The 6 Best Ways to Reach Customers for Your SaaS Business

When you are looking into ways to increase your client base and MRR, you will need to focus on three things.

1. Reaching customers: cultivating new leads/customers 
2. ARPU: Maximize your average revenue per user (ARPU)
3. Maintaining customers: obtaining clients to renew subscriptions

Whether you've got accounting software, eCommerce software, webinar software, HR software, or any software business, this guide can help.

If your SaaS product is a fresh rollout or you are already generating millions in revenue, new consumers are the lifeblood of your trade.

Of course, you must keep your existing customers happy and renewing, but you'll eventually stop growing if you do not get new people in the door. So, in the addendum to creating a fantastic product, you must get more leads and shift those leads into paying consumers.

Select from these tactics:

1. Direct sales 

Commonly you hear a good product sells itself. As a result, many companies shy away from hiring a massive salesforce to create a product that sold itself and mainly was self-serve.

Direct sales work. Sure, it is not automated, but direct sales bring in highly-qualified customers. If you have a SaaS product generating over a hundred dollars per month per customer, you make enough revenue to justify a sales function. 

Frequently, the first salespeople are founders of the company. Speaking with customers will help you sell the product, but it will also help you refine your product offering. So go ahead and sell! 

And if you have not attempted selling yet, perhaps you should.

If you are sinking your toes into direct sales, you can begin by identifying your target audience. Once you have done that, find a list of those folks:

• Identify active groups on social media sites.
• Search LinkedIn to Identify a job title that will contain a large number of prospective customers
• Purchase an index from a list broker

Once your list is in hand, this is how to set up your sales campaign correctly:

1. Hire a virtual assistant (VA) on Fiverr or Upwork to enhance the list. Your VA should network your niche. By doing so, they will find companies, email addresses, and other helpful data. Maintain a spreadsheet Excel doc.
2. Then use software automation to reach these prospects. A simple email plugin for your regular Gmail account is all that is necessary. You can send ~200 emails per day to your prospects. Depending upon the software, you can create various campaign triggers.
3. The software you choose should allow you to set up templates. The email templates and sequences will pull from your CSV spreadsheet file with your prospective leads. 

Specific sales prospecting campaigns depend upon the industry. Messaging and targeting must be tweaked for the audience. Over time you will perfect the message from feedback and response data. 

2. Search Engine Marketing (Google Ads) 

If your website has search volume, it is easier for you to sell. Google Ads will help market your product. Use Google SEO tools to view the search volume and plan your campaigns accordingly.

Google Ads is an auction. Keywords are bid upon at a price per click (CPC). Your competitors do the same. Whoever bids the highest shows the highest on the search engine results page (SERP).

Naturally, this method can get expensive quickly. 

In our experience, SaaS companies generally have search intent on Google Ads. As a result, you can spend thousands of dollars per month profitably. That is like printing money!

To begin, here are some things you will need: 

1. Tracking: Set up your Google Ads account. Ensure your website is using a conversion tracking tool.
2. Brainstorm keywords: Google Ads campaigns are based upon keywords. Keyword research is necessary to find the right words. Think about the intent of your users. Software companies generally do well with " software " keywords. Searching for your competitor's keywords also tends to work. If you bid on your competitors' branded keywords, you are very likely to find leads who will purchase your service.
3. Ads and campaigns: Divide your keywords into themes. Build a new campaign for each article. A moderate campaign will probably contain between 5 to 25 keywords. Each activity should have a persuasive ad copy relevant to the searchers' intent.
4. Landing pages: Reinforce your campaigns with elegant landing pages. Landing pages should correspond to the search intent of your Google Ads campaign. 
5. Launch: Define your budget, set your geographical demographic, and create your bid. I suggest your first CPC biddings occur near the bottom of the CPC range.

Serious campaigns include email lead capture mechanisms on a page. Tools like Hello Bar deliver a free course or guide in trade for the lead's email address. A user does not always purchase your product right away. So further building an email list will help drive sales in the future

3. SEO  

If Google Ads performs for your SaaS business, you need to rank organically, using search engine optimization SEO, for those exact keywords. 

SEO is the method of optimizing your content for search engines such as Google. An SEO strategy can accelerate lead generation if done correctly.

Blogging-focused content marketing works for acquiring leads. Simply put, more content = more web traffic. As a result, this means the reach to many potential customers to help sell your product.

If you follow our best practices, you can have similar results:

• Target influential keywords: Your first keyword targets should be easy if you're making Google Ads work. Just use the exact keywords! It would help if you did some thorough keyword research. Keyword research enables you to eliminate uncompetitive, highly searched keywords specific to your product offering.
• Blog like a startup: If you are giving SEO a serious attempt, you should publish a minimum of five posts per week for a couple of months. With the massive velocity of articles, you soon put yourself on Google's radar. The algorithm will then help your SEO strategy. 
• Get backlinks: Backlinks matter a lot. A great SEO strategy includes backlinking and getting hyperlinks from other authoritative sites to improve your SEO. Backlinks indicate to Google that your site contains trustworthy information. There are several ways to get backlinks, including PR, guest posting, and plain old backlink outreach. 

As with Google Ads, attempt to capture email leads in your sales funnel. What good is a high web traffic numbers if they never hear about your products.

4. LinkedIn Ads  

SaaS business ads perform exceptionally well with LinkedIn advertising.

