The future of B2B SAAS and tech lead generation
If you’re involved in B2B SaaS marketing, you already know how challenging it can be. With SaaS, you’re appealing to a sophisticated, knowledgeable audience, decision-makers operating within a strict budget who know exactly what they’re looking for. Not only that, but you aren’t just trying to sell them a one-off product but a recurring service. Your business model depends on consistent growth, which means obtaining a steady supply of MQLs. Let’s look at some of the most effective B2B SaaS lead strategies for now and well into the future.
KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE
When generating leads for SaaS leads, it’s essential to be intimately familiar with your customers’ needs and preferences. This includes:
- Know their budget. Since your aim is to maximize MRR and ARR, you have to consider what your clients are willing to pay for an ongoing subscription to your service. Research your competition. Offering multiple service tiers and both monthly and annual payment options can help.
- Identify the features they value the most. What primary problem are you solving? Consider the features that will most appeal to your audience. This will inform the keywords you choose for your content and ads.
- Anticipate their objections. What are the most likely objections to your product? You’ll want to anticipate this and have a good response. For example, if they complain that it’s too expensive, you might provide statistics that show it saves them money in the long run.
- Tailor content to different stakeholders. For example, a CEO, manager, and IT professional have their own needs and priorities. An IT person may care mainly about technical features while the CEO is more focused on ROI.
OFFER EXCEPTIONAL CONTENT
Everyone talks about how important content is, but when you’re in the SaaS sector, it’s particularly crucial to have a strong content strategy. It’s not just a question of explaining and pre-selling your products, although you can do this in your content. When your audience sees you as an authority in your industry, you enhance your brand’s reputation and establish yourself as a thought leader. Here are a few possibilities:
- Long-form blog posts and white papers are always good for demonstrating your expertise. For example, check out the Buffer blog. Note that some posts talk about using Buffer but many others provide more general information that even non-customers can benefit from.
- Webinars -A free webinar can introduce leads to your service. Kissmetrics is a great example of a B2B company leveraging webinars to build their brand.
- Videos -Instructional videos, interviews, whiteboard, and animation videos can all be used to drive traffic and generate leads. You can maximize leverage on videos by sharing them on your social media pages, YouTube, and other video-sharing sites as well as on your website.
- Podcasts -Interview influencers in your industry. Uploading podcasts to various platforms such as iTunes, Spotify, Google, and others can help you reach a wider audience.
FEATURE CASE STUDIES
Case studies go a long way in illustrating how your services solve problems for customers. Rather than simply listing features or bragging about yourself, a case study shows prospective customers exactly what your software can do. Take a look at some case studies featured by Lumen5, a company that makes video creation software. While each client is unique, they also have certain common needs. A case study provokes prospects to think, “If the software helped others so much, it can help me too!”
EMAIL MARKETING AND YOUR SALES FUNNEL
Email marketing is still one of the most powerful B2B lead generation tools. The Content Marketing Institute reports that 79% of B2B marketers say email is the most effective distribution channel for demand generation efforts. However, to get a solid ROI on email marketing you need the right strategy.
USE THE RIGHT AUTOMATION TOOLS
You need a way to manage your leads and subscribers and automate as many aspects of your sales funnel as possible. If your CRM, email marketing service, or autoresponder doesn’t have the features you need, is too costly, or is difficult to operate, look for a more efficient solution. You also need a system to track your results so you can make consistent improvements on your campaigns.
FREE TRIALS
Offering a gift or lead magnet is central to email marketing. However, in many B2C offers giveaways are generally low-value, such as a generic “free e-book.” To hook B2B leads, you need to offer solid value. With SaaS, the most valuable gift is generally a free trial of your software, app, or service. You can then let them know about the benefits of signing up as a paid subscriber or upgrading. For example, Crazy Egg offers a free heat map for websites. To access this, you need to sign up for a 30-day free trial.
DO YOU NEED MORE QUALITY LEADS?
If you want to get more MQL leads for your business, you need to implement a strategy that includes understanding your customers, offering quality content, and creating compelling offers to get more prospects into your sales funnels. Would you like to –
- Increase the volume of monthly leads?
- Improve the quality of your leads?
- Optimize your funnel and increase conversions?
T.A. Monroe, a New York-based digital marketing agency can help.
The material was written with the help of the following resources:
- https://lumen5.com/case-studies/
- https://www.business2community.com/marketing/25-shocking-stats-about-demand-gen-in-2018-02067407
- https://www.crazyegg.com/
