Software-As-A-Service Marketing Is A Different Animal
Tech marketers in general and SaaS marketers in particular rely on a expanded skillset when it comes to audience building and lead generation. Typical B2C social sales tactics need to be tweaked to work in the SaaS sales environment as it usually involves educating your audience and a much longer sales cycle.
We picked the brains of marketing consultants at firms such as MAXPlaces as well as the 15 Social Media experts quoted below. Take your time to figure out how some of the below tactics can be applied to your own marketing campaigns…
1. Your Business Isn't Boring – Tell Your Story
“Find the most compelling story about your business that you think will actually cut through the noise and use video to tell that story. Whether that’s on Facebook, LinkedIn, or wherever your target audience hangs out, try to find what makes your business unique—however small or seemingly unrelated—and share that message on your social platforms with video, either live or pre-recorded. Your business isn’t boring…but the stories you might be telling and the medium you’ve been using could use a refresh.”
By Jenny Mudarri of Wistia
2. Educate Your Audience
“The best b2b SaaS social media marketing tip I can provide is to teach your following about the ways they can improve their business. For Example, if you are a sales software, teach your following about sales, lead generation, marketing in long form educational content that you give out for free. This will position you as a source and a thought leader in the space. Also, when people learn something they want to share the knowledge they just acquired, and this will bring more eyeballs and visitors with the thirst for knowledge to your pages.”
By Jimmy Rodriguez of 3dcart
3. Consistency and More Consistency Please
“Our social media strategy is centered around posting five times per day on Facebook & Twitter, twice per day on our corporate LinkedIn page, twice per day on Pinterest, and answering multiple Quora questions on a daily basis to drive traffic back to our website. The content is always mirrored on Facebook and Twitter to be the same. We post a variety of landing page links with UTM coding on those mediums to drive traffic, and other engagement items like memes, infographics and quotes to maintain reach. Content on LinkedIn can vary depending on our focus at the time, and can include company announcements, job postings, content and other items.
In short, there’s nothing more important than consistency, and playing within the boundaries established by the various social networks. Staying on top of feed and algorithm changes will inform this cadence, but no matter what, trend toward posting more rather than less, but always stay consistent so your audience knows when to expect to see the content they value, and what that content will be.”
By Kris Hughes of ProjectManager.com
4. Promote All Conference and Tradeshow Appearances
“Social media is great to use when attending conferences and trade shows. Before going to these events, create an image that announces your company will be there and the booth number where you'll be if you're an exhibitor. These images not only highlight that your company is involved in important industry events, but they also help people find you when they attend the conference.”
By Jami Barnett of CurrentDesk
5. Organic Social Followers are Pure Gold
“While paid social media marketing is an excellent marketing strategy for SaaS providers, building up a loyal following on these platforms of customers and fans organically is just as vital. Without a natural following, who will like your posts or prove to potential customers that you're popular with your existing customer base? To build up this following, you should attempt to post once or twice per day (depending on your bandwidth) both your company's own content including blog posts and graphics, as well as articles from other sources that will help or interest your customer base. For example, at an email privacy SaaS company, where I managed social, I posted about privacy matters including large scale hacks and how to avoid them, how to lessen your digital footprint, and other privacy-focused software. To get started, see where your competitors are gaining the most engagement on social and consider polling your existing followers about what content they want to see more of on social (video, blog posts, infographics) – all of this will lead to more engagement and a customer base more excited about buying from you.”
By Nicolas Straut of Fundera
6. Approach Relevant Influencers
“According to Sprout Social, influencer marketing can help you deliver 11 times higher ROI compared to traditional digital marketing channels. Working with individuals who have a significant following and a voice can really help make an impact in your business too.”
By Brett Helling of Ridester
7. Case Studies That Demonstrate an ROI
“When you're promoting software as a service, you have to be able to show your value and how you'll make someone's life or job easier. Case studies that show the clear ROI of your software and clearly define how you helped a customer overcome a problem do more than just back up your claims – they showcase the true benefits of your service and show that you understand the nitty-gritty of the day-to-day of the people you're helping.”
