Key Differentiators of SaaS Marketing

Jul 29,2021 by Manoj Yadav

In this fiercely competitive world that is crammed with a plethora of choices available for customers to choose from, marketing can be an overwhelming exercise. Marketing can be extremely difficult if the product you are marketing is a service that is undergoing continuous change. B2B marketing of a service that cannot be fathomed by lay people can further complicate things.

This is exactly the reason why SaaS marketing is so challenging. It would be great idea to understand unique advantages of SaaS marketing to simplify the whole process of SaaS marketing.

Advantages of doling out freebies

Free offers can be justifiable in case of physical products such as soaps, shampoos, and other merchandise. Considering free offers in case of SaaS can lead to offering the entire product t customer without expecting any buck. This is exactly required for SaaS marketing to succeed.

In case of SaaS you are supposed to offer a free trial for specified period as part of a strategic marketing plan. This the tried and tested marketing strategy adopted by various SaaS developers. It facilitates customer acquisition and can be perceived as something not less than an on-boarding tactic.

You can choose any adaptation from the vast assortment of free versions including, trial with or without credit card details, free trial, limited free version, 30 day free trial, freemium version, and trial-to-paid to name just a few. You are sure to come across this strategy being implemented by number of SaaS products.

If you have chalked out a robust strategy for marketing your product, then you are totally justified to offer your SaaS product for free.

Swift and short sales cycle

If you are under the impression that SaaS marketing be a slow and steady game of B2B sales that involves, cold calls, meet-ups, presentations, RFIs, RFQs, and what not, then you are in for a shock. SaaS sales cycle is one of the shortest lived sales processes. If you are not convinced, then let us try and understand the whole process.

Whenever potential SaaS customers are in need of some solutions, they rely on online search, free trials, demos, or word of mouth before actually buying. You can imagine time required for such a short sales process. It can last for few hours to some days at the most.

SaaS sales process is never preceded by launch events, sponsored programs, and so forth. The process is transaction oriented and swift.

It is essential to appreciate the nature of SaaS product itself in order to understand the shortness of sales process. Since software is a constantly changing domain thanks to frequent changes, setbacks, and advances, there is hardly any time to market and sell the product before the next version is ready to hit the market.

One cannot entirely neglect the possibility of a slow paced buyer who might take his or her sweet time to decide. However you need to keep up the sales pressure by continuously providing information as well as reassurance about the product. It is absolutely okay to lose a sale or two, since you have hundreds of other potential opportunities out there to tap into.

Use information as the most vital asset

The entire game of SaaS marketing revolves around information and one must make the most of it. Unfortunately significance of information is often underrated. If you conduct a short survey to find common sources of information, then you will bump into a SaaS provider in all probability. SaaS providers or SaaS sellers are the ones who pass on maximum information by way of blogs, articles, and s forth.

If you consider an example of Buffer, then you will definitely acknowledge its blog but should also understand that you are being exposed to their information product for supporting media service. Therefore, if you need to be seriously involved in SaaS marketing then you have t assume role of an information disseminator. Information can be propagated by you in more ways than you can possibly imagine. It can be conveyed by writing blogs, speaking, posting comments, or tweeting to name a few.

Understanding long term value of customers

It has been often stated by bigwigs of marketing that around 80 percent of business comes from just about 20 percent customers. In order to improve your revenue earnings you need to focus as much as possible on customer retention. It is immensely vital for the overall business category of SaaS. Hence the morale is to concentrate and focus all your resources on retention of existing customers than acquisition of clients.

Differentiate between product and service

Although there is nothing wrong in considering SaaS as a product for most of practical reasons, you need to understand that it is basically designed ‘as a service’ and not ‘as software’. This is not to undermine significance of software as an immaculate robust and amazing product.

SaaS as a product is all about the brains behind the software while the service part relates to technical support teams, help desk execs, marketing personnel, and all other components that comprise of the front end.

Realizing potential of SaaS itself as its own marketer

There is an unnecessary noise created as far as SaaS marketing is concerned in terms of technicalities of the marketing process. The most significant aspects of marketing strategies for SaaS are the product itself that is backed by awesome support.
In conclusion

SaaS providers need to focus on creation of great products and building outstanding service teams to succeed in marketing of SaaS.

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