Top B2B SaaS Inbound Marketing Strategies For 2024

In today’s world, SaaS inbound marketing is an important strategy that software businesses use for attracting and converting customers as well as ensuring their satisfaction.

Inbound marketing is different from the old-school outbound marketing techniques where marketers broadcast messages to anyone, but rather it is all about creating something that the target customer would find useful and interesting. It not only attracts potential customers to your SaaS product but also creates a long-term relationship that is beneficial to both the SaaS business and its customers.

Here, we are going to discuss what is inbound marketing, why it is crucial for SaaS businesses to adopt it, and the most important steps on how to do it right. In this article, we will explore the marketing funnel and content creation and promotion strategies, as well as conversion optimisation ideas that will help your SaaS business succeed in the market.

Inbound Marketing Methodology for SaaS

In simple terms, inbound marketing methodology is a business strategy that focuses on attracting customers through valuable content and interactions that are relevant and helpful, not interruptive. So basically, it is not an advertisement. It is about bringing in organic traffic. 

The goal is to create and share content tailored to the needs of your target audience, which naturally attracts inbound traffic that you can then convert, close, and delight over time. This approach is often contrasted with outbound marketing, which involves pushing products or services through direct advertising and sales tactics. For a clearer understanding of SaaS inbound marketing, one needs to consider the marketing funnel.

The Marketing Funnel for Saas: From Awareness to Delight

This model defines the process of moving a prospect from a state of being a mere observer of your SaaS product to that of a brand advocate. Now let’s discuss each stage of the funnel and see how B2B SaaS inbound marketing can be used at each of them.

1. Awareness Stage

This is the stage in which the potential customers have not yet realised that there is a problem to be solved or a gap to be filled. They are not yet in the state of seeking a solution, but at the same time, they are not gathering information randomly. In this stage, your inbound marketing efforts should focus on:

• Developing blogs for education, where you post articles that focus on the problems that are felt in the field
• Creating content that will help the target audience see your brand as credible and knowledgeable
• Developing informative videos or podcasts that introduce key concepts related to your SaaS solution
• Optimising your website for search engines to increase visibility for relevant keywords

2. Research/Consideration Stage

In the middle of the funnel, which can be considered the largest part of it, prospects start searching for solutions to their issues. In this stage, your inbound content marketing should offer more information about your SaaS product and how it addresses certain problems. Key tactics include:

• Providing detailed eBooks that will give a proof of your product
• Developing a few examples that will show people how your software works in practice
• Having online seminars or presentations to present the company’s specialties and product offerings
• Creating comparison guides that can help the client understand how your SaaS solution is better than the others

3. Decision Stage

Finally, at the bottom of the funnel, the prospects are likely to make a purchase decision. Now that you’ve attracted the target audience, your inbound marketing strategy should persuade the audience to choose your SaaS product.

Effective strategies include:

• Offering a free trial or demo version of your software so that the clients can test it for themselves
• Providing individual advice to fit the particular requirements and issues.
• Developing technical specifications for products and manuals for consumers
• Presenting the testimonials, success stories, and experiences of the customer

4. Delight Stage

Here is the great part of the delight stage. Inbound marketing methodology does not stop at the point of sale, unlike the traditional form of marketing. The most important thing, the delight stage, aims at making customers loyal and encouraging them to recommend your SaaS product to other people. 

Strategies for this stage include:

1. Developing a knowledge base or a peer-to-peer support community
2. Providing updates regarding the product and new features that are to be incorporated
3. Applying the customer feedback loop as a way to constantly enhance your product

Having discussed the concept of the marketing funnel, now it is high time to reveal the essential steps of SaaS inbound marketing. The steps include:

SaaS inbound marketing strategy

Thus, when creating content for SaaS inbound marketing, it is crucial to concentrate on your customers. This means that one needs to post content that answers their needs, helps solve their issues, and is relatable to their actions. Let’s break down how to do this:

1. SaaS Content Creation

Understanding Your Audience

The first aspect, therefore, is to identify the target audience. That is where we need the buyer personas to be of help. A buyer persona is like a pretend version of your ideal customer. To create one, ask yourself two main questions:

1. Who do I think would be interested in using my SaaS product?
2. What problems can my product solve or remove?

For instance, suppose you have a SaaS product that assists users in improving their time management. Your buyer’s persona might look like this:

1. Who would use it? Working population, business people, students 
2. What issues does it address? It aids them in scheduling activities, reminds them of deadlines, and shows how they spend their time.

