Growth Strategies For SaaS: Secrets Of Fast-Growing Startups

Why Do You Need A SaaS Growth Strategy?

Long gone are the days when SaaS marketers would invest time in cold calling and direct mail to gain new clients. Nowadays, marketing agencies play it smart by organizing effective SaaS growth strategies that make their offerings irresistible, leaning on their benefits. Whether you cater to B2B or B2C clients, you must present your product in the most appealing packaging. Top-quality content, social media posts, paid ads, gated content, and SEO are only a few tactics to help you build your brand’s credibility and awareness. Any B2B lead generation strategy focuses on organic and inorganic growth, which ensures instant and future success. But how does lead generation work exactly? First, you need to identify potential qualified leads and then nurture them through various strategies, including emails, banner ads, and blog posts.

Once you’ve gathered company leads, you should promote your webinars, free trials, and other offerings to showcase your SaaS product’s uniqueness and usefulness. When you finally convert people into paying customers, you must retain them by ensuring satisfaction. How do you do that? By staying in touch and providing additional help.

Keep reading to discover the most effective tips for generating leads and growing your business to new heights.

The 5 Stages Of SaaS Revenue Growth

1. Monetization

Monetization does not focus on incorporating new lead generation techniques all the time to acquire new clients. SaaS growth strategies should include the optimization of your pricing models, tiers, and packages. Maybe your current model was successful when you first introduced it but your customers’ needs changed. Therefore, your pricing strategy must change accordingly to fit people’s preferences. Do your research, see which services your clients like the most, and create new packages. Most importantly, make sure your pricing is fair to your clients and sustainable to you.

2. Moving Into New Markets

Is your product ready to be introduced to global markets? If so, your SaaS growth hacking strategy must be effective and aggressive. To break into new markets, you must address a few common challenges. Language barriers, different currencies, cultural differences, cross-border payments, and local regulations are your main worries. That’s why you should collaborate with local professionals who can help you have a smooth transition. Localization is nothing to mess with since your SaaS business’s success depends on bridging cultural differences.

3. Moving Upmarket

In the SaaS B2B marketing world, moving upmarket means you start selling your product to larger companies with bigger budgets and needs. To achieve this goal, you must first identify your target audience, know their needs and challenges, and ensure your product meets their demands. For example, customization is crucial for larger businesses that require tailoring your software to their needs. Also, you must ensure your SaaS product can be integrated into other software big companies already utilize.

4. Moving Downmarket

On the other hand, some SaaS companies first focus on B2B before moving to B2C. Moving downmarket is a great idea when your software has proven its worth with enterprises and SMBs, and you have optimized it to suit the needs of home consumers and prosumers. Single users have different needs and preferences than large companies, meaning that both your offers and pricing must be reasonable. You may keep your pricing tiers the same based on the provided features but change the prices accordingly. While, theoretically, you can make more money from larger companies, moving downmarket helps you expand the part of your audience who buys your product without necessarily having to talk to your sales reps first.

5. Product Expansion

A SaaS growth strategy often involves expanding a business into its existing or new markets. After evaluating the risks in doing so, companies often develop new products for their existing clients based on emerging trends. Alternatively, you may promote your existing products to new clients, a process that involves a lot of research and compliance with foreign regulations. Additionally, you may choose to increase your sales to your existing niche with a market penetration strategy. The last expansion option is diversification, and it’s the riskiest of them all because you develop new products for entirely new markets.

13 Tips To Make Your SaaS Lead Growth Strategy Successful

1. Create Quality Content

There is no better way for a SaaS growth strategy to generate new leads and push them through your sales funnel than content marketing. But first, you need to research your target audience, build buyer personas, and identify their interests and pain points. What do they want to read about, and which topics have your competitors already tackled? Your blog posts must be informed, updated, and trustworthy to instill trust in your potential clients. Once they feel you are an authority in the field, they’ll do business with you much easier. Make sure to upload new content regularly, meaning every day. We know it’s demanding. However, posting articles once a month is bad for your lead acquisition strategy.

But what is content without SEO? You must identify the most relevant and powerful keywords and phrases people in your niche use to perform search queries and incorporate them into your content. Longtail keywords, which consist of more than four words, are often better than shorter phrases. This is because they are more specific to what prospects want and search for. Therefore, growing your SEO skills is mandatory to boost your authority in Google’s eyes.

