6 Effective Growth Hacking Tips For SAAS Business

Obtaining organic growth has been increasingly difficult in recent years for SAAS businesses, mainly because the market environment, which has been relatively niche at the beginning, is now so saturated. We could argue that unless you have an unlimited budget (and time), solely relying on organic growth is impossible.In this guide, we will discuss several growth hack strategies for SAAS business. Yet, we should first establish the proper mindset that ‘growth hack’ is by no means a shortcut. These techniques will help you achieve growth for your SAAS business, but will still require effort and dedication.Let us begin. 

1. Rethink Your Content Marketing

Content marketing, together with inbound marketing is very important in the SAAS environment. Arguably, the best way to increase growth is to turn your content marketing game to the next level.There are three key areas to focus on here: publish better contents, promote your contents better, and get more backlinks. Yet, arguably you can have an easier time in achieving the other two when you’ve published better contents.

• It’s time to actually have a working content strategy: research your keywords and topics better, develop an editorial calendar and plan better distribution and promotion.
• Learn from the industry leaders. Kissmetrics, HubSpot, Buffer, and Moz among others are not only the leaders of the SAAS market, they are also the best in the content marketing game.

 

2. Create A Clearer Lead Generation Path

More often than we think, many businesses don’t get enough lead simply because they fail to provide an optimized and clear path for users to signup. You should encourage your prospects to sign up by giving them an easy (and engaging) way.The design aspect of the signup page definitely plays an important part, and you can check out this guide by Instapage that might help you.Here are a few key aspects to focus on:

• Avoid cluttered pages, especially your homepage. As tempting as it is to show every product features, award recognitions, and press releases, you should keep your pages comprehensive enough for your audience.
• Keep the sign-up process easy and simple. Yet, also make sure that the steps are clear. Don’t make the process too long and/or complicated, and remember that this is also your chance to give the best impression on how your product will perform.
• A video tutorial is always effective because you can show in-depth information without cluttering the page.

 

3. Referral Program

If you haven’t tried a referral marketing program, you definitely should. Some of the best players in the SAAS industry have excellent referral programs, DropBox being one of the best examples.The main advantage of a referral program is that it is fairly affordable compared to other options, especially advertising. If you are on a tight budget, this might be one of the best choices.The key to a successful referral marketing is how you manage incentive: give too much, and you risk getting low-quality referrals that are only looking for your offers. Give too few, and you might not get any referrals. So, you will need to find the right balance.Also, make sure the referral campaign process is easy enough for your customers. 

4. Social Media Incentives

The idea here is similar to the referral marketing above: offering incentives so that more people will follow you on your social media channels. Just putting “follow us” or “like us” buttons on your pages is not enough nowadays, because everybody is doing the same.Here are a few principles to follow:

• The key here is, again, finding the right balance: give too little and you might not get any participants. Give too much and you might compromise the quality of your leads.
• Keep the offer(s) interesting, and keep your promises.
• As before, keep the process as easy and intuitive and possible.

 

5. Retargeting

Retargeting is, in essence, targeting your previous visitors with advertising or other promotions. Retargeting is a very effective tactic especially to encourage more conversion, as suggested by various studies. The idea is fairly simple: by showing promotions to those that have shown interest in your brand, there is a bigger chance of conversion.There are several ways to apply retargeting for SAAS businesses:

• Targeting your previous site visitors, arguably the most common retargeting method
• If you can gather the necessary data, you can target existing customers to prevent churning, hence increasing retention
• Target those that have tried your free-trial promotions.

There are various tools that can help you start your retargeting campaign. Retargeting campaigns can be really expensive when not managed well, so you should always consider cost-efficiency and ROI. 

6. Optimizing Customer Experience

Arguably, one of the best ways to encourage SAAS growth is to improve customer experience. When we are discussing growth hacking, we often put too much focus on promotions, contents, and all the SaaS marketing activities outside your product. In truth, your product itself can be your most powerful growth hacking machine.Also, remember that SAAS stands for “Software as a Service”, and so you should remember that there’s also the “service” aspect to focus on. The idea here is fairly simple: if you can provide the very best customer experience, not only it will improve your retention, but you can also turn your customers into advocates.Check out this guide by HubSpot on customer experience that might help you further. Also, check out this more technical guide by Userlane. 

End Words

Obviously, there are many different methods besides what we have shared above that can help you increase growth. Yet, those 6 can act as a building block for your overall strategy. The key principle to remember here is that growth hacking is essentially about innovation, and how you can beat your competitors in various aspects.Also, as we have mentioned, remember that growth hacking tactics are not shortcuts. You should maintain consistency and dedication to continue growing your business through your efforts.