12 Best SaaS Marketing Strategies for Business Growth

You’re undoubtedly looking for ways to thrust much customers for your SaaS business. 

With that successful mind, here’s our database of the apical tactics to see erstwhile putting unneurotic your SaaS selling strategy.

1. Offer a Free Trial

Offering a escaped proceedings lets users effort retired your bundle earlier they perpetrate to a paid subscription, which tin trim lawsuit acquisition costs and summation conversion rates.

Trials usually past betwixt 7 and 30 days and supply users with entree to galore of the software’s features. Which allows those users to trial retired the bundle extensively to spot if it’s the close acceptable for their needs.

It’s a suitable enactment for intuitive, easy-to-use bundle that users tin get started with connected their ain reasonably quickly. But it’s not the champion acceptable for much analyzable solutions that necessitate customization.

If your bundle is simply a bully campaigner for a escaped trial, usage these tips to marque the connection arsenic appealing arsenic possible:

• Determine the close proceedings length: The champion magnitude for your proceedings play volition beryllium connected your product’s complexity, price, and however often the mean idiosyncratic volition request to usage it successful their day-to-day work. While 14 days is reasonably modular for SaaS products, you mightiness payment from reducing oregon extending that period. 
• Include entree to arsenic galore features arsenic possible: Don’t bounds entree to circumstantial features excessively overmuch during the proceedings period. Let users effort retired each your software’s capabilities if possible, truthful they tin beryllium definite it’s the close acceptable for them.
• Emphasize your trial’s risk-free nature: Don’t unit users to participate outgo accusation to motion up for the trial. And marque it perfectly wide to users that signing up for a proceedings comes with nary strings attached. 
• Use a compelling telephone to action: Instead of “Sign up,” experimentation with thing a spot much compelling. Such arsenic “Try it for free.” Here’s a bully illustration from Trello:

2. Create a Product Demo

A merchandise demo allows you to showcase your software’s capabilities portion telling a communicative that addresses your people users’ needs to assistance them spot however your bundle tin amended their workflows.

This tin yet assistance you person much visitors into users.

Here’s however to make an effectual merchandise demo:

• Research your people audience: Gain an in-depth knowing of your target audience by performing lawsuit interviews, moving marketplace probe surveys, and organizing absorption groups 
• Keep discourse successful mind: Center your merchandise demo connected communal usage cases that would beryllium applicable to your people users. And explicate however utilizing your merchandise tin assistance users lick symptom points they have.
• Show—don’t tell: Make definite to usher users done immoderate enactment oregon diagnostic you notation successful your merchandise demo. Don’t expect them to automatically cognize oregon recognize what you’re talking about.
• Address objections: Talk to your income squad to recognize the astir communal objections prospects person astir your product. And effort to code these objections passim the demo.

You’ll besides request to determine whether to gross your demo (i.e., inquire users for interaction accusation earlier they tin presumption it).

Gating your merchandise demo tin assistance you place high-intent leads and let you to way them to your income team. But it tin besides effect successful a ample percent of your website visitors skipping it due to the fact that they didn’t consciousness comfy sharing their interaction information.

You mightiness adjacent experimentation with some options to find which 1 delivers the champion results for your product.

3. Make It Effortless to Sign Up

Simplifying the sign-up process for your bundle helps to region immoderate frustrations and tin person much of your tract visitors into users. 

One of the champion ways to bash this is to lone necessitate an email code to acceptable up an relationship (something a developer tin assistance you with). Because fewer radical find it frustrating to capable retired a azygous field.

You tin past automatically make a password for them and cod different accusation (such arsenic their sanction and institution name) later.

If you request much than conscionable an email code to acceptable up a escaped trial, see utilizing progressive profiling. Which allows you to summation much accusation via a bid of steps (first is entering an email address, 2nd is entering archetypal and past name, etc.) to debar overwhelming visitors. 

