The 3 Key Focuses for SaaS Companies
To say the SaaS market has ballooned in the past ten years would be a major understatement.
This year, the software-as-a-service market is expected to increase from the $225.6 billion it ushered in last year - despite COVID-19 - to $272.49 billion in 2021. With hybrid work models here to stay for many companies, this offers increased opportunities to reach organizations and consumers alike as both reorient themselves to a post-COVID world.
Here are three key business functions to focus on for software organizations in 2021 and beyond.
1. Content Marketing
Content rules everything around us. We consume more of it than ever. From TikTok videos to blogs and podcasts - content marketing is a pivotal component of every organization’s overall marketing strategy.
We’ve written before about the unique opportunities content marketing can offer SaaS organizations in particular, but the value simply cannot be overstated. Not only can it put you in front of more people, after all, 80% of Americans access social media and blogs, but studies show content marketing is also more affordable than traditional marketing, costing up to 62% less.
2. Marketing automation
If you think of your marketing plan as a car, automation serves as the oil - it keeps everything running smoothly, so you don’t have to think about it. With maintenance from time to time, you essentially just turn the key and go.
By automating key components of your marketing strategy, whether it be emails, digital advertisements, or even social media campaigns, organizations can reclaim valuable time back onto their calendars, while optimizing efforts to increase conversions and new business.
This is also true for the administrative aspects of your day-to-day roles. As we continue to augment our tech stacks, the number of administrative duties that teams incur can sometimes feel insurmountable and left unchecked, can cause far more damage to a team than the software does good.
Automation can be used for a variety of tasks and projects within your department. Approach your automation strategically and work closely with all team members to discuss daily, repetitive tasks that will begin to help you align on an administrative automation strategy.
3. RevOps
We often think about marketing in two categories - outbound and inbound - but it’s much more than that. Marketing is ultimately executed by people, teams, processes and operations, data and analytics, and beyond. The health and optimization of these internal components are of the utmost importance to create the best possible customer experience (CX).
Enter: RevOps - it’s more than a catchy phrase or craze that’s here today and gone tomorrow. RevOps is the future of the best B2B SaaS marketing teams.
In case you’re not familiar with RevOps yet, at a high level, it’s the practice of aligning marketing, sales, and customer success (CS) teams to understand customers and implement processes that create the best and most seamless customer experience possible.
Technology is all about listening to customers. We are no longer in an era where patents protect revenue or customers lack the resources to find better solutions. Today, you have to hear, listen, and serve your customers better than anyone else or you’ll lose. Providing the best customer experience is the most impactful competitive advantage available.
Think of your business as an orchestra. The marketing team is the strings, the sales team is the percussion, and the CS team is the brasswinds. All of these sections need to be playing the same song at the same time.
Your business units are no different. They need to speak the same language to your customers, they need to learn from each other’s perspectives and work together, and they need to proactively solve pain points throughout the customer journey.
It’s common that teams are often working in silos to solve the same problem and never align to create an end-to-end solution. One of the greatest benefits of RevOps is it helps business leaders determine where there are gaps in the customer experience and the impact and priority of the gaps. Plus, once RevOps is implemented, it makes it much easier to align the company and holistically solve problems.
Cutting-edge SaaS solutions are replicated too easily to rely purely on innovation and new features. It’s all about the customer experience.
Key Takeaways
You don’t have to go at this alone. There are experts and agencies that specialize in content marketing, automating marketing, sales, and CX software, and optimizing your teams and tech stack through RevOps. They can fit into your team as a one-time initiative or provide ongoing strategic and administrative services.
