What are the Secrets of Success in SaaS?

Why spend any time or money on SaaS marketing if it isn't going to pay off? And yet there are plenty of companies sinking thousands of dollars every month into inbound marketing strategies that don't pay their own way—let alone return a profit.

Common Sense Secrets to SaaS Inbound Marketing Success

The wonderful news for you is that marketing success has nothing to do with complicated, top-secret or corporate-only strategies. In fact, the real "magic secrets" of ROI-generating software marketing are so common sense, we hope you don't feel silly when you read them.

It's easy to lose sight of the real-world picture when we're compelled to follow latest and greatest tips to "stump Google crawlers and get pages ranked." And that leads us to Common Sense Secret #1...

Secret #1: Tell your customer what they want and need to hear

The beginning of inbound marketing got us pretty hung up on "tricks" for getting the search engines to rank your pages above the fold. That's still the goal, of course, but the reality is that tricking people never works for very long.

We now know the most successful companies do what any friend, advisor, mentor or confidant does—they listen to what their target markets want, and then they provide products/services accordingly. To market them, these companies produce lots of high-quality and varied information about those products/services. As a result, they become prospects' go-to resource because the company has historically proven itself to be an approachable and intuitive authority on the subject.

Try putting SEO tricks on the back-burner. Focus on what buyer personas need to read and process to feel comfortable learning more, to become a qualified lead, and to eventually become a sale. Quality content has always been the way to go.

Secret #2: You can't buy customer loyalty

Of course, people love freebies and discounts, buyer incentives, and kick-backs. At the end of the day, however, these bonuses don't make for long-term, loyal customers. For this reason, we want to warn you about two common marketing strategies that backfire more often than not.

1. Buying email lists. How warm and fuzzy do you feel when cold-called by a company you have no interest in? Reality check: buying email lists and using them is the digital equivalent of cold-calling, and it's not a good idea. Work towards growing email lists organically and use them to nurture qualified leads.
   
   
2. PPC rush-jobs. Yes, PPC is a way to "buy" customers by way of site visits and click-throughs. However, it's all going to backfire if those ads either link to generic, poorly-planned landing pages OR if you target all of them towards the bottom of the funnel. Instead, be savvy and target PPC ads towards top- and middle-funnel prospects and nurture them. It takes a bit longer but results in a significantly higher ROI.

The more you nurture the right targets, the more successful your SaaS marketing will be.

Secret #3: Personal connections are always best

When we need something, we look to our inner circles first before seeking outward. Making yourself visible at trade shows and industry-relevant events is an automatic opportunity to exponentially grow your inner circles as long as you've confirmed your target market(s) will be there.

Capitalize on those connections by:

• Inviting local/semi-local leads and customers
• Using social media to promote your presence and hosted events
• Referring clients and prospects to specific talks, presentations or Q&A sessions of particular interest to their niche

It all makes such simple sense, doesn't it? Now use that sensible "magic" to grow the success of your SaaS business.