SaaS marketing can be tricky. But don't worry, we've got your back.

In this guide, we'll show you how to boost your SaaS marketing game for 2024 (and beyond). We've talked to experts, dug into our own experience, and put together strategies that work.

Take Dropbox, for example. They used a simple referral program, and boom – 3900% more users in 15 months 😱📈

That's the kind of smart thinking we'll explore here.

Whether you're just starting out or looking to level up, you'll find practical tips to increase signups and sales. We'll cover everything from content marketing to keeping your customers happy.

Ready to make your SaaS stand out? Let's dive in.

What is SaaS marketing?

We’re all familiar with the basics of SaaS product marketing, such as attracting users to a SaaS product with a subscription business model. That said, there are key differences between a SaaS marketing strategy and standard digital marketing.

Having a clear SaaS marketing plan is essential to landing new users, keeping the customers you already have, and increasing their lifetime value over time.

In this guide, we will highlight some of the nuances of SaaS marketing, walk you through its various components, and teach you how to create effective strategies.

TL;DR

• SaaS marketing is the process of launching a product, building awareness, landing customers, retaining them, and increasing their lifetime value.
• SaaS marketing requires an effective retention strategy as the majority of a customer’s lifetime value is dependent on them renewing their subscription.
• Your SaaS marketing plan should factor in all five stages: attracting leads, nurturing leads, retaining customers, enhancing revenue, and tracking performance.
• Creating an effective SaaS marketing campaign will come down to identifying your audience, positioning your product, finding the right channels, using relevant KPIs, and adhering to best practices.

A few product marketing strategies you can try include:

• Using content marketing to lower acquisition costs.
• Leveraging interactive product demos to let prospects try your product without a demo call, subscription, or paywall.
• Increasing signups with a free trial or freemium plan.
• Personalizing the user experience with personalized demos.
• Offering self-service support and async onboarding options.
• Gamifying onboarding.
• Leveraging video content.
• Proactively addressing customer needs.
• Building a community.
• Creating a referral program to drive word-of-mouth marketing.

How is SaaS marketing different from digital marketing and every other type of marketing?

SaaS marketing stands out in several key ways:

• Free trials are the norm: Unlike physical products, SaaS companies often give away their full product for free trials. This strategy helps users experience the value firsthand.

• Rapid sales cycles: SaaS purchases can happen in days or even hours, not months. Customers research, try, and buy quickly.

When [SaaS customers] need a solution, they do some online research, maybe ask a colleague, try the solution or watch a demo, and then buy. The whole process might take a few days, maybe a few hours. There’s no long, drawn out sales engagements, RFIs and RFPs, head-to-head “bake-offs,” contract negotiations, blah, blah, blah. Customers find it, they see it, they like it, they buy it. Done.

- Peter Cohen, SaaS Marketing Strategy

• Information is king: Content marketing is crucial. SaaS companies often become go-to sources of industry knowledge.

• Long-term focus: Customer retention is vital. Most revenue comes from existing users, not new acquisitions. SaaS products are often offered on a subscription model, meaning retention is just as important as acquisition (if not more important). In addition to generating leads, a SaaS marketing strategy should also seek to educate potential customers on the value proposition of the product.
• Service over product: While the software matters, ongoing service and support are equally important for success.

“When creating your SaaS marketing plan, you must understand that your business model of choice is a fully-integrated architecture where all aspects of the business — product, support, revenue model, and marketing — are tightly-coupled.”

- Lincoln Murphy

• Self-service model: Many SaaS products are designed for users to buy and use without extensive sales involvement.

These differences shape how SaaS companies approach marketing, focusing on education, quick value demonstration, and building lasting relationships.

Another notable difference is that a sizeable percentage of SaaS marketing efforts occur inside the product itself while traditional digital marketing relies heavily on external channels such as organic social media or paid ad campaigns to reach customers.

What you include in your SaaS marketing playbook will depend on who your customers are. Account-based marketing is the preferred approach for enterprise solutions, while software bundles often leverage email marketing to generate sales.

What are the different components of SaaS marketing?

If you talk to a SaaS marketing agency, you’ll likely see each SaaS marketing campaign broken down into five different stages:

1. Attracting leads. Any inbound marketing campaign needs to start by attracting potential customers that align with the target audience of SaaS businesses — often through traffic from search engines or social media.
2. Nurturing leads. Once you have the attention of a potential customer, you need to continue nurturing them along the sales process until they understand the value proposition and convert into a customer or at least sign up for a free trial.
3. Retaining customers. Ensuring that customers stay with your SaaS service long-term is crucial since most of their lifetime value (LTV) is derived from subscription renewals rather than their first upfront payment. Prioritizing key engagement and adoption metrics is important to successful retention.
4. Enhancing revenue. Driving account expansion to increase the amount of revenue that your loyal customers generate is always a core goal for any SaaS marketer.
5. Tracking performance. Last but not least, any type of marketing campaign needs a system for tracking performance so you can allocate your marketing budget in the most effective way possible.

Getting started: How to create an effective SaaS marketing strategy

The sections below will walk you through the six steps you need to take to create a successful marketing strategy for your own SaaS products!

