The CFO grabbed a styrofoam cup, poked a hole in the bottom, and poured water to fill it. It was obvious to the viewer what this represented: you could fill and fill the cup (i.e. growth), but the hole at the bottom was bleeding out (i.e. lack of retention).

Because most SaaS companies use VC or private equity money, it’s important to manage and forecast growth as part of your business model. If you can’t realistically forecast your growth, you’ll have a big problem staying afloat. You’ve raised different rounds of funding, but you’re still pre-revenue. Investors want to see your growth numbers compared to your retention numbers vs what you think the industry can bear. In essence, you’re selling the dream but then pacifying your investors with future expectations.

And then there’s your competition to worry about. Each day, there will be significant competition to garner market share, and companies sometimes who have inferior products win not because their products are better but because their marketing tells a better story, gets a wider audience, and makes people passionate about their brands, mission, and vision––a type of social currency if you will.

Here, I’m going to talk about not only how to build a marketing system to reach your growth goals, but how to keep your ideal clients on the bus, generating continuous revenue long enough for your company to be profitable and for you to be able to forecast your growth so that you can staunch the bleeding.

Digital marketing is becoming increasingly important for businesses of all sizes. In fact, according to Forrester Research, 80% of B2B marketers plan to increase investment in digital marketing over the next year.

If you’re reading this, I assume your SaaS product is really great. So why would you waste your time and energy on things that aren’t directly related to your core competency? That’s where a marketing team implementing a robust content marketing strategy to increase prospective customers and customer retention comes into play.

To start, we’ll talk about the importance of visualizing strategy using the flywheel approach.

A SaaS (Software as a Service) marketing flywheel is a simple concept that helps you get started with your SaaS marketing strategy and works better than a traditional sales funnel. In other words, it provides a framework for building a successful SaaS marketing plan.

It’s important to remember that every SaaS company has its unique challenges, goals, and objectives. The flywheel gives you a way to structure your thinking around these issues and create a roadmap for success.

At Farotech, our logo includes a circle on purpose, because we believe that marketing should feed back on itself––marketing feeds sales, sales feeds conversion rates, and customer service feeds marketing.

It really comes down to math. I can show you the greatest stories and craft the best messaging about your brand, but what I really need to know are your financial goals and then to start working backwards from there.

Say you need $10 million in revenue, that’s your goal. I need to know how many sales I need to meet that goal, how many leads it takes to get a sale, how many visits and engagements it takes to get a lead, and then ultimately how many visits and engagements it’ll take to reach that $10 million figure.

Some of those factors for SaaS companies may include the following:

1. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

The customer acquisition cost is the total amount spent acquiring each new customer. CAC includes everything from advertising costs to sales commissions. A high CAC means that you have to spend a lot of money to acquire customers. You should try to keep your CAC low if possible.

2. Lifetime Value (LTV)

This metric shows how much revenue you expect to generate over time from each customer. LTV is calculated by multiplying the average lifetime value per user by the number of users. If you want to calculate the average lifetime value of your users, divide the sum of monthly subscription fees by the number of months since they joined your service.

3. Average Revenue Per User (ARPU)

Average revenue per user is the average amount of money you make per user. ARPU is calculated by dividing the total revenue generated by the number of active users.

4. Churn Rate

Churn rate measures the percentage of people who cancel their subscriptions after signing up. You don’t want to have a high churn rate because it indicates that your product isn’t providing enough value to its users.

5. Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Net promoter score is a measurement of customer loyalty. NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. Promoters are loyal customers who recommend your company to others while detractors are unhappy customers who do not recommend your business.

No matter which metric matters most to you, a marketing strategy that enables you to make data-driven decisions to maximize these metrics is critical to success. So let’s dive in.

To help you answer these questions, we’ll take a look at seven key strategies that will help you maximize your marketing return on investment (ROI). These strategies are based on our experience working with hundreds of startups like yours. We’ll also provide insights on which channels work best for specific types of products and services.

This is where SaaS companies sometimes get it wrong: they think just because I gave a demo out means I’ll ultimately get a sale.

But a demo without education is a massive missed opportunity. Creating educational resources for every part of your software solution is key. Explaining why that feature holds value and how potential customers can use it effectively should be a part of your sales strategy.

