How To Develop A Digital Marketing Strategy For SaaS Businesses

Digital marketing should be an essential part of every SaaS business’ overarching promotion strategy. In fact, research has shown that SaaS companies can see an ROI of over 700% on email marketing and SEO. If you fail to utilize this promotion channel, you likely won’t ever be able to truly compete with similar businesses (who are, in all likelihood, increasing their digital marketing spend every year). 

Let’s take a look at the best way to develop a digital marketing strategy and the steps you need to take to ensure it works.

Start With A Clear Goal 

You will first need to determine what you want to achieve with your digital marketing campaigns. For instance, you may be looking to increase free trial user conversions, or you may just want to grow your email list.

Knowing what your goal is will help you make all the important decisions later on: which channels to invest in first, how to design a sales funnel, where to save money, and where to spend more. 

Be as clear about your marketing goals as possible. Assign tangible (and realistic) numbers to each goal and give yourself a specific timeframe in which to achieve it. 

Determine The Metrics You Want To Track

In order to understand if your efforts are paying off or not, you will also need to set some very clear KPIs and track a variety of marketing metrics for each of the tactics you decide to use. These figures will later help you determine the value of your business as well in case you want to sell it or attract investors. 

Conversion rates and engagement rates are something every business tracks, but as a SaaS company, you will also need to pay attention to: 

• Your churn rate.
• The cost of customer acquisition and their lifetime value.
• The rate of monthly to yearly conversions.

When you first start out, don’t obsess over these numbers too much. However, make sure that they are moving in your favor as time goes by and you roll out your strategy. Don’t compare yourself to any industry benchmarks – instead, focus only on your own results from the previous period. 

Understand Your Customers’ Needs

In order to be able to market to your target audience, you also need to understand what their pain points are and what makes them tick, so to speak. If you don’t speak their language, or if you’re constantly focusing on solutions that they are not actively seeking, you won’t go very far with your digital marketing strategy. 

Let’s take a look at a concrete example. As a brand, Aura understands that its customers want to improve their Amazon sales. This is why Aura’s blog is full of articles that aren’t just specific to repricing (which is what their product is) but also offer more general tips and advice. 

They have demonstrated that they understand their readers and users and will do more than just try to make a sale. You should apply the same principle: focus on solving problems and establishing yourself as a resource rather than just on getting more people to pay a subscription.

Focus On Benefits Over Features 

As a SaaS business, you need to focus on benefits-based marketing rather than highlighting the features of your product. 

While it may sound very harsh, you need to understand that most customers won’t care one bit about the features of the product in a general sense. They will want to know what the benefits of these features are for them specifically.

While there is no way to avoid talking about the features, always show them from a benefits angle. “Here is what our product does, and here is exactly how it will help you” is the point of view you’re aiming for. 

Take A Look At Your Competition

In order for your digital marketing tactic to work its full magic, you also need to know what your competitors are doing to promote their own products. You don’t need to copy or try to beat them at their own game, though.

Aim to understand their appeal and the way they are converting their customers. Determine what they are offering and what they are missing out on. Then, use this information to craft better messaging and better products. 

You can grab some of their keywords and backlinks, but don’t just focus on outsmarting them at the same game. Create your own strategy, informed by what is currently available. 

Design A Clever Conversion Funnel

Creating a sales funnel will help ensure you are sending the right messages to the right people at the right time. If you promote a very complex tech piece to a TOFU user, you will have practically zero chance of getting them to become a paying customer. 

If you offer a free trial, you can segment your funnel into two distinct stages or create several funnels. One stage or funnel will be for getting people to try your product, and the other will be for ensuring they subscribe. From there, you can further move them down to becoming brand advocates and paying for yearly subscriptions. 

Make sure you focus on each stage equally, as customer retention is more valuable than customer acquisition. Plus, it’s easier to execute. 

Keep Improving It

Finally, don’t forget that your digital marketing strategy needs to continually evolve and change based on the data that you collect over time. You may discover that a certain tactic is working much better than you could have anticipated or that a channel that has worked well for your competitors does nothing for you. 

Do regular audits and data sweeps, and see what you need to change (if anything). Don’t just blindly keep going through the same motions. Marketing is highly dynamic, and you need to be able to roll with the times for it to truly succeed.

Final Thoughts 

Digital marketing is an amazing way for SaaS businesses of all sizes to reach new audiences and promote their products. If you are clever about the strategy you create, you can soon start to see an influx of eager new subscribers. We hope this helps you with your digital marketing strategy for SaaS businesses.