What Is SaaS Marketing? How Does It Work?
By NewsProfy
What is SaaS marketing?
The acronym SaaS is a familiar term if you are entering the marketing industry. Simply meaning software as a service, SaaS products open up a wide market of digital products usable in diverse work platforms.
A digital product-based business model, SaaS products usually target B2B and B2C customers. Unlike many tangible product-based business models, SaaS products require a slightly different and more consistent level of marketing initiatives.
If you are curious about the unique ways of SaaS marketing, then I am more than happy to help you with some solid information.
This article focuses on what SaaS marketing is and how SaaS marketing work. So if your question is, what is b2b saas marketing? Or what is SaaS marketing? Then you will find answers here.
What Are SaaS Products?
Before you know about the marketing part, you have to gain a clear idea about what these products are. SaaS products are not material products you can hold in your hand. These are software that offers a specific service for a subscription-based plan.
Basically, all the software (like Hubspot and Adobe Creative Cloud) that you use is a SaaS product. Many companies build this software, and they make them available online through a cloud service. The users have to purchase them for use and pay a timely subscription fee.
I hope you are clear about SaaS products. Som what is saas product marketing? Below is the explanation.
Examples Of SaaS Products
Some examples of the SaaS products include –
- Photoshop.
- Hubspot.
- Netflix and other paid streaming platforms.
- Slack.
- Salesforce.
- Photoshop.
- Clip Studio Paint.
What Is SaaS Marketing?
In simple words, SaaS marketing refers to marketing efforts centring on a SaaS product. Marketers have to build awareness around the use of these products. Such marketing initiatives need to be simplistic, catchy and concisely informative about the said product/ SaaS.
The ultimate motive of SaaS marketing is branding and earning revenue through the retention of long-term paying customers.
How Does SaaS Marketing Work?
This type of marketing involves promoting products to generate leads and converting leads into paying subscriptions. Many SaaS products offer a trial version to generate leads. These products charge users according to the data they use on the software.
Most of the time, SaaS product marketing focuses on upgrading the app to increase the number of paid subscribers. The key to such marketing is brand awareness. The target audience for such products is usually B2B and B2C.
For instance, if you have software for email monitoring, only companies involved in email marketing will review them. The set of users for SaaS products is limited and is ever-expanding.
Unlike any tangible product marketing, SaaS products don’t simmer down the marketing campaigns down the road. In fact, the marketing effort needs to grow and be more consistent. With each up-gradation of the SaaS products, the marketing efforts for SaaS products increase.
Factors Affecting SaaS Product Marketing
The buyer journey of the customers, marketing competition, and the pricing of the SaaS products are important when it comes to this marketing. Here are few factors that affect the marketing of a SaaS product.
Buyers Journey
The most exciting part of SaaS products is that the user can use them before paying a single penny. That is why the customer’s journey to conversion is longer than traditional marketing.Â
The customers go through the software, enquire about the terms and conditions, and look at the pricing point until finally deciding to buy the product.
Competition
The number of SaaS products was 500 back in 2007. But the number increased to 8500 in 2017. The total spending of the end users on SaaS products is expected to be around $482 billion at the end of 2022.
Just as the number of users has increased, so has the competition. There is a similar SaaS solution for the same requirements.
Different industries have multiple SaaS products competing against each other. As a result, each product needs to have its own USP for long-term customer retention.
SaaS Product Pricing
Based on how much a SaaS Product sales, a business needs to create a unique pricing model. Before anything, it is extremely important to target the buyer’s persona ( either it is B2B or B2C).
Also, companies developing SaaS products need to be specific about the price for the different feature packages they are offering. Easy-to-understand pricing information related to SaaS is crucial.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
This was a very simple take on marketing SaaS products. However, for more questions, you can read the below-mentioned questions and answers–
The SaaS business model is currently the most popular business model where companies create service-based software. Users have to pay for these online cloud-based apps to use them. The industry is expected to be worth $623 billion by the end of 2023.Â
Yes, indeed. Netflix, Amazon Prime, and HBO max are all SaaS products, and the users have to submit to a subscription-based plan to use them. There are more examples of SaaS products. For instance, Hubspot, Photoshop, Salesforce, Shopify, Buffer, Wix, Crowdcast, and Zoom.
It is a software distribution model where there are a cloud provider hosting applications and availing them to the end users for a subscription-based model. An independent software provider usually contracts with a third-party cloud provider to host the application.Â
Bottom Line
When marketing a SaaS product, your efforts need to be a mix of both usual and unique selling points. You cannot market a SaaS product like any other tangible product. I want to save the SaaS product marketing tips for another day. In this article, I want to ensure that you are getting the basic idea about SaaS marketing.
What is SaaS marketing? I hope that you have got your answer. However, if you want a more sophisticated take on the topic and tips for SaaS marketing, you have to let me know in the comment. Also, if you liked this article, let me know that too.
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