From 2021 to 2025, the global SaaS market is expected to be $99.99 billion. In this blog, we will discuss everything about B2B SaaS marketing and how it is revolutionizing the digital market by providing easy-to-use and high-utility solutions to customers. We will write about the products, services, and benefits that these solutions provide.
What Is B2B SaaS Marketing?
SaaS refers to Software as a Service and B2B is business to business.
B2B SaaS Marketing is an advertising and marketing strategy for building brand awareness and nurturing relationships with decision makers so that you can leverage your customer’s satisfaction to achieve continuous revenue.
B2B SaaS is when a business sells this cloud-based software to other businesses on a subscription basis. They can access the features and functionalities of the software through an internet connection.
B2B SaaS Marketing is one of the ways to promote subscription-based software services to other businesses. Salespeople use product demonstrations and free trials to inform the businesses about the results they can achieve using this software. The most effective way an investor can attract businesses is by delivering their brands in a compelling way that makes it easy for them to imagine their lives or businesses being transformed by this new technology. B2B SaaS Marketing consists of many marketing channels like content marketing and product demonstrations that help the salesperson educate business owners about the benefits of their product.
Advantages Of B2B SaaS Marketing
Easy Marketing Through Virtual Demos
When the product is not physical, an online demo will be an excellent tool to demonstrate the working of the tool and provide a real-time experience to your prospects. An online live demo that is personalized according to the buyer can be easily set up depending on the availability of the salesperson.
If one-on-one demos aren’t suitable for your business, you can set up a walk-through landing page with screenshots of the video. They enable users to watch as many times as they want and give them time to review the information.
Generally, the B2B organizations purchase product licenses for a team as a whole, thus online demos will be a more practical way of marketing your software to prospects.
Educate Your Prospects About The Product
One of the best tactics of content marketing is to train your clients about the product. Most of the B2B SaaS companies provide online training that educates the users about your product, adds value to the users, and also helps them to find the information they want. The online training is provided in multiple formats like training libraries, interviews, certifications, classes, and webinars, etc.
Easy Upselling
The marketing practices like community building, engaging with customers through social media, support forums, help you quickly respond to the customer queries or allow the experts to discuss through the forums. It increases customer loyalty and upselling your product to the existing customer becomes more effortless. Once they realize how your product helps them solve a part of their problems, they immediately purchase what you offer.
Their love for your product and brand increases. They share content about your product or spread the word across multiple channels online. Marketers can monitor this kind of mention, respond to customer issues, express gratitude for their interest, or engage with them to build better relationships with the customers.
Get Feedback From The Best Users
The customers using the software can easily provide feedback on how it works and what it delivers. The feedback can be directly collected from the users or from anonymous data usage. It extremely helps the marketers know how their software is being used, and what experience it is creating in the user’s life.
This way the B2B SaaS companies can get a real-time awareness of the product, learn about the target audience and market trends to improvise the product, and provide better experiences.
Challenges Faced By B2B SaaS Marketers
Since Software is a non-tangible product, it comes with a set of challenges too.
SaaS Market Penetration
No matter how useful your product is, it is important for you to introduce it to the customers and let them use it.
Onboarding Loyal Customer Database
According to the Review 42 statistics, a 5% increase in customer retention increases the company’s profits by 25% to 95%.
With so many companies offering similar SaaS solutions, customers don’t hesitate to jump to your competitors if they are disappointed with your product. Thus the importance of customer retention in business growth is exponentially increasing. But, under the subscription model, the costs are recovered with the renewal of customers. Thus, it is important to focus on acquiring new customers while retaining existing customers.
Engage with your customers, take time to listen to their interests, problems, and demands, provide customizable solutions according to their needs, create products that add value to the users, etc. are some of the best strategies to retain your existing customers and also acquire new ones through word of mouth.
Read This Blog – 7 Customer Pain Points in eCommerce to Solve Now
Expertise To Deal With Technology
The SaaS products require continuous technological upgrades from time to time. To make the most of SaaS products, you should be comfortable keeping up with the marketing trends and changing technologies. Keep your users updated with the technology through blog articles, educational webinars, etc.
Financial Stability For Long Term Growth
Any company, small or large, is never free from financial risks and long-term growth challenges. Even the large and established companies might get severely affected by the long-term growth challenges if they are not careful.
For the business to grow, you need a robust sales & marketing team which requires considerable investment.
If you have a low budget, consider reducing the expenses by negotiating better deals, streamlining processes to chop off extra costs, and also using energy-efficient equipment. The saved money can be used to make better sales.
Top 5 B2B SaaS Companies In The World
Following are the B2B SaaS companies that have emerged as the best service providers in the market:
#1 Google
The Google platform lets you build scalable SaaS products quickly and grow your business. Utilize the cutting-edge technologies, data analytics, and machine learning capabilities of the platform to build unmatchable SaaS products.
The Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) lets you deploy products across the globe so that anyone can easily access them from anywhere. Additionally, it consists of a wide range of tools for cloud app development for small and medium-sized businesses.
#2 Adobe
Adobe’s Creative Cloud is the cloud-based subscription service delivering leading SaaS products to designers. From individual designers to large B2C organizations, this platform has all the software tools required to create appealing designs. The Adobe AI-powered Sensui collects data and converts it into insightful information to make better decisions.
Provide personalized customer experiences using AI and machine learning. Get edit recommendations and quickly edit to get the realistic effects using the AI assistant. It is undoubtedly the market leader in design and marketing for B2B and B2C businesses.
