INTRODUCTION:
Today, most large SaaS (software-as-serice) vendors use marketing automation. If you are a software vendor investigating how to generate leads then you need to seriously consider marketing automation as your solution. In this blog, we’ll explain what marketing automation is, benefits to SaaS companies like yourself and how you can get started.
The challenges faced by IT companies
You’ve probably heard this so many times ‘web leads are drying up’, ‘telemarketing just doesn’t get the cut through'. This is because the market we’re operating in has changed. It has been revolutionised by the internet and according to Sirius, 67% of the buyer journey and decisions are made online. It is particularly important because the first point of a buyer’s journey is an online search. Thus, more and more companies are ramping up their online activities and investing in social media, blogging and online search. Especially SaaS vendors who are often looking for volume adoption of their software solution. Yet, they are still bewildered about why their Google SEO activity is not generating the leads anticipated or they are not getting the ROI on social media. The answer to this situation is marketing automation.
Often when marketers are doing all the right things but not getting the results, the problem is all their online channels operate in silos and are not connected. Marketing automation allows you to integrate all your marketing tools. Plus, as its name suggests you can automate your marketing and even deliver personalised content according to a visitor’s behaviour on your website. Another important element is its analytics and your ‘single view of the truth’.
SaaS providers were one of the early adopters of marketing automation because it gave them the perfect platform to deliver their content and messages to their target audiences of millions. However, ten years ago marketing automation required specialist knowledge both technical and in the campaign design.
Now both the cost and the technicality of marketing automation has reduced and it has become an affordable and a must have element of the marketing spend for SaaS companies. Not only can it drive inbound leads to your website but it can manage your SaaS customer lifecycle and prevent churn.
Benefits of marketing automation
Here are some of the benefits of marketing automation for SaaS companies
- Convert free trials – create an automated workflow encouraging users to trial your software and to eventually convert at the end of the trial
- Drive your target buyers to your website – with your inbound marketing dashboard, you’re in the driving seat to adjust your SEO, send a tweet out..
- Nurture your leads by identifying their stage at of their buying cycle and send them relevant content
- Understand your buyer profiles and behaviour –nowadays, more and more buyers outside of the IT department are behind SaaS purchasing decisions, for example HR or marketing software.
- Lead prioritization – its website tracking behaviour can score your leads and allow you to follow up on any ‘hot leads’
- Reduce the sales cycle – plus it often allows you to close deals quicker
- Frees up resources – it saves you time on key tasks like reporting or email campaigns and allows you to reach and communicate with more of your target audience.
At Resourceful Marketing, we work with a range of SaaS companies and can see the perfect fit of marketing automation within it. Having worked with a variety of marketing automation solutions, we are HUGE advocates of Hubspot!!. Its so easy to set up, intuitive and powerful and you immediately track your ROI with its impressive reporting suite.
If you would like to find out more about how marketing automation could work for you, we are happy to have an informal chat with you. Plus, marketing automation is part of a wider marketing strategy called inbound marketing – find out how to get started with our FREE Inbound Marketing Checklist.
For more information:
- https://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2259997/76-of-the-worlds-largest-saas-companies-use-marketing-automation
- https://www.siriusdecisions.com/Blog/2013/Jul/Three-Myths-of-the-67-Percent-Statistic.aspx
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