Nowadays, the SaaS model of providing software service to companies and individuals alike has become significantly popular. People prefer the subscription-based model because it provides more flexibility in terms of use compared to the traditional way of purchasing software licenses.
Moreover, SaaS products keep evolving and improving based on user feedback, which is another benefit of this model. However, as popular as SaaS products are, people still tend to do a lot of research before deciding which solution to opt for.
For SaaS brands, it’s crucial to focus on every lead so they can ensure more conversions. If you happen to own such a brand, you know that a lead is every consumer who shows even a remote interest in your business or your products.
Given the time and proper nurturing, every lead can become a paying customer. Considering how competitive the online market is and how popular SaaS products are, every lead counts, and you cannot afford to neglect them.
With that in mind, here are a few lead generation tools and techniques for SaaS brands in 2021.
- Create buyer personas
Some SaaS brands focus on B2B relations. Others focus on B2C, while some focus on both. No matter which path your brand is going, it’s vital to create buyer personas to know which audience to target.
Finding potential leads is far easier when looking at people interested in products similar to what you have to offer. Here are a few examples of creating buyer personas.
- Who are your potential customers?
- Determine your audience’s demographics.
- Consider their lifestyle, interests, preferences, incomes etc.
- Why are these consumers interested in your product?
- Are there any pain points your product could solve for these consumers?
- What kind of content they’re looking for when researching similar products?
- Where can you best reach potential leads?
The main difference between B2B and B2C leads is that B2B leads are more interested in product features. These are startups and companies alike that want tools to improve their business.
On the other hand, B2C leads are individuals like solopreneurs and freelancers. They are more interested in product flexibility and pricing options. If you need additional assistance, HubSpot has a tool called “Make My Persona” that can help you create buyer personas.
- Create awesome landing pages
Lead generation is not just about showcasing promotions and offers to your target audience. It’s also about encouraging consumers to show interest in your products and services by creating exposure for your brand.
For example, a lot of consumers may find your website through a quick Google search. Once they explore your website a bit, they may become leads because your offers sound right to them.
That’s why it’s very important to create awesome landing pages and ensure that people who land on your pages are impressed with what they see.
An awesome landing page includes all the right design elements and visuals, as well as the right message and information that will encourage visitors to stay and explore further. If you don’t know how to create such landing pages, you can always find someone who does.
Therefore, if you operate in Florida, for instance, you can find a reliable web design agency from Florida. Working with a local agency is always better because communication is more seamless, and there are no time zone differences to worry about.
- Email still reigns supreme
Experts can argue over whether or not the email is obsolete until the end of time. The fact of the matter is that email is still one of the best channels for lead generating and lead nurturing. This is especially true for your SaaS brand.
If you need to get in front of your target audience, email is one of the best channels to do so. Google’s Gmail is one of the best tools to utilize. You can set your AdWords campaign to help you reach people who receive emails from your competitors.
If you’re confident that your unique value proposition has something better to offer to your competitor’s customers, then those customers will certainly be interested in what you have to offer.
You can use Gmail ads to send the right message to the right people. Moreover, you can leverage email segmentation to categorize potential leads based on their current interest in your offers.
This allows you to nurture leads down your sales funnel by sending them personalized messages with custom promotions. You can cater to each group segment individually until they are all ready to take the desired action and convert.
- Optimize your website using SEO
Proper website optimization is crucial for lead generation. As you may already know, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) helps websites become more visible and accessible online. But it’s not just your website. In fact, SEO can boost the visibility of your content and individual pages.
Therefore, if you happen to be working with a web design agency from Chicago on developing product videos and other useful content regarding your SaaS product, you want that content to be as visible to online consumers as possible.
Moreover, you also want that content to lead back to your website when it gets shared on other media channels, such as social media, for instance. That’s why SEO is very important for your brand.
Here are a few examples of how SEO can help you generate more qualified leads.
- Technical SEO – Helps you optimize your website’s functionality, such as improving website speed, ensuring both user and mobile-friendliness, creating seamless navigation etc. These are all individual ranking factors that boost your positioning on SERPs and help consumers find you more easily.
- On-page SEO – Helps you optimize the content on your pages and allows you to optimize other elements, such as keywords, title tags, meta descriptions, URLs and so on. Simply churning out quality content isn’t always enough to generate leads. However, when you help search engines match your content with user intent, your content becomes much more visible.
- Off-page SEO – Helps you create exposure for your content, as well as helps you build authority and credibility for your website. By engaging in guest posting and link building on other relevant sources, such as blogs, websites, forums etc., you can not just reach a broader audience with your content but also position your brand as an industry expert.
https://pixabay.com/vectors/seo-search-engine-optimization-logo-947154/
- Leverage remarketing
It’s no secret that a lot of website visitors will leave your pages without converting. In most cases, around 97% of visitors simply leave your website without taking any action at all. This shouldn’t discourage you because there’s a way to turn these visitors into qualified leads.
The answer lies in remarketing. Remarketing allows you to target site visitors once again and get in front of them while they browse the web, look through Facebook posts or read emails. You can use Google Display Network to target a specific group of people, i.e., visitors who left your website using display ads.
That means you can show them your content, promotions, personalized offers and many more in order to reengage them and spark their interest.
This can complement your advertising strategy as Google’s Display Network allows you to capture someone’s attention at any point during their buying cycle. What that means is that you can place an ad even before someone starts searching for your products or products similar to yours.
- Create more opt-in opportunities
Finding as many leads as possible for your SaaS brand oftentimes comes down to creating more opt-in opportunities for people to jump in and take action. In most cases, a lot of companies have one or two opt-ins, which limits the potential for lead generation.
If you want your brand to excel at generating leads, you’ll have to create a lot more of these opportunities. Here are a few examples where you should consider creating an opt-in opportunity.
- Blog posts.
- Articles.
- Webinars.
- YouTube Videos.
- Live demos.
- Free reports.
By creating more opportunities, you can increase your conversion rate up to 32%. The key, however, is to give consumers an opportunity to convert but at the same time make it difficult for them to say no.
In other words, your opt-ins should be irresistible. A good example for SaaS brands is to offer consumers a free trial of their products. This is something that’s difficult to ignore, even for a lead with the least amount of interest.
Generating leads isn’t as easy as it may seem. There’s a lot of competition between SaaS brands, especially in 2021, where this model is predominant in the market.
However, with a bit of innovation and creativity, you can find qualified leads almost everywhere, provided you know where to look to begin with.
By using the right tools and the right techniques, finding where to look becomes seamless.
Author bio
Travis Dillard is a business consultant and an organizational psychologist based in Arlington, Texas. Passionate about marketing, social networks, and business in general. In his spare time, he writes a lot about new business strategies and digital marketing for DigitalStrategyOne.