Once you have this basic idea, you can dig deeper.

Try to learn more about your ideal customers, such as: 

1. What’s their job title?
2. How old are they?
3. What are their major concerns at their workplace?
4. Where do they go to find information?

You can find this information at:

1. Seeing the current customers.
2. Doing surveys
3. Going through comments on the social media platform
4. Communicating with your sales team.

The more you know about your audience, the better you can create content they’ll find useful.

Keyword Research

Now that you know who you’re talking to, you need to figure out what they’re searching for online. This is where keyword research comes in for inbound marketing strategy. 

Keyword research enables you to know what other people, potentially your customers, are typing in the search engines. By incorporating these words into your content, people will be able to locate you easily. By using these words in your content, you make it easier for people to find you. It is important for content marketing too. 

Here’s how to do basic keyword research:

1. a) Start with a list of topics related to your SaaS product. For example, if we have a time management app, this might include:

1. Time management
2. Productivity
3. Task organisation
4. Work-life balance

1. b) Keyword research 

Search for specific phrases that people are using by using a keyword research tool. Some free keyword research tools include:

1. Google Keyword Planner
2. Ahref
3. Ubersuggest
4. SEMrush

Creating high-quality content

Once you know your audience and have your keywords, it’s time to create content. Here are some tips:

a) Look at what’s already out there:

• Search for your keyword and see what content is ranking well.
• Notice how these top articles are structured.
• Think about how you can make something better or different.

b) Make your content valuable.

• Answer questions your audience has.
• Provide practical tips they can use right away.
• Use examples to make your points clear.

c) Use different types of content:

• Blog posts are one of the best sources of detailed information.
• Infographics can help make difficult information very clear.
• Videos can demonstrate to consumers how the product is used.
• Podcasts give people an opportunity to listen to the information they need while performing other activities.

d) Make your content easy to read.

• Use short paragraphs.
• It is advisable to subdivide the text by adding subheadings.
• Include asterisks for the lists.
• Illustrate with a picture so as to support your points.

e) Include a call-to-action:

Explain to readers what they have to do next: either a call to action, such as “try out our free demo” or “join our newsletter. Ensure that they can easily follow through with that action. It is important to always remember that the objective of your content is not only to get visitors to your site but also to make them customers. Each piece of content should be designed to bring people closer to the decision of signing up for your SaaS.

Bonus Read: Top SaaS Growth Strategies to Scale Your Business in 2024

Promoting your content

To provide great content is one thing, but to make people use it is quite another thing. You also need to make sure people see it.

• Spread it on the social networks.
• Take it to your email subscribers.
• Contact other sites and ask them if they are willing to link to your site.
• It is also recommended to use paid ads to increase the visibility of your content.

In this way, knowing your audience and the keywords, creating an amazing piece of content, and promoting it as a result of inbound marketing can help you set up a powerful strategy for your SaaS product. Keep in mind that, though it requires time and energy, the constant production of good content will surely boost your business.

2. Content Promotion

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

In its simplest form, SEO is all about making your website and content easy for search engines to find and understand. This helps more people discover your SaaS product when they search online.

Here are the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) steps for the SaaS product:

1. Keyword Research: As we have already covered, incorporate into your content the words that people can type in the search engines for content marketing.
2. Backlink Generation: Obtain the links of other trustworthy sites to your own site.
3. CRO: Create useful, valuable content that solves people’s problems.
4. On-page optimisation: Ensure that the titles and descriptions of your website are well defined.
5. Technical SEO: organise your website in a way that makes sense to both users and search engines. Make sure your website loads quickly and works well on mobile devices.

By doing these things, you can improve your chances of showing up higher in search results.

Social media marketing (digital marketing)

Social media is also effective in getting your content and speaking to potential customers. There are differences in the choice of social networks depending on the target audience. For instance, LinkedIn is more effective for B2B SaaS sales, while Instagram is more suitable for selling product-based products. Determine which social media sites your target audience is and target your content to those sites. Contribute to the posting of useful information, appreciate comments, and actively participate in discussions.

Email Marketing

For email marketing, Collect the email list of people who are interested in your product. Inform them and share with them helpful information and new developments. Categorize your list by something, such as what industry they are in or what stage of the buying cycle they are in. This way, you can ensure that the right information is sent to the right people at the correct time.

