The Software as a Service (SaaS) industry is a niche yet competitive market, and a targeted inbound marketing strategy is a proven way to help your company stand out from the crowd. This blog post will give you some tips on how we handle digital lead generation for SaaS.
But first, what is SaaS?
SaaS is the acronym for Software-as-a-Service. The software resides in the cloud — users subscribe and utilize the software from any web browser via an Internet connection. SaaS companies range in size, from Fortune 500 companies to companies with less than 50 employees.
Essential marketing strategies for SaaS companies are related to effectively promoting their product, retaining existing customers and obtaining new customers. Ballantine achieves this through pay-per-click advertising, content creation, search engine optimization and social media marketing and advertising.
Let’s dive in!
How Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Helps SaaS Companies
Pay-per-click (PPC) is an excellent form of digital advertising for B2B SaaS companies. It’s a commonplace form of marketing within the business community. PPC is most effective when campaigns are carefully planned with selected keywords and meticulously optimized landing pages.
PPC works in SaaS lead generation because a prospective customer is looking for a solution, product or service, to increase productivity or solve a problem. That potential customer may not even know that your software exists! Still, they express their intent to seek out potential products/services that offer solutions.
PPC ads are designed and written utilizing keywords that align with your sales goals. SaaS marketing tactics should also include utilizing long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are highly specific phrases used within an industry. The use of long-tail keywords usually yields fewer clicks but generates higher conversion rates. For example, instead of “CRM software” as a keyword, “CRM software for medical offices” is a long-tail keyword that would be more relevant to that specific customer.
Instead of wasting money by bidding on broader industry keywords, long-tail keywords help narrow down your audience and reach prospects with greater buying intent. People searching widely-used industry terms may only be seeking to educate themselves instead of being ready or almost ready to move forward and be willing to schedule a demo.
A good strategy is to direct your PPC ad to a specific landing page. This customer journey gets your prospect the relevant information needed to schedule a demo or call to learn more.
Making Content Creation Work
Digital content creation helps simplify your SaaS marketing efforts. Content creation establishes your SaaS company as a thought leader in the industry. This also a way to use inbound marketing to build a trusting relationship with existing clients.
If your SaaS company cannot handle content creation in-house, these are the steps we take internally to write a blog post. Blogs are prepared through transcription and average about 600 words. They are crafted to include keyword-rich content that is organically integrated. There is a delicate balance of keywords that needs to be achieved with blogs, as the Google algorithm can tell when a piece of content is overstuffed with keywords. Blogs should also include up to three images and end with a call-to-action (CTA) that motivates readers to contact the company or schedule a demo of the software.
How Ballantine Helps with SEO for SaaS Companies
SEO, or search engine optimization, is conducted with the goal of maximizing the visibility of your SaaS company and goes hand in hand with content creation.
We recommend optimizing your website for all relevant keywords and doing the same for Google My Business. On your website, it is dire that all contact information is accurate and up to date. Another aspect of your website to keep in mind is load speed and mobile responsiveness. When your website takes too long to completely load, this will hurt your rankings and people will quickly click off. You also want to use secure https URLs.
To increase page ranking on Google, we recommend link building to incorporate more keywords in the anchor text. If your website is on a platform like WordPress, there are some internal SEO tips that can be followed through plugins like Yoast SEO.
In combination with content creation, we also recommend having an FAQ section within a page. This will drive up your page ranking on Google and possibly produce a featured snippet section in the search results. This is a high-value and highly clicked portion of the search results that are directly answering the question someone searched.
Social Media Marketing + Advertising
LinkedIn is a powerful social media platform for B2B firms, including SaaS companies. In fact, LinkedIn produces 80% of B2B social media leads. Ballantine recommends posting to LinkedIn about every two weeks. Make sure that posts are engaging and that every post is linked back to your website unless you’re sharing a valuable industry resource to position your company as a thought leader. Encourage your employees to like and share your posts as well as their connections.
LinkedIn advertising allows you to target job titles, industries, and groups to reach new audiences. Blog posts and company updates should be promoted on LinkedIn. You can also set up Sponsored InMail campaigns to personally reach out to prospects with a unique message and call to action.
Call Today to Get Started
SaaS marketing primarily depends on four digital marketing tools:
- Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
- Engaging Content Creation
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Social Media Marketing
If you’re ready to learn more about ramping up your SaaS business’s marketing efforts, call Ballantine today. Get started with an experienced SaaS marketing agency. Call us at (973) 305-1500 or contact the Ballantine team today.
I'm the Director of Digital Services and Partner at Ballantine, a family-owned and operated direct mail & digital marketing company based in New Jersey. and started in 1966 by my great uncle!
