Many startup owners and B2B marketers are looking to SaaS marketing agencies to help them develop their business. Because creating and maintaining growth and profitability for their company is not easy and it is not a one-way street. Several factors need to be taken into consideration.
First, you need to always keep a clear customer focus. You should continuously be focusing on how you can generate leads for your company and improve your online acquisition process. Then you need to turn those leads into prospects that again need to be converted into profitable customers. Finally, those paying customers should be converted into advocates.
Yet, that is not all!
As a B2B CEO, you also have to center on the marketing aspect of your business. Nonethless, promoting your business most cost-effectively and in a successful way can seem overwhelming.
Where should you start? What are the critical things to focus on? How do you manage to put action behind all the different marketing strategies?
A suitable solution for you can be to hire a good SaaS marketing agency to support you. By hiring a SaaS, marketing agency for your company you will get expert knowledge and experience to help you boost your business.
You need to make sure you choose the right SaaS marketing agency for your company.
How do you do that?
By following the guidelines, we have created for you below.
In this guide, we will cover the different types of B2B SaaS Marketing agencies, you need to consider for your business.
What are the different types of SaaS Marketing Agencies?
1 – SaaS SEO Agency
When hiring a good SaaS SEO agency for your company there are some essential things for you to look out for.
- Look at the SEO agency’s past performance. Has the agency been competent to deliver great achievements in the past? Are the results comparable to the once you want for your business? Do their clients look similar to your target audience? If the answers to those questions are yes, then you are probably on the right track.
- Get case studies, client references, and online reviews. The most reliable way to find a good SEO agency is to look at reviews from past clients. They will always tell the truth. You can also ask the SEO agency to send you some case studies. If the agency have delivered remarkable outcomes in the past, they will be more than happy to share these results with you.
- Ask past or current clients about their experience. Get in touch with some of the agency’s clients to understand how their experience with the company has been. If the SEO agency that you are considering is genuine, they will have no problem with putting you in touch with some of their clients.
By doing all of the above, you should be in a position to decide if a specific SEO agency seems adequate for your Software as a service startup.
Though, there are also some mistakes that you will want to avoid when choosing your SEO agency.
- Do not use Google as your filter. It can seem obvious to use google when you want to search for the best SEO agency in your area. Simply type in “best SEO agency + your area” and the best agency should be at the top of the Google search page, right?
Because if they know how to do SEO they would rank highest. Well, you would assume just that, but that is not the case.
Great SEO agencies do not need to spend time optimizing their own SEO to gain new customers. They are already busy with their large customer base. Furthermore, the existing clients will refer the company to new clients, which makes the SEO agency running.
However, the SEO agencies that do not have several clients are using all their energy trying to get new clients. They do that by putting a lot of effort into ranking highest in the search results.
- Do not trust “Top SEO” lists. If you search for “top SEO consultants” or “top SEO companies” you will be exposed to some websites that aggregate some of the SEO agencies on the market. Nevertheless, these are not the best SEO agencies out there.
The problem is that the SEO agencies are paying to be on those Top SEO lists. They are simply not trustworthy.
However, you will be able to find a few websites like getcredo.com and Moz’s SEO list where you can’t pay to be listed. These sites can be a helpful source for you.
- Do not choose a cheap SEO agency. When it comes to SEO, you get what you pay for. Therefore, it is important that you don’t choose a cheap SEO agency. Because these agencies will underdeliver in terms of results when it comes to your SEO tactics. They will most likely use cheap solutions like copy-and-paste approaches or automation.
So make sure you set a realistic SEO budget and stick to it. That will give you the results and ROI you are looking for.
2 – SaaS PPC Agency
When it comes to creating and managing a good pay-per-click advertising strategy for your business you want to make sure you have the right resources. Paid advertising is time-consuming and complex, and therefore it might be a beneficial idea to contract a SaaS PPC agency.
When doing that, you should look out for the following aspects:
- View the different pricing structures. First, you need to consider which pricing structure is best for your company. You can choose between the following four pricing structures:
- Performance-based pricing: You pay per lead. Be sure to clearly define what counts as a lead.
- A percentage of monthly ad spend: you pay a percentage of your monthly ad spend.
- A flat monthly rate: You pay a fixed rate every month.
- A hybrid approach: You pay a base fee + include a percentage model. This solution seems to have worked best for most SaaS founders.
- Focus on what you want to achieve. You need to be clear on your goals in order to choose the perfect SaaS PPC agency. Your objective can be anything from building brand awareness, lead generation, launching a new product, or drive more sales.
Once you are clear about your objectives, you are able to communicate these to the different SEM agencies, and they can pitch their solution to you.
- Understand the advertising strategy. It is a good idea to get an understanding of the paid activities that an agency wants to implement before you sign a contract. Of the agency cannot give away all the details before you have made an arrangement, yet there a few points you can focus on:
- Does the agency know the best platforms for you to use in order to drive results?
- Can they come with suggestions about why your current game plan is not delivering results?
- How will they spend your budget most efficiently?
- Are they capable to align your paid campaigns and SEO activities?
If your ideal customer profile is exclusively B2B you should consider using this platform to generate leads. LinkedIn is fuelled by work connections and professional relationships. It is also quite specific: most users are B2B professionals. We recommend using this network to advertise only if your product or service is for businesses. In tis case, considering hiring a specialised Linkedin ads agency instead of a generic marketing agency is the right choice.