Implementing user-based triggers

User-based triggers are technologies that are connected to your content marketing engine, so that when individuals enegage with certain parts of your SaaS solution, your marketing engine can send out an email to them talking about that specific feature.

The inverse scenario could also happen: if a user is ignoring a certain part of your Saas solution, your content marketing engine can send them an email highlighting the features, benefits, and use cases for that particular function that they are currently ignoring.

After they’re a client, we use similar triggers to measure engagement with the product, because knowing what they’re engaging with and what they’re ignoring will essentially be a temperature check for client retention.

Smarketing

Smarketing is when sales and marketing are seamlessly integrated and working in unison. Demos have to work in lockstep with sales. If it’s day 3 or 4 and potential demo customers arent coming back, you need to use lead nurturing to offer them an extension on their demo or more educational resources to better understand if it’s a fit for them.

The key here is not to let a potential customer who is demoing your product off the hook. The worse care scenario is that if you don’t have triggers that are connected to email marketing automation that can be sent to a “cooling” potential client, your product may leave their radar and they may never get back to it again.

These demo lapses can kill your dreams of high retention and would be the equivalent of the water flowing out of the bottom of the cup.

You want to think like a white paper – you want to educate, not sell. Selling happens automatically. And while setting up a webinar can be challenging, it’s worth it because there are many benefits to hosting one. Here are some tips on how to make sure yours goes smoothly:

1. Make sure you know what you’re talking about.

If you don’t, find out. Research the topic thoroughly. Look at trends and statistics. Find out what people are asking questions about. This will help you come across as credible and knowledgeable.

2. Know your audience.

Who are you trying to reach? What do they care about? How can you use your expertise to connect with them? Try to anticipate their needs and concerns. Are they looking for general information, or something specific? Is there a problem they need solved? Do they already know what you’re offering?

3. Practice makes perfect.

Have someone else record a short version of your presentation, just to see how well you sound. Then practice again. And again. After each round of practice, ask yourself “What did I say wrong?” and try to correct it.

4. Be prepared. Don’t wing it.

Write down key points ahead of time. Plan out exactly where you’ll go next. Read over your notes beforehand. If you’re speaking live, prepare several versions of your script. Some people prefer reading their scripts aloud, others write them themselves. Either way, be ready to change things up if needed.

5. Set realistic expectations.

People won’t necessarily sign up for every single webinar you offer. But if you provide value, and give them enough information to decide whether or not to attend, you’ll likely gain new leads.

6. Use technology wisely.

Video conferencing tools such as GoToMeeting allow you to hold a meeting online without having to host it physically. This saves money and helps you avoid travel expenses. Other tools include screen sharing, audio recording, and even text chat.

Create an Inbound Content Strategy

Your content strategy should include both written and visual content. Written content includes blog posts, case studies, white papers, eBooks, etc. Visual content includes infographics, videos, presentations, etc. The goal of this type of content is to attract new leads and convert existing ones.

Optimize Your Pages For Search Engines

As a subject matter expert, writing really good content to inform your audience is essential, but if that content isn’t optimized for Google to find it or index it correctly, you’ll only get a fraction of the results you want out of that great content. While the list of things to do to optimize your pages is exhaustive, these four things are non-negotiable in our view:

• Optimize: your pages to include your critical keywords/key phrases, title tags, page slugs, and heading tags.
• Structured content: Make sure that your website has an organized site architecture. Modern SEO approaches understand that subject matter experts can get ranked for clusters of content and content themes rather than individualized keywords. If your website isn’t set up for structured content, your results will fail to compound.
• Technical SEO: Make sure you’re set up correctly. This includes having a fast web host (because page speed matters), and that schema markup and robots.txt is all accounted for. Pro tip: the temptation is to spend more time and energy on technical SEO at the expense of others. In my experience, technical SEO is the cherry on top, not the sundae.
• Backlinking: Links from outside websites that point to your website are probably the #1 ranking factor for search engines. Unfortunately, they’re also the most difficult to acquire. Creating link-worthy content and building relationships with publishers in your industry is part of the long-game but there’s no greater reward when it really works.

However, when you’re talking about targeting and speed, paid ads is second to none. The problem is, in our experience, so many companies underestimate how difficult it is to think through and set up these ads effectively. It’s an art and a science. In this section, we’ll give you the broad strokes of what it takes to do paid ads effectively.