The reason is twofold: 

• LinkedIn is a relatively inexpensive channel. Quality B2B SaaS marketing budgets should include $30 to $500 to acquire new leads.
• LinkedIn has precious data for SaaS companies — like job title, employer, work experience, education, etc. Companies marketing to other companies need that info.

LinkedIn's ads run on a CPC or CPM basis and an auction system like Google Ads. If you're bidding more than your competitors, you will win the auction, and your ad will be served.

There are three main types of ads:

• Sponsored InMail
• LinkedIn text ads
• Promoted content. 

LinkedIn's ad network is robust. Many companies use it, including Adobe, Callaway, Blackrock, Microsoft, Mercedes-Benz, WalkMe, and Jira. If you're a B2B Saas business, you will want to take the time to invest. 

5. Press Relations 

Press relations or PR is one of the most effective ways tech startups and small businesses tell their stories and acquire customers. Using the press can be your most cost-effective and highest converting channel. According to Axia, proper press placements have 6x the visibility and 3x the credibility of an advertisement.

• Define your Target Audience & Goals
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• Brainstorm and Create a Calendar
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• Meet the Editors in Your Industry
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• Land Coverage!
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Having a solid presence in the media is crucial, but PR isn't a sprint. 

Positioning is a substantial endeavor and will eventually pay off! Plus, the links you receive from PR placements are beneficial to your SEO strategy.

6 Affiliate program

Affiliate programs are massive for SaaS companies. You've probably seen affiliate programs if you use Semrush, Hubspot or other major SaaS brands. The message of "Earn 30% commission for 24 months if you refer a paid client" is an affiliate program.

They're cost-effective, easy to make, and you only have to pay for customers who sign up to make a purchase. You are not spending money on potential customers. You are investing money in real customers. 

One of the simplest ways to construct an affiliate program is using affiliate program software. Generally, the software is affordable and provides all the necessary tools to create customer referral URLs for payments.

A great tool for B2B SaaS companies is Reditus, see the b2b saas affiliate programs run via us in our marketplace.

How to Maintain Clients and Maximize ARPU?

Retain Clients 

Keeping customers is about creating a product your users love. Quite simply: they'll continue spending if you continue offering value.

Outside of creating a fantastic product, you must employ some of these best practices to ensure you retain users for your SaaS product:

• Reduce the barrier to renewal by implementing auto-renewal when possible.
• Offer yearly pricing options. Annual payments have a better financial track record than monthly contracts.
• Customer support from live chat software is essential to building loyalty. 96% of clients say customer service is vital in their choice of allegiance. When it comes to loyal customers, you should pull out all the stops to ensure they have an incredible experience.
• Go upmarket: Customers who work for companies are more likely than regular consumers to repeatedly whip out their credit cards. 
• Finally, user onboarding decreases churn. Properly onboarded users will stay longer because they know how to use your product optimally. 

Maximize ARPU for your SaaS Business 

The average revenue per user, or ARPU, is one of the most critical metrics in all businesses. Sophisticated and B2B companies alike have entire teams devoted to maximizing ARPU through careful optimization/analysis and up-sells.

Calculating ARPU is pretty straightforward. It is simply the amount of revenue you make per user.

In SaaS businesses, ARPU is used to evaluate performance factors. Pricing and messaging used to reach customers can be measured for effectiveness. The better optimization of these items will facilitate better earning opportunities.

These are the best practices to maximize your ARPU:

• Direct sales: As previously discussed, direct sales usually yield high-value clients. The personal touch of direct sales provides customers comfort in your product, process, and customer support. Therefore, they may shell out for a higher pricing tier.
• Acquisition channel optimization: You may notice that some channels — SEO, Google Ads, direct sales, etc. — yield higher-value customers than others. Invest in a CRM or some tracking software to determine where to find the most valuable customers.
• Price testing: Reasonable SaaS companies are continuously price testing! More often than not, you can charge more for your product with a price test. Well-known venture capitalist Marc Andreesen says his top tip for startups is: "raise prices." Higher prices mean you can afford to spend more on sales and marketing. Therefore you can produce more leads and revenue.
• Upsell: If you're creating new features for your product, always focus on the best, highest-paying clients first. Discover what your most loyal customers want. Knowledge of your customers' needs is typically a good indicator of what you should build next.

The Bottom Line

Nobody ever declared that building a SaaS business was effortless. But if you filter it down to three meaningful metrics: acquisitions, retention, and ARPU, you will have a much better handle on what drives your business. Doing this facilitates you to determine vulnerabilities and places of focus.

Also, remember: the challenge is not insurmountable. There are over 15,000 SaaS businesses making money out there. So always converse with industry experts. Read plenty of SaaS material to learn about the industry every day. The equation isn't tricky, but the devil is in the details.

With the knowledge we presented, you can readily form a sales program. You can now create a campaign that incentivizes users to get on your team. 

Meet the author

Joran Hofman

Back in 2020 I was an affiliate for 80+ SaaS tools and I was generating an average of 30k in organic visits each month with my site. Due to the issues I experienced with the current affiliate management software tools, it never resulted in the passive income I was hoping for. Many clunky affiliate management tools lost me probably more than $20,000+ in affiliate revenue. So I decided to build my own software with a high focus on the affiliates, as in the end, they generate more money for SaaS companies.