Tag: SaaS

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5 Clever SaaS Companies Doing Content Marketing Right

Emily Nyaz

Marketing

It is often said ‘content is king’ but we think for the modern B2B marketer, content is air. That makes it so much harder to decide: should B2B marketers look for content marketing services or keep the work in-house?

 

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies understand the value of content. Content marketing allows you to build brand awareness, generate leads, and get prospects down the funnel.

 

According to Content Marketing Institute’s 2020 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends Survey, nearly half of B2B  marketers expect their content marketing budget to increase in 2020. That’s because it works.

 

For SaaS companies that don’t have traditional sales teams, content marketing is an essential part of the marketing mix. By providing educational resources, you can…

 

  • Teach prospects about your services
  • Help them do their jobs better
  • Nurture leads down the marketing funnel
  • Become a go-to expert in your space

 

Most of us know the benefits of content marketing, but what does it look like in practice? Content marketing has changed a lot in the last decade due to the evolution of both audience and technology. See the marketing metrics that are working.

 

For a little inspiration, we’re sharing how five SaaS companies are reaping benefits from content marketing.  Read on:

 

1. Groove HQ

When Alex Turnbull, Founder of Groove, a help desk for small businesses and startups, started digging into his marketing, he realized that the company blog needed some love. The existing blog was full of generic tips on how to be better at customer support. Turnbull knew it wasn’t super inspiring.

So, Turnbull and his team decided to share their journey as an SaaS company, in the hopes that other SaaS companies would read along, and then get interested in the software. The resulting blog was honest, tactical, and inspiring.

The blog doesn’t function alone, either. The Groove team built email marketing into the overall experience, allowing readers to follow the journey through email.

SaaS content marketing example
Source: Groove HQ

Later on, Groove added a blog dedicated to customer support to reach prospects and customers who wanted advice on how to get better at providing a great customer experience.

 

Key takeaway: Tell the truth with fairness, integrity and accountability.

 

2. CoSchedule

CoSchedule offers an editorial calendar to content marketers. The software is great, but they’re competing in a cluttered space. After all, there is so much content out there about content marketing.

At first glance, it seems like there’s no room to succeed. But CoSchedule was able to differentiate themselves from the competition with content that was beyond valuable.

Not only do they provide insanely well-researched posts on how to write the perfect blog headline and how to improve content with “the skyscraper technique,” but they also provide a variety of templates that can be printed out and used by any content marketing manager.

Additionally, CoSchedule went all in with content, evident from the images in each post, which are well-designed and on-brand. The team doesn’t rely on silly GIFs or bizarre stock photos. Everything is branded and beautiful.

 

Key takeaway: Create detailed content give data and examples

CoSchedule example of content marketing for SaaS
Source: CoSchedule.com

3. Shopify

Shopify provides an easy to use website builder for those selling goods online, and they’ve long boasted some of the best small business content on the internet.

It’s not just that the content itself is informative and valuable– the Shopify has done significant work in organizing their content to make sure that visitors can find what they need. For example, Shopify has the following categories on the right of its blog:

Shopify example of content marketing for SaaS
Source: Shopify.com/blog

This design allows visitors to navigate towards the topics that interest them, rather than forcing them to read the latest blog post.

 

Key takeaway: Make your words the hero of your design

4. Wistia

Unlike most SaaS companies, Wistia does much of its content marketing using video, rather than words. Of course this makes a lot of sense for a company that sells video embedding software to businesses.

Wistia provides quirky, educational resources on how to create professional videos through an all-inclusive hub. A lot of their tips explain how to do more with less. Like CoSchedule, Wistia creates many custom images to complement blog posts and videos.

Wistia SaaS content marketing example
Source: Wistia.com/blog/understand-your-audience

Bonus: Wistia publishes their videos using their own software, which makes it obvious how good the videos are when a prospect watches. They feel much like watching the best possible how-to video on YouTube.

 

Key takeaway: Use customer-centric point of view.

5. Grammarly

Grammarly is a best friend to any writer, marketer, or editor. After all, the software helps ensure there are no grammatical or spelling errors in a piece of writing.

When it comes to content marketing, Grammarly is extremely charming. They’ve developed a brand voice that feels like a cool, hip librarian who’s dishing all they know about the written word.

A lot of Grammarly’s posts are positively useful, but it’s clear the team has done a lot of work to consider SEO. For example, how many times have you googled something like “lay vs lie”?

