What marketing should you do as your SaaS grows?

Marketing at different stages of your SaaS product’s growth

SaaS guru David Skok suggests there are three phases of a startup’s lifecycle:

• Initial traction – the search for Product/Market fit – typically up to $1m ARR
• Finding the model – Search for Repeatable & Scalable & Profitable Growth Model – typically up to $10m ARR
• Scaling – Scaling the Business – up to $100m ARR

If we take this model here are some points to consider when it comes to marketing your SaaS business based on these three stages.

Initial Traction – up to $1m ARR

At this point, you need to understand what marketing works for you – and then improve it even more. Everything is new and it’s a case of testing, putting betas/MVPs in place and learning quickly.

At this stage, your marketing should be generally focused on testing.

Version one of your website

Define what your message and key benefits are and showcase them on your website.

Test your message and key benefits

Continually test your content on your website through split testing. This could be anything from the order of your products benefits, to the type of language you’re using. It’s worth also testing your Ad Copy on platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads to see what gets traction

Test call to actions (CTAs)

Is free trial or book demo better? Contact us or get in touch? Try different versions to see which entices your customers more.

Try multiple marketing channels

Don’t just stick to one channel – try a range of different things to see what sticks.

Content marketing

Content marketing is a hugely effective way of marketing your SaaS product. You should use your blog to find your thought leadership position – and it also helps your SEO, too.

Lead generation email marketing

Even in this post GDPR world, email is still a top way to generate leads. A carefully crafted and personalised email could win you your next customer.

Executing your marketing

At this stage of your SaaS product’s growth, your marketing is usually best outsourced to an agency or to freelancers.

Finding the model – up to $10 million ARR

At this point, you need to understand what marketing works for you – and then improve it even more.

Find repeatable, consistent marketing and do more of it

Work out what’s working from phase 1 and keep doing it. If email and blogs have been successful, do 2 blogs or emails a week instead of just 1.

Create even more content

Keep establishing your brand as the thought leader. Not only will this as mentioned help your SEO, but good and consistent content will keep your readers returning to your site.

Too many leads?

If you’re having trouble handling your leads, think about bringing in some marketing automation software. This will automate your repetitive tasks such as emails and scheduling social media posts.

Start building your brand even more

As your brand is becoming more established, start looking at further advertising and PR campaigns to make your name go further.

Executing your marketing

An outsourced marketing agency might be best suited to this stage, or possibly an in-house marketing director with the rest of the marketing work outsourced.

Scaling – up to $100m ARR 

As per the other stages you’ve likely got more budget now and can further ramp up the marketing you’re doing. Other things to consider at this stage are:

Mainstream brand building

At this stage, you should be looking at advertising your brand in more consumer places. This could be anywhere from national newspapers, to specialised TV adverts.

Putting on conferences

With help from your blog and other advertising, you will probably be a well-known product amongst consumers. Conferences can be an effective way to communicate with your current customers and tap into new ones. HubSpot runs a particularly large conference every year called Inbound.

Executing your marketing

Typically at this stage you’ll have a Marketing Director and some resource in house. You may choose however to outsource certain niche skills such as PPC or design.

Let Xander Marketing help your SaaS business at any stage

Whether you’re a start-up or a well-established business looking to expand or improve your marketing, Xander Marketing can help you.

We’ve been helping SaaS businesses all around the world since 2009 to grow their businesses. We work to support growth through new acquisition, increasing leads, generating more website traffic and raising industry awareness. If you lack the time, resource or know how to understand branding your SaaS product, then get in touch and book your free 30 minute consultation.