Software as a service, also known as SaaS, can have long or short sales cycles depending on the nature of its market and target customers. The first step in fueling the sales cycle is generating leads, which can be done through a solid lead generation plan.
Lead generation allows Saas businesses to collect and nurture leads into users, then convert them into paying customers.
How to Generate Leads for SaaS?
Lead generation will help fill your sales pipeline with high-quality leads, best positioning your business to nurture prospects and turn them into customers.
There are plenty of excellent lead generation strategies available but not all of these are compatible with SaaS business models, mainly because of the nature of the target customers and the market. Here are lead generation strategies that work for SaaS:
Optimize Your Website for SEO
The common goal of most SaaS businesses is to become the go-to choice of consumers for their industry niche. Investing in search engine optimization (SEO) can help SaaS companies generate leads without being dependent on paid ads.
SEO is a set of guidelines that improve your website’s visibility for search engines. This drives organic traffic to your website because your webpage is easier to find in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).
Here are some tips on how you can optimize your website for SEO:
- Use meta tags: These are snippets of text that describe your page’s content. Some examples of meta tags are title tags and meta descriptions.
- Strategize keywords: Keywords are a crucial part of SEO because it’s what search engines use to determine the relevance of your content with the search query.
- Publish consistent, high-quality content: Websites that publish content regularly are more likely to get indexed than those that don’t.
Create and Publish Quality Blog Posts
A blog can be an effective tool to generate leads for SaaS. It can help you position your company as an authority and expert in a specific niche.
The key to making a blog an effective lead generation tool is consistency. It’s highly recommended to publish several articles in a week. However, don’t publish any article; make sure that it offers value to your readers.
You can make your blog articles even more effective by incorporating call-to-action (CTA) links. CTAs are signposts telling users what they should do after reading the blog post. Without a compelling CTA, site visitors will leave without giving their contact information, resulting in a missed opportunity to capture a lead.
Aside from publishing articles on your own website, guest posting can also be an effective method of generating leads for SaaS. Guest posting is the practice of writing blog posts for other websites. Doing this will help attract traffic back to your website and boost domain authority.
If you plan on doing guest blog posts, take note of the following:
- Choose the site wisely: The right site to write for is the one with readers who fit your buyer persona. It helps if the site has a high domain authority rating so that it can help your site rank better on SERPs.
- Provide content that adds value to the site: Ensure that your guest post pitch offers value to the readership of the website you are pitching. This will increase the chances of your pitch being accepted and opens the possibility of getting an invitation to write other posts.
Invest in Hard-hitting Lead Magnets
Lead magnets are items or services given to site visitors in exchange for their contact information. An effective lead magnet must have a high perceived value, which means that it could help solve the top pain points of the visitors.
Examples of lead magnets that are effective for SaaS businesses include:
- Freemium Subscription or Free Trials
The core of SaaS businesses are the products and services they offer. There’s no better way of capturing leads than giving them a sneak peek of how your products and services can help improve their lives by offering freemium or free trials.
A freemium model is a strategy of offering a free version of a service. This free version usually has limited features, frequency of use, and number of users. This is an excellent way of bringing in new customers through the door, making it easier to convert them into paying customers.
- Gated Content
Gated content is content that you can leverage in exchange for the contact information of site visitors. Any content that is not readily available elsewhere can be used as gated content, such as in-depth articles, white papers, and case studies.
You can also use webinars and tutorials as gated content. These types of gated content are very appealing to consumers because many prefer actionable solutions for their pain points. They are also more engaging because visitors can ask questions and interact with real people representing the products and services.
Improve Website User Experience
User experience (UX) refers to the degree of satisfaction visitors have with their interaction with a website or application. SaaS businesses with poor UX structures can’t capture leads because of conversion barriers.
Conversion barriers are elements that get in the way of conversions. Some examples of conversion barriers include:
- Weak call-to-action: A weak CTA is a missed opportunity to guide visitors to your website’s landing page.
- UX problems: Common UX problems include lack of mobile compatibility, complex navigation, and visually unappealing design.
- Long signup form: You might be losing potential leads because they find your signup form to be too long or confusing.
