SaaS Marketing & Product Value: Efficient Strategies

The SaaS industry is getting crowded nowadays. The Software as a Service companies database includes 30,318 names, and The SaaSs market size keeps growing from approximately $146.6 bn in 2022 to $307 bn by 2026. And it is no wonder you find raising your SaaS business in such a competitive environment challenging.  

The marketing process plays the leading role in winning your customer both for a SaaS startup and a unicorn. Traditional marketing as well as Saas sales peculiarities complement each other and help plan go-to-market strategy, demonstrate SaaS value, build B2C and B2B saas product strategy, and effective sales funnels.   

Arounda design agency for SaaS knows about the niche from five-year experiences of delivering successful projects. We have observed how SaaS Startups & SMEs among our clients have raised more than $750M+, and in this article, we share both practical tips on SaaS promotion and core marketing aхioms.

What is SaaS Marketing?

There are two sides to Software as a service marketing. First, it has a marketing cycle like any other product or service. On the other hand, the SaaS proposition differs from selling clothes, cars, mattresses, or any other material things because it deals with virtual services.

In this article, we go through four stages of the marketing cycle:

1. Discovery

2. Strategy

3. Implementation

4. Measurement

At the same time, we give practical tips on two hotspots of SaaS promotion:

• How to show product value?
• How to improve the in-product experience?

General Marketing Tips For SaaS Products 

In most cases, people first get in touch with the SaaS product through your marketing channels, be it  Google, Facebook, website, or Behance platform. The first encounter is like the first date - you prepare for this moment with whole responsibility, think of the impression you make, and focus on what you say.

Talk about Value - not Features

Remember the last time you were searching for a cloud service for your needs? You must have found at least three or five products with similar functions, and you were scrolling sites keeping your particular task in mind. And then you found a match. This could be a review from a customer with the same problem, a demo video that demonstrated what Saas does, or a blog article on your question.  

The trick is to see inside your customer's problem and give him clear evidence that you can solve his specific task. So when you describe your product, it is better to focus on the buyers' pain in the first turn and then pick the content to demonstrate your product value. 

Simplify

Although modern technology is fascinating, customers hardly want to know exactly how it works. Similarly, you don’t need to know a lot about electrical circuits to buy a light bulb in the supermarket. It would be thoughtful to find easy words and examples to explain how your SaaS service works and help people spare their time and mental energy. 

Minimalistic Design

The temptation to capture clients` attention with bright colors and parallax effects is great. Meanwhile, no research proves that overwhelming design is the key to increasing your traffic. On the contrary, most SaaS websites, including giants like ClickUp, use light backgrounds and minimalistic palettes. 

There is more about the best 2022 SaaS design practices on our blog.

Demonstrating the Value of your SaaS

Often ambitious startups act as though the marketing process has only one step – implementation. They try out a handful of promotion channels, paid advertisements, and different types of content but overlook research, planning, and back-end analysis that lead to success. Let's start from the beginning to avoid this mistake.

Discover your SaaS Market

Most SaaS products have analogies, and we suggest you take time to investigate your marketplace. 

• See your rivals' blogs and social media. What marketing tactics do they use? What are the winning saas go-to-market strategy examples?
• Judge clearly on your SaaS competitive advantages. Think of highlighting your USP ( Unique Selling Proposition). 
• Estimate your market size with TAM, SAM, and SOM metrics. 
• Make the easiest MVP (Minimum Viable Product) to ensure that your plans for success are based on real demand rather than on gut feelings. 

Create a Marketing Strategy 

The information you gather in the previous stage helps create the marketing strategy - the roadmap for numerous steps in your SaaS promotion. 

Start with Buyer Persona

A buyer persona is a portrait of a typical customer for your SaaS. It’s a classical first step to adjust your communication to the target audience. It might seem a waste of time to write down your buyer's age, working position, hobbies, family state, and income because you know all this from experience. But we recommend not skipping this routine. You will find it much easier to be persuasive when you imagine your client in detail and can address them like an existing person.  

It’s also common to have several buyer personas for the same product, especially for B2C and B2B communication.

Use Multiple Channels of Communication 

When we reach the potential buyer through social media, e-mail, and professional SaaS portals likeGithub, the possibility of closing the first purchase is much higher. The aim is to surround the customer with gentle reminders of your service and wait until Awareness and Interest turn into Decision and Action according to the AIDA principle.   

