SaaS Marketing

5 SaaS Marketing Insights To Outgrow Your Competitors In 2023

Alon Keren October 4th, 2021

Updated on May 3rd, 2023

The SaaS industry is growing exponentially and is expected to reach a global market value of $470 billion by 2025.

But not every SaaS company will survive to experience these riches. In fact, research shows that 90% of new products and startups fail within the first three years.

To stay ahead of the game and ensure that your SaaS company thrives in the coming years, you need to constantly evolve and ride on the emerging trends in your industry.

Here are five valuable SaaS marketing insights to help you move in the right direction.

1. Invest In Building Earned Media Assets 

Earned media is PR that your brand gets on other high-authority sites, publications, media channels, without directly paying for it.

It’s crucial for your company’s growth because modern consumers trust peer recommendations more than your advertisements.

We specialize in earned media. We see it as a resource that’s only becoming more and more valuable for SaaS companies.

Users have to know that you exist on Google. They have to experience a sense of authority when researching your brand.

This is why we put this SaaS marketing insight at No. 1.

SaaS Marketing Insight Number One: People trust strangers over advertisements.

Source

According to a Nielsen study, Microsoft ran paid advertising campaigns during primetime TV shows and on key digital publications covering those events. This directly resulted in a significant increase in their earned media coverage on social media, blogs, and influencer accounts.

Here are a few things you can do to increase your brand’s earned media coverage.

  • Create high-quality content and work with influencers that will promote it on social media channels. 
  • Run coordinated outreach campaigns targeting prominent publications.
  • Publish press releases.
  • Partner with relevant content creators to publish in-depth articles and studies.

These are just some of the ways to increase your earned media coverage. Get in touch with our PR experts to explore more ways to gain organic traction for your brand.

2. Double Down On Personalization In Marketing

Personalized marketing and product experience are crucial for your SaaS company’s growth in the coming years.

Why? Because 67% of consumers expect brands to offer personalized messaging and product features, according to a survey by Adobe.

This is why 90% of product marketers say personalization directly contributes to their business profitability.

SaaS Marketing Insight Number Two: 90% of leading marketers say personalization significantly contributes to business profitability.

Source

So how do you personalize your marketing and product experience?

Here are a few ways brands are doing it successfully.

  • Using retargeting in advertising on platforms like Facebook and Google Ads. For example, Hubspot wanted to attract visitors who bounced off one of their social media strategy posts. So they used a Facebook retargeting campaign that promoted a free social media calendar, as you can see below.
  • Using cookies, user activity, or traffic sources to show personalized messaging and product features. For example, Bookafy improved its conversion rate by 84% by creating a personalized version of its homepage for visitors coming through its Capterra profile.
  • Using condition-based email marketing campaigns triggered by user activity (or inactivity). For example, here’s one of the emails from Webflow’s reactivation campaign. They sent it to users who hadn’t used Webflow for a certain period.

Personalization is a SaaS marketing insight that helps you connect with your customers and audience at a deeper level. It makes your message more persuasive.

3. Use Feature Marketing To Retain Customers Longer

Brand loyalty is rare among modern-day consumers because they constantly get new choices and offers from brands competing for their attention.

This is why you must keep your prospects and customers engaged with your brand by regularly offering new features that make your product more desirable.

In marketing terms, this is called feature marketing, and it has several benefits for SaaS companies.

The website of Invision Studios is an excellent example of how to use feature marketing effectively. They’ve created dedicated landing pages for every major product feature with detailed explainer videos and even demos in some cases.

For example, here’s a screenshot from the landing page of Freehand, one of Invision’s main features.

Feature marketing not only includes offering new features regularly but also marketing them prominently to increase your product’s perceived value.

It also allows you to create plenty of new marketing content. For example, you can create dedicated landing pages for every product feature, write multiple blog posts and publish videos explaining the feature.

For example, every time SEMRush adds a new feature or tool to its product suite, it creates detailed tutorials, articles, and blog posts to demonstrate its utility to the users.

Shopify is a master at feature marketing. Their site has detailed feature pages with images, videos, and relevant blog articles. For example, here’s the landing page for Shopify’s Buy Now button feature.

Many other SaaS companies are also using this approach to retain their customers and attract new leads. This is one of many SaaS marketing insights that can help both with conversion and retention.

4. Fully Commit To Video Content Marketing

If you’re not investing a significant portion of your marketing budget in video creation and marketing, you’re already behind your competitors.

According to Wyzowl, 86% of marketers use video content marketing on their websites and social media profiles.

This is in line with consumer demand as well. According to research, 54% of consumers want to see more video content from brands.

SaaS Marketing Insights Number Four: 54% of consumers want to see more video content from a brand of business they support.

Source

Here are a few ways you can leverage video marketing for your brand’s advantage.

  • Use explainer videos for more effective and persuasive product introductions on your site’s homepage. The product explainer video on HeySummit’s homepage is a good example.
  • Create and edit video tutorials, using an online video editor, demonstrating your product features.
  • Add video testimonials to your website from satisfied customers and users. For example, ClickFunnels has a dedicated page with several HD video testimonials from customers in various niches.
  • Create videos on the topics of your most popular blog posts. And if you need help coming up with blog post ideas, read our guide of 17 ways to generate unlimited blog post ideas.
  • Hold weekly Q&A videos on Facebook, YouTube, and other video platforms to address your audience queries.

In short, video content marketing is a SaaS marketing insight you can’t miss out on in 2023.

5. Make Customer-Centricity Your Priority

From marketing to customer service and product features to content creation, everything in your SaaS company should revolve around your customers’ needs.

Building a customer-centric product culture is much more than providing priority customer support. It’s about realizing that your product exists to serve your customers, and everyone in your team must work towards achieving customer loyalty.

It’s about making it easy for your customers to use your product and helping them achieve business growth with your tools.

This culture reflects in your product features, content marketing, and customer service as well.

Monday.com, a leading project management tool, is a great example to follow.

It not only provides users with all the necessary project management features but also offers dozens of play & play templates for various business functions like marketing, sales, engineering, etc.

These templates aren’t a part of its core product, but they make life easier for its users and allows them to use its product more efficiently.

This naturally results in greater customer loyalty and gives Monday.com an edge over its competitors.

Ahrefs’ blog and YouTube channels are also great examples of customer-centric SaaS marketing.

Apart from being the top SEO intelligence tool, Ahrefs regularly publishes some of the industry’s most well-researched and detailed content on the various aspects of organic and paid search marketing.

Its YouTube channel is also full of actionable video tutorials that answer various audience questions and help them use Ahrefs more effectively.

Apart from building customer loyalty, customer-centric marketing allows SaaS companies to understand their audience better and create tailored experiences to meet their needs.

Ready To Use These SaaS Marketing Insights?

It’s a great time to be a SaaS marketer since the industry is growing rapidly.

But to stay relevant and ensure that your product captures a significant market chunk, you need to keep an eye on the emerging SaaS marketing insights and tailor your strategy accordingly.