Some different tips for making registration arsenic casual arsenic imaginable see (it’s besides a bully thought to consult with a developer regarding these options):

• Allowing users to motion up without outgo information: Many users interest astir entering this accusation due to the fact that they fearfulness they’ll get charged accidentally oregon that their accusation mightiness beryllium compromised
• Use microcopy: Incorporating abbreviated substance snippets that explicate the steps (e.g., password requirements) makes it casual for users to implicit the process
• Implement third-party login options: If it makes consciousness for your product, allowing users to login via Facebook, Google, oregon different level makes it that overmuch easier to get started

4. Refine Your Buyer Personas

A buyer persona is simply a fictional practice of your people lawsuit that informs the messaging you use, the platforms you absorption on, and galore different details that spell into your wide selling strategy. 

And a persona usually includes these types of information:

• Demographics: Age, gender, and location
• Socioeconomics: Education, employment status, and income level
• Pain points: The issues your people customers are dealing with connected a regular basis
• Behavior: What your prospects’ day-to-day lives look like, however they bargain SaaS products, and more
• Interests: Any idiosyncratic interests oregon hobbies your people customers mightiness have

You tin usage Semrush’s One2Target instrumentality to larn much astir your people audience. 

Here’s how:

Start by entering up to 5 of your apical competitors’ domains. Then, click “Analyze.”

The instrumentality volition execute an investigation and contiguous you with a elaborate study connected your people audience.

In the “Demographics” tab, you tin spot your audience’s property and sex breakdown.

Scroll down to the “Distribution by Country” conception to spot the geographical breakdown.

Then spell to the “Socioeconomics” tab to spot accusation connected household size, income level, acquisition level, and employment status.

And spell to the “Behavior” tab to summation accusation connected your people audience’s interests and societal media use.

You tin past usage each of this accusation to physique a purchaser persona with the Semrush Persona tool.

Just, capable retired each the sections successful the template with information you’ve gathered from your research.

5. Map Out the Customer Journey

The customer journey includes the stages a idiosyncratic goes done earlier and aft becoming a customer, and it allows you to spot your merchandise and what goes into learning astir it from a customer’s perspective.

It tin besides assistance you find the close messaging and marketing tactics to usage depending connected which signifier of the travel a lawsuit is at. And let you to make a amended lawsuit acquisition overall.

To make a lawsuit travel map, you’ll privation to commencement by breaking down the lawsuit travel into stages. For a batch of SaaS companies, the lawsuit travel volition astir look similar this:

• Awareness: A idiosyncratic becomes alert of a situation oregon symptom constituent (e.g., managing online reviews for their concern is time-consuming)
• Consideration: They probe and comparison antithetic solutions to their occupation (e.g., by looking astatine roundups and comparisons of reappraisal absorption bundle options)
• Decision: They determine connected a circumstantial solution and motion up to go a user

For each stage, you’ll request to place touchpoints—any instances wherever a imaginable oregon existing lawsuit interacts with your marque (e.g., by speechmaking a societal media station oregon seeing an ad). And database the associated actions, symptom points, and emotions that were present.

Once you bash that, you’ll extremity up with a representation that looks similar this:

6. Embrace Content Marketing

Content marketing involves producing and distributing a assortment of contented types to attract, engage, and clasp your people audience.

Content selling that emphasizes search motor optimization (SEO) has been fashionable successful SaaS for years now—and with bully reason. It’s what propelled the occurrence of companies similar HubSpot and made them 1 of the astir well-known brands successful the SaaS space.

If you’ve ever done a Google hunt connected immoderate marketing- oregon sales-related topic, you’ve astir apt seen HubSpot’s content. And it’s nary wonder—the company’s website ranks for much than 1.7 cardinal keywords, successful ample portion owed to their blog.

Here’s however you tin get started with contented marketing:

Create a Content Strategy

Successful contented selling starts with creating a content strategy that outlines however you’re going to make and administer contented and usage it to thrust caller business.

It should see accusation connected your goals, people audience, messaging, contented formats and topics, and content distribution channels. And specify the attack you’ll take.

You’ve already researched your people audience, truthful present is simply a bully clip to absorption connected competitory investigation and keyword research.

Analyze Your Competitors

Doing a competitive analysis helps you recognize what kinds of contented your people assemblage is consuming, which means it’s the benignant of contented you request to create.