Note to reader: social media and programmatic advertising are very effective approaches, but for our purposes here, we’ll focus on Google paid ads.

Paid search advertising is a powerful tool for driving traffic to your site. Remember, it requires careful planning and execution. Here are some tips to make sure you’re getting the best results possible:

Start With Keywords

Keywords are the words and phrases that users type into Google when searching for something specific. They’re also the first things that advertisers bid on in AdWords. So, before you spend money on ads, make sure you’ve identified the keywords that are relevant to your product or service.

Use Long Tail Keywords

Long tail keywords are longer versions of common keywords. For example, instead of typing “accounting software,” you’d enter “accounting software reviews.” These keywords typically command higher ad costs but bring in much more qualified leads.

Target Specific Geographic Locations

You’ll likely find that certain locations tend to attract different kinds of customers. For example, businesses located near universities may be more interested in recruiting college students. Or, a restaurant catering to tourists may target local residents looking for dining options.

Include Negative Keywords

Negative keywords are terms that you don’t want to show up in your ads. For example, if you sell accounting software, you wouldn’t want to advertise for “bookkeeping software.” Instead, you’d specify “accounting software,” “accounting bookkeeper,” etc.

Optimize Landing Pages

Landing pages are webpages that lead visitors to another page on your site. They’re usually used to direct visitors to a particular section of your site, like a blog post or a sales page. To optimize landing pages, focus on making them clear and concise. Also, consider adding calls to action so that visitors can easily click through to the next step in your conversion funnel.

Test Different Ads

Different formats of ads perform differently depending on the device being used. For instance, mobile devices tend to display text ads rather than images, and desktop computers tend to display image ads. Experiment with different formats until you find the ones that convert best.

Track Results Using Analytics

Once you launch your ads, track performance over time. Look at the number of clicks, conversions, and cost per click. Adjust your bids accordingly.

Understanding Your Budget

The obvious goal is to get your ads at the lowest price while improving impressions, clicks, and CTR (click-through-rate). However, understanding the art of paying just a bit more for certain keywords/keyphrases takes trial and effort––but this is where the war is won with paid ads.

These ads are called “sponsored links” and they allow advertisers to reach audiences beyond their own site.

Setting up a GDN ad unit for your SaaS company may involve the following steps:

• Create a Custom Domain Name for Your Ad Unit

Before creating your first ad unit, make sure you’ve created a custom domain name for your ad unit. This will ensure that your ad units are properly attributed to your brand.

• Set Up the Right Targeting Criteria

Next, you’ll need to decide on the targeting criteria for your ad unit. For example, you may choose to target users based on location, device type, gender, language, or interests.

• Choose the Best Bid Amount

After choosing your targeting criteria, you’ll need to select the bid amount for your ad unit. There are several different options here including CPC, CPM, CPA, CPI, and CPL.

• Add the Ads Code to Your Website

Once you’re ready to launch your ad unit, simply add the code to your website.

• Monitor Performance

You can monitor performance for your ad unit by viewing reports within the Google Analytics dashboard.

Remarketing is a subtle lead nurturing method that, while sometimes creepy, is effective because it keeps potential customers familiar with your brand, products, and services. Not everybody is in a position to buy, therefore people coming to your website and leaving is okay, but you still want them to keep your company top of mind when they are ready.

Remarketing is one of the most effective forms of digital marketing, and usually makes sense for us to use on Google Display Network, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

Remarketing ads should be run first if your B2B SaaS website already generates decent traffic, . You should at least tag your visitors across your different advertising channels so they can accumulate cookies. Afterwards, you could display ads to them sometime later. With Facebook you can do this up to 180 days; with Google it’s 540 days.

Effective approaches for social media include:

• Using email lists
• Phone numbers
• Demographic tools

Depending on the platform, embracing lookalike technologies to target a similar demographic of those who have already shown interest, can help you find other targets who match those same demographics, characteristics, and behaviors. The reason this is so vital is that these audiences may not even know your products or services exist.

