How to leverage Social Media to grow your SaaS Business

We are at the start of the third decade of the 21st Century, a quarter of a century since the Internet went mainstream. The first decade was all about Hardware and its progress and then came along Software and its rapid development to dominate the second decade.

The last few years have seen a fundamental change in which the tech industry functions. A Major change being the way Software is being offered in the market. Due to distinct advantages to both the software developers and end users, the software is now being offered in the form of an online service.

The Software as a Service business model dropped out of the sky and hit the ground running. All major Software giants shifted from selling one time licenses to their software to offering subscriptions for their software. The firms gained by having a stable revenue inflow and end users were at an advantage as they did not have to invest big for an outright license purchase.

The SaaS Industry is taking over swiftly which is evident from the fact that it’s market cap doubled from $85 billion in 2018 to a projected $171 billion in 2022. There’s plenty of money to be made but the competition increases with each hour. Every tech firm wishes to have a bit of this pie.

Image Courtesy – Statista

Due to the nature of SaaS, a conventional product being offered as a service, marketing these services is quite tricky and there’s no single approach to getting marketing right. A SaaS firm needs to create a suitable mix of different digital marketing strategies using trial and error to find out which one works best for its product.

Why is Social Media Important to SaaS Marketing?

As of January 2021, there are 4.6 billion active internet users in the world. That’s more than half of the human population and comprises almost all of the people in the working and studying age groups. So it is a definite thing that your target audience is online.

 

 

Image Courtesy – Hootsuite

Almost all of these internet users have an account on various social media sites. In fact, the average internet user now spends more time using social media than doing any other online activity. So your audience is there on these social media platforms and it’s a known fact that Social Media Marketing is plenty effective.

All you need to do is tinker around with different Digital Marketing Strategies and Social Media Strategies to formulate a mix of Digital Marketing Strategies that can work wonders for your SaaS Business.

Still find it overwhelming and tricky? Worry not, we’re here to help you. Here’s a step by step guide to help you leverage social media to grow your Saas Business.

Using Social Media for SaaS Business Growth

#1 Identify Suitable Social Media Platforms 

There are over 3.5 billion people using various social media platforms. There’s a Social Media Platform for every niche. As a Marketer, what you need to do is find out who are your most likely potential customers.

The next step is to segment them using various parameters and different social media sites they use to ensure the marketing material being created will be relevant to each segment. This step will increase the efficiency and effectiveness of your Social Media Marketing Campaign.

Once all this is done, you will have a clear picture of which sites have the most concentration of potential customers. You can then select the sites you want to run your Social Media Marketing Campaign on and make the most of your marketing inputs.

Image Courtesy – Bulk.ly

#2 Shift Customer support to social media 

Being born and raised in the age of the internet has gotten the younger generation accustomed to things happening instantaneously. These young consumers now form the majority of the consumers present in this market. This means one thing, a substantial segment of your customers will not put up with slow or late customer support and this is where social media steps in.

Social Media platforms provide both the consumers and brands with a direct line of communication with each other that’s quick and easy to use. This facilitates both the brand and the consumers as they can be assisted quickly with any grievances they may have.

This is why the majority of the big brands have shifted their consumer support functions to Social Media. Another reason why shifting consumer support functions to Social Media is beneficial for your business is because it costs substantially less to do so than having a traditional Customer Care Call Centres. A cloud phone system is another cost effective alternative to traditional Call Centres handling customer support.

Image Courtesy – Social Media Today

Carrying out customer support via social media platforms enables a customer care executive to engage with multiple customers at the same time and resolve minor issues quickly and efficiently. You can even opt to use AI ChatBots which integrate with popular website builders like wix and squarespace to assist customers with basic technical difficulties. However, it is always advisable to provide your customers with an option to seek assistance from a real person.

If you’re a small business using an email client, look for one that also incorporates instant messages from Facebook and Instagram. This will allow you to dedicate time to messages when you’re already allocating time to emails.

Creating dedicated discussion groups on social media sites also helps a lot. Customers can not only engage with support executives from the brand but also help each other out with minor queries and bugs. This helps in building a strong community around your brand.

#3 Produce Quality Content 

Relevant, precise and value offering content is at the core of any Digital Marketing Strategy. There’s nothing better than well written, quality content that can help you grow your business effectively over the long run.

An ideal Content Marketing Strategy will focus on providing value to your potential customers by addressing FAQs, acting as a guide to solve problems they face and highlighting how your product can help them solve their problems better.

Publishing quality content on a regular basis is the best possible way to organically grow the data traffic your websites receive. In fact, most of the top SaaS businesses generate the majority of their share of internet traffic through blogs and other content.

As a Marketer, you need to ensure that the content isn’t overly promotional and forcefully pushing your readers towards the products you offer. Instead, your product offering should be placed in a subtle manner to ensure it does not annoy the reader.

#4 Creating a Schedule for Social Media Post 

Creating, managing and posting different content on different social media sites can easily turn into a nightmare if you do not plan, organise and keep everything scheduled. Organic growth and reach on social media require you to post regularly and relevantly.

It is a general consensus that 3-4 posts each week are enough to keep your growth and reach on a steady ascend. Anything more than that can turn out excessive leading to negative impressions from potential customers and anything less than that will make you seem inactive and lead to your audience unfollowing your account.

If you plan and schedule everything properly, it will become easy for your business to grow in an organic manner, the benefits of which compound over the long term. Moreover, having a well maintained schedule will help you better plan and generate content for future posts.

 

Image Courtesy – 5Stones Media

#5 Use more Visuals 

Infographics and audio visuals are way more effective in terms of imparting information or communicating a message in comparison to plain text. Visuals generate way more engagement and are easier to interpret. So users generally prefer visuals over other forms of communication.

Image Courtesy – Venngage

Complex statistics and other information can be easily represented using visuals in a precise and easy to understand manner. This way you’re communicating way more effectively with your target audience. In a way, visuals also increase the chances of your audience propagating your post onto their own social media account.

Another distinct advantage that visuals offer is that they let you imbibe the personality of your brand by the way you design your posts. This way you’re not only communicating information or a message but even the character and personality of your brand towards your audience.

#6 Partner with Influencers 

Influencer Marketing can be used to its fullest potential for Marketing SaaS products. There are plenty of benefits of influencer marketing and a study conducted, concluded that influencer marketing created substantially more returns in comparison to other forms of Digital Marketing approaches.

Influencer Marketing functions similar to word of mouth with the only difference being that here it’s a well established influencer advocating for the value that your SaaS products provide. The tricky thing however is to find the right advocates for your brand.

You must ensure that the influencers you plan to collaborate with have a good positive reputation, are a part of a segment that actually uses your SaaS product, have good reach and resonate with the core values and personality of your brand. Ensuring these points results in a cohesive, effective and efficient Influencer Marketing Campaign.

Conclusion

The SaaS industry is growing rapidly and will soon entirely replace the traditional system of software sales. The pie of profits is already huge and keeps growing but there’s also plenty of new people showing up each day with a spoon. The competition will keep heating up and the only thing that will ensure profitability and survival of your SaaS Business is steady upwards growth.

Social Media is indispensable now and Social Media Marketing has emerged as a powerful tool in the Marketing sector. It is obvious that you will have to opt for Social Media Marketing to sell more and sell better.

Marketing SaaS products is tricky and requires a lot of mix and match, trial and error to get your Digital Marketing Strategy right. What is a sure thing though is that, if done properly, Social Media can help your SaaS Business grow not just rapidly but also over the long term and that too in an organic manner.

So what combination of strategies will you use?

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