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To scale a business, SaaS owners need to market their products effectively.
It is important to create a good marketing strategy to present your product and make it attractive to potential customers.
Did you know that 90% of startups fail, and this trend does not decline?
The prime reason why many entrepreneurs don’t make it is due to failure to assess the market needs.
To keep you on the good side and help you avoid the most common content marketing mistakes, we’ll provide you with ideas on how to start and grow your SaaS business.
Let's begin! 👇
10 Proven Strategies to Grow Your SaaS Business in 2024
1. Make Your Signup Process Easy
Creating an easy Signup process is one of the first steps toward your SaaS growth.
Here, you can show unique creativity at the very doorstep of your business.
Most SaaS signup forms require too much basic information, making it complicated and tiresome for users to finish the process.
The consequences - driving potential customers away and decreasing your conversion rate.
I guess you don’t want that to happen, right?
To make your signup process painless, ensure to make your signup form accessible and cut it into small chunks.
This way, users can go smoothly through it, making it easier for you to grow your user base.
You can see a great signup page example on Airbnb’s platform:
Airbnb makes it easy for users to sign up, starting with only two fields, and you can even sign up through your social media to access the platform.
Note: Implementing a nice welcome message can be great, which is always appreciated when users sign up with a simple guide on using the tool.
But let's not stop here, there are other things to watch out for if you want your business to thrive.
2. Attract Users With Your Visual Appeal
They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
With SaaS, it’s not always the case, as many businesses, even though they have a great product, the visual presentation of it lacks.
Not every design needs to be generic and bland, as seen on billboards or TV commercials.
And many businesses fail here.
With many AI design tools growing and developing daily, compelling UI is a must.
To make your product fun to use, you can add elements and features that are recognizable from day-to-day events.
This strategy is also known as ‘’Gamification,’’ which means including enjoyment-focused design elements in a product or a website.
A good visual design is something that can attract new members to your SaaS platform.
Different platforms can benefit from implementing gamification elements, not only the direct sales department, because the visuals attract users to consume products.
Another example is Discord, which implements witty load in messages on every occasion, whether it’s an update or welcome message.
So even when it comes to program failure on Discord, the pop-up message brightens you up as if it’s not a big deal.
This type of approach is well thought out because it makes you feel like you are a part of the family.
Visual innovations and possibilities to enhance are only limited by the content creator’s ability to deliver, so remember that there are very few limits when it comes to graphic design.
3. Create a Comprehensive Pricing Strategy
Pricing strategy often presents a significant challenge for SaaS businesses seeking sustainable growth.
Many companies struggle with the dilemma of either underpricing their products or overpricing them.
Underpricing can lead to financial instability, making it difficult to reinvest in the business, while overpricing can result in missed opportunities, driving potential customers away.
A powerful approach to tackle this issue is an example of Slack, the widely adopted team collaboration SaaS tool.
Slack recognized the pricing dilemma and addressed it by offering a multi-tiered pricing strategy.
They offered a free plan for basic use, making it accessible to a broad audience. Simultaneously, they provided more advanced features in paid plans, catering to the needs of larger businesses and organizations.
This allowed Slack to capture a wide range of customers, from freelancers to enterprises, without compromising their financial stability.
By implementing a comprehensive pricing strategy with different pricing tiers that cater to a diverse audience, it will be easier for you to attract different types of users.
Note: What can also benefit your business is offering monthly, quarterly, or annual pricing.
This will help you get customers for a longer period of time and increase their lifetime value, which will help you increase revenue drastically.
4. Grow Your SaaS Leads and Conversions Through SEO
Many SaaS businesses face a common challenge – struggling to make their mark in the crowded niche where they try to position their product.
While they recognize the potential of SEO and content marketing, they often fall into the trap of creating generic content that fails to engage their target audience truly.
This often leads to missed opportunities, lost traffic, and stagnant growth.
To solve this issue and create content that converts, you should focus on high-intent content, such as:
- Alternative-based articles,
- Comparison-based articles,
- Listicle articles,
- Review articles, and so on.
A great example of this approach comes from Moz, a renowned SaaS company specializing in SEO software.
Ahrefs, for example, used this type of content to present their solution natively, simplifying the whole SEO process and empowering users to make data-driven decisions.
This approach not only improves their content's relevance but also positions their product as the ideal solution to the problems their audience has, ultimately driving their organic growth and conversions.
