8 Steps to jumpstart your Inbound Marketing for your SaaS business

Today, Inbound marketing isn’t just a ‘nice-to-have’ in marketing your SaaS business. It is a pivotal part of your demand generation strategy. 

Here are 9 Steps to jumpstart your Inbound Marketing for your SaaS business:

Step 1- Admit it

You cannot fix a problem that you don't acknowledge you have. If inbound marketing is not a part of the marketing strategy in your SaaS business, you have missed out on an essential part of your marketing strategy that will help your business grow.

With inbound marketing, you have the opportunity to engage with your prospects and customers regularly secure new business opportunities, and boost customer efficacy.

Step 2- A Checklist of the MarTech Stack at your disposal Reviewing your available marketing technologies will help you understand the potential (and limitations) to implement your SaaS inbound marketing strategy. 

Further, you will be able to identify the gaps in your marketing tech stack and understand the capability to execute a successful marketing program.

At a bare minimum, you need the following to get started 1. Website & landing page 2. Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager 3. CRM (preferably without a lot of redundant data) 4. Sales automation tool/platform

5. Marketing automation tool/platform Note - The number of players in the marketing technology space is overpopulated. Do not choose the first option of the shelf that has great reviews. Choose service providers based on the value it adds to your customers.

A good approach is to start small and opt for solutions that integrate well and reduces redundancies in your marketing stack.

On the other hand, you could also choose a service provider like Hubspot that covers all layers without having to deal with any integration issues.

What is your Ideal Customer Profile Now that you have your tech in place, you are ready to lay the foundation of your inbound campaigns.

Who is your ideal customer? Understand their behavior (online and offline).

These questions will form the basis of your communication strategy and customer cohorts

I - Customer Segmentation (and Prioritisation) 

Categorize/split your customer base into (multiple) cohorts based on criteria(s) that differentiate them from one another. 

Example of splits to help you get started

- Seniority

- Job title

- Industry sector

- Company value / Turnover, etc

It is important the disparity in cohort splits created impacts their challenges (and how your brand meets them) and how you would engage with them. If the customer cohort splits do not change their business challenge or how they would engage with you, then they don’t (necessarily) need to be split.

Once you have segmented your target audience, create a prioritization metric to help you identify which groups are most bankable and easier to attract in comparison to the rest. Take stock of the resources required to engage with your audience and understand how likely they are to opt for your product or service. 

Pro tip - If you do not have past data, guestimate. However, be prepared to be proven wrong and update your marketing strategy accordingly.

At the end of this process, understand your greatest priority group .ie. the one that takes the least effort and budget to convert to a sale .aka. the low hanging fruit.

Once you have completed this phase, you want to dig deeper into each audience cohort and identify common characteristics with personas

II - Persona Development

A customer persona is a representation of your ideal customer. Yes, that's it but it takes time and effort to understand.

Customer personas are built based on a combination of both existing customer data and market research.  They will add significant detail to each audience segmented group by outlining their preferences, behavior, and profile to a granular level that can help justify your strategic initiatives.

III - Customer Journey Development 

After you have your customer personas, map out unique customer journies for each audience group.

Chart a journey a (prospective) customer would take from when they first heard about your product or service to the point of sale.i.e. from the stage when a user recognizes a problem they have to when they reach out for a solution.

Step 3 - Re(de)fine Your Value Proposition

Define what value are you looking to deliver and how you intend to engage with each customer persona.

Ensure there is a consistent understanding of your primary value proposition, how it correlates with the personas created, and how it can resolve their problems. 

Next, review every customer journey and think about how you would like to position yourself for them to recognize you as a genuine solution provider. 

Step 4 - Map your content to your Customer Journey 

So, you have

- Identified and prioritized customer personas - created a customer journey - A clear value proposition  - Content plan and channel to communicate with each persona 

You now need to map your content with each customer persona in the buyer journey. The focus needs to be on educating and nurturing prospects all through the sales funnel.

The Customer Journey

A customer journey is the route a prospect takes before they decide to opt for your product or service. It typically consists of 3 layers.i.e.Top of Funnel (TOFU), Middle of the Funnel (MOFU), and Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU). Each of them has their own objective to effectively drive Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs), Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs), and purchases. 

Top of Funnel (TOFU) - The "awareness" stage

Middle of the Funnel (MOFU) - The "evaluation" stage

Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU) - The "purchase" stage

Step 5  - Identify Search Opportunities with Keyword Research

Keyword research is the identification of key search terms that your personas look for in search engines. This information can help you build your content to drive highly targeted organic traffic. 

It is important to get the attention of your prospects and get them into your nurture strategy. 

With efficient keyword research, your content will be in front of the right people at the right stage of the buyer journey.

Step 6 - Personalise, Personalise and Personalise

As a B2B SaaS brand, you are not just communicating with prospects, but customers too. Your inbound marketing campaign should focus on driving customer retention as well as new sign-ups. Hence, it is important to identify what each group needs

While your prospects need to be convinced with the potential of your offerings, your customers need help to make the most of what they have purchased.

Pro-tip - Understand the difference in the content shared with your prospects and customers

Step 7 - Measure Your Successes (and learnings)

With a marketing strategy now outlined, you may want to measure the performance of your marketing efforts. 

- What is your campaign objective?

- What is the timeframe of the campaign?

- What are your core KPIs?

- How are they tracked? Automated or Manual?

It is essential to separate success from failure with quantitative objectives in place to evaluate your efforts effectively.  

Step 8 - Content Distribution Strategy

Plan how you intend to get your content in front of the right audience at the right time with a distribution strategy.

- Which channel should you use? Why?

- Should you choose a paid channel?

- How to get maximum bang for your buck?

While there are plenty of paid channels to opt from, B2B SaaS businesses use two primary channels. i.e. Adwords and LinkedIn. 

Conclusion

Building out your inbound marketing plan doesn’t have to be rocket science, it’s the simple things that work best. It is pivotal to put yourself in your buyer’s shoes, understand their pain points, and then offer value aligned to your solution.

Remember, in B2B SaaS inbound marketing, your current customers are just as important as your prospective customers.

- Yogesh Babu

PS - Do share your thoughts on the article in the comments below. I will respond to you as soon as I can.