As a SaaS business owner, developing new growth strategies to position your business in this ever-evolving digital world should be a priority. Demand generation is one of such strategies and its goal is to increase awareness and interest in the services offered by your business.
In this article, you will learn what demand generation is all about. You will also take away 7 demand generation tactics you can employ to increase traffic to your website.
What Is Demand Generation?
Demand generation comprises actions that generate awareness and interest in your website. The purpose of demand generation for your SaaS website is to show your customers and potential customers your SaaS business offerings, functions, and cost.
Every SaaS business, whether B2B SaaS or B2C SaaS, is keen on increasing revenue and customer loyalty. You do not need to wait till your business is a massive player in the market to make it credible and trustworthy. You can start using demand generation tactics now.
The concept of demand generation is not about forcing or hoodwinking people into getting services they do not need. Instead, it is about providing reliable information that fits your customer’s needs.
The marketing aspect of this is not only to create demand for sales. Even the best SEO strategies can only get you so far. At some point, your website needs a solution that can transform customers’ curiosity into interest, which is where demand generation comes in.
7 Demand Generation Tactics To Grow Your SAAS Website
There are many effective demand generation tactics that can bring positive attention to your website. Seven of them have been highlighted below. These strategies will help you grow your SaaS website organically.
- Use demand generation marketing
This goes beyond just creating a demand. Rather, it aims to establish awareness, increase website traffic and get better leads. Demand generation marketing involves having content that educates your potential customers about how beneficial your product is to them. The content can come in the form of blog posts, guides, templates and webinars that educate them.
The first step in generating awareness for your website is to build trust with your potential customers so they can instantly recognize your website. You can quickly build trust by offering a valuable tool for free on your website. Who does not like freebies? It enables your customer to think that “if the free version on this website can give me this much, then a paid version should deliver more value.”
SaaS websites like Mailchimp, Slack, Teachable, and Dropbox provide free services to potential customers. Also, your content is vital. When potential customers visit your website, they need to know everything there is to know about the products and services your business offers.
- Own a blog
Your website needs to have its own unique blog section where customers can easily go and read up on helpful information that addresses their pain points. Blogging engages your audience, guides them to relevant content, and signs them up for newsletters.
To attract online visibility, you will need to optimize your blog’s SEO so that it can rank well on search engines when people are looking for solutions to problems that your business offers. Blogs are great for content marketing. You can get ideas from reliable content marketing blogs.
Additionally, you can create premium and branded blog content that visitors can access only if they fill out a form and provide their contact details. Your company can, in turn, use that information to build a targeted community of potential customers whose pain points it addresses. B2B and B2C customers tend to spend their time doing loads of research. Your blog content can be a knowledge bank for them while also positioning your business as a trusted advisor in SaaS.
- Host live webinars
Online events are another demand generation tactic that can help position your SaaS brand as a thought leader in the market. Your business can build enough credibility by organizing its own branded event, giving it enough publicity, which eventually converts to leads. Webinars allow your brand to stand out by creating distinctive and memorable experiences that make customers feel more knowledgeable and well-informed about the subject matter presented.
You can also record your online webinar sessions and upload the videos on your website to serve as visual content. Videos are a robust demand generation tool that is effective in getting your potential customers to remember your business.
- Make use of email marketing
Personalized emails to potential customers have proven to be an effective email marketing tool, especially for B2B and B2C SaaS businesses. It is the easiest way to get your website in people’s faces because they always open their emails. Email marketing can increase your conversion rates and give you high leads when done right. Just make sure you are providing value for your potential customers.
You will, on some occasions, need to be innovative and strategic in the content you send to potential customers. Make sure your emails are mobile-friendly because most readers read emails through their phones. Newsletters have also proven to be an effective content tool for email marketing.
- Make use of social media
In the digital age we live in, many people spend more time on social media than on websites. You can use varying social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube to connect and encourage potential customers to interact with your website. Leverage social media by providing links to your website on your social media pages.
You can run incentives like throwing an online contest to give your audience a chance to win a free product by visiting your website and subscribing to your mailing list. This can greatly boost the visits to your website. Also, take advantage of social media ads to get more traffic on your website and social media page.
- Develop your content strategy
Great content can only take you a bit far, but an excellent and well-thought-out content strategy will ensure you are top-of-mind when your potential customers think of SaaS businesses within your niche. There is no one-size-fits-all strategy, but you can define measurable metrics that will enable you to plan, create and manage your content.
Without a well-planned content strategy, you will only be wasting your time with writing, designing, and publishing which may negatively impact the growth of your website. In this digital era, you have to be a dynamic content strategist and marketer to create value for your potential customers so that they do not look elsewhere. If you think you cannot handle creating content and managing it, you can consult a digital marketing agency that will fulfill these obligations for you.
- Invest in building leads
When potential customers sign up on your mailing list, it may mean that they believe in your product, but along the way, they become inactive customers for some reason. Some leads may not be ready to pay a premium for services your website offers. You can instead nurture them with relevant content that provides value and will help build a relationship. Whenever they are ready to make a purchase, they will have your company at the top of their mind.
To ensure that your leads are well-informed, you will need to set targeted emails and content campaigns tailored to specific goals and challenges. For example, you can send an email to your inactive customers about service upgrades or discounts on some subscriptions.
Demand Generation vs. Lead Generation
People sometimes use both terms interchangeably, and some confusion arises as to how demand generation differs from lead generation. As mentioned earlier, demand generation involves the actions taken to create awareness and demand for audience expansion and traffic generation. However, lead generation refers to the actions you take to turn prospects who show interest into true customers that believe in the business wholeheartedly without any doubt. In simpler words, demand generation helps you to grow your audience, whereas with lead generation, your audience is now a qualified lead, and they have the potential to become paying customers.
To measure your ROI on your demand generation marketing, you can have key performance indicators (KPIs) to see how well your SaaS website is performing. A good demand generation marketing creates a desire for your website, good opportunities for business growth and engaging demand in the market. The good part is that you can have lead generation tactics within your demand generation tactics to create unique and measurable leads.
Start using demand generation tactics today
Growing SaaS websites is not an easy feat in a world where consumers have a short attention span and are open to multiple choices. In the unending battle for the attention of potential customers, you will need a combination of marketing tactics to help you achieve the growth you want for your website.
The demand generation tactics discussed here are sure to help you gather organic and increased traffic to your website. Whatever you decide, ensure that you know why you want to grow your SaaS website. Rather than choose one tactic over another, you can try all of them and see which ones help you achieve your goals best.