1. Identify your target audience and customer personas

First and foremost, you need to identify who your target audience is and create customer personas that reflect it.

There are multiple ways you could go about this. Some SaaS marketers prefer to look at the data from your current customers and use that as a foundation for user personas.

After all, the best way to ensure customer retention is by first understanding the needs of your current customers. You could use a user persona survey to collect customer data and figure out who your SaaS marketing should target moving forward.

To get the most accurate picture, you should combine both quantitative and qualitative data.

Examples of quantitative data include:

• Demographics. Age, gender and/or sex, marital status, education level, location, and profession are all examples of demographic data.
• Statistics. Statistical data from databases, journals, and other online sources also count as quantitative data.

Don’t read too deeply into quantitative data though. Knowing that your users are mostly made up of married 40-year-old teachers is nice information to have but it’s far more important to understand how they interact with your product through qualitative data.

Examples of qualitative data include:

• Survey responses.
• Personal interviews.
• Focus group insights.

2. Define your positioning and messaging

Next, you’ll need to decide how to position your product and the messaging you want to build around it.

Positioning makes it possible to set clear expectations with prospects that leverage your product’s unique benefits and competitive advantage over alternatives.

Well-defined messaging strategies help you effectively communicate the core benefit(s) of your product to any potential customers.

Positioning and messaging often go hand in hand as they have to remain consistent with one another.

3. Choose marketing channels

Once SaaS marketing teams have identified the target audience and defined the positioning of the product, it’s time to select the marketing channels that will be used to drive acquisitions.

There are a few SaaS marketing channels you could consider:

• In-app marketing. In-app marketing is one of the most reliable ways for your marketing team to connect with customers as their messaging will appear while users are inside the product.
• Content marketing. The humble blog post has become a staple of the SaaS industry as Google Analytics shows that organic traffic is a highly effective way to drive qualified leads to your product.
• Search engine optimization. SEO often goes hand-in-hand with content marketing as it ensures that SaaS companies are able to rank high in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
• Email marketing. While outbound marketing strategies like email may not be as popular an acquisition method for SaaS companies, it has a fairly good track record in the SaaS marketing space.
• Social media marketing. Much like physical products, most consumers look at the social media presence of SaaS products before making a purchase so making sure you’re active on these channels is quite important.
• Google ads. Pay-per-click advertising won’t be the right fit for every SaaS company as paid ads can get rather expensive over time. That said, paid ads can be used strategically to boost new content and get your product in front of customers sooner.
• Influencer marketing. Influencer marketing can be a great way to leverage other people’s audiences and accelerate your growth across multiple social media platforms.
• Referral marketing. Referral programs are a very effective strategy for SaaS companies as they reward the loyalty of existing users while providing an incentive for word-of-mouth marketing.

4. Set SaaS marketing metrics to measure the success of your marketing efforts

Like any traditional marketing campaign, having the right metrics in place is paramount to measuring the ROI of your efforts. The exact set of product marketing KPIs you use to measure marketing outcomes will depend on the goals you’ve set for your campaigns.

A few SaaS marketing metrics to consider using include:

• Customer acquisition cost (CAC): Monitoring your CAC will ensure that you’re not overspending (relative to customer lifetime value) and still have a high enough profit margin to actually make money from the users you’re landing.
• Customer lifetime value (LTV): Tracking LTV growth will help you gauge the efficacy of your customer expansion strategies.
• Trial-to-paid conversion rate: Your free trial conversion rate will be a good indicator of how streamlined your onboarding process is and whether or not improvements are needed.
• Retention rate: Your retention rate will be the most reliable measure of how happy customers are with your product. High retention rates mean they’re getting consistent value out of the product over long periods of time.
• Monthly recurring revenue (MRR): Not all SaaS marketing efforts will have an immediate or direct impact on revenue growth but you should still track the trajectory of your MRR over time. Sluggish MRR growth could be an indicator of poor product-market fit, high churn, or a pricing mismatch.
• Churn rate: Reducing the churn rate should be a key priority for any SaaS business as it’s a lot cheaper to keep the customers that you already have rather than constantly trying to get new signups.
• Net Promoter Score (NPS): NPS data tells you how likely existing customers are to refer your product to friends or colleagues.
• Customer satisfaction score (CSAT): CSAT scores are often used to track the level of satisfaction that customers have with your product.

5. Develop your SaaS marketing strategies

Once you’ve chosen your marketing channels and the KPIs that you’ll use to measure success, it’s time to select specific SaaS marketing tactics that you can deploy throughout your campaigns. To get the most out of these tactics, you should follow a few SaaS marketing best practices, such as:

• Using product-led growth to reduce acquisition costs.
• Including CTAs in all published content.
• Driving feature discovery with in-app announcements.
• Gathering feedback from your users.
• Providing self-service support resources.
• Adding interactive product demos and micro videos to onboarding flows.
• Gamifying and personalizing the onboarding experience like the example below:

6. Measure and improve to ensure SaaS marketing success

SaaS marketing is an ongoing process that requires constant improvement to get the best results.