Grammarly SaaS content marketing
Source: Grammarly.com/blog

 

Key takeaway: Your brand overall style must be consistent

Caring about content

All the Saas companies we’ve explored have different approaches to content marketing, but they have one thing in common. They all believe that content marketing is important, and have dedicated substantial resources to making sure that the assets they publish are up to snuff.

If your company has questions on marketing your SaaS product, reach out to us! 

For digital marketing insights in your inbox every week, sign up for our newsletter below. 

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Customer Onboarding Strategies That Do Wonders for SaaS

HUSL Digital

Marketing

You’ve optimized your website to increase conversions, figured out a content marketing strategy that works, and new customers are signing on. Yahoo! But before you take a trip to Vegas to celebrate your company’s growth, you have to consider whether these new customers will stick around. Are you doing everything you can for effective customer onboarding?

It’s been proven time and time again that it’s more expensive to acquire new customers than to retain existing ones. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies, in particular, depend on customers spending money each and every month.

When a new customer signs on, you want to do everything you can to keep them around. You want them to benefit from all that your software has to offer. You need your customers to see how valuable your product is.

How to do it? With good customer onboarding, of course.

Outline each and every touchpoint

Customer onboarding begins before someone signs up. When someone chooses to pay for a subscription or try a free trial, they already have some information about your company. They already believe something about what your product can offer them.

In order to develop an onboarding journey, you have to figure out how much prospects already know when they decide to convert into paying customers. This will help you assess how much education they need, and where you should get started with the onboarding process.

You should think of the onboarding journey holistically, from the moment someone learns about your product to when they become a loyal customer. What are all the moments and interactions they experience? Write all of them down, and be ready to improve on each one.

Assess your onboarding funnel

Once you’ve plotted out the customer touch points, it’s time to assess your onboarding funnel. Basically, you want to figure out where and when prospects and customers drop-off. Do they stop using your software one week into a free trial, or do they never start using it at all?

In order to figure out where customers drop off, you need to know how customers are interacting with your software. If you’re struggling to get the data, you can read KISSmetrics Conversion Funnels Survival Guide.

Additionally, you want to know where customers get stuck. By using tools like Usertesting.com and YouEye, you can learn how prospects interact with your website and software. This will help you assess whether all the things you intended are clear to your users.  

Usertesting.com can help you analyze customer behavior on your site for better onboarding
Usertesting.com can help you analyze customer behavior on your site for better onboarding.

Reach out for the info

If customers aren’t having a good onboarding experience, you want to hear about it from them. That’s why we recommend reaching out to customers during or after the onboarding experience.

You should reach out to three groups of customers:

  • Loyal customers who went through your onboarding
  • Customers who partially completed the onboarding experience
  • Prospects who canceled their accounts

There are a few ways of gathering information. First, you can automate Net Promoter Score (NPS)® emails that go out throughout the onboarding process to get a pulse on how things are going. This will help you assess how customers are feeling throughout the process.

Net Promoter Score®, or NPS®, measures customer experience and predicts business growth.
NPS® measures customer experience and predicts business growth.

You can also send out surveys to find out why customers canceled, as well as conduct customer interviews to find out where customers get stuck. By collecting this information, you’ll be able to determine where customers are getting stuck, and then develop solutions.

Determine the path that loyal customers take… and make more customers take it

Loyal customers who do not churn are the lifeblood of any SaaS business. When you’re assessing your onboarding, ask yourself what separates these loyal customers from those who don’t stick around.

Are these loyal customers…

  • …more likely to complete your onboarding process?
  • …more likely to open your email messages within the first day of joining?
  • …from companies that are a certain size or in a particular industry?
  • …using coupons, discounts, or referral promotions to get into your company?

You’ll be able to create a better onboarding experience if you understand what makes loyal customers stick around. For example, if you notice that your loyal customers set up their account within the first three days of joining, you can take steps to make sure new customers set up their accounts as quickly as possible.

Wrapping up

Changing your customer onboarding process is a worthwhile endeavor, and SaaS companies are catching on. For example, Magoosh, an SaaS company that specialized in test prep resources, found that users who got their welcome message converted 17% better than those who did not, proving that onboarding can make a big difference.

