satisfactory experience, allowing users to solve any doubts quickly and efficiently.
19. Increase your positive presence in reviews
Whenever we talk about Digital Marketing, we must consider the several different triggers that influence in the buyer’s decision. Regardless of the industry in question, one thing is always true: modern consumers are highly influenced by the opinion of friends, family, and influencers. This is an effect caused by years of massive advertising on several channels, which made people suspicious of any major effort launched to promote a product, service, or brand.
Instead, the so-called 4.0 consumer pays more attention to testimonials and reviews, especially when it comes from sources they already know and trust.
Since the SaaS environment is friendly to this kind of activity, your marketing strategy should include methods to make your product appear in positive reviews. After all, this business model revolves around the user. This way, a satisfied customer will likely spread their opinion and eventually attract more users to your product.
Ideally, those reviews should be spontaneous, but there is nothing wrong in encouraging satisfied users to write what they think about the solution. You can do so by writing follow-up emails suggesting that they share their views or even by offering special deals to those willing to put the word out there.
Ultimately, however, the only way to increase your positive presence in reviews is to improve your SaaS continually. To do so, you must keep track of KPIs, watch how users behave and, of course, pay real attention to any review left on pertinent channels, especially the negative ones. Any criticism has to serve as fuel for improving the user experience and, consequently, generating more leads.
20. Use social selling
The strategic use of different social media channels is the pillar of several marketing strategies. Networks such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter represent the perfect environment to find your persona, educate them about your brand and establish long-lasting relationships.
Today, companies use social media to share content, spread ad campaigns, and close sales. To succeed in this endeavor, one needs to act thoughtfully, which is when social selling comes in.
It is not enough to gather thousands of followers or approach different people in their DMs trying to sell your product. In fact, if you are not mindful when approaching users, you may cause them to automatically lose interest in what you have to say. So, what to do?
The concept of social selling refers to a series of practices that aim to generate meaningful interactions and establish the brand as an authority on the subject. The ultimate goal is to attract leads and smoothly guide them through the sales funnel, eventually generating conversions. The process involves producing different kinds of content and a lot of strategic thinking, as each post must fulfill a specific goal, be it to educate, engage, or convert the persona.
21. Segment your audience
Segmenting your audience is one of the most important things to do before launching any marketing strategy. This has been true for a long time, even before the internet became a substantial part of our daily routines.
When brands mostly showcased ads in TVs, radios, and newspapers, marketers already knew which kind of audience they would like to reach. Based on that, they would choose the most prominent channels and, most importantly, use adequate approaches.
The digital transformation has taken segmentation to another level. Now, it is possible to target your messages to particular groups of people, boosting the conversion rate and increasing ROI.
It is logical: impacting a small group of people who fit in your buyer persona profile is much more cost-effective than sending a broader message to an audience that is big but is not necessarily interested in your solution. Therefore, to increase your SaaS lead generation, focus on segmentation.
If you are wondering how to effectively segment your audience, know that there is no magic formula. However, an excellent first step would be to define one or more buyer persona.
This resource represents what you consider to be your ideal customer. It must establish their pains, needs, motivations, and much more. Also, the persona should include data that is common in target audiences, such as geographic location, income, and job position.
After you segment your audience, you can create different campaigns to impact each of your personas. It is possible, for example, that you sell two solutions, one focused on corporations and one that is more suitable for small companies.
Naturally, using the same techniques to promote both products would be counterproductive, as they address different needs and pain points. So, segmentation allows you to make the best of each marketing effort.
22. Use co-marketing
Not everything is about competition. In marketing, many times, two or more companies may gather to develop strategies and campaigns that benefit all parties at the same time. This practice is called co-marketing, and you probably have seen this before. One of the most common examples is related to traveling companies, which partner up to offer complete experiences for their customers.
If you have ever bought a flight ticket that included a rental car or a hotel room in the package, you know what we are talking about.