2. Enforce Gated Content

This is part of your content marketing strategy and an important component of SaaS demand generation. Gated content refers to material accessible only to those who give their contact information. For example, you may run an ad promoting an eBook you created. Once leads click on the ad, they are redirected to your landing page, where you ask them for their details in exchange for the eBook. This SaaS lead generation tactic is crucial in attracting qualified leads and showcasing the worth of your content. This means that your gated content must be top-quality. If not, your prospects will probably unsubscribe as quickly as they handed out their contact details. If they are satisfied with your content, they’ll probably be happy to open and read your emails and check out your services.

3. Offer Free Trials

Anything free is a wonderful lead magnet idea, and especially free trials or freemiums can boost your conversion rates and generate potential clients efficiently. On one hand, free trials allow users to experience your SaaS product for a certain period. On the other hand, freemiums are limited versions of your software, allowing them to leverage only a certain number of features. So, if they want to use the rest of the features, they must upgrade. This tactic is enforced during the conversion stage when clients consider multiple solutions, including yours, before purchasing. To improve their experience, you should offer onboarding support so they can fully reap the benefits of your product.

4. Organize Webinars

Creating and promoting webinars is one of the most engaging and effective ways to turn SaaS leads into paying customers. However, if you want your SaaS growth strategy to be successful, landing page optimization is a must. Your domain must be eye-catching, with a clear CTA and signup form. It must also state your value proposition clearly so your target audience knows exactly what your webinar offers. Webinar marketing doesn’t stop there, though. You’ll need email marketing, social media, and paid ads to promote your event. In your webinars, engage with your audience and conduct Q&As at the end. Once it’s over, send follow-up emails asking people about their opinions and offering a free consultation or trial. You may repurpose your webinar by making infographics, writing blog posts, and publishing clips on YouTube and social media. As a result, it will keep generating leads for your business.

5. Publish Case Studies

No SaaS growth strategy is complete without case studies and testimonials. First, you can encourage satisfied customers to post about their experiences with your brand on their social media accounts and tag you so you can share their reviews. Case studies are a bit more demanding, though. To curate a case study article or video, you must ask for your customers’ permission to share their stories. You may even ask them to participate by offering an interview. Start by stating their challenges before they bought your SaaS solution. What were their goals, and how did you help them achieve them? Provide numerical proof and statistics to showcase the benefits of your product. Case studies should be easily accessible for clients during the consideration and conversion stages. To take it a step further, you can create webinars focusing on triumphant client stories.

6. Utilize Paid Ads

Advertisements can push your SaaS business growth to global heights. Instead of waiting for your organic reach to grow, you can implement popups and banner ads and target your ideal customers. You can choose the demographics, job roles, interests, preferences, and online behavior so your ads are highly targeted. But your promotional campaigns must have a clear message. Is it to join your email list, download an eBook, or book a free trial? Great popups can have up to 11% conversion rates. The thing is, if you choose this route, you must collaborate with an experienced digital marketing agency so they optimize your efforts. They can also add powerful keywords to your ads for increased reach.

7. Mobile And Site Speed Optimization

Do you know what two bad things can happen to you if your website loads slowly? For starters, you may lose up to 40% of your visitors, who will quickly close the page and move on to the next suitor. Plus, Google despises slow-loading websites and does not boost their SEO ranking. Both parameters can hurt your SaaS growth strategy severely. So can a website that has not been optimized for mobile use. Since many people enter the online world through their phones, SaaS businesses must make it easy for everyone to browse their services and read their articles on a small screen. So, focus your SaaS marketing strategy on creating an impeccable customer experience.

8. Write Guest Posts

Link building for SaaS may be one of the most demanding tasks marketers have in their hands. How can you build credible dofollow backlinks and increase website traffic? The answer is by submitting guest posts. Nevertheless, before doing so, you must identify trustworthy publications whose audience aligns with yours. You don’t want the wrong type of traffic, as it will result in zero conversions. Additionally, you must check the authority of these websites and ensure they are not manipulating the algorithm with black hat tactics. The final step involves submitting high-quality content. Just because they accept submissions doesn’t mean that they publish low-quality, poorly written articles. So, check their posts for reference and learn how to write an article for their standards.