See how we grew the AI tool from 0-60k monthly organic traffic through SEO and content marketing.
Ensure to research how you can natively include your product within the content to educate your readers and show them how your tool can simplify their lives.
5. Consider Advertising Growth Tactics
One of the hardest steps in growing your SaaS business is having effective paid advertising.
When it comes to paid advertising, many SaaS businesses face the common challenge of overspending without a clear and well-defined strategy.
They often run into the trap of throwing money at various ad platforms, hoping for immediate results, but frequently end up with high acquisition costs and limited ROI.
What’s great that you can do with paid advertising is test your niche and see what works well with your audience(we’ll explain it shortly).
The most common types of paid advertising are:
- Display ads - These can be useful if placed on high-traffic websites relevant to your target audience.
- Search ads - It is more effective but more expensive than display ads, they are targeted at specific audiences.
- Native ads - Placing them on social media platforms is less expensive than search ads but must be well-targeted to your target audience.
What you can do is start from Google Ads, for example, and focus on BOFU keywords.
Slidebean, for example, used Google Ads as part of its strategy to grow over 10k customers and make over $1M of revenue.
Here are a few steps you can implement from this case to improve the ROI:
Step 1. Create ads and content for those pages, such as “Alternative pages,” and run search and display Google Ads.
Step 2. See which keywords perform best, and create content around those keywords to rank well and bring the organic conversions too.
Step 3. Once you start generating organic conversions, start creating YouTube videos around those pages and content to improve their performance.
Optional step 4. Use display Ads that performed best, analyze why they performed, and use those visuals to run them on other platforms, such as Facebook/Instagram Ads, and so on.
Following these steps, you'll always know what works for you regarding paid Ads.
What’s even better is that by using this strategy, you’re consistently working on doubling down the performing content, which will give you more ROI and money for testing other keywords.
6. Leverage the Referral System for Conversions
SaaS businesses often grapple with the challenge of acquiring new customers efficiently.
Traditional advertising and marketing tactics can be costly, and the increasing saturation of digital channels makes it difficult to stand out.
The problem of customer acquisition becomes even more exasperating when businesses overlook the potential of their existing satisfied customers.
Many companies miss out on the opportunity to tap into their user base for referrals, failing to recognize the value of word-of-mouth recommendations.
Creating a well-planned referral system is what can lead your business to immense growth.
That's exactly what Dropbox, the cloud-based file storage and one of the fastest-growing SaaS startups, did.
Dropbox recognized the need for a well-structured advertising strategy and opted for a referral marketing program.
They started rewarding existing users for referring new customers and creating a cost-effective advertising channel.
This approach not only reduced customer acquisition costs but also incentivized users to promote the service actively.
By implementing a focused and economical advertising strategy that leverages the power of word-of-mouth marketing, Dropbox effectively addressed the overspending issue.
This led to their impressive growth and set an example for other SaaS businesses to follow in their pursuit of smart advertising tactics as part of their growth strategy.
To make this strategy work for you, make sure to identify benefits that will be of real value to your existing users.
Then, provide them with it and make it the main reward of your referral program.
Note: Ensure to make both sides happy. Not only the new customer but also the referrer.
7. Create Your Own Social Network
Everyone has heard of Nike, Ikea, and McDonald’s, so why would they care about their social network when they are already famous and widespread?
Fame does not keep your business afloat, social networks do.
Because if you disappear from social networks, customers will forget you.
Here, the problem often lies in producing content that is either too generic or fails to connect with the audience on a personal level.
This results in missed opportunities for building strong online communities and fostering user loyalty.
A powerful solution to this dilemma can be seen in the social media strategy of Buffer, a SaaS platform for social media management.
Buffer recognized the need to create valuable and personalized content to connect with their audience effectively.
They regularly share informative articles, engage with their community, and actively seek feedback and input from their users.
By focusing on building a strong and genuine online community, Buffer successfully addresses the problem of disconnected content.
This approach not only increases their brand visibility but also fosters a loyal user base, ultimately contributing to their growth.
To develop your social network easier, you can:
- Set up your concept - Place your ideas to good use, and be expressive and creative.
- Choose a strategy - Research your audience's wants and ensure you have the right product.
- Develop your social media presence - Be recognizable, your users need association with your product.
This way, you can integrate with popular apps and repurpose your content while keeping your business transparent and relevant to the target audience.
For SaaS businesses looking to amplify their growth strategies - prioritize meaningful engagement, and address problems through community-building to drive social media presence.