We can apply this idea in the world of SaaS to develop cost-effective approaches. However, it is critical to choose the right partners and make sure there is no conflict of interest. Ideally, the company you choose to be your partner in this endeavor shares the same target audience as you but sells a solution that is either complementary or unrelated to yours.
23. Host webinars
One of the biggest challenges in SaaS marketing is educating your audience, not only about your product but also on the persona’s major problems and possible solutions. This is why Content Marketing is such a powerful tool in this industry. It allows brands to offer materials that directly address these issues and keep the user engaged.
You can create blog posts, explore social media features, invest in email marketing, and produce YouTube videos. Diversifying the format of your content is essential to attract and keep users’ attention.
When it comes to generating leads, it is crucial to think of your prospects as people who are eager to learn something and solve their problems. With that in mind, you can decide which kind of material you offer.
Few of them are so effective as a webinar. As the name suggests, we are talking about a type of seminar held online, which means that several people can watch and interact at the same time, participating in a unique and constructive experience.
Besides educating the audience, a good webinar will provide your brand with an image of authority in the market, leading more people to look for its products and services. Besides, if you are successfully promoting the event, you can use it to boost lead generation. It is easy: just create a landing page that exchanges access to the webinar for relevant contact information, such as phone numbers and email addresses.
24. Set S.M.A.R.T goals
The success of any strategy depends on how efficiently it was planned. During the planning stage, it is vital to outline what you expect to achieve with your business efforts, or, in other words, set goals.
But how to make sure the objectives you aim for are achievable and can actually benefit your SaaS? The answers are in a tool known as S.M.A.R.T goals, which many experts use to refine their goal-setting process. Each letter on the acronym stands for an element that helps the company to create coherent goals:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Agreed
- Realistic
- Time-bound
The idea is to create objectives that include all those elements. In other to be specific, your planning must detail what you want to reach. But, as you know, measuring results is as important as achieving them. So, your goals need to be measurable.
For that, it is imperative to define clear metrics and KPIs. Of course, no strategy will go forward if people involved have not agreed on it, so you must take your stakeholders on board. The goal must also be realistic, so you need to make sure you have all the resources required to accomplish it. Lastly, and this is extremely important in the SaaS environment, be sure to specify when your business is supposed to achieve what you have planned.
Imagine this scenario: you gather your team and tell them you want to increase lead generation. As much as you want it to happen, it is too vague. By using the S.M.A.R.T framework, you would say, for example, that your goal is to generate 500 new leads by the end of the year,
25. Optimize your page speed
Lead generation revolves around two things: your reach and your ability to engage a visitor. So, even if you rely on an excellent landing page and ranks high on searches engine, you can’t afford to provide frustrating experience. And, for internet users, there is nothing more disappointing than slow-loading pages. In fact, if the whole content doesn’t load in less than three seconds, the visitor will likely leave. Besides the missed opportunity, this will harm your SEO rankings.
So, any lead generation strategy must include actions to optimize your pages’ speed. It is important to clean your media base periodically and exclude any unnecessary files that may slow down the website. However, the key to avoiding any kind of problem-related to loading speed is to rely on a robust website host.
26.. Highlight your competitive advantages
Your competitive advantages are your most potent weapons to convince prospects that your solution is the best option for them. Therefore, you must highlight them whenever you have a chance, especially in the channels you use to attract your leads.
Suppose your strategy for generating new opportunities has social media as its central point. In that case, you should consider producing content that calls attention to the benefits you offer to your clients. In case your advantage is price, make that clear. Do the same if it is quality, special deals, scalability, infrastructure etc. It is up to you to define what differentials your business has in relation to the competition and use it to engage more users.
The truth is there are hundreds of ways you can optimize your marketing strategy for SaaS lead generation.
However, this all starts with making sure you know your target audience well and understand their particular needs. Once you determine how to get in direct touch with them, then you can adjust your plans accordingly.
Ready to take things a step further? We’ve put together this lead generation strategy ebook just to help you out. Click here to score your free copy now!
