So, you made a big splash in the world of SaaS, congrats. You built a viable product and people are buying it. As you review your growth stats, you notice your numbers are beginning to plateau. If you want to continue moving the needle forward, you need a SaaS marketing strategy.
I’m going to tell you how I built PracticePanther, a legal tech SaaS platform designed to help lawyers manage their day-to-day operations — with agile, no-frill, and low-cost marketing SaaS tools.
It starts with you.
You had the idea, the idea that turned into a company, a company that has kept you up at night for the past few months, probably years. No one knows or talks to their customers better than you do.
For me, PracticePanther was still in beta form when I spent a year of my life picking up the phone and cold calling prospective customers. I learned their most frustrating pain points. I asked them to dream up a wish list of solutions that didn’t exist yet. I showed them product demos and handled all inbound sales calls. I learned how to perfect the sales process and flow through these customer conversations.
This was essential. As the leads began to flow in, I was armed with everything I could possibly need to know about our target audience. This treasure trove of hard-earned insights enabled me to employ marketing SaaS tools that would help me speak to a larger audience and grow PracticePanther.
Here are five crucial SaaS marketing tools that fast-tracked PracticePanther’s growth:
1. Rebump | CRM | Automate your Customer Follow-Up
It’s true — the sales process can be time-consuming, and there’s no way around it. Because in order to build a relationship with a new customer, you need to follow-up not once or twice, but sometimes 3-5 times. If you’re working with a leaner budget and can’t spend $3,000+ on a Hubspot account, Rebump is the way to go. For $5 a month, Rebump works while you sleep. Create authentic and personable automated follow-up emails and watch the customer engagement roll in.
2. Tweepi | Social Media | Grow your Twitter Following
I’m going to hit you with a hard, but honest truth: Social media was not king for our business, and it may not be for yours either. Social media was a laborious time-sucking trap for us in the early days. While it’s technically “free,” WAY too much time was wasted on social with very little ROI. However, there is value in having a presence on social media, if you do it right. Tweepi is an automated social media crawler that engages and follows on-target customers. Within a week, PracticePanther gained hundreds of followers that comprised of real lawyers based in the USA (our current demographic at the time).
3. Google Ads | Paid Advertising | Drive Traffic
It’s David vs. Goliath out there on the world wide web…look bigger than you are. When we first launched, we were strategic with every penny we spent. We knew that if we didn’t optimize our landing pages with hundreds of AB tests, we wouldn’t be able to compete. So with a small budget, we started at $2 per click. With each click, we continued to optimize for conversions, and eventually became #1 at the top of all major directories, spending over $50/click and still earning an ROI.
4. Upwork | Content Creation | Create High-Quality Content
In the early days, we had a team of less than 10 people. We didn’t have time to create high-quality content to engage our audience so we had to outsource. We turned to Upwork to hire creative graphic designers, video editors, and copywriters. This saved us time, grew our content arsenal, and we gained trusted partners in the process — some of whom we still work with years later! In order to hire the best candidate, only interview folks with a 95 % or higher success rate and who have completed 1,000+ hours of work. This will help narrow down your search and get excellent results.
5. GrowthHackers | Learning | Stay Fresh with the Latest Trends
The marketing and sales landscape is constantly evolving. Stay on top of the latest consumer and tech trends by subscribing to GrowthHackers, a community-based blog founded by Sean Ellis, AKA the godfather of “growth hacking.” GrowthHackers posts daily content and discussion forums on modern marketing topics. Also, if you’re an old-fashioned book reader (like me), you’ll enjoy Do It! Marketing by David Newman and Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug.
In 2020, get ready, because the competition will only get fiercer. The automated SaaS marketing landscape will continue to grow and so will the price tag. The only way to stay in the ring is to be an active player. Make sure your business is seen with high-quality content and you’ll be just fine.
I love to geek out on automated SaaS marketing. Shoot me an email at [email protected] if you have any questions — it would be great to connect.
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