Email marketing is a very important part of an inbound marketing strategy. It has an important role in nurturing inbound leads. It helps in demand generation. You can upsell your potential customers. Also, it is beneficial for SaaS companies, and your inbound marketing efforts should contain it. 

Paid Advertising

In fact, inbound marketing is largely about people finding you on their own, but sometimes it is not a bad idea to pay for the ads. This can help your content do better and reach even more people’s screens. You might try:

• Google Ads: These appear when individuals look for certain terms and use Google Analytics.
• LinkedIn ads are good for targeting business people.
• Facebook ads can assist you in reaching certain demographic categories of the population.
• Retargeting Ads: These display ads to those who have visited your website in the past.

In the paid ads, you should then concentrate on advertising your most popular posts or any offer you are running. It is recommended to begin with a relatively low budget and try various ads to find out which ones are the most effective for SaaS.

Influencer Partnerships

Influencers can take your content and help spread it to their followers, which means that your content will be trusted more. Influencers are people who have a lot of followers or are respected in their industry. Here’s how to work with them:

1. Identify the right influencers that align with your SaaS product and your target market.
2. Begin by subscribing to them and interacting with what they post.

Suggest ways you could work together, like:

• Coauthoring a Blog Post
• Having them try your product and share their thoughts
• Inviting them to speak at your webinar
• Asking them to repost your content to their social media accounts
• Offer something valuable in exchange, such as your product or cash.
• Make sure any partnership follows the rules about disclosing paid content.
• Track how well the partnership works in bringing in new leads or customers.

A friendly reminder: a good influencer partnership should feel natural and helpful to their audience, not just like an ad.

Content Syndication

Take your content to other sites so that you reach out to more people. This could be blogs, news sites, or industry-specific platforms. Ensure that you select a high-quality site that your potential customers will visit. Always ensure that you link back to your original content. This makes it easier for many people to locate your website and can increase your search engine ranking. 

3. Maximising Conversions from Your Content

The end product of your SaaS-inbound marketing strategy is the conversion of your prospects into customers. To do this, you have to make your content and website conversion friendly. Here are some key strategies:Here are some key strategies:

Clear Call-to-Actions (CTAs)

A CTA is a call to action, which is a direct message to the reader on what they need to do next. Every piece of content you create should have one. It could be:

“Download our free guide.Start your free trial.”

Make your CTAs big and colourful so that they are the first thing users notice on the page and are enticed to click on them. This is where you should use action words that compel people into action. Position them where it would be natural for the readers to look, such as after the blog post or on the side. Experiment with different words and designs to know which one is most effective.

Landing Page Optimisation

A landing page is a single web page that is developed to inspire a particular action from visitors. To make your landing pages work better:

• The message should be concise and easy to understand.To achieve this, show the main benefit of your offer at the very beginning.
• Get rid of all the items that may capture the attention of the visitors.
• Make sure that the heading is strong and will attract the attention of the target audience.
• Add testimonial or trust icons.
• Design your form to be simple for the respondent to complete.
• A clear and bold CTA button should be used.
• Ensure that the page takes a short amount of time to load.
• Design for mobile devices also
• Experiment with your landing page to find out which design performs better. Often, it is the little things that are the most important when it comes to motivating people to act.

Lead Magnet

A lead magnet is a free gift that you give to your audience in exchange for their details, such as their email address. It could be:

• An ebook or guide
• A useful template
• A video tutorial
• Access to a webinar

Ensure that your lead magnet is useful and has value for the clients you are targeting. This makes them disclose their details to you.

A/B Testing

A/B testing means comparing two versions of something to see which works better. You can
test:

1. Different headlines
2. The colour of the buttons or the text inside the buttons, which in this case is the CTA button
3. Page layouts
4. Images
5. Form designs

Show version A to some visitors and version B to others. See which one gets more people to take action. Use what you learn to improve your website and content. Keep testing regularly to find what works best for your audience.

Lead Scoring

Lead scoring helps you filter out the best prospects from the rest of the people out there. Give points to leads based on their actions, like:

• Visiting certain pages on your website
• Downloading content
• Opening emails
• Attending webinars

This means that the leads with higher scores are more likely to purchase. This is helpful for the sales team to know who to initially reach out to. It is time-saving and enhances the probability of making a sale. Update your scoring system regularly based on what you learn.