Marketing for SaaS Businesses and How an Experienced SaaS Copywriter Can Help
The SaaS-powered workplace is closer to us now than ever before – 38 percent of companies use SaaS to run almost all of their business operations. The average company uses 16 cloud-driven apps today and by 2020, about 73% of companies will have most of their apps running from the cloud.
The majority of clients using SaaS are small to medium enterprises which have limited budgets to commission custom software for their operations. These are the clients that have driven the surge in SaaS uptake within the workplace. However, larger businesses are buying into SaaS-driven operations for core functions as well.
All of this has implications not just for your SaaS startup but for how you market your fledgling business as well. As you’ll see, you’re going to want a copy writer who’s well-versed in the complex and exciting world of SaaS.
The Benefits of the SaaS Business Model
Understanding why SaaS provides value to your clients is critical to positioning your business on the forefront when offering SaaS products. These are some of the benefits of using the SaaS model for software vendors and clients:
1. Way More Affordable for Customers
Few businesses can afford the total cost of ownership (TCO) of on-premise software solutions. The TCO includes hidden costs such as over-licensing, server maintenance, backups, upgrades and debugging, electricity and testing and integrations, among others. The TCO of bespoke on-premise application can run into the tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Compare this with SaaS applications which typically cost a few hundred dollars per user, often less. Over time, the cost of on-premise and cloud applications may even out, but the latter eliminates the prohibitive initial cost of software acquisition. This is the greatest advantage that B2B SaaS marketing teams should leverage when selling their solutions.
For example, the reduced initial cost means that a line manager can easily subscribe and expense the cost of software. This is unlike the on-premise solution which passes through tons of red-tape before approvals and disbursement of funds. You shorten your sales cycle and hence are able to move on to ensuring customer retention instead of making a sale.
2. Creates Recurrent Revenue
The SaaS business model creates a recurrent revenue stream, which is especially important for SaaS startups and established vendors alike. An on-premise solution, fully customized, leaves the vendor with a small percentage of recurrent revenue charged on maintenance costs.
As a vendor, if you’re able to control your churn, you should grow a steady income stream that makes it easier for your business to grow. Predictable income means you’re able to make better business decisions based on that income stream.
It is for this primary reason that venture capitalists favor SaaS model businesses. With a good product, you can ensure high renewals, increasing the lifetime value of every customer for a fraction of the cost of an on-premise application.
3. Easy to Change or Upgrade
For on-premise applications, you have to convince your clients to upgrade each time you improve the application. If they are okay with your old product or don’t have the money for it, they won’t buy into your upgrade.
SaaS models allow you to continuously improve on products because you maintain ownership of the software and servers. You can implement changes to benefit all your clients simultaneously, increasing customer satisfaction. Additionally, you save time upgrading a single master file rather than dealing with individual on-premise solutions.
Ease of upgrade makes another attractive selling point for your SaaS marketing plan. Major changes or upgrades may affect the subscription or licensing fees, but minor updates can be marketed as value-addition for subscribers.
4. Low Hosting and Development Costs
Your SaaS business model doesn’t have to apply to your clients only; you may use the same model for the services you need. For instance, platforms like Amazon Web Services allow you to get server space within minutes.
You can scale up or down according to the number of clients you have and hence reduce your overheads. Using such platforms slashes your business costs, which is vital for SaaS startups whose products are not yet tried and tested. These products are released and marketed as minimal viable products, created to test the market and gain user insights/feedback.
5. Easy Value-Addition Packages
While there are on-premise solutions that can offer free trials or temporary upgrades, the SaaS model makes these value-additions easier to disburse. Because there are lesser costs to deployment, installation, and customization, free trials can be offered within minutes. Upgrades to reward customer loyalty or facilitate scalability are implemented almost instantly.
The ease of changing offerings in the SaaS business model makes it easy for your SaaS marketing strategy to include free/limited-time offerings to attract new business. Where your product is competing a bigger product, you need ways to attract users without hurting your business. Offering a risk-free, no-commitment trial an effective way to introduce your product into the market.
6. Global, Round-the-Clock Access
As an SaaS vendor, you’re delivering a license for software that exists in the cloud. This means that you can have any clients worldwide since they can access your application. Additionally, you can automate much of the operations which means business is open 24/7.
Because you’re not selling a license for physical software, there won’t be crack versions circulating and denying your business revenue. The servers on which your software is hosted are in the cloud and only accessible to your business, authorized parties, and paying clients.
What an Experienced SaaS Copywriter Can Do for Your Business
The SaaS market is now worth over $200 billion, which is why everyone is out for a piece of that pie. Therefore, you need a strong SaaS marketing strategy to differentiate yourself from the competition.
In the online environment, content marketing is central to creating a strong impression and setting yourself apart from the competition. Getting an experienced SaaS copywriter on your marketing team has numerous advantages. From streamlining your content to enhancing brand visibility and establishing thought leadership, they are invaluable to your B2B SaaS marketing strategy.
Setting Your Objectives
When drawing up your SaaS digital marketing strategy, you need to accomplish one, two or all of these things:
- Boosting conversions from various online communications
- Reducing churn or converting customers on free trials to subscribers
- Establishing thought leadership and market dominance while raising brand awareness
You’re dealing primarily with businesses, which means you need more than just fluff to convert your leads. As such, your copywriter needs to understand your line of work. Only then will they be able to create content addressing your clients’ specific needs. Furthermore, it isn’t enough to create compelling content just for the website; other types of communications from you must be similarly engaging.
Learn how an SaaS marketing copywriter can help build your brand and business below.
1. Building a Content Marketing Plan
Smart SaaS startups/companies understand that great content can do anything: generate and convert leads and increase social media prominence, among others. To do these things, you can’t publish content randomly without considering what you want your content to do.
An SaaS copywriter can help you create a detailed SaaS marketing plan that enables you to reach out to your target audience. This is crucial because you need to reach your target audience at the precise moment of decision-making and guide them to your brand. Also, you must consider customers who are at various points in the purchasing journey and offer value.
With their input, you can balance blogs, marketing content, videos, social media posts, guest posts, email marketing, and other SaaS digital marketing channels.
2. Tailoring Your Message to Your Audience
The right copywriter can help you customize your message according to your target audience’s pain points. Your message will be different depending on your audience’s personas, and good copywriting can help you speak in a language they understand. It’s about speaking directly where simplicity is needed and communicating professionally where that is necessary.
An experienced copywriter will advise you on tone and language to help you connect with your audience. He/she can advise on other marketing strategies depending on the purchasing journey and your objectives. Finally, they will create content that generates hot leads (likely to convert) while providing useful information to everyone.
3. Generating and Converting Leads
Regardless of the way you reach out to your audience, you hope to turn them into loyal, paying customers. For B2B SaaS marketing, this means understanding your client’s business and how your solution will help them. Your content must communicate this and take every opportunity to invite the audience to seek to know more about your brand.
A good copywriter can help you to:
- Establish credibility and thought leadership
- Win more inbound links and shares which elevates your brand on search engines
- Create interest in your brand/products
Once you have attracted their attention, good content can help you move them along the purchasing journey. Once they decide on a product, it should convince them to choose your products over competitors because of the value offered so far.
Conclusion
In this competitive environment, you need more than a great SaaS product to get your clients hooked to your offerings. Many SaaS startups have great products. You must differentiate yourself by creating a captivating message and having a plan to lead them to your products.
An experienced SaaS copywriter has everything in the toolbox to build your online personality and generate conversations around your brand. Once you have this, getting and converting leads will be a walk in the park!
