What’s Needed in Digital Marketing for B2B SaaS?
With any digital marketing effort, every company will measure their results a little differently. However, there are three outcomes you should be concerned with. We’ll get to how to improve those efforts and results in just a moment.
Brand differentiation – Ensure that you’re clear on your unique value proposition and that it’s communicated well (and consistently) though all the channels you need to be in.
Customer acquisition (and retention) – Generate leads by being where your customers are and offering what they need. Prove you’re the solution to their problems and pain points and then give them an easy way to convert online. (Then leave it to your customer success team to ensure you’re able to support your customer at every stage).
Digital Growth – Watch your metrics, team and budget grow as you see successful ROI with your marketing efforts focused around content, SEO and conversion optimization—and don’t forget marketing technology for B2B is growing more sophisticated every day and the right martech stack can make a big difference.
How to Review Your B2B SaaS Digital Marketing
There are multiple places to look when you’re reviewing your B2B SaaS digital marketing strategy. Start with data and make small adjustments in each of your efforts to see what can get you the best results.
LOOK DEEP INTO THE FUNNEL
What’s working in your digital marketing? What’s not? Look at your funnel, going from leads to MQLs to SQLs. What KPIs are you hitting? If you’re not meeting your goals, where are your leads dropping off?
Your leads, which you may have marked as an MQL because they requested a demo, might not be classified as an SQL. Find out why. Look at where your leads are coming from, be it a geographical location, particular industry, or a specific channel. Consider what they would need to make it all the way to the “customer/client” portion of the funnel.
EXAMINE LANDING PAGES
A lead within your ideal audience clicks through an ad and comes to a landing page. How is it going to go? First off—what’s the user expecting to see on this landing page? Is it present and accounted for? Simply thinking through your landing page(s) from the point of view of your user will be helpful to ensure you have what they need. Is there a “sign up now” CTA? A free trial option? How can you best engage this user? Do you plan to share a pricing page with different tiers?
Whatever is on that landing page, ensure you have these three things:
- CTA (“Learn more”, “Contact Us”, “Start Your Free Trial”)
- Social Proof – Testimonials or reviews or both
- Content related to the ad they clicked on – Include whatever you’ve promised in the user journey before they got here.
CONTENT CLEAN UP
If you’re creating and sharing targeted content to the right people, it can be one of your best marketing strategies. At Solid Digital, we aim for about 10 new, helpful content pieces every single month. By posting regular content, SaaS companies can:
- Keep up authority
- Optimize for SEO
- Support their customers’ needs by offering helpful informative
Note: In order to rank well for SEO, your content must be new, unique and valuable to your audience. (Bring solutions to customer pain points rather than focusing on features.)
Share the content in spaces it will make the biggest splash, too. You can target your top industries through LinkedIn or in targeted emails.
TRACK YOUR CUSTOMERS
If you’re not tracking your customers, chances are your competition is. Use onsite tracking tools like 6sense to determine who is on the site and what they’re doing. Then, even after they leave your website you can use the data to retarget, to follow up, and to place those website visitors into your funnel. Invest in using that data to improve your marketing success, so that your form isn’t sitting empty, waiting to be filled, while your competition is already running a trial for your would-be customer.
CHANNELED FOCUS
With so many marketing channels, you need to prioritize. Additionally, with so much to track, it can be helpful to identify one member of your team to look at the big picture, and the strengths of your whole strategy.
These are the channels we’ve seen work best for B2B SaaS companies:
Email marketing – use automation and provide what’s important to each of your audiences and throughout the funnel (one size won’t fit all).
SEO – Keyword research (and priority keyword mapping) along with fresh tailored content will boost your visibility and give your SaaS brand a boost.
PPC – Use Google Ads and LinkedIn to reach your audience.
Referral sites – Specifically aggregate review sites such as G2
With every campaign (like a new product launch or unveiling a new feature) the team should be tracking, measuring , and reporting results. If you’re not collecting data, your next steps will be in the dark. Ideally, all of these marketing efforts will help you grow your budget and your team. When you ask the C-suite for a bigger budget or for an SEO content writer, you can use your results—to push them towards “yes”.
SCORING BIG TIME
In digital marketing for B2B SaaS, many companies employ a scoring system to focus efforts on the users most likely to convert. Customer actions, such as subscribing to a newsletter, filling out a form, or downloading a white paper, give points to a lead and help marketers rate them. Revisit your scoring system to ensure it’s still working for you—and make sure you have live items that can be scored (newsletters and the like). Anything leads can read, watch, or download could give you a better picture of a probable conversion.
Final Thoughts
Digital marketing is all about asking questions, collecting data, and making decisions based on your findings. What channels, personas, and industries have you targeted? Based on the success of those efforts, assess what’s working and what isn’t, and your to-do list will start to come into focus.
