How to do SaaS marketing effectively

Stop looking for tactics. Do this instead...

Someone on Reddit recently asked "How to do SaaS marketing effectively?"

Spoiler:

The key to any marketing is knowing your customer. Get to know them better.

What to do / How to get to know them better:

Let’s cut to the chase. You need to do customer interviews.

Build a customer avatar.

You need to know who you're serving, the emotional words they use when describing the problem, how they want their problem solved, and how they talk about all of it.

Start with the customers you have.

Don’t have any customers, start with your target market - the Facebook group, sub-Reddit, Twitter community, or other places they frequent. Get out there.

Start a relationship with them.

Ask them open-ended questions.

Read "The Mom Test" by Rob Fitzgerald to understand how to frame your questions without your ego, and why that's so important. What not to do.

Then use Katelyn Bourgoin's Clarity Calls Cheatsheet to get some practical examples of call questions to ask. What to do.

Once you understand what words they use and how they think about their problem, what their current state (prior to buying your product) and desired state (after they use it) is, and the emotions and catalysts involved in triggering the buying decisions, you'll have a big chunk of what you need.

How to use this info:

Go to where they live/congregate, or better, partner with those who already have your customers as their audience, and speak to them using their own words.

Ads, emails, landing page copy, posts in social media, podcast interviews, YouTube videos, newsletters, comments... everything you do will tell the right customer that you understand them, and they can trust you.

But wait a second.... If you were reading this post to find tactics, you're going about it all wrong.

Tactics without empathy won't save you.

The results & outcome:

Knowing your customer will tell you:

→ What to say (emotional conversion words)

→ Where to say it (distribution channels and watering holes they frequent)

→ Who to say it to (and who to listen to)

→ How to say it (current → desired state)

→ When to say it (the catalyst for buying)

Knowing your customer this deeply means you know the tactics to use - partly intuitively, and partly because your best customers will simply tell you.

Now go. Stop reading. Stop scrolling. Talk to a customer.

And hey, if you want to dive deeper into strategies like this for growing your agency with recurring revenue, or getting your SaaS business unstuck, grab some time and let’s chat.