Great customer onboarding will help reduce churn, which will increase revenue for your SaaS company. By improving your messaging, changing up your email flow, and studying prospects and customer, you’ll be able to create an onboarding journey that hooks customers for life.

If your company needs help putting an onboarding process in place or analyzing your existing one, reach out to us! 

For digital marketing insights in your inbox every week, sign up for our newsletter below. 

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Using Social Media for SaaS Companies: 5 Things You Should Know

Emily Nyaz

Marketing

If you’ve ever read up on how today’s brands use social media, you’ll notice a pretty big trend. Most of the success stories comes from big companies who sell to consumers.

Yep, it’s easy to find inspiring stories about how McDonald’s, DiGiorno’s Pizza, and the NFL are using social.

But SaaS companies are benefiting from social media, too. These nimble software companies are boosting brand awareness, engaging with prospects and customers, and learning how to link social with email and other areas of marketing.

Social media isn’t something you can ignore. In fact, you need to be paying attention to your presence and working to improve it.

Today, we’re dishing what we know about the social media landscape and sharing 5 things you should know about using social media for SaaS companies.

Why social matters for SaaS

SaaS companies turn to social primarily to boost brand awareness. Social media can also be used to field support questions, convert leads, and educate customers.

Here’s why social matters for SaaS:

    • Everyone’s on social — Social has taken over. More than 1 billion people are active on Facebook. Not only do people use social media to connect with friends, family, and colleagues, but they also use it as a search engine. As an SaaS company, you want interested parties to be able to find you on social sites.
    • Emergence of new channels — You don’t have to stick to Facebook and Twitter. There are many different social media types and communities to join. Other options include Quora, LinkedIn, reddit, Instagram, StackOverflow, and Snapchat.
    • Opportunities for targeting & ads — Facebook has some of the best ad targeting on the internet, and SaaS companies routinely take advantage. You can even upload a list of email addresses to Facebook and target ads to a particular list.

5 tips for social media success

Want to be successful as an SaaS company on social? Here’s how:

1. Separate social from sales

When you start a new marketing activity, it’s easy to obsess over ROI. You want to know exactly how many sales you’ll get from a new marketing campaign. When it comes to social media, it’s actually best to step back from ROI and focus on relationship building and authenticity.

Yes, you can use social ads to increase sales, but you should start by using social as a way to connect with your audience. Think of it first as a relationship-builder and communication platform. Provide content that your audience wants. Offer support when they need it. Be authentic.

2. Choose your channels wisely

Many marketers think their brand needs to be on every social media platform available. They hear about Snapchat and rush to create a presence, or focus only on Instagram because that’s what an expert suggested.

Thing is, your SaaS company is unique. It’s best to go deep on one or two channels that make sense to your company’s strategy than spread yourself too thin. Get to know a social media network inside and out– then go all in.

3. Be ready to pay for reach

Unfortunately, it’s extremely difficult to reach an audience organically, especially on Facebook. Although this has caused frustration among marketers, it’s relatively easy and inexpensive to pay to play.

Set aside some funds for promoting on social media. Facebook offers the best targeting, as well as very low costs. LinkedIn is a great option for B2B companies, but the cost-per-click can be expensive.

4. Make life easy on your audience

An SaaS company shouldn’t be on social just to make sales. Your first goal should be to make life easy for your audience. There are many activities that can help you reach this goal. Some favorites are:

  • Offering live support & answering questions
  • Sharing educational content
  • Providing content at the right time (often through targeting)

You’ll need to fuel your social media efforts with content, and it’s best to create your own. You can share inspiring images, as well as educational blog posts. Here at UpTrending, we try to help our audience with their unique needs through educational content. We share our blog posts on social media, where we know our audience will find them.

UpTrending social media share

5. Automate what you can

SaaS marketers are super busy, and running social media is a lot of work. That’s why you need to automate what you can. If you update social media manually, you’re going to waste a lot of time.

There are tons of software solutions that can help you schedule social media updates (UpTrending uses HubSpot). You can also hire a social media consultant or agency to help you create content and manage your social presence. In today’s marketing arena, automation is the name of the game.

Wrapping up

Social media offers the opportunity to connect, and SaaS companies are taking advantage. At its root, social media is meant to be social. You can think of it as an online networking event. Be yourself, provide useful information, and engage with those who follow you. If you do, you’ll be well on your way to social media success.

Need more information about how to manage social media for your SaaS company? Our team can answer any questions – just reach out.

