Marketing a SaaS company comes with its own unique set of challenges. How can you stand out in a crowded industry? How can you convince new people that your service is worth investing in? And once people do so, how do you keep them as a happy customer?
The key to successful SaaS marketing starts with your website, as it will likely be the first mode of interaction with your customers and accordingly, the first way to make an impression with your brand. We believe that there are some important commonalities amongst the best websites and have distilled them into this best practices tipsheet.
1. Blog
This might go without saying but your SaaS website should always have an active blog. Creating helpful and pertinent content will transform visitors into repeat visitors and ultimately, customers. Visitors may first come to your website before they're ready to buy. A great blog that informs them and helps them solve problems will ensure that they return when they're ready to buy.
2. Demonstrate Whatever You Have, Whenever You Can
Your website should primarily act as a showcase for your software. The most important thing you can do on your SaaS website to is demonstrate what your product can do. Demonstrations are a super effective way of promoting your product and much more effective than a description. Include pertinent videos, GIFs or screenshots. These will make it easier for potential customers to understand what you have to offer.
Make sure your demo elements are clear, easy to see and integrated into the website as a whole. Just adding a random video isn’t going to help. Pick the most important features of your software and package them together into an attractive demonstration for your website that focuses on user experience. If using screenshots, add a short paragraph describing the screenshot.
3. Only Add Visuals With Meaning
Every single visual you have on your website should have meaning. A website visitor should never be left to wonder what message a visual is supposed to be conveying. Use images that display the major benefits of your software. Make sure to highlight your biggest selling points and use them to tell a story. Every illustration, screenshot and GIF must serve a purpose other than just being visually appealing.
4. Create User-friendly Content
Always remember that although your software is highly technical, your customers may not be. You need to take a technical product and explain it to people. This is much harder to do than it sounds. Working in a technical industry can make it easy to get comfortable with technical jargon. This is great for the R & D team, but it's confusing and rather dry for your target market.
Develop content that shows a little personality and speaks in a way that resonates with your buyer persona. This is a great way to separate yourself from your competitors and be memorable to your customers.
Create content for your website in small easy-to-understand parcels and for the most part avoid lengthy sections of text. If you need to create long technical sections, try to keep them hidden by a hyperlink—available, but not obvious.
5. Get To The Point
You don’t have much time to capture a visitor's attention—literally less than 10 seconds. That means that you need to accurately and concisely explain to visitors what you’re all about and what you have to offer. That’s not a lot of time, but it’s enough time to present a well-crafted value proposition.
Many SaaS industry websites include too much fluff and jargon in their value propositions. Remember, less is more in crafting your value proposition. If you require visitors to re-read sections of your website to discern meaning, then you have likely lost them. Use the following as a guide to writing value propositions:
A. Draft your value proposition with as much detail as possible,
B. Explain the “whys” (why your software is better than others) in subheadings below your value proposition.
C. Make sure you explain the “what” (what are you offering)
D. Condense the proposition by 50% by eliminating any duplication
E. Condense the proposition further by eliminating unnecessary words
6. Focus On Benefits
How will your software meet challenges and solve problems? Instead of describing the software’s features, tell a story about how the features will help your customers solve problems. A feature such as “unlimited storage” is much more interesting if it's presented as a solution to the perils of limited storage. Focus on the personal benefits that resonate with customers rather than impersonal technical features.
7. Free Trials Are The Secret Sauce
Let your customers try out your service. This really is critical. Offering free trials has enormous upside and minimal downside. It makes you look confident in your product and it makes hesitant customers comfortable. Customers harbouring any doubts will be encouraged to try your service.
Employ the above best practices into your website in order to make a great first impression on your visitors and to set you apart from your competitors. To get additional help with your SaaS website, use the button below to talk to us about redesigning your site on HubSpot. We are always happy to provide a free complimentary 30-minute consultation on ways you could improve your website.
Topics: SaaS