3 – SaaS Content Marketing Agency
Once you start looking, you will see that there are numerous content marketing agencies on the market. So how do you choose the right one for your tech company? Below are a few things that you want to be looking for…
- Provide well-written content. It might seem obvious, but you want to pick a SaaS content marketing agency that is able to tell their own story in an engaging way. The agency needs to be able to describe its services and processes in a simple and clear way. In addition, they should provide you with some useful case studies for you to evaluate them.
- Create a solid strategy and process. The agency should not only provide great website content. They also need to understand your organization’s objectives and your customers’ journey. In that way, you make sure that the content is distributed most effectively.
- Include an audience-first approach. What do we mean by that? Simply put, you need to always be aware of what your customers want at every step of the customer journey. Only then, can you provide them with helpful content and resources along the entire journey (articles, ebooks, white papers).
- Ability to build actionable buyer personas. The content agency needs to create actionable personas. Look at their past personas. This will give you an indication of how much effort they will put into understanding your customers. The right personas are the once that includes much detail, is regularly updated and created upon qualitative and quantitative customer and market research.
4 – SaaS Inbound Marketing Agency
- Check their Inbound Commitment. When you have to choose your SaaS inbound agency, you need to be clear about how much of a commitment you need from the agency. Is it only inbound or do you need a combination of inbound and other digital marketing channels like advertising, automation or email marketing?
- Do they utilize Inbound Marketing for themselves? If the agency is not able to do lead generation and inbound marketing for their own company, they probably do not have the skills to improve the customer acquisition process for your Software. So check out if they have a website blog that they post on regularly and what kind of content is distributed ( ebooks, articles…). You can also look at their social media presence to get an understanding of how they connect with their audience.
- How well, do they market their own business? Does the agency have a strong online presence and understand how to market their own business? This will give you an indication of what they will be able to do for your company.
Get an understanding of some of the marketing tools the agency will use to provide services. Furthermore, you can ask about what software systems are in place to support further understanding of your marketing efforts. This will all help you to decide it the agency is right for your SaaS solution.
5 – SaaS Branding Agency
Are you ready to start focusing on brand building for your software solution? Then it might be beneficial to work with a SaaS branding agency to get you on the right track.
When choosing a branding agency for your company there are a few things for you to look for:
- Chemistry. You need to make sure that there is a good cultural fit between your team and the brand agency, as they will all be working closely together, a good relationship is key. Choose an agency that is proactive, innovate and collaborate. That will set the baseline for the best teamwork.
- Industry expertise. It is wise to choose a branding agency that has a lot of experience with clients within your industry. At the same time, you need to be sure that they can communicate how your business is unique from other companies.
- The Selection Process. Make it clear what kind of branding service you need for your software activity. Are you going to simply refresh your current brand create some buzz around your brand, or a complete brand relaunch? Only once this is clear, you will be able to select the branding agency that is suitable for your needs. Because no branding agency is the best at everything, so it would be sensible to pick one with expertise within the filed that you need help with.
6 – SaaS Marketing Consultant
Each of the different kinds of SaaS marketing agencies listed above can all help you to increase your signups in different ways.
However, in some cases it might make more sense for you to hire a Saas marketing consultant expert for the following reason:
- Understand your product better. A marketing consultant specialist can help you understand some of the key metrics.
Not only will you be able to learn more about the most important metrics, but you will also get to understand how to use them to grow.
- Understand your customers and your market better. By hiring a SaaS marketing freelancer you can make sure that, an extensive research is done in order for you to understand your customers, competitors and market better.
Because let’s be honest. Doing intensive research is not something that happens a lot in most companies.
With the perfect marketing freelance, you will get help to make more informed decisions about your marketing strategies.
- Focus on the RIGHT marketing activities. Sometimes you might just choose a specific marketing tactic because it seems like the easiest solution. However, that might not be the right one for your company.
With a SaaS consultant at hand, you make sure you follow the marketing tactics that are effective for your business.
- Stop wasting your money. Some businesses continue with the same marketing strategies, simply because it is easy and comfortable. Nevertheless, you need to be realistic about which activities are profitable for your company and get the best ROI.
A marketing consultant can help you cut off the once that does not contribute to anything valuable for your business. If getting more signups is your first objective, the consultant will make choice to be sure the budget will aligned with this one conversion metric you need.
Conclusion: so how do you choose the right SaaS marketing agency?
As you can see, there is a wide range of factors to consider when you need to choose a good SaaS marketing agency for your company.
Make sure not to overcomplicate things. Focus your efforts on one thing at a time and the rest will follow.
If you use this guide to lead you, we are certain that you will find a good SaaS marketing agency that can help reach your goals.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is SaaS market?
SaaS stands for Software as a Service. SaaS marketing is simply the process you use to promote this kind of software as services to other businesses.
What is a B2B SaaS company?
B2B SaaS refers to companies that sell software as a service to other businesses. B2B SaaS products can include any kind of software such as project management, customer relationship management or collaborative software used within a business.
Is SaaS a B2C?
SaaS B2B companies sell products and services to other businesses. Hubspot is an example of a SaaS B2B company – They offer a customer relationship management software to other businesses. On the other hand, SaaS B2C businesses sell products and services directly to consumers.
What are the best SaaS companies?
The best SaaS companies and applications on the market are: Microsoft, Shopify, Google, Dropbox, Mailchimp, Slack, Adobe.
