Unlike those companies that have easy-to-sell products, software as a service (SaaS) companies have to face a lot of difficulty while marketing their product. These companies do not only face marketing obstacles but they also have to deal with long sales cycles and multiple demos. Things were quiet in control until 2020 when the situation got even more troublesome.
To cope up with the year 2020’s situation, many companies had to make prominent shifts in their operations and strategies. However, in such a situation, PPC remained to be one of the most effective digital marketing tactics throughout the year and it can make sure your SaaS compaany is all set to battle all such hurdles.
Here we’ve mentioned a few tips regarding PPC for SaaS that can help you this year and beyond.
1. Be Careful while Optimizing Landing Pages:
Once you start paying for the clicks you must make sure that you provide your users with appropriate hyper-relevant landing pages that can speak to their intention instantly. One of the worst things that can happen when you’re using PPC for SaaS is that your user instantly bounces away from your landing page.
The main reason for your user bouncing away from your landing page is it was not what they were expecting it to be. When the landing page doesn’t speak to the purpose of your users search they immediately back off or bounce away. This is why you have to be very careful while developing your landing pages for PPC ads. Every element present on the page must lead your user to get engaged in your call to action.
There are various ways to get your user involved. It can be either filling out a form downloading a white paper. Moreover, you can also use the chatbots option which can be incredibly effective for such customer engagement. Child birds have been proven to be super effective to prevent bouncers and they also encourage your users to immediately talk about their needs so that it gets easier for you to discover the pain points
2. Showcase your Credibility
If you try to put yourself in your customer’s shoes and you’re using a search engine where you find a SaaS provider just like your brand then there are high chances that you have very less or no pre-existing knowledge about that company you found online. It can be very hard for the user to trust you if you do not showcase your credibility that how you can help them or what you are about.
Since none of your customers know you or your company through any hole in the wall and you also have not become viral overnight, that is why you must always try to provide all the credible information about your company and inspiring truths as well. Moreover, you can also place logos of publications where you have appeared and also write about companies you have worked with only if they permit you to disclose your company’s relationship with them.
One other effective way to inspire your customers and increase sales through online marketing is showing case studies so that you can show the proof of concept. You can easily create case studies through which you can highlight all the successful relationships you have had with your major customers. Not only this but you also have to make sure that you highlight how these brands have benefited from having a relationship with your software.
3. Do not Gate-off your Content
It is one of the most common practices by almost every brand to Gate-off their finest and premium content until they do not acquire some contact information from the potential lead. Your team has spent a lot of hours creating the most insightful content that is possible and after that, all you require is some contact information at first. However, it is not that simple for your potential lead as it usually creates friction between your lead and you.
Moreover, this friction can cause your potential customer to steer their focus away from you to any of your competitors. Not only this, but it will also cause you to face several bounces from the landing page. Since nobody likes bounces, however, if the traffic was organic bounces would have hurt a little less. Along with PPC ads, bounces can be painful as it costs you money, eventually exceeding your ad budget.
4. Let your Potential Customers inform your Ad Copy
Meanwhile demoing your SaaS product to your potential customer, you better also spend a couple of minutes knowing about the customer’s business like what they do, and much more. You must also pay thorough attention to the aspirations, fears, and wants of each of your potential leads. You can record their responses to these questions and it can help you to sell better.
Moreover, it can also help you to better address the needs of your customers and it is one of the best ways to inform future ad copy. Few days you will notice that the majority of dear customers have similar goals and concerns for their startup or business. However, each customer can have variable wants, frustration, and aspirations regarding their business. Knowing such information it will get easier for you to create different ad copies considering these angles.
5. Put your Focus on Long Tail Keywords
If you focus on having your bidding strategy with long-tail keywords then it can be very effective for two main reasons. The two main reasons are it can be very effective in finding better leads and it provides you with cheap clicks that are also highly qualified at the same time. Going for cheap keywords can be very helpful to have a successful PPC campaign as SaaS PPC costs are very high considering the value of the customer.
In cases where the user searches a long-tail keyword, it speaks a lot about the intention of the buyer. You can take an example of a user who searches for “baseball bat” and at the same time, there’s some customer who is searching for “Easton BBCOR 360 ADC baseball bat”, who you believe is gonna stay as a potential lead to be in the sales cycle. These long-tail keywords are super beneficial for finding out potential leads on the cheap.
6. Cycle Out Different Ads Each Month
Most of the leads will perform similar searches a couple of times before they get ready to purchase one particular software. However, when your lead is going to see the same ad of yours more than a few times, they will start ignoring them. As a result, you will have a lower click-through rate, higher PPC cost on getting clicks, and a poor quality score.
That is why the best way of dealing with your ad is to cycle them regularly in and out. You can cycle them every month or weekly as well.
7. Reduce Ad Spend Waste
While dealing with PPC ads there are certain clicks that you will get which are never going to become your qualified leads. This is because your software is not the perfect fit for their needs or maybe they are not the exact type of business that needs your software. In such cases, you will have to pay for the click even though they are not the quality lead.
However to resolve such issues and reduce the number of clicks by such types of customers you can add negative keywords.
8. Target Competing Branded Keywords
So you come to know that company XYZ is the best solution for a certain pain point, and you Google them up. However, you don’t come across that company, but their competitor when carrying out the search. That’s because XYZ’s competitors have created PPC ads targeting their branded search term. You can do the same for building your audience, but make sure to tweak the copy to reflect that you’re a better option or the alternative people have been looking for. Although the bids are going to cost you more than regular PPC keywords, they’re more effective at generating conversions compared to other phrases.
Pro tip: If you’re an established company, make sure the competitors aren’t targeting the keywords of your brand.
Conclusion
The aforementioned tips related to PPC for SaaS can help you to achieve healthy and better online marketing. With these tips, you can reduce the chance of loss from your marketing budget. And while doing PPC, try to think from the customer’s viewpoint. For example, they may have never come across your brand, and they have the option to leave or register interest. For many, a SaaS subscription can be a commitment, so a relationship needs to be built to gain people’s trust before you can expect them to convert. You can do this gradually with the help of newsletters, ebooks, and other content.