Components Every SaaS Marketing Strategy Needs

Businesses that want to do more than limp along require a solid marketing strategy to ensure continued growth. A marketing strategy has been defined as a “long-term, forward-looking approach to planning with the fundamental goal of achieving a sustainable competitive advantage.”

That’s all straightforward enough, but how do things change when we’re building a marketing strategy that’s for a SaaS company? Service as a software companies have their own unique set of challenges and it’s crucial that each company’s marketing strategy is tailored to match both their business and their customers.

Every marketing strategy should include things like:

• Clear guidelines, goals, and objectives
• Division of roles
• A clear roadmap
• Customer research
• Market research
• Adequate resources
• Timelines and review schedules
• Analysis

But when it comes to SaaS companies, there are a few other things you’ll want to ensure make the cut.

Perform an analysis of success potential and customer fit

Customer research was mentioned above, but SaaS companies need to take this process further to ensure they are only selling those customers who are truly a good fit. If you sell to someone who is not equipped to be successful with your product or service, you will inevitably provide them with a poor customer experience. Selling to the wrong people will do more harm than good.

Create a customer-focused onboarding process

Onboarding processes are beyond important, but make sure yours is customer-focused versus product-focused. The point of the onboarding process is to move your new customer towards their desired goal with as little friction as possible.

Create customer success content

Your content marketing strategy will be part of your holistic marketing plan, and it’s important for SaaS companies to create content that is specially crafted to help users become successful. Create content that will help move your customers to their desired outcome, to ensure that customers are easily finding everything they need to be successful and more likely to continue using your app. If a person feels frustrated by something and a quick online search yields no solutions, you’re at risk of losing them. Ensure that content is readily available.

Don’t forget about your past customers

Just because someone stopped using your service last year does not mean they wouldn’t be interested in hearing from you again. Re-engage with your past clients with new features, updated video tutorials, and discounts to get them back on board. You can also reconnect for surveys and questionnaires to uncover valuable information like why they left and what it would take to get them back. You can even create an automated offboarding process, so you’re getting this feedback immediately and not down the road.

Those are just a few of the extra components a SaaS marketing strategy should have, and some tactics you should add into your marketing mix. Surviving as a SaaS business isn’t for the faint of heart, but with the right product, systems, and processes, it’s going to be a heck of a lot easier!