New guide: 7 Smart Ideas to Market Your SaaS Business in 2019

Sharks on the hunt and angels out to nurture unicorns

There’s no denying the explosive growth of the SaaS market over the last few years. The environment is highly competitive, in part driven by aspirations of being a unicorn. Many early stage businesses seek funding from specialised SaaS investment vehicles which may be sympathetic and well intentioned.

Some may court more conventional PE or VC, where others might shelter under the wings of incubators and accelerators. And then there is always the question of whether they are sharks or angels…

Ventures that are further along the maturity curve continue to pursue investment deals to take them to Mezzanine stage and beyond. Where ever they are, all need to demonstrate growth to secure buy-in from investors.

For many SaaS companies, the case for their software is a ‘no brainer’ and it should be a case of filling your boots because there’s more than enough low hanging fruit to pick off. However, no matter how strong the case for your SaaS product might be, you still have to get the message out. However, it’s becoming more difficult and expensive to successfully market online software applications.

There’s no question that marketing is a moving target. Marketing technology and practice continues to shift at a fast pace. This means the challenges and opportunities of marketing SaaS products have never been greater.

Looking at the SaaS market through the lens of experience

Often, the tactics that worked before seldom work exactly the same a year down the line. Testing, testing, testing… but it all takes time and eats cash. Burned your data? Churn reaching sickening proportions? Running out of ideas?

Sometimes it’s easy to get tangled up in the same old problems and thought processes… Don’t get us wrong, tackling perennial problems is unavoidable. But what you might sorely be missing is some INSPIRATION!

Xander Marketing has been working with SaaS companies for 10 years. We can see three key trends for 2019:

• The market is becoming saturated and competitive pressure is increasing the potential for consolidation and M&A. A strong brand is needed to succeed in 2019.

• 2018 has seen the leading SaaS businesses race away as fully-fledged brands. The chasing pack has to grow up fast in 2019 if it is to avoid getting left behind.

• Many of the leaders and fast growth SaaS companies are using Product Led Growth (PLG). More need to adopt the Freemium business model – it’s a winning strategy.

Inspiration to market SaaS more effectively from Xander Marketing

To help owners and key stakeholders in SaaS ventures to market their businesses more effectively, the guide 7 Smart Ideas to Market your SaaS Business in 2019 contains some suggestions to help you latch on to these trends.

The guide is based on experience of marketing over 150 SaaS businesses and discusses key topics:

• Why brand matters for B2B SaaS in 2019 with examples of brands that have taken off

• Ideas about an effective acquisition strategy and onboarding and retaining customers

• The value of outbound marketing and content-led strategies, post GDPR

• Leveraging SaaS products that complement and support your business

• Optimising your marketing team by configuring it with the right skills mix

Quite simply, 7 Smart Ideas to Market your SaaS Business in 2019 helps leaders of today’s growing SaaS companies to avoid getting left behind. Click here to download the guide.