- Slow page load time: It’s easy for visitors to feel frustrated because of a slow load time, causing them to leave. It’s also less likely for them to ever return because they already have a negative impression of your website.
- Low email engagement: Low email engagement means your receivers are not reading the emails that you sent out or they are simply not interested in what you have been sending.
Conversion barriers result in a funnel leak, which refers to the point where leads drop out. The best way to address conversion barriers is to determine where the funnel is leaking. Once you have identified the leak, it will be much easier to remove conversion killers and refine your lead generation strategy.
Here’s a quick look at possible solutions for conversion barriers:
| Conversion barrier | Solution |
|---|---|
| Weak call-to-action | Optimize copy with strong & compelling verbs |
| Poor UX | Conduct UX audit on different devices |
| Complicated web forms | Streamline requested information |
| Low email engagement | Improve email relevancy |
| Slow page load | Reduce on-page assets to improve speed |
Tips on How to Scale B2B SaaS Lead Generation
You need to scale your lead growth for success. Here are some actionable tips that will help scale your lead generation:
Understand Your Target Customers
The first step to a solid lead generation strategy is a good understanding of your target customer. Without these insights, it will be difficult to create a targeted approach that resonates with your intended audience.
You can better understand your target customers by defining an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and creating a buyer persona.
| Ideal customer profile | Buyer persona |
|---|---|
| Company size | Job title |
| Industry | Function |
| Revenue | Decision-making authority |
| Geography | Pain points |
ICP and buyer persona are two different descriptions. An ICP is a hypothetical description of a business that would benefit the most from your offerings. Meanwhile, a buyer persona is a research-based description of the person who represents your target customer.
Once you have an ICP and Buyer Persona, it helps to create a buyer’s journey based on the profile you have identified. By doing this, you can develop tailored lead generation strategies based on different stages of the buyer journey.
The three main stages of the buyer’s journey are:
| Awareness | Consideration | Decision |
|---|---|---|
| eBooks | Expert guides | Live demos |
| Research reports | Webinars | Case studies |
| Editorial contents | Podcasts | Vendor comparisons |
| White papers | ||
| Educational videos |
- Awareness: The consumer is aware of challenges and pain points and is looking for more information about them.
- Consideration: The consumer has a good understanding of the challenges and pain points and is actively looking for solutions.
- Decision: The consumer has a list of possible solutions and is deciding which option is the best fit.
Track Your Lead Generation Progress
It’s important to know whether your lead generation efforts are working or not so that you can make the necessary changes. The best way to do that is to track your lead generation progress by identifying your qualified lead volume.
Qualified lead volume is considered the best metric to determine whether a lead generation campaign is effective. This is because the main goal of lead generation is to grow the number of qualified leads for the sales pipeline.
To determine your qualified lead volume, you need to identify the following Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):
- Lead conversion rate: The ratio of the number of leads to the number of visitors. It measures the effectiveness of your campaigns to convert website traffic into leads.
- Customer acquisition cost: How much your company spends to convince leads to buy your product and services. This is inclusive of research, advertising, and marketing costs.
- Cost per lead: How much it costs to acquire a pre-establish lead.
- Lead value: The metric to determine the value of a lead. It helps forecast sales and justifiable costs for acquiring qualified leads.
Expand Your Outreach Campaigns
It’s difficult to stand out from competitors when you are doing the same thing as them. This is why it’s highly recommended to expand your outreach campaign as a way to scale your B2B lead generation.
Here are two examples of how you can expand your outreach campaign:
- Create a podcast: 44% of decision-makers listen to podcasts. Creating one for your business can help you connect with people who have the final say.
- Hold contests or giveaways: Everybody loves free things, so holding giveaways is a fool-proof strategy to increase your following prospects and reach for new ones.
Bottom Line
SaaS is now a $113.8 billion industry and it is expected to get even bigger in the next decade. This goes to show that now is the best time for B2B Saas companies to develop lead generation strategies to capitalize on future growth
Do you want to generate more leads but don’t know where to start? SalesRoads is here to help. We’ll build a custom appointment setting campaign that will fill your sales pipeline with qualified leads. Get in touch with us today and uncover new opportunities.