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How to Use Email Marketing to Lead SaaS Prospects Down the Sales Funnel

Emily Nyaz

Marketing

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies are in a unique position. You probably sell your products in a subscription model, where customers pay each month to use your service.

SaaS companies with low monthly prices, like the ones listed below, need lots of customers in order to be successful. Instead of having 10 high-paying customers, you need thousands of customers paying low monthly rates.  

These monthly price points are relatively low compared to large software companies that operate on licensing models. For example:

If you want to grow as a SaaS company, you need strategies for acquiring new customers as well as keeping the ones you’ve got.

Today, we’re sharing how you can use email marketing to lead SaaS prospects down the sales funnel.

Why email marketing is great for leads, sales, and loyalty

Email can help you nurture leads into customers that love you, and it works much better than other channels. According to research from Campaign Monitor, prospects are 6x more likely to click links in an email campaign than from a tweet.

Email is a direct channel to a prospective customer’s inbox. As long as you’re creating targeted messages that get at a prospect’s pain points, they’ll be willing to open your emails and see what you have to say. In this way, email becomes an automated sales-person, helping your prospective customer explore what you offer.

But how can you actually make this process work for your unique SaaS brand?

Here’s how to use email to lead SaaS prospects down the funnel:

Create assets & offers that subscribers need

Before you can even begin to send targeted sales emails, you need to get prospective customers to give you their email address. Buying a list won’t do you any good here. Instead, you need to create assets and offers that bring value to prospective customers.

Here are a few ways you can encourage visitors to subscribe to an email list:

  • Create an educational eBook to download
  • Encourage blog readers to sign up for your email newsletter
  • Offer demos in exchange for an email address
  • Offer a free trial or a “freemium” plan
  • Host a webinar with essential info

For example, Sumo Logic offers a 30 day free trial to prospective customers. Not only does this give prospects a chance to try out Sumo Logic’s software, but it also allows the company’s marketing team to send targeted emails to those who’ve signed up for the trial.

Screen Shot 2016-11-22 at 1.29.43 PM

Automate an email series with the aim of conversion

Today’s SaaS companies depend on marketing automation to convert leads into customers. Once you’ve figured out how to get prospects on your list, it’s time to consider how you can nurture your audience. Rather than sending manual emails, you should create an automated series to lead prospects down the funnel.

There are a number of different frameworks that marketing copywriters use to lead prospects– one of our favorites is the Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS) framework.

In this model, you start by defining the problem your subscribers have by showing them that you understand where they are. Then, you send emails agitating this problem, reminding subscribers about the pain their problem causes. Finally, you offer your SaaS product as a solution.

Personalize based on subscriber information

Whenever possible, you should personalize your emails. After all, personalized email messages improve click-through rates by an average of 14% and conversions by 10%, according to Aberdeen.

So, what does it mean to personalize? It means that you take whatever information you have about your subscribers, and send unique messages to that group. You can personalize based on:

  • Job title (for example, a CMO might receive different messages than a CEO)
  • Size of company (for example, someone working at a startup might receive startup-oriented messages)
  • Geographic location (Someone living in San Francisco might receive location-specific messages)
  • Past behavior (for example, if a visitor has downloaded multiple assets, they receive particular messages)
  • Reason they subscribed (for example, if a subscriber downloads a certain eBook, they receive a particular flow of messages)

In order to personalize, you need information about your subscribers. Be sure to ask for this information when you encourage visitors to share their email addresses.

Test and measure to find out what works

Email marketing is an amazing channel for SaaS companies that want to convert leads into customers. However, what works for another brand might not work for you.

That’s why it’s important to test out different strategies to see what works. You might find that the PAS framework works wonders, or that another strategy is a better bet. The only way you know is by testing. If you’re looking for ideas, check out how Buffer, HubSpot, and GrowthHackers grow using testing and analytics.

Thankfully, most email marketing software offers a variety of ways to test automated emails. Take advantage of what these tools have to offer, and work to find a flow that increases conversions.

Wrapping up

It’s easy to get caught up in the little details in marketing. Email marketing, however, gives you the opportunity to make substantial gains in conversions and sales. Email can help SaaS companies’ prospects gain familiarity with the business, consider their options, and ultimately become customers.

Wondering how you can use email to convert prospects to sales? Our team can answer any questions – just reach out.