9. Invest In Link Building

Let’s elaborate a bit more on link building. Can you do it yourself by buying backlinks, or do you need to collaborate with an expert in the field? Okay, maybe buying backlinks is the easy way out since you can find bundles for cheap on places like Fiverr. But…are they credible? Definitely not. Chances are these links are empty and won’t improve your Google Search ranking at all. Most leading SaaS companies trust their link building needs to expert B2B content marketing agencies that work with pre-approved content and trustworthy sites. They offer SaaS startups a dedicated account manager who provides monthly reports and does their best to improve organic traffic. Maybe it’s time to book your free strategy call.

10. Affiliate And Referral Marketing

Have you ever considered how these two programs can turn you into a fast-growing SaaS company without paying one cent for promotions? An affiliate is either an existing client or someone who hasn’t purchased anything from you. They promote your SaaS products to their networks and may even build lead generation websites to attract clients. For every successful conversion, they get a small percentage of the revenue. Referral marketing is quite different. You simply ask your clients to refer other people or businesses in return for exclusive gifts and offerings. For example, you may offer discounts and gift cards for every referral. This way, you increase leads for your business without having to spend any money on ads or lead magnets. You just have to communicate the terms and conditions clearly and offer as much support as possible.

11. Video Marketing

Surely, videos are very engaging and successful for businesses online. But should you include them in your SaaS sales strategy? The answer is yes, if your budget allows it. There are three video types you should look into producing. Training videos, like demos, are a wonderful choice to showcase your product’s capabilities. You go from theory and written descriptions to action, allowing prospects to visualize your product’s features. After that, onboarding videos are necessary to guide users through the multiple features and complex workflows. You may create a library with various videos about every feature and workflow. As a result, clients won’t keep coming to you with queries for every single question they have. Lastly, you can include case study videos in your SaaS business plan to prove your product’s worth and effectiveness. Ask your customers to give you an interview and talk about their past challenges and how their performance improved after buying your product. If your clients don’t want to participate, you can create an explainer video with your narration.

12. Podcasts

Podcasts are not the luxury you may think they are. They are quite easy to record and upload on various streaming platforms or your website and YouTube channel. If you decide to include podcast marketing in your SaaS growth strategy, first, you must know which topics your audience cares about. Create a survey and ask your audience about their preferences and analyze the current trends to provide informed and relevant advice. You can invite a reputable figure in your niche to speak about your chosen topic with an entertaining host. While podcasts need to be informative, they also can have a healthy dose of entertainment and playful flair. When you organize your podcast episodes, make sure to add segments that keep people engaged and focused. Don’t be scared if your podcast isn’t an overnight success. Keep uploading episodes consistently and be patient.

13. PPC

We have already mentioned paid ads, and pay-per-click (PPC) is one of the top options for SaaS profitable growth since you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. And what about leveraging PPC directories in your SaaS growth strategy? Listing your business in reputable and trustworthy directories offers you something invaluable: niche audiences who are ready to view and buy your offerings. You don’t have to nurture potential buyers through all stages of the sales funnel. But are free PPC listings enough? We wouldn’t say so. Creating an upgraded PPC listing ensures you appear at the top of the list and stand out from the crowd. Your chances of being chosen by buyers are much bigger since you can also include a CTA button, a personal account manager, and geobidding.

Key Takeaway

Creating a SaaS growth strategy framework is necessary to keep your marketing efforts organized and in line with your goals, whether it’s monetization, moving downmarket, or expanding your products. A powerful SaaS B2B marketing strategy is multidimensional and includes various tactics that help you propel your business. Content is always at the epicenter of all efforts, accompanied by SEO, gated content, webinars, case studies, podcasts, and free trials. PPC directory listings, paid ads, and link-building are also crucial to achieve brand awareness and put your business on the map.

Have we forgotten something? Email marketing is another pivotal tool to include in your arsenal. Nurturing customer relationships is necessary to shorten the sales cycle and push people to the conversion stage. However, writing emails isn’t as easy as you may think. These SaaS copywriting tips will help you level up your abilities and create emails that convert prospects effortlessly.