The Most Effective SaaS Product Marketing Strategies Used by Unicorns
SaaS Product marketing can be the differentiation in articulating the value of your product, increasing sign-ups and ultimately winning customers. The marketing strategies used by SaaS companies vary according to the nature of the products, industries, locations and type of customers. But, there are few proven SaaS product marketing strategies that can be used by businesses across the board. The Unicorns are privately held companies with a valuation of at least $1 billion.
Most of the Unicorns owe their success to creative marketing strategies that helped them build their business from a valuation of 0 to $1billion. Here’s a look at the most effective SaaS product marketing strategies used by Unicorns:
1. Content Development
A sound marketing strategy revolves around its content. The content development strategy outlines what is in it for the customers. A good content strategy provides customers what they’re looking for to solve their problems.
Before you zone into the content development, answer the following to create relevant, focused and valuable content for your users.
Your target customer: Whom are you selling and solving the problem for?
Problem: What is their current problem?
Outcome: What the customer can accomplish using your product?
Risk: Why you believe you can solve this problem better than other alternatives
Long-term gains: What is the long-term impact of solving this problem?
A good content strategy provides thoughtful answers for its customer’s pain points. It captures the essence of their needs and helps them accomplish their goals.
2. Hand Holding for Frictionless Adoption
One of the biggest differences between companies that make it big and others, who don’t, lies in their approach to their product adoption. Take for e.g. the case of Etsy, it is a $2 billion public company which allows artists to sell their creations on its platform.
The company started in 2005 and it created a marketplace where buyers and sellers could transact seamlessly. The founders went to every artisan flea market, understood what the artists were looking for and helped them list their items on their platform. They, like many founders who build scalable companies, worked with the actual users and customers on the platform.
Frictionless support needs careful evaluation of the needs of the users. A platform like eBay wasn’t meeting the needs of the artists. But Etsy worked with the artisans and ensured they covered things end to end to get them registered on the platform. This frictionless support and doing the groundwork is what separates the best SaaS products. Frictionless adoption of a SaaS product by working with the real users is an unbeatable marketing strategy for any business.
3. Location
A SaaS product can be adopted by users and customers around the world. But zoning into a specific location and user
base helps the team solve things end to end for them. Take for e.g. Facebook ads, the product ads are tailored to the user location. The currency, the pricing and the messaging are targeted according to the location of the users.
Most SaaS products that scale up are built with a targeted user base. When a product can dominate in a specific location and solve the problem for the users, it can scale up to serve other locations as well. Etsy solved the problem for its local artisans first, Uber offered its app to nearby conference participants and FB started from a campus.
A specific niche, location and user base can help define marketing precisely for your SaaS product. It will also provide your team the opportunity to gather feedback firsthand and interact with the customers of the product.
4. Leveraging Unfair Competitive Advantage
Companies that make it big often have a secret sauce that they can leverage to their advantage. It gives them a thrust
and opening to a wide market base, which pushes them to great heights. It could be your location, team, unique products, culture or execution. Whatever gives you an edge over your competition must be communicated with clarity in your marketing messages.
What is your main competitive advantage that puts your competitors at a disadvantage?
Why would a customer prefer your business over your competitors?
5. Growth Partners
Breakthrough SaaS products are often built and marketed creatively. The innovative marketing strategies can be used for targeting the customers. Understand the behavioral patterns of your customers, where they hang out. You need to build a strategy to reach out to them with strong partnerships. For e.g. if you’re offering a SaaS product for travelers, you could consider partnerships with travel agencies. If you’re targeting students, you could consider tie-ups with schools and universities.
SaaS products can be marketed through affiliate partners with mutually benefits. Depending on the type of business, industry, locations and your customer profiles, your company can build innovative outreach strategies for customers.
6. Innovative Monetization
Most customers would prefer to use the products for free, whenever they can. Free is a powerful way to get the customers to use your products. However, you can build innovative monetization strategies to build your business.
Government departments have been increasingly adopting the SaaS products for their day to day operations.
However, the traditional users of their systems are prone to legacy approaches for data upkeep. Some companies are experimenting with fees for digitization of documents, this provides an additional services revenue component and also helps the departments get their things done.
Solar energy companies are now offering their products on rental models compared to traditional ownership based models. Many SaaS companies are offering free products and charging for services like accounting, bookkeeping etc.
With innovative monetization models, the customer cost of acquisition is reduced significantly. They can reap the benefits of innovation & even tell others about it.
7. Breakthrough Offerings
The disruptions offer one of the best ways to market your products. When the customers get something unique, they can become your loyal brand advocates. When Spotify launched its online music service, it allowed users to listen to their favorite songs at a low monthly subscription fee. It changed the way music was bought. Earlier, users had to pay for purchasing albums or songs, but with a low monthly fee they could listen to unlimited songs.
The best SaaS products that go on to become Unicorns often change the business models of their industries. The disruptive offerings develop new ways for customers to achieve what they want, increase their engagement and establish a dominant market position.
Kreyon Systems is a global SaaS company. If you have any queries for us or need help in implementation of SaaS products, please reach out to us.