The digital marketing landscape is ever-changing, and Software as a Service (SaaS) companies are no exception. To stay competitive, marketers need to stay alert to industry trends and make the most of opportunities in the B2B SaaS marketing space. In this article, we look at five top concerns in B2B SaaS marketing, and the trends attempting to solve them.
The Problem: The Death of the Third Party Cookie and Advancements in Ad-Blockers
Ad blocker technologies continue to grow, with over 40% of US adults blocking ads on their PC or phone. In the second half of the 2010s, the number of ad blockers installed on cell phones more than doubled, from 282 million in 2015 to 586 million by the end of 2020.
Meanwhile, Google has vowed to do away with third-party cookies entirely by the end of 2023. In January, the search engine giant announced that Chrome browsers would be replacing cookies that follow users around the web in with a new system called Topics, which uses a radically different benchmark. Digital marketers are wondering how to strategize alternatives to retargeting to maintain their performance.
The Trend: Native Advertising Will Continue to Grow in Response
Against this backdrop, Native Advertising will surge. Native Advertising is paid content designed to align with the tone and image of the site it appears on, and provide some kind of value to the viewer.
There are no hard and fast rules about how publishers construct native ads, so they can be tricky to spot amongst organic content. This type of advertising is great for its non-intrusiveness, as it’s often completely overlooked by ad blockers and appreciated by customers for providing value.
Sponsored posts and advertorials allow marketers to share useful, engaging information and pitch their products at the same time, while knowledge of your customer’s persona can help you place the ads on the right sites and reach your target audience.
Meanwhile, offering high-value gated resources such as white papers can snag you the personal details of potential leads similar to third-party cookies, while also establishing you as a thought leader in the B2B SaaS marketing space.
The Problem: Banner Blindness and Content Fatigue Equal a Dismal Click-Through-Rate
Even if your paid campaign makes it past ad blockers, studies have shown that internet users are more likely to climb Mount Everest than click on a banner ad. In fact, the average person sees between 6,000-10,000 ads per day. To even register, let alone gain traction, ad campaigns must stand out.
The Trend: Video Marketing Is Key for Captivating Audiences Now
Video marketing is simply more eye-catching and memorable than static advertisements are. Marketers who use video grow revenue 49% quicker than those who don’t. Ads that make use of in-banner video have an 18.4% CTR rate.
Why? While our brains have developed a ninja-like skill for blocking information deemed irrelevant or boring, we still possess an enormous capacity for absorbing engaging content online. In 2021, video consumption reached an all-time high of 14.1 billion minutes consumed – even though fewer videos were uploaded than in previous years.
Creating vibrant, interesting content with strong storytelling places you front and center in potential customers’ minds.
The Problem: Low-Quality Blog Posts are Clogging the Marketing Funnel
AI bots for content creation are not a new phenomenon in the B2B SaaS marketing space. Content is still king when it comes to reaching qualified leads, and sending out a clear message, and companies are sometimes tempted by the promise of artificial intelligence delivering clear, SEO-optimized content in a fraction of the time it would take a human being to generate. But does it work?
Not really. Companies have had some luck using AI content bots to accentuate the work of human writers, but blogs that are written by AI fall far short of the quality of those by their human counterparts. They commonly suffer from poor sentence structure, stilted language, as well as superficial reasoning.
The Trend: Rich, High-Quality Content is More Useful Than Ever
With, on average, six times the leads and three times the conversions of outbound marketing, the value of quality content marketing is abundantly clear.
Informative, well-written content drives shareability, improves your search engine rankings, and establishes you as a thought leader. Unlike paid advertisements, there’s no expiration date on its usefulness once live – evergreen content can keep drawing potential leads to your site years after publication.
Establishing yourself in this organic way as a trusted presence sets you apart in an increasingly competitive market. This brings us to our next point – surviving in a crowded market by building an aspirational brand.
The Problem: The B2B SaaS Market is Already Crowded and Getting Fuller
The B2B SaaS market is currently growing by 18% per year. From a customer perspective, it offers convenient, on-demand technology that’s scalable with their business, and SaaS vendors can continually improve and bug fix the technology, unlike with a one-time purchase.
But for B2B SaaS companies, it can be a struggle to stand out in a hugely competitive industry that is only increasing in saturation. Competing on price is only feasible to a point, so how can companies make the most impact? Competing on value.
The Trend: Build an Aspirational Brand and Become a Thought Leader in the B2B SaaS Marketing Space
An impressive brand experience is at the heart of creating customer loyalty. Making your customers – and potential customers – see themselves reflected in your brand values is key. A clear mission statement and a strong, cohesive company culture are both essentials for building a lasting brand, as is content that is both useful and inspirational.
Creating trustworthy content that answers pressing questions in the B2B SaaS space can, over time, position you as a thought leader – the first port of call for potential customers in need of guidance.
Creating a brand that makes customers feel motivated and understood is no easy task, but perceived passion and leadership are what lead some SaaS companies to succeed while others fail.
The Problem: Customer Retention Remains a Concern
In B2B SaaS marketing, retaining customers is just as important as onboarding new ones. It’s 6 to 7 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than keep an existing one. It’s also been found that just a 5% increase in customer retention can increase company revenue by 25 – 95%. Customer retention is a crucial part of a sustainable B2B SaaS marketing strategy, but beyond usual best practices, what can be done to nurture it?
The Trend: Unbundling Strategies and Flexible Pricing Systems
Creating a flexible, personalized product offering for your customers is a great way to keep them around. Unbundling, or selling particular aspects of your SaaS offering as individual products, caters to customers who may not need the whole package but appreciate your brand or value. Meanwhile, flexible pricing not only widens the net of potential customers but can also help retain customers who do not require all of your services, all of the time, but will still be happy to pay you for the ones they do.
B2B SaaS Marketing Success
To get the best results with B2B SaaS marketing, you’ll need innovative, fast-paced, and disruptive marketing.
At Nituno, experience has taught us that agility and flexibility are key to B2B SaaS marketing success, we’ve poured that knowledge into a comprehensive White Paper on the subject, which can be downloaded here.
We use a variety of marketing strategies including content marketing, video, and paid ads to improve your lead generation and turbo-charge your growth. To get the most out of your marketing, get in touch with us today.
