Posted by According to Gartner, the SaaS Industry in 2022 is worth approximately $172 billion. And like any other business, Social Media Marketing (SMM) is inevitable for the SaaS industry as well. A massive 93% of marketers use social media in their marketing efforts.
However, SaaS companies face unique challenges that are different from other businesses and so need a unique SMM strategy.
So, if you are in the SaaS business, here are the 7 strategies you can try to benefit your business using the power of social media marketing.
Social media marketing strategies you can try in SaaS
1. Identify the right social media channels
Numerous social media platforms are popular but identifying the appropriate platform should be your foremost strategy.
Some of the factors you should keep in mind while identifying the right social media platform are:
- Your target audience and the platforms they use the most
- The personality of your brand
- The kind of content that needs to be delivered
- What are your competitors doing?
According to Statista, the leading social media platforms used by B2B and B2C marketers are
Once you have identified the right social media platforms for your SaaS business, you can employ social media management software to synchronize your social media engagement and growth.
2. Explain how to use your product
Your customers are looking for solutions to their problems and your SMM should aim at answering their questions.
One of the strategies that work best for SaaS products/services is explaining how to use your product or service.
Some of the most effective ways to explain your products can be:
- Explainer videos
Use the power of videos to attract your customer. Explainer videos can help you explain your product/service in a gripping yet informative and crisp manner.
- Demo
Demos are a good way to provide your potential customers an opportunity to connect, establish trust and decide if your offering is the right fit for them. Demos can be offered through webinars, live sessions, and 1:1 videos.
- Go Live
Add a personal touch to the way you reach out to your potential customers and one of the ways to do so is by going live and answering their questions. Help your customers to understand how your product/service will solve their problems by answering their questions on a real-time basis.
3. Quality Content
“Content is King” is one of the most used quotes but also one of the most effective strategies in any form of marketing. The same holds for SMM for your SaaS business.
Producing and using quality content will augment your efforts to build brand awareness, recognition, and ultimately sales.
It is an exciting as well as a challenging task to use various types of social media content. Some of the most used content types are blogs, videos, infographics, case studies, eBooks, white papers, checklists, etc.
The factors you can consider while deciding on which content type to use for your SaaS business are:
- Your target audience
- Your strategic goal
- Performance metrics that have to be met
- What your competitors are doing
You also need to ensure that the messaging through your various digital assets needs to be consistent. This you can ensure by using a Digital Asset Management Solution.
4. Superior Customer Experience
This is inarguably one of the most essential strategies for SaaS companies in which social media marketing can play a very vital role. A superior customer experience goes a long way from the first time a potential customer comes to your website to maintaining a long-term delightful relationship.
Some of the ways SMM can help in your endeavor are:
- Customization
Everyone loves to be catered to in a personalized manner. You can ensure customization in various ways such as customized emails, newsletter optimization, demos when requested, customized offers and pricing, and so on.
- Easy-sign ups
Ensure a quick and straightforward sign-up process as much as possible. If the sign-up is for free trials or demos, then it should be very brief without unnecessary steps. A customer who is yet not committed to your product may not want to share too much information.
- Have clear action-oriented CTAs
Call to Action (CTA) should be clear and visible in all the right places on your pages to ensure an interested customer goes on to the next stage seamlessly.
- Listen and act on feedback
Customers prefer businesses that take their feedback seriously and act on it. Ensure a systematic approach to listening to your customers’ feedback both positive and negative. This can be done by using various social media listening tools.
Be grateful to those who have some positive feedback about your product/service and appreciative to even those who point out anything negative. Quick and firm action on negative feedback can help reduce the damage if at all.
5. Attractive deals and discounts
Who doesn’t like a good deal and a discount? It is one of the most enticing ways to get customers and hence sales.
You can do this in various ways. Some of them are:
- Free trials
The word ‘free’ is hard to ignore even for the toughest customer. If done right, it can do wonders in lead conversion.
During the Covid-19 outbreak, Zoom partnered with Boma to organize a web summit and offer it for free. This strategy worked wonders for Zoom, helping substantially to build brand awareness and increase app downloads.
- Freemium versions
You can also promote your product on social media with a freemium option where they can use your product or subscribe to your services at no cost and then upgrade to premium services after getting a comfort level and getting convinced of your offering.
- Reward Referrals and Reviews
Peer recommendations and reviews are very effective for SaaS businesses. 92% of B2B buyers are more likely to purchase after reading a trusted review.
You can encourage your loyal customers to spread the good word about your product/service. Create a referral program and reward the existing as well as new customers.
6. Featuring on SaaS reviews sites
Online buyers and especially SaaS customers tend to heavily rely on reviews and product ratings before making a purchase decision.
An effective strategy for you can be to feature on various sites which review SaaS products/services. It not only provides authenticity about your product/service but also makes the customer purchase decision clearer and stronger.
There are many such review sites such as Capterra, GetApp, TrustRadius, and so on to choose from.
7. Brand advocates and influencers
In the SaaS business, the opinions of others matter tremendously. You can use this psychology of buyers to your benefit by hiring brand advocates and influencers.
Brand advocates are opinion leaders, employees, or customers who have expertise in a particular area and hence can positively influence the purchasing decision. Ecommerce companies employ this strategy pervasively from which SaaS businesses too can benefit.
A brand advocate or influencer may not always be someone who is extremely popular among the masses. A niche influencer with a small but dedicated following can also help you immensely.
Conclusion
Arithmetically 2+2 is 4 but in business, it should amount to 22!
If you are in the SaaS business, use the tips and strategies outlined above to improve lead generation, customer acquisition, and the overall growth of your SaaS business with the help of social media marketing.