8. Use Skyscraper Technique to Always Be in the Top
The Skyscraper technique is a bold move when it comes to SaaS growth.
Your talent won’t matter unless you can counter competitive content other sites link to, create something better, and then reach out to the right sites to link to you instead.
The Skyscraper technique aims to help you publish more comprehensive content than any other post on a specific subject.
When someone is looking for resources, they’ll notice that you have the most comprehensive content online.
💡Here are some tips that you can do:
- Narrow down your topics - They must be relevant to your brand and target audience.
- Check for missing information - Compare it to other similar top posts, write down everything that you can make better, and add what’s missing.
- Create Your Content - Make the content more appealing and easier to consume while providing more value to the readers.
Having this mindset will always push you to create the best content on the internet, which will not only impact your SEO positively but will also attract a lot of backlinks to your website.
9. Let Everyone Know You’re (A)Live
Online interactions with your future customers are extremely important because they increase confidence that your product is good for them.
However, many businesses are stuck, not knowing what to implement within their strategy and from where to start.
People usually read reviews before purchasing anything.
So, you can get some qualified traffic from popular software review platforms like Capterra, TrustPilot, GetApp, G2Crowd, and so on.
Also, there are dozens of platforms where you can submit your product or even launch it if you’re just starting or having products in the beta phase.
Depending on your phase and needs, here are some platforms that you might consider submitting your SaaS business to:
Being present on these platforms helps you attract and satisfy potential consumers' curiosity and skip unnecessary unknowns that might block them from starting to use your product.
Ensure to submit your product to each platform that seems relevant to your business to increase your presence and help your future customers find you more easily.
10. Work on Your Retention Rate
The constant pursuit of acquiring new users often leaves existing ones feeling neglected.
Still, many SaaS businesses inadvertently overlook this crucial factor in their growth strategy.
This oversight leads to churn rates that are far higher than they should be, and it's a problem that can significantly hinder a SaaS business's growth potential.
Probably the greatest challenge is to keep your customers purchasing and renewing their subscriptions.
A great example is Salesforce’s strategy, a global leader in customer relationship management software.
Salesforce places a strong emphasis on customer success and provides continuous support and education to its user base.
They offer a range of training resources, an active user community, and personalized assistance, ensuring that customers get the most value from their platform.
By prioritizing their customers, Salesforce not only maintains a low churn rate but also fosters a loyal user community that actively contributes to their growth.
Here are a few ideas on how to maintain your users:
- Reduce convert risk - Give your prospects a taste of what to expect before they purchase.
- Offer discounts and free stuff - Provide bonuses, discounts, and rewards to the most active users.
- Show that you care - Track usage behavior and activity to send data-based and targeted messages that may help clients with their interests.
- Help your customers succeed - Create educational materials and help them improve their performance using your tool. It will keep them attached to you.
- Stay up to date with the customer base - Regularly send reminders for renewal, introduce updates and add-ons, and track down inactive leads.
Focusing on nurturing and retaining existing customers will be a more cost-effective and sustainable approach to achieving long-term growth.
Go all in with that, and your customers will reward you with more of them coming.
What to Avoid When Growing SaaS Business?
The following mistakes are common among SaaS founders, and you should avoid them:
- Not researching your market - This is a common mistake you must never skip, so make sure that you are familiar with your target audience and their needs before you launch your product.
- Not prioritizing your pricing strategy - If you consider that your product is good, place your price on it, and If you are trying to gather users by placing a free product, then your product will last as long as it’s free.
- Poor customer support - Slow response time and overall poor training for product placement lead to the inevitable downfall and trust failure among the probable product users. Always update customer support efficiency and have multiple contact points between customers and the support team.
- Ineffective Client Onboarding Process - If your software system is failing and your clients are unable to sign up or log in to their user profiles, they will most likely look elsewhere for the service. Clients having easy access to their user accounts is mandatory.
The Final Thoughts
By focusing on key SaaS growth metrics and testing and optimizing strategy, you can attract and retain customers, increase revenue, and achieve long-term sustainability.
Whether you decide to implement a growth marketing strategy in-house or hire a growth marketing team, the key is to stay focused on your goals.
Iterate your campaigns repeatedly until you get the desired results.
If you need a team to help you on that path, Omnius is at your disposal.
Schedule a 30-minute free consultation to learn how to grow your SaaS business and how you could implement the strategies mentioned above effectively.