In addition to the product marketing KPIs you selected earlier, you can also look at objectives and key results (OKRs) to see if your campaigns are hitting the milestones needed to achieve your goals.

Advanced SaaS marketing tips to boost your growth

Now, let's look at some more strategies you can implement to grow your SaaS business.

1. Build a community

A strong community can be your SaaS brand's secret weapon. From day one, focus on nurturing this asset. Whether you start with a handful of enthusiasts or thousands, the strength lies in your core members.

Community building isn't just about numbers. It's about creating a space where passion for SaaS thrives.

Building a community takes time and effort, but the rewards are substantial. It can boost brand loyalty, provide valuable feedback, and even spark new ideas for your product. In the SaaS world, your community can be your biggest asset for sustainable growth.

2. Remove barriers to sign-up

Let's bust a myth: "qualification barriers" or requiring credit cards for free trials don't create better customers. They just create fewer customers, period.

The data speaks volumes. Reducing fields on your sign-up form can dramatically boost your conversion rates. It's not about gatekeeping; it's about opening doors.

Consider and learn from the smart moves of successful SaaS companies.

Dropbox: Just an email to get started.

Why does this work? It's simple psychology. Every extra field is another chance for a potential user to think, "Do I really need this?" and bounce. By keeping it simple, you're saying, "Come on in, the water's fine!"

Remember, you can always gather more information later. The goal of your sign-up process should be just that - to get people to sign up. Save the detailed questions for when they're already experiencing your product's value.

In SaaS, your biggest enemy isn't unqualified leads. It's friction. So make your sign-up process smooth as silk, and watch your user base grow.

3. Invest in SaaS content marketing

Content marketing is a powerhouse for SaaS growth. Why? Because your potential customers are already searching for solutions to their problems online.

Key points to remember:

• Focus on outcomes, not features: Don't just list what your product does. Show how it solves problems and improves lives.
• Align with the buyer's journey: Create content that answers questions at each stage, from awareness to decision.
• Quality trumps quantity: Consistently produce high-quality, persona-driven content. It's not about how much, but how good.
• Optimize for search: Make your content easy to find. Use relevant keywords, but don't sacrifice readability.
• Be a thought leader: You know your customer's pain points. Use this knowledge to provide valuable insights.
• Offer value upfront: Consider gating premium content (like ebooks or webinars) in exchange for contact information.
• (Hyper) Personalize your approach: Tailor your messaging to specific industries or personas. One-size-fits-all rarely fits anyone well.
• Promote strategically: Use social media and other channels to amplify your content's reach.

Remember, effective SaaS content marketing isn't just about attracting leads—it's about nurturing them through the sales funnel. Your content should educate, engage, and ultimately convert.

By focusing on creating valuable, relevant content, you position your SaaS as the go-to solution in your niche. It's not just marketing; it's building relationships with your future customers.

4. Show, don't tell!

In the SaaS world, seeing is believing. That's where interactive demos come in, embodying the "show, don't tell" principle perfectly.

Interactive demos are game-changers in SaaS marketing. They let potential customers experience your product firsthand, without the commitment of signing up.

Why are they so effective?

• Removes friction: Users can explore your product without the barrier of registration or installation.
• Provides real feel: Nothing beats hands-on experience. Users get a true sense of your interface and features.
• Boosts engagement: Interactive elements naturally draw people in, keeping them on your site longer.
• Accelerates decision-making: When users can see the value immediately, they're more likely to convert faster.

The beauty of interactive demos lies in their versatility. You can use them:

• On your homepage to grab attention
• In blog posts to illustrate points
• During sales outreach to showcase specific features
• In onboarding to familiarize new users

Some companies even create custom demo environments for different use cases or industries.

Remember, people retain information better when they're actively involved. An interactive demo turns passive observers into active participants.

By implementing interactive demos, you're not just telling potential customers about your product - you're letting them experience it. This hands-on approach can significantly reduce doubts and accelerate the path to purchase.

In a world where attention spans are short and competition is fierce, interactive demos give you an edge. They show confidence in your product and respect for your customer's time. It's a powerful way to say, "We know our product is great. Here, see for yourself."

Consider interactive demos in marketing

Interactive product demos are visual, guided demonstrations of your product's key features, benefits, and use cases.

Just like you'd explore and try on clothes in a clothing store before buying it, interactive demos create a virtual showroom for your products. Users can explore, interact, and navigate the product without paying for it.

Interactive demos can be a powerful tool in your marketing roadmap, launch, or day-to-day initiatives. For instance, it can:

1. Create awareness and demand for your product
2. Gather user feedback post-product launch
3. Announce and showcase product updates

Ultimately, interactive demos help create engaging experiences that showcase the value your audience is looking for and also help them understand how your product is the solution to their pain points.

To get started, all you need to do is click here and start building demos for free, no credit card required.
But, your product marketing strategy is missing a key consideration.

• More than your landing page, buyers want to see the product in action.
• They want to test your product before they start working on the case to get buy-in.
• They need assurance that your product can solve their challenges by delivering the outcomes they’re hoping for.

Interactive product demos take care of these pain points. These demos reduce the gap between your product and buyers by giving them a frictionless way to experience its features in real time.