Top 15 SaaS Growth Strategies to Try in 2022

As research shows, the SaaS market is growing by 18 percent every year. At this rate, the global cloud computing market is expected to increase from 445.3 billion in 2021 to 947.3 billion by 2026.

Such numbers confirm that in the upcoming years, most organizations will use one or more SaaS solutions to operate effectively.

Because of Covid-19 and the increase of remote work, already 78 percent of small companies have invested in a SaaS option - like a collaboration platform, and more are emerging fast.

To beat the competition, every SaaS organization will need to adjust to the change and prepare to welcome new customers with open arms. To do this, however, they need to ensure that their business is thriving and is ready to advance to the next level.

If you own a SaaS business or considering starting one in 2022, use the following strategies to grow your business.

#1 Invest in Content Marketing

Every SaaS marketer knows the importance of having a content marketing strategy. Since most potential customers are more likely to search for a solution to their problems online, your company needs to be able to offer it to them.

With a content marketing strategy in place, you can build authority and thought leadership in your niche, but you also get to attract more leads and boost brand awareness.

To come up with an effective content marketing strategy, you will need to research your customer’s pain points first and provide them with the solutions they need at various points throughout their consumer journey.

Start by researching key topics in your industry and creating content that your target audience will find useful. The most high-performing types of content are:

• Blog posts (long-form how-to guides)
• Videos
• Social media posts
• Ebooks
• GIFs and memes
• Interviews
• Case Studies
• Infographics
• White Papers
• Checklists

Podcasts are also becoming more popular nowadays, so consider adding these to your marketing mix. Apart from building a blog, you can use these resources as lead magnets at any point to entice people to join your email list.

#2 Focus on SEO

Just because you want people to get to your website first, you need to make sure that the content pillars you create are SEO-optimized.

Search engine optimization (SEO) will help you climb on top of Google search results and get discovered more easily by prospective customers. But first, you need to put in the work.

Conduct keyword research using tools likes Ahrefs, SEMRush, Moz, Ubersuggest and discover key phrases and words that best describe your industry. Then narrow down those options to find what best describes your SaaS product and core features.

Keyword research should tell you what people are searching for and how often, and which have the higher conversion rates so that you can incorporate these into your content.

Also, explore other SEO practices to get the most out of it:

• Resource link building
• Unlinked brand mentions
• Broken link building
• Guest posting

Last, run competitor analysis to find what keywords your competitors are already ranking for, check out their content - what type of articles they are sharing and how often to fine-tune your own results.

#3 Offer Free Trials

Most people would hesitate to invest in any online tool before they try it out. User reviews are a big help but they can’t offer the same result as getting the real taste of a SaaS product.

As a SaaS business, you can offer free trials to your customers at a minimal cost, since there are no shipping fees involved. A test drive of your product can give prospective customers the whereabouts of its use and decide whether it’s a good fit for them or not.

Most businesses offer 14-day or 30-day free trials which is more than enough to help them decide before they buy and fully commit to your service.

During this trial period, you will need to show off your product and your superb customer support skills!

#4 Track Your Metrics

Unless you are tracking your SaaS metrics, you will never know how well your business is performing.

As a SaaS business leader, you will need to find out what is holding the company back and tackle those issues early on. Anything that hinders the growth of your business, needs to be addressed effectively so that you can come up with improvements.

These are the most important SaaS metrics you need to pay attention to:

• Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)
• Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)
• Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
• Churn Rate
• Revenue Retention
• MRR Growth Rate
• Renewal Rate

Make sure you calculate and monitor these metrics every step of the way (weekly or monthly) and track your performance results.

#5 Build Your Audience

Building an audience can help you create a loyal community of customers and leads.

To do this, start taking part in conversations on the topics that your customers care about. Use social media like LinkedIn and Facebook to create community groups and engage with them in every way possible.

Make sure that the group offers free value, to begin with, and avoid sharing too much promotional content. Contact users directly and ask them for feedback on a new product or service you are launching or what type of content they would like to see more.

Also, don’t forget to use influencer marketing. Working with influencers and industry experts will unlock many doors giving you the opportunity to tap into different markets and expand your customer base.

#6 Share Customer Testimonials

There are many SaaS tools out there and this only makes it more difficult for consumers to choose. To encourage them to go with your product, show them what it can do for them in more practical ways.

An idea would be to create a series of case studies featuring the success stories of your customers. Use them to position your product in the best possible light and highlight any data/numbers that show the positive impact that came from using your product.

Apart from case studies, you can use social media posts (UGC), reviews, and customer testimonials and share them across your website. This type of social proof is a gold mine.

#7 Use Email Marketing

Email marketing needs to be at the center of all your business strategies. Even though some people think it is going obsolete, this could not be any further from the truth.

Email is direct, convenient, and offers the best communication channel for one-to-one contact with customers. You can use it to share industry news and updates on your business, send out onboarding emails or informative content like blog posts, feature product announcements and webinar invites, or important offers and discounts.

