Starting a business is not easy, and scaling is even harder as it requires hard work, persistence, and of course, a solid strategy. Creating an impressive product is just the first step. If you want your SaaS startup to grow, you need to understand data and have solid marketing knowledge, all with the purpose of making your software more attractive to your target customers.
This may seem daunting, but with proper planning and strategy, you can see your SaaS startup grow from a meager one to the company of your dreams.
In this article, we’re offering a list of all the components you need in order to scale your SaaS startup.
1. Make Your Customer Acquisition Efforts More Focused
If you want your customer acquisition efforts to yield results, you first need to understand that not everyone will need your software. Trying to market your product to everyone is a waste of time, money, and effort. So, in order to achieve growth, you first need to identify your target customers, i.e. the audience that’s actually interested in what you have to offer.
Start by asking yourself questions related to your typical customer’s age, gender, location, pain points, business nature, budget, interests, etc. Use website analytics tools like Google Analytics to see who views your site, what pages they visit, and what type of content they’re interested in. You can also join online forums and attend sector events, and organize polls and surveys that will help you narrow down your marketing focus. Finally, research your competitors to see who they are targeting and what keywords and ads they are using for organic and paid search.
You’re basically creating your buyer persona. This is a semi-fictional character representation of your target market. Once you have completed this, planning for the next steps will be more straightforward.
2. Use Self-Service Knowledge Base for Customer Support
While focusing on customer acquisition is important, you should not forget about customer retention. The future revenue of your SaaS startup depends on building lasting relationships with your customers. It’s simple math: the more customers you manage to keep, the more customers you will have to serve.
As your SaaS business grows, the number of your customers will also increase and you might find yourself struggling to help all of them within a decent time frame. But how do you provide quick and efficient customer support?
A self-service knowledge base is crucial to scaling your SaaS startup successfully. It will allow you to make more efficient use of your resources while you continue helping the clients who need it most. The most important benefit of having a self-service knowledge base is the fact that you will need fewer agents to help the customers. In other words, if most of the simple issues can be solved with dedicated articles, you’ll get fewer queries.
However, customizing your responses is still necessary since you don’t want your customers to feel like they’re constantly interacting with robots. Choose software to help you customize and personalize your self-service knowledge base customer support. This way, you’re still putting a human touch to your customer interaction.
3. Leverage Social Media
Taking into consideration the unique challenges SaaS startups face, you need to have a solid social media strategy that highlights the value your software provides. But for SaaS companies, being present on all social media networks is not a great idea. You need to select only the channels where your target customers are present.
If you are a B2B SaaS brand, LinkedIn is probably the best choice. With nearly 365 million users, this professional social channel provides the perfect platform to expand your customer network. By using the right keywords, you can find hundreds of clients, industry experts, and service providers. Using LinkedIn automation software will help speed up the process and make it much more efficient. Some of the solutions offer features like bulk connecting and bulk messaging to help you get hundreds of targeted contacts without too much fuss.
4. Create Valuable Content
One of the most effective ways to get noticed in the competitive SaaS space is by offering useful but free information.
The right content can help you convert your leads into buying customers. While it is true that producing high-quality, valuable content is time-consuming, it’s also a great way to establish yourself as an authority and boost your existence in the industry. Write about what you know, the solution you’re offering, and the industry you belong to. Presenting your target audience with valuable content will help win their attention and earn their respect.
But content marketing is more than simply creating articles and videos; it also means sharing your content on social media and having an impressive email list. Having a big database can translate into more traffic and, subsequently, more money.
Of course, not everyone can put their thoughts into words and publish them confidently on websites and social platforms. If you need help with this, you can outsource your SaaS content writing to professionals with the expertise and tools to help you effectively reach your target market.
5. Take Advantage of Referral Marketing
One of the best ways to ensure business growth is by having satisfied customers spread the word about your product. Studies have found that over 60% of emerging businesses appear on the marketing map due to referrals alone. In addition, B2B companies with referrals have a 70% higher conversion rate and they report nearly 70% faster close time on sales.
More than 85% of B2B SaaS companies claim that encouraging referrals is a great marketing strategy that guarantees higher sales, faster deals, and potential revenue. All you need to do is offer your clients a reason to extend positive recommendations.
6. Try Paid Tactics
If you’ve already experimented with several tactics and your SaaS startup still struggles to achieve fast growth, consider trying some paid strategies.
Although it can seem that many businesses are scaling effortlessly, in many cases, organic growth and word-of-mouth won’t be enough to do the trick. Having a great product can mean nothing without a solid marketing plan and a strategic sales initiative.
Paid marketing platforms are a great place to begin. Use Facebook and Google Ads for remarketing campaigns. Bear in mind that people tend to read reviews before making a purchase, so it might be a good idea to also buy traffic on popular software review sites such as G2Crowd and Capterra. You can also use Google Display Network who has two million websites and reaches more than 90% of people on the web.
What’s excellent with paid tactics like this is you can see results fast. In as little as a week, you can immediately know if your campaign is gaining traction. And if not, pausing or discarding the campaign for a more optimized one can be done in one click. You don’t have to waste money on campaigns that won’t work, and you spend your marketing budget wisely.
Final Thoughts
Scaling your SaaS startup requires more than simply having a great product; it also requires smart market positioning and a focused effort.
These 6 tactics will help you reach your target customers, demonstrate the value of your software, and establish your SaaS startup as a thriving brand much faster. Of course, these strategies don’t need to be employed at once. It’s always better to take one step at a time and see how a certain strategy works. Every step you take will help you make your product substantial, attract new leads, and convert them into loyal buyers.