Use Semrush’s Organic Research instrumentality to get an in-depth look into immoderate competitor’s content. 

Here’s how:

Start by typing successful a competitor’s domain. Then, prime a people marketplace and click “Search.”

The instrumentality volition past make a elaborate study connected that competitor’s integrated hunt performance. 

You’ll beryllium capable to spot however galore keywords they’re ranking for and however overmuch postulation they’re generating from integrated search.

From here, you tin navigate to the “Positions” tab to spot a database of each the keywords their domain is ranking for.

Finally, sojourn the “Pages” tab to spot a database of the competitor’s astir fashionable pages. Along with accusation astir however overmuch postulation each leafage is generating and however galore keywords they’re ranking for.

Perform Keyword Research

To make SEO content, you’ll request to execute keyword research to recognize which keywords (terms your assemblage enters into hunt engines) you should people to get the champion accidental of attracting unpaid hunt motor traffic.

Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool tin assistance you uncover perchance thousands of applicable keywords for your website.

Start by entering a seed keyword—a connection oregon operation that’s intimately related to what your bundle does. Then, participate your domain, prime a people market, and click “Search.”

The instrumentality volition past make a database of applicable keyword ideas.

For each term, you tin spot the hunt measurement (the mean fig of monthly searches the word gets), intent benignant (the information down the search), and the Personal Keyword Difficulty people (a metric that indicates however hard it would beryllium for your circumstantial domain to fertile for that term).

Use the “Personal KD%” drop-down to filter the database to lone amusement keywords with a debased Keyword Difficulty (50% oregon less) to absorption the database connected presumption you person the champion chances of ranking for.

Start Creating and Distributing Content

Use the information from your competitory investigation and keyword probe arsenic good arsenic your strategy papers to marque a calendar you tin usage to commencement creating and distributing contented that’s apt to thrust results.

Here, you’ll request to determine whether you’re going to outsource contented accumulation (to freelancers oregon an agency) oregon support it in-house.

Whichever enactment you choose, you should marque definite to make elaborate editorial guidelines that volition alteration some in-house and outer collaborators to make high-quality contented for your marque consistently.

And determine connected however you’re going to administer your contented (e.g., via the institution blog, your email list, societal media channels, etc.) Revisit the societal media preferences you recovered utilizing One2Target for immoderate archetypal ideas.

7. Use SEO to Drive Long-Term Results

SEO is the process of improving a website’s visibility successful search motor results to thrust much visitors and yet person them into customers.

And portion it doesn’t typically supply contiguous results, it tin beryllium incredibly beneficial successful the agelong run. Especially considering B2B SaaS companies spot an mean ROI of 702% from SEO.

And determination are a fewer main types of SEO to absorption on:

Technical SEO

Technical SEO is chiefly centered astir optimizing your tract successful ways that marque it easier for hunt engines to crawl (discover) and scale (store successful a database) your website’s pages.

Why bash this?

Because if your website has a batch of method issues, it’s improbable that it’s going to fertile precocious successful hunt motor results.

You tin usage Semrush’s Site Audit instrumentality to uncover and hole these issues. 

Here’s how:

Start by entering your domain and clicking “Start Audit.”

Follow the prompts to configure your audit.

Once the instrumentality finishes analyzing your website, it volition contiguous you with a elaborate report. 

From here, sojourn the “Issues” tab to spot a database of each the uncovered issues.

And usage the “Category” drop-down to filter for issues related to crawlability, indexability, and tract performance.

For each issue, click connected the bluish linked fig to spot a database of each pages affected by that issue. And click the “Why and however to hole it” to larn much astir the issue.

On-Page SEO

On-page SEO involves optimizing webpages to summation their chances of ranking precocious successful hunt motor results.

