Summary: By adopting strategies like content marketing and video marketing, SaaS brands have been able to increase their sales and build their customer base. What are the other strategies that are helping SaaS companies in increasing their revenue? Learn in the article below!
The field of SaaS has revolutionized the way entrepreneurs do business. Thousands of organizations rely on SaaS solutions to manage their business operations. Today, there are 34000+ SaaS products that are being used in almost 750+ business categories. The products range from basic emailing tools to big giants like Salesforce and HubSpot.
However, the growing popularity of SaaS has led to higher level of competition and market saturation. Many alternatives to the popular products are present in the market offering similar feature sets, giving tough competition to each other.
In this competitive landscape, you might find it difficult to promote your product and attract and retain new customers. In this article, we will discuss all the challenges a SaaS marketer faces while promoting the products and how they can overcome them.
The market share of the SaaS industry has been increasing rapidly in recent years. This demand for SaaS solutions further got a boost during the Pandemic as most businesses shifted their operations to cloud. These statistics highlight the demand for SaaS:
The challenges faced by SaaS marketers are often based on several factors like inflation, market fluctuation, economic turmoil, and so on. Some of these challenges include volatile market conditions, incorrect campaign targeting, poor product differentiation, and so on.
The challenges might affect profitability in the long run and make it difficult to strengthen the client base. Let’s learn more about these challenges and what strategies can you adopt to overcome them:
The volatile market conditions have been a major reason why SaaS marketers find it difficult to grow their sales. For them, it is extremely difficult to predict which SaaS category demand will increase or decrease in the coming days.
For example, when there had been a change in the regulations for e-way bills, many billing and invoicing software incorporated these changes into the existing modules. All those SaaS companies that quickly adapted to the change in government regulations and industry policies witness a consistent growth than its competitors.
As the SaaS products demand increases, more and more companies are entering the industry. Therefore, to stay ahead of competitors you need to identify your target audience to whom you need to pitch your products. Many SaaS companies who do not sync with the right target market or audience fail to sell their products.
Identifying the target audience entails understanding the value your products will provide to your customers, issues those will resolve. You also need to figure out the types of consumers who would use your product.
| Quick Tip: You can create different types of blog content for your website. The engagement on your blog posts would help to identify the audience type and challenges they face. |
One of the biggest challenges faced by SaaS marketers is to differentiate their products from their competitors. As the use of SaaS products has increased, the competition among businesses has also increased. At the same time, many software vendors are struggling to create a unique product for their customers.
For instance, a small software vendor may only offer basic features of CRM as compared to a big SaaS marketer that provides advanced features. Therefore, setting the footprint in the market would be a tedious task for small businesses.
| Interesting Fact: As per the FinanceOnline, marketing and sales are the major expenses for SaaS companies which are equivalent to 50% of their profits. |
Lack of software awareness is one of the biggest challenges faced by SaaS marketers these days. Nowadays, a plethora of SaaS solutions are available in diverse categories for different business verticals.
However, the majority of business verticals are completely oblivious to these products and do not even know how SaaS solutions can help them upscale.
| Quick Tip: To help your target audience get familiar with your products and services, you can create video content highlighting your products’ USPs. |
Even today, there are several companies that are not comfortable using SaaS solutions for their business and rely on manually managing their work. Hence, persuading these businesses to switch from manual work to automation is a huge task.
It might be due to several factors like people might fear that they will lose their job with automation, or they would need extensive training to use the software. And the software training is often considered as an extra cost for businesses.
When there is competition in the market, SaaS companies face the pressure of selling their products at highly discounted prices to attract new customers. This move might seem good at the initial stage; however, it culminates in huge financial losses in the long run.
| Interesting Fact: Almost 43% of SaaS organizations revise their pricing model and prices once in a year to meet fluctuating market demands. (Poyar, 2021). |
SaaS marketers can incorporate multiple strategies to grow their customer base and increase profits, such as:
With the growing relevance of e-commerce platforms, it has become much easier for buyers to compare and buy the right products for them. The same concept has become popular in the SaaS industry as well, and many SaaS companies are listing their products on online marketplaces like Techjockey.
By listing their products on a well-known e-commerce site, they can improve their brand visibility and close more deals. Further, it helps them in putting their products in front of decision-makers and speeding up the sales process.
| Key Takeaway: “Global E-commerce SaaS market size was USD 6.100 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach USD 14.500 billion in 2027, exhibiting a CAGR of 15.52%”. (Fortune Business Insights). |
If you want to sell your products and increase your customer base in the long run, it is important to make the target users aware of your products. It is one of the important aspects that can put you ahead of your competitors. You can make them aware of the usefulness of your product and how it can benefit them.
Further, details like SaaS product warranty, Annual Maintenance Contract (AMC), and customized pricing plans would help in building credibility and customer loyalty in the long run. Saas marketers who pay more attention to making customers aware of their product’s usage generate more leads as compared to companies who do not.
Re-engagement with the existing audience is important to convert them into potential customers. You can reengage with your target audience through promotional emails, and the website content tailored to the audience demands, etc.
Further, by using funnel strategies like TOFU (top-of-funnel), MOFU (middle-of-funnel) BOFU (bottom-of-funnel), you can segment your customers and create content and marketing campaigns to attract and retain them.
Content marketing is an indispensable part of SEO strategy. Nowadays, businesses focus on creating different content types like blogs, articles, e-books, etc., to engage with their audience.
Through content marketing, you can easily educate prospects about your products, convert new customers, and develop long lasting relationships with customers.
Thus, creating content that addresses buyer’s questions will put your prospects in the sales pipeline without a hard sell who might become customers in the long run.
| Key Takeaway: “High-quality content marketing can generate an ROI of 448% or more for SaaS brands”. (0101marketing) |
Many times, buyers initiate the SaaS product purchasing process but do not complete it due to the complex checkout procedure. Therefore, it is essential that you take unnecessary steps to make the purchase process as easy as possible for buyers.
| Key Takeaway: In a survey done by Gartner on almost 250 B2B buyers, it was found that almost 77% of the buyers’ purchasing experience was very complicated. |
About the Company: DirectIQ is an email marketing solution providing multiple email marketing metrics to create campaigns. It offers free sign-ups to create email campaigns in minutes.
Challenges Faced: DirectIQ wanted to educate its customers about its products and increase the product adoption rate. Further, it wanted to reduce the number of customer support tickets.
Strategy Adopted: The platform created several ‘how-to videos’ addressing all the problems related to product usage and other information and published those on its website. Next, it also created several training videos that helped customers understand the product better.
Tagline: Create Beautiful Email Campaigns for Free | No Credit Card Needed
The use of words like ‘Free’ and ‘No Credit card required’ highlights the zero-cost service provided by this company. Therefore, it is acting as a great strategy to attract customers.
Key Takeaways:
About the Company: ChiroTouch chiropractic software is quite easy to use and helps you with scheduling, charting, billing, patient management, and reporting.
Challenges Faced: The company was struggling to find ways to improve its customer onboarding experience.
Strategy Adopted: ChiroTouch provided its customers with several pre-recorded training and “How to Use” videos to help them get familiar with the software.
Key Takeaways:
The SaaS industry is undeniably the most profitable industry with new tools and platforms launched every week in diverse categories. Moreover, the demand for SaaS products is increasing with the changing technologies and consumer demand.
Therefore, it is important for SaaS marketers to adopt effective marketing strategies to grow their sales and strengthen their customer base in the long run.
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