To get started with email marketing, you will need to build an email list. With an email list, you can keep in touch with your subscribers regularly and send them weekly or monthly newsletters.

#8 Get Featured on Review Sites

Many individuals and organizations prefer to look into review sites to form a well-rounded opinion about a software product before they invest in it.

If you get your product on top review sites like G2 Growd, Capterra, SaasGenius, and GetApp - to name a few, it will count as a huge plus in terms of brand visibility. It will also help to increase trust in your product big time.

Since review sites is all about ratings, you need to ensure that your company - and the product is represented well in all categories like pricing, product features, customer support, and so on.

#9 Take Advantage of Referrals

A referral program offers a cost-effective way to expand your customer base by rewarding existing customers every time they share your service with others.

Instead of relying solely on marketing campaigns which can be time-consuming and expensive, you can set up a referral program and watch your customers increase. Referrals work because people are more likely to trust a friend, a relative, or a co-worker, as opposed to a ‘cold’ advert.

Rewards can be anything from credit incentives to discounts on a customer’s subscription plan.

Companies like Trello, Evernote, Zoom, and Dropbox have all been using referral programs and saw some amazing results.

In fact, as Dropbox CEO - Drew Houston confirms, their company got a 60 percent increase in sign-ups offering extra 500MB cloud storage to their customers and their referrals.

#10 Educate Your Customers

Customer education goes a long way to growing your business and carries immense value.

Not only customers can get to know your product better - more than anyone else, but they can easily become your best brand ambassadors. It can also help you improve your SaaS metrics including customer acquisition, retention, conversion rates and reduce churn rate.

Paying attention to your onboarding process and creating an online academy that offers online courses is the best way to go. Considering that elearning has become more popular than ever before, it gives you the opportunity to reach out and attract more potential customers around the world.

A great case study on how well customer education works is LearnWorlds Academy. Leads who visited our customer education academy were 4x more likely to purchase. You can learn more about it here.

#11 Go on Social Media

It goes without saying that SaaS businesses should take social media and make them work to their advantage.

Instead of just setting up a Facebook or LinkedIn page for your company and waiting for it to bring results, invest some more time and effort into it.

Having a social media manager that can look after your social presence is huge since you will need to have a specific social media marketing strategy in place. This should help you decide on what type of content you need to post, at what time(s) and date(s) work best for your audience.

Leveraging all social media platforms including Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and even Snapchat can help you explore different audience segments.

#12 Work With Affiliates

If you want more conversions, you need to consider building a SaaS affiliate program.

Working with affiliates opens up another enormous opportunity that you can’t ignore easily. Affiliates can encourage their audience to check your company out and persuade them into buying your products.

The way it works is super simple. You simply offer them a commission on every sale you make that comes from your partnership with them, using affiliate links.

Neil Patel talks about affiliate marketing and how to get started with it in more detail in this article, so read through it if you are interested.

#13 Optimize Your Website

Building a website that has a high SEO value and good meta-data comes as a priority.

So is having a high-converting website with all the right on-page elements that will convince site visitors to buy. In the end, it all comes down to a landing page with excellent sales copy.

For every advertising campaign, create effective landing pages that will help you increase your conversion rate. Instead of multiple call-to-action (CTA) buttons, add a single CTAs where appropriate on the page to guide your website visitors to take the desired action.

Also, build dedicated sales pages for your services that go directly to check out pages and encourage them to opt-in to your email list or reach out to you at every chance you get.

#14 Leverage Paid Ads

Explore all available advertising channels and create multiple sales funnels that will get potential leads turning into paying customers.

In short, run paid ads.

Paid internet advertising offers huge potential as it can help you get noticed, positioning your company’s name in front of your target audience. Paid ads come in many forms, so you will need to decide which one(s) you want to invest in.

For example, there are display or banner ads, text ads, Google ads, Bing or Yahoo, social media ads, or platforms that offer additional display opportunities like BuySellAds.

Out of these, the most popular options are Facebook and Google. Choose the platform(s) that will bring the best results by looking at hard data and quantitative information.

#15 Organize Virtual Events

Last but not least, you can always organize virtual events. Virtual summits offer countless benefits to SaaS companies.

These are the key advantages of virtual summits:

• Form new partnerships with industry experts
• Get more leads and referrals
• Gain bigger market visibility
• Promote your products and services
• Create valuable evergreen content

As the quickest way to boost lead generation, virtual summits can get your company out there and position you amongst your key competitors and top market leaders.

Ready to Grow Your SaaS Business?

Implementing these strategies will help you increase your brand awareness, boost your lead generation rates and bring you more sales! Since the SaaS market can be competitive, it’s important to rise above the noise and get your company’s name out there as much as possible.

Forming relationships with customers, affiliates, and partners, expanding your network, offering a free product or service, and making use of effective digital marketing strategies can help you stand out from the competition.

Now over to you - what are you planning to do to grow your SaaS business? Let us know!