When performing on-page SEO, you should wage attraction to the pursuing leafage elements:

• Title tag: This HTML constituent tells browsers and hunt engines what the rubric of a webpage is. It should beryllium abbreviated (less than 70 characters), descriptive, and see your people keyword.
• Meta description: This HTML summary describes the webpage and whitethorn look nether the rubric successful Google’s hunt results. Try to marque it enticing to searchers by including a call to action.
• URL: SEO-friendly leafage URLs assistance some hunt engines and users recognize what a leafage is astir astatine a glance. Ideally, usage your people keyword successful the URL slug (the past portion of the URL that identifies the page).
• Links: They tin beryllium internal (pointing to different pages connected your site) oregon outer (pointing to pages connected different websites). When it comes to interior links, prioritize linking to the astir important pages connected your site. As for external links, effort to lone nexus to authoritative websites.
• Images: Reducing the sizes of your images volition assistance them load faster to amended your page speed (which is simply a known ranking factor). You tin usage tools similar Kraken oregon Optimizilla to trim representation size without impacting quality. Or opt for a much web-friendly representation format similar WebP.

Off-Page SEO

For a SaaS website, off-page SEO volition mostly revolve astir link building—the process of getting different websites to nexus to your site.

The extremity present is to assistance hunt engines recognize that your website is applicable and authoritative erstwhile it comes to your manufacture and people topics.

How bash you spell astir gathering links to your website? 

A bully attack is tolook for websites that nexus to broken pages connected your competitors’ sites. And reaching retired to supply them with an alternate nexus (from your website) that they tin nexus to.

Here’s however to bash it with Semrush’s Backlink Analytics tool:

Type successful a competitor’s domain and click the “Analyze” button.

Go to the “Indexed Pages” tab and cheque the checkbox adjacent to “Broken Pages.”

This volition filter the database to lone amusement breached pages connected your competitor’s website. Look done the database to find a breached leafage with a decent fig of backlinks (links connected different sites pointing to it).

Click connected the fig successful the “Backlinks” file to spell to a database of each the links pointing to that page.

Next, usage the “Active” and “Follow” filters to lone spot pages that incorporate unrecorded links that are intended to walk nexus authority.

You tin past interaction those domains to petition that they regenerate the breached nexus with 1 that directs to your website.

8. Create a Referral Program

A referral programme relies connected rewarding existing customers for bringing caller customers to your concern and tin little your acquisition outgo fixed prospects thin to spot word-of-mouth recommendations much than they bash your ain selling materials.

Usually, users get a unsocial referral codification oregon nexus that they tin stock with others. And erstwhile idiosyncratic other signs up utilizing that user’s codification oregon link, the existing idiosyncratic gets immoderate benignant of reward.

You tin usage tools similar Cello and Rewardful to acceptable up a referral programme for your SaaS merchandise quickly.

Make definite to travel these tips to marque your referral programme arsenic effectual arsenic possible:

• Decide connected a reward structure: Decide betwixt a single- and dual-incentive referral program. A single-incentive referral programme lone rewards the referrer. But a dual-incentive 1 rewards some parties.
• Make it easy: For champion results, marque it casual for customers to motion up for your referral programme and stock referral links successful aggregate ways (e.g., via email and societal media). And see connection templates they tin nonstop on with their links. 
• Choose the close incentive: Consider your customers erstwhile deciding connected an inducement (e.g., discounts, cashback, oregon acquisition cards). For example, Dropbox offers other storage.

Creating a assemblage centered connected your bundle tin assistance you scope much people customers, let you to physique a narration with them implicit time, and yet merchantability your merchandise to them.

This is known arsenic community-led growth, which involves creating a spot wherever prospects tin person discussions astir your bundle and the larger industry. And it’s been utilized by companies similar Lemlist and Notion to large success.

This is conscionable a sampling of Notion’s communities:

To get started with community-led maturation for your SaaS product, you’ll archetypal request to determine wherever you’re going to big your community. Some options see societal media networks (e.g., Facebook), messaging platforms (e.g., Slack), and dedicated assemblage platforms (e.g., Circle). 

Reddit is besides a bully choice—it’s free, casual to use, and a ample portion of your assemblage is apt to already person an account.

Once you commencement a community, your archetypal occupation volition beryllium to pull members. 

At the beginning, you tin effort inviting your apical customers and promoting the assemblage done your existing channels (e.g., societal media pages and email list).