#3 Slack
Slack is a communication hub for businesses dealing with massive projects. In just 4 years after launch, it grew multifold and emerged as one of the top SaaS companies in the world. It brings together all your workgroups and lets them collaborate through chat, or video calling to make internal communications more efficient.
#4 Shopify
Shopify B2B is the most widely used SaaS platform across the globe. It is a cloud-based platform that allows its users to efficiently build, customize and manage their online stores. Its ease of setup, good customer support, remarkable features, higher customizability, and simplicity in inventory and customer management have led Shopify to become the best SaaS eCommerce platform in the world.
#5 MailChimp
MailChimp is one of the top email marketing providers for businesses to stay in touch with their audience. It is a robust platform to set up automated emails triggered emails etc. to optimize the campaign for better marketing efforts. Mailchimp is one of the best tools for lead generation in B2B SaaS companies.
It is specialized in email marketing, marketing automation and deliver solutions through its products like Mandrill, Mailchimp, and TinyLetter, etc.
B2B SaaS KPIs & Metrics
As a SaaS business, your team might have designed a solid marketing campaign. But, you can never know the progress of the campaign, to what extent it is successful, and if you are on the right track or not without the key performance indicator.
The SaaS Key performance indicators are the metrics that assess the company’s success in meeting the organizational objectives. These KPIs let you optimize your marketing campaigns and measure the performance of your marketing efforts:
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
The customer acquisition cost is the amount of money your company spends in acquiring a single customer. It lets you adjust your marketing budget and make consistent profits.
Churn Rates
Churn rate is the percentage of the customers who cancel or fail to renew their subscription at the end of the membership period. It is calculated by the number of customers who unsubscribes your services during a certain period divided by the total number of customers acquired. The result is multiplied by 100 to give the churn rate in percentage.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
The customer lifetime value is the average revenue your company can generate from the entire lifecycle of the customer. In short, it is the amount of money you make from your customers before they unsubscribe from your service. Using the CLV, you can understand the customer’s behavior, segment them based on their lifetime values, know which customers are likely to churn, and provide special offers to retain these existing customers.
Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)
It is the income a company expects to receive from the customers through payments on a monthly basis. Get an overview of your budget and assess whether your business is consistently growing over time or not.
Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)
It is the amount of money your company generates through subscriptions during a one-year time period. It helps to measure your company’s growth over a long-term period.
Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
The Customer Satisfaction Score is the measurement of your customer’s satisfaction level with your business, products, or services. This KPI helps you gain insights about what they want and if you are able to complete their requirements.
B2B SaaS VS B2C SaaS
B2C SaaS and B2B SaaS have a lot in common. B2B refers to selling to other businesses whereas B2C involves selling your product/service to the end consumers. Here are a few differences between B2B SaaS and B2C SaaS:
Sales Cycle
B2B companies seek solutions to solve their business problem or hlp them effectively operate their businesses. Also, they are subjected to many approvals before making a purchase. Thus the B2B SaaS sales cycle is long before acquiring the customers.
Whereas the B2C sales cycle is much shorter. Consumers buy the subscriptions on impulse and cancel the subscription later when they feel it is no longer useful to them.
Language Of Communication
In B2B SaaS marketing, you are selling to other businesses. Thus the language of communication is more professional and you can use industry terms and key buzz words while presenting your product.
Whereas in B2C SaaS marketing, you will have to sell to the end consumers who may or may not be familiar with the technical terms. Thus, you need to communicate through layman’s terms and avoid any jargon.
Buyer Mindset
In the B2B SaaS model, the buyers are experienced and professional. They look for logic and problem-solving abilities before making a purchase. Whereas in the B2C model, the consumers are emotionally driven and perform impulse buying.
B2B SaaS Marketing vs Traditional Marketing
Different Sales Funnel
The traditional marketing sales funnel is highly acquisition focused whereas the SaaS marketing sales funnel focuses on the entire lifecycle of the lead and what happens after a purchase is made. It helps to concentrate not only on generating leads but also on retaining and monetizing them.
Free Trails
Another significant feature that differentiates SaaS marketing from traditional one is that the B2B SaaS companies provide free access to the user for a certain period before asking for a subscription. The free trial allows users to explore the tool and learn how it can benefit their businesses. They cleverly provide enough features on the free plan to persuade the users to purchase the paid version.
Long-Term Customer Retention
In traditional marketing, the relationship with the customer ends after making the purchase. But in the case of the SaaS business model, it is a subscription-based service where customers keep renewing thus retaining the customer relationship for a really long time. In SaaS marketing, customer retention is more unless they are disappointed with your service and cancel the subscription.
Buyer Psychology
SaaS products are very technical in nature. Business owners generally acquire them to help them improve their business operations and improve ROI.
Thus, the buyers take time to meticulously research the features of the products, compare them with similar products in the market, and also discuss with the experts before making any purchase decisions.
Even after purchasing the product, users need some training to effectively use the product. The buyers in this type of marketing are educated, knowledgeable, and willing to learn.
Wrap Up
We’ve helped you learn about B2B SaaS marketing, its benefits, and the 5 best B2B SaaS businesses in the market and the ongoing challenges for SaaS KPI measurements. They are unethical and one of the most important aspects of useful marketing. Keep this in mind as you design your marketing campaign: the bottom line always increases. Focus your efforts on a select group of potential customers, the more you understand their needs, inform them and shape your news. Having this knowledge will set you on the right path to such riches.