By Laura Simis of Coalmarch
8. Social Listening for Market Insight
“As a B2B SaaS provider, my best social marketing tip is to spend 30 minutes a day ‘listening' or ‘monitoring' your audience on social media. Although you can do this for free, a variety of tools like Mention or Awario will help you save time while also collecting more social insights. You can use these tools to track all online mentions of your brand name and product/service keywords. By monitoring when and what your target customers say about your brand and related topics on social, you will gain incredible product insights for updating and marketing your SaaS.”
By Keller Tiemann of Leadsurance
9. Serious Tech Deserves A Serious Landing Page
“You’ve heard the popular saying, ‘don’t judge a book by its cover', people will judge your SaaS by your landing page. Just think about it; if you’re selling a SaaS and your homepage doesn’t make that clear, how can anyone take your tech seriously? Your homepage should be visually stimulating, provide all the information about your services, while not overwhelming page visitors. Adobe Creative Cloud is a great example of this. While they offer a wide array of SaaS, they are able to give the customer a clear and comprehensive understanding of their products.”
By Nate Masterson of Maple Holistics
10. Data Driven Marketing Personas
“Before you can start seeing real results from social media, there's one thing you must do – identify who you're actually trying to reach. Create detailed marketing personas and make sure every post you publish is targeting these personas. Facebook Audience Insights, Twitter Analytics, BuzzSumo, and more – the key is to use real data as the backbone of each persona.”
By Josh Gallant of Foundation Marketing
11. Provide A Glimpse Behind The Curtain
“Give your audience access to the inner workings of your company. Let people have a peek into the daily life of the people who make it all possible. By doing this you can establish a level of trust with your audience, which might make them more willing to give your company a look and you can sign them up for a trial. You need to gain trust, and by allowing people to see the inside of your company is an excellent way to do so.”
By Shane Hebzynski of 3 Cats Labs
12. LinkedIn Is A No Brainer
“LinkedIn is your best friend, and employee advocacy is way more important than simply posting on your company page. Make sure to create content that your entire team is inspired to share on a regular basis with their own commentary attached. The CEO's LinkedIn is more important than your company page; make sure he/she reposts everything and is constantly building a strong presence there. SaaS is one of the B2B sectors that MUST implement social selling and personal branding strategies for success.”
By Kimberly Afonso of Kimberly Afonso Digital Marketing Consulting
13. Smart Facebook Funnels
“As fewer people are interacting with ads on Facebook, it is important for SaaS companies to raise awareness about the problem they are trying to solve, before selling their product. I recommend using a smart retargeting funnel on Facebook. This is how you do it: (1) create a short punchy video that raises awareness about the problem your SaaS company is trying to solve (you can do it with a service like Promo) (2) use custom audience on Facebook to re-target people who viewed your awareness video with a static ad and direct them to your website (3) re-target website visitors with case studies and testimonials. This funnel will deliver the highest quality of leads to your sales team.”
By Pavel Gertsberg of Disciple
14. Every Employee Is An Advocate
“Every SaaS employee can use social media to become a magnet for inbound leads. When people have a problem, they start to rack their brains to figure out if anyone in their immediate network can help them. The key to leveraging social media for SaaS companies is to ensure everyone within your staff's networks understand exactly what problems your company can help them solve. By encouraging your staff to position themselves as subject influencers on social through frequently creating, sharing and engaging with industry content you ensure that they become the first port of call every time someone in their network has a problem which your SaaS product can solve.”
By Daithí de Buitleir of Parkpnp
15. Consumer Privacy Is A Selling Point
“Security and privacy aspects are proving to be a marketing tip today. Tech companies must ensure a robust & elaborate privacy structure and protocol in order to protect their customer’s data.”
By Zalak Bhavsar of Netcore Solutions