After a while, your assemblage volition commencement increasing connected its own, with existing members inviting caller ones and others requesting to join.

But for this to happen, you’ll request to marque definite to support the speech going by actively engaging your community. You tin bash this by starting conversations yourself and organizing regular events specified arsenic webinars and inquire maine thing (AMA) sessions.

10. Leverage Customer Reviews

Customer reviews are a large signifier of selling due to the fact that they enactment arsenic societal proof—once radical spot however others are satisfied with your software, they’ll consciousness much comfy becoming customers themselves.

Reviews tin besides assistance you make leads, stitchery invaluable feedback, and summation your website’s conversion rate. 

Here’s however to usage them effectively:

• Focus connected the close reappraisal sites: There are a batch of reappraisal sites retired there, but immoderate are much applicable for SaaS businesses. These see G2, Capterra, and TrustRadius.
• Get much reviews: Having much reviews for your bundle volition marque imaginable customers much comfy astir signing up. Start by making it arsenic casual arsenic imaginable to permission reviews. Then, inquire your apical customers to permission reviews.
• Respond to each review: It’s important that you respond to each review, including antagonistic ones. This volition amusement that you attraction astir your customers and their feedback.
• Feature apical reviews connected your website: Once you’ve generated much reviews, leverage them to adhd societal impervious to your website. Display reviews connected strategical places, similar however Figma does connected their homepage. 

11. Seek Beneficial Partnerships

Partnerships tin beryllium a large mode to grow your brand’s scope by tapping into partners’ existing lawsuit pools and people audiences. 

For SaaS companies, the astir communal types of partners include:

• Value-added resellers: Companies connection further services oregon features (customization, integration, etc.) connected apical of reselling your product
• Service partners: Companies that connection further services related to your product, specified arsenic implementation oregon consulting
• Affiliate partners: This is astir apt the astir communal benignant of concern statement successful SaaS—it involves paying affiliates (individuals oregon companies) a fixed oregon percentage-based committee for definite actions similar purchases
• Integration partners: Other SaaS companies whose products integrate with your software

If you’re looking to get started with partnerships for your SaaS business, the archetypal measurement would beryllium to place imaginable partners. 

Here, you’ll privation to look for companies that person akin people customers. Ideally, they should connection a merchandise oregon work that complements your bundle but doesn’t vie with it directly.

Next, scope retired to these companies and connection a mutually beneficial partnership. Outline however you envision the concern moving and item the benefits of partnering up.

Once a institution agrees to spouse with you, it would besides beryllium a bully thought to draught and motion a concern statement to support some parties.

12. Conduct A/B Tests

A/B testing involves comparing 2 versions of thing (often a webpage) to find which 1 performs better, truthful you tin use what you learned to thrust amended results.

If you person the postulation to enactment it, you should beryllium moving A/B tests connected your SaaS website regularly. Especially connected your landing pages.

Here’s however to bash it:

• Start with research: You shouldn’t A/B trial random ideas. Effective A/B investigating is based connected information gathered from research. A fewer probe methods you tin commencement with see usability testing, heatmap analysis, and website surveys.
• Form hypotheses: Once you’ve gathered immoderate archetypal data, signifier hypotheses astir which changes mightiness effect successful an betterment successful metrics similar conversion complaint (e.g., “by making our transcript clearer and thoroughly explaining our features and benefits, we’ll get much visitors to motion up for a escaped trial”).
• Develop and tally A/B tests: Turn your hypotheses into A/B tests. You tin usage tools similar VWO and Convert to make and tally your tests.
• Implement winning tests: Once you’ve developed an A/B trial and made definite some leafage variants enactment properly, you tin motorboat the test. Your A/B trial should tally until you scope an capable illustration size and purpose to person 1 variant execute amended than the different astatine a statistical value of 95% oregon higher.

Choose the Right SaaS Marketing Tactics

Now that you’ve reached the extremity of this guide, it’s clip to find which of the supra selling activities marque the astir consciousness for your SaaS company.

No substance which ones you choose, Semrush tin assistance you streamline your efforts. Because it tin simplify keyword research, competitory analysis, and overmuch more.

Sign up to effort it today.