Some other ways to use social media ads to your advantage as a SaaS company include:

• Using it to connect with customers
• Sharing content that will help them solve their problems
• Creating events where you can share information about new features
• Post updates on how your product is doing
• Posting updates about changes in pricing
• Sharing content that’s relevant to your customers
• Promoting events you’re hosting
• Creating a community-based groups

LinkedIn

It’s been said that LinkedIn is essentially the world’s largest Rolodex. This means rich and meaningful access to your target audience, including who they might know from your network, and which sandboxes they’re playing in so that you have all the information you need to formulate a conversation with a cold target on LinkedIn.

According to HubSpot, over half of B2B buyers say that they prefer buying products and services from businesses they know and trust. So, if you’re looking to grow your SaaS business through social media, here are some tips for leveraging LinkedIn:

Use LinkedIn Groups

Groups are a great way to find potential leads and clients. They’re also a good place to network with people who have similar goals and objectives.

Follow Influencers

Follow influencers on LinkedIn to see what they post and what topics they talk about. This gives you insight into what types of things they’re interested in.

Create Content That People Want To Share

If you want to build credibility and increase traffic to your site, start creating content that people want to share. You can do this through blog posts, videos, infographics, etc.

Connect With Other SaaS Professionals

Once you’ve built a solid reputation online, you’ll want to connect with other professionals in your space. By connecting with these individuals, you can learn from them and gain access to resources that you wouldn’t otherwise have.

Get Noticed

You can use LinkedIn Ads to get the word out about your company. These ads allow you to target specific audiences based on location, job title, or even age group.

Optimize For Search

You can optimize your page for search using keywords and phrases. When optimizing for search, be sure to include long-tail keywords. Long tail keywords are those that aren’t commonly searched but provide better results than short-term keywords.

Here is something that’s been widely ignored. We’ve been doing this for 21 years, and people are always trying to figure out the secret sauce on LinkedIn. What’s the angle? Above all, you’re probably overthinking it.

You should be going on LinkedIn, finding the target you’re trying to access, finding out who they know in your same network, and seeing if you can reach out to those adjacent individuals for an introduction.

Essentially, you should be using LinkedIn as it was originally designed––a powerful Rolodex and networking platform. Nike had it right: Just Do It. Make those connections.

If you don’t know what content is going out in the next 30, 60, 90 days or even through the year, you’ll be doing what we classically call RAM or Random Acts of Marketing.

To illustrate the point: compare one guy who goes to the gym for 1 day a week and just does squats for 8 hours versus a guy who goes to the gym every day for 20 minutes a day and exercises every key muscle group. The latter guy who is consistent and has a plan always wins in the long run. It’s the same with marketing and maximizing retention.

Our Unique Process

Here’s a diagram of our unique process, and while we can’t outline every part of it in this article, we have developed our entire process on the following page.

For SaaS, having a marketing partner with a clear unique process for how to reach your marketing goals will be key to retention, steady revenue growth, and not falling victim to the bleeding out we discussed earlier. Parts of our unique process include:

• Branding Strategy
• Content Marketing Strategy
• Web Development
• Video Development
• Sales Cycle Optimization
• Inbound Marketing
• Outbound Marketing

All of these parts can be tailored to your specific company, audience, industry, and revenue goals. The idea is to make data-driven decisions––not relying on stranded individual solutions but instead having a cohesive and comprehensive digital marketing system that keeps you on track.

• A comprehensive marketing system (instead of independent solutions)
• A gap assessment with a 3-5 year roadmap to 5x-10x sales and lead opportunities
• Our team-based approach that provides access to subject matter experts whenever they are needed
• A revolutionized hiring process for marketing personnel
• The ability to make data-driven decisions about your inbound marketing efforts rather than relying on hunches, trends, or fads
• A clear understanding of marketing ROI and ability to scale effectively
• One tech dashboard to monitor your conversions and retentions by name. Normal analytics companies won’t provide that level of detail in their metrics.

If you would like to know more about starting your digital marketing journey, please click on the following link. We’re ready to build a customized solution to scale your marketing and prove marketing ROI for your SaaS company.

Ready to Start With a Gap Assessment?

Reach out to Farotech to get started with a system that can reliably generate, nurture, and convert leads into lifelong clients. Fill out the form below to request a sample gap assessment that will identify some key areas where we can help transform your marketing. We look forward to building a custom digital marketing solution for your saas needs.