How to promote SaaS products-4 components from DWORKZ

Marketing software as a service product differs from traditional ones in that first is in a virtual dimension and cannot be touched. To convince potential consumers of a SaaS product to integrate new software into their business, you need to use unfamiliar marketing tools that appeal to analytical arguments. The high demands of the target audience, the complexity of the product, and other factors also complicate the promotion of digital products.

According to the experience of our partners from Dworkz, this is a UI/UX design agency in San Francisco, which develops SaaS products, the short goal of a marketing campaign for a digital product can be formulated in four positions:

1. Increase the search position of the product in organic search for high-frequency, mid-frequency, and low-frequency queries.
2. Increase targeted traffic. The marketing funnel is based on information requests, selling, and marketing.
3. Improve the status of a supplier or developer of an IT product to the level of an expert.
4. Lead generation is a marketing tactic to identify potential customers with specific contact details.

Each of the four goals has its implementation tools. The effectiveness of these applications is measured in dynamics. Promoting a SaaS product with visibility of the positive dynamics of a marketing campaign makes it easier, but the time it takes to market makes it more challenging. Understanding the complexities of working with digital products will make it easier to convince the target audience to integrate new SaaS products.

Components of promoting a SaaS product

1. Content Marketing and SEO

Successful content marketing assumes that in the text, photo, and video content accompanying the SaaS product, the user can practically apply the principle of here and now and that it is also relevant to the target audience. For publishing such materials, there are blogs, forums, the product website, and pages on social networks, as well as thematic channels in instant messengers. The content must be created at an expert level and answer the target audience’s questions: what is it, why does my business need it, and how does it work?

SEO-optimizing text content helps attract the target audience’s attention to the product using organic queries. The technical tasks for such content are written for copywriters who organically enter keywords into the most relevant texts for user search queries. SEO-optimized texts should also reveal the topic using LSI words.

2. Contextual advertising

The contextual method of promoting a SaaS product enables it in search engines, mobile applications, social networks, and other Internet resources. A contextual advertising principle is that advertisements are only shown to users inquiring about a product similar to the advertised one. Contextual advertising targets people interested in the product, not random ones.

Among the mandatory components of contextual advertising are a unique selling proposition and a call to action. Such advertising should clearly convey the product offer, its value, and benefits and be tailored to the relevant target audience (goals, age, interests, and behavior pattern). The advertising model for contextual advertising is PPC (pay-per-click). Ads should bring a potential client to a specially created landing page.

3. Referral Marketing

This is one of the most effective ways to attract customers. A referral marketing strategy is one in which one of your clients invites another interested client from the outside, and in return, both the first and the second receive bonuses for using your SaaS product. Thus, you will lose the product’s price, but you will increase the database of loyal customers. Which, in turn, will potentially attract the next wave of referrals – and so on ad infinitum.

For this strategy to work, you need to consider incentives and loyalty programs that will get customers to recommend your product.

4. Free trial and transparent pricing

By clicking on the ad, customers are taken to a page where they are asked to click on the “Buy!” button. The price of your digital product may put off a potential buyer. To avoid this, offer the client a beta version of your digital product. In addition to the time limit, this product version may have other restrictions, such as the available functions or the number of operations.

Pricing should give the user a clear understanding of what he is paying for and what he is getting in return. This affects product life expectancy (LTV). The more adequate the prices, the more demand for the product. Remember that a product’s price is influenced by measurable components, such as paying developers’ hours and the product’s premiums. We are referring to security or belonging to a chosen class – the status and development prospects.

Conclusion

The challenge of promoting SaaS products is that potential buyers should be able to use the product in a way that makes them feel its value and irreplaceability. After the demo experience, the user must exclaim: this is precisely what will help my business grow.

For reference

Here is the complete list of marketing ads our partner Dworkz uses to promote their SaaS products:

1. Analysis of competitors.
2. Formation of the target audience – personas and Job to be Done.
3. Product positioning.
4. Development of a marketing funnel.
5. SEO.
6. Content marketing.
7. Email marketing.
8. Development of push notifications.
9. Development of a promotion strategy in social networks – SMM.
10. Paid traffic.
11. Affiliate marketing.
12. Link building.
13. Online reputation.
14. Search for new areas of growth.

The promotion of SaaS products is also influenced by the convenience of registration and the choice of tariffs. Ideally, there should be at most three options. And also – the quality of customer service, the frequency of updates, and the software quality. 

You can evaluate the effectiveness of a marketing campaign by comparing business profits before and after the launch of advertising minus the costs invested in advertising (ROI). The metrics tracked are CPA, ROAS, and LTV. For a correct assessment, each customer acquisition channel should be evaluated separately. Using industry benchmarks will help you assess the effectiveness of your advertising campaign.