There is a trap of generating piles of content that will never rich the target audience. Here we recommend relying on your buyer persona and choosing between Twitter, Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, etc. 

Please don’t trust rumors that e-mail marketing is dead or dying. This instrument is like Elvis Presley, immortal.

Content to Gain Trust

The digital world resembles the old human rule that people trust other people. The proven way to persuade your client that your product is worthy and reliable is to demonstrate the approval of your previous customers: 

• Case studies. These are the stories of your clients` success thanks to your cooperation. They describe in detail the problem and how SaaS helps. The buyer comes to the conclusion that he can get the same positive result with your service. 
• Interviews and reviews work the same way and humanize your landing page. In 2021 77% of consumers 'always' or 'regularly' read online reviews when browsing for local businesses. It`s also good to track the user-generated content on social media and include it in your content plan.  
• Social proof. Representation of your SaaS on the G2 platform or Capterra, awards for your work as a SaaS design agency, and logos of your partners and respectful clients on the site, add value to your proposition. Social proof is vital if you build a sales strategy for SaaS startup.  

Video demos

If you have the resources to produce video content, don`t hesitate. Remember that the video should be high-quality, short, and engaging, and show how your software can help clients achieve a specific goal. It`s better to emphasize the benefits more than the features.   

Zendesk promotion video is a beautiful example to learn from.

Implement and Make It Visible 

What is the use of a great site if nobody sees it? Presenting your marketing content to search engines is as crucial as a good product itself. 

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) 

Using the right keywords will bring you organic traffic without paid ads. The organic audience is the most active and loyal one, but it takes two or three months until visitors find you on Google. Consider keyword research with Semrush or Hubspot tools to optimize your site.     

PPC (Pay-Per-Click)

If you decide to reach your clients faster, combine SEO with PPC campaigns. The proportion of organic and paid traffic might differ, but the advertisement usually raises your SaaS ranking.  

Analyze 

The last stage of the marketing cycle is an analysis. The information from Google analytics, social media followers' growth, and surveys indicate which tactics work and which fail in your case. 

You can apply user engagement metrics to track your progress and split B2C and B2B SaaS metrics for detailed analysis. Measuring your result is the only way to optimize the marketing strategy and save your budget.  

In-Product SaaS Experience

When the user has finally signed up for a Fremium account, the great SaaS user experience is the main thing that persuades him to stay longer and purchase in the end. Here are some tips on how to retain your new SaaS users.   

Smooth On-boarding 

• Keep the sign-up forms minimalistic and ask only for critical information. 
• Give options to choose from for individuals and business clients. 
• Add animated help if the registration has several steps. 

Avoid Empty State

Perhaps your SaaS requires a set of data to try out the functionality or a lot of setting up. In this case, filling in a blank profile can be time-consuming and demotivating. One approach to show the user what your service is capable of is a sandbox account similar to Hubspot sandbox mode.

Simple Navigation

The UX rule is to place information and buttons where the user expects to find them. The pagination should be clear, and the active elements supportive and not distracting.   

How Arounda Creates SaaS Products

One of Arounda's team works is the Metricly cloud cost management platform. The SaaS can save users almost 32% of their Amazon Web Services (AWS) bills. 

Our task was to develop captivating graphic materials and rewrite the landing page, blog, and new tech documentation pages. In this case, the product with robust functionality needed the UX/UI redesign to ensure a better in-product experience and retain customers. 

Arounda has worked on more than 50 SaaS products. Our experience shows that clients often discover new ways to improve their product representation on the go. In case you need a fresh look to define your SaaS product strengths and weaknesses, we are here to help.   

Secure Your Marketing Strategy With Arounda 

The competition in the SaaS market can`t be taken lightly when you are in the same industry with players like Salesforce, ServiceNow, Microsoft, Google, and Cisco. Sadly, a solid SaaS product can lose money, reputation, and customers with bad marketing.

In this post, we focused on the four stages of the SaaS marketing cycle and on demonstrating SaaS value and in-product experience. As a SaaS-oriented design agency Arounda has tried these tips practically and witnessed their effectiveness over five years. 

Sometimes it seems that you have done everything possible in marketing your product. And then a good post or a talk with an expert reveals new approaches and perspectives.

If you want to develop your product marketing strategy with business analysis and research as well as a UX audit, just drop us a line.

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