5 Core Strategies for Niche B2B SaaS Marketing
How awesome has it been to watch the rise of the niche as broad B2B SaaS has crowded up over the last few years?! Selling to these corners doesn’t work like traditional B2B SaaS, though. Here’s an outline of 5 core strategic pillars, so you can decide how to balance resources between them.
There’s always some hot strategy making a comeback, it’s distracting. You need to figure out your own cocktail of approaches based on the market, your product fit, budgets, length of sales cycle, the tech adoption curve, runway.
This article should help you gain an understanding of the objectives, measures of success, and considerations of each component. Send thoughts and questions to hello@cusp.co.nz.
Prerequisites
Realise your product is not the centre of the universe. Your target customer probably doesn’t know who you are yet.
There’s a portion of the industry that your product fits with. A smaller portion of those companies have someone who’s driven enough to make change. An even smaller slice of those people are actively in-market, seeking a solution (searching Google for it).
It takes multiple touch points (14+!!) for someone to *start* paying attention to or trusting your brand. You’ll need to figure out how to make your brand voice and solution cut through all of the other content they’re seeing. You have about 3 seconds to do it if they’re not actively in-market.
Demand Generation
A.K.A. out-market. Because we don’t have control over the volume of people actively in-market and seeking a solution (eg. searching Google), we need to generate demand and increase the number of people who are. Welcome to Demand Gen.
Objectives:
Build brand awareness, share of mind, share of brand voice in the wider market, become a trusted industry voice. Make it your brand that comes to mind when they think of your product category, for when they’re eventually in-market. Make it your product they think about when they’re having issues with their current solution.
Move their thinking from
A: “I don’t have a problem” to;
B: “Ooop, there might be a problem here, things could be a lot better”.
A.K.A. FOMO
Note: This is usually only possible for people with a growth mindset. Figure out how to reach those people.Lead gen via value add content (eg. downloadable resource). Note: these aren’t hot leads.
Measure of success:
Engagement metrics.
Content generated leads.
Note: Don’t expect hot leads from this activity.
Timeframe:
This is a long play, expect to see engagement results and in-market increase in 6-9 months of consistent activity and messaging.
What this looks like:
Campaigns targeted to the wider industry, knowing they’re not yet actively looking to buy. Interruption marketing, using paid campaigns to target content to your industry on social media platforms. This also includes content generated leads, knowing these often need much more nurturing and are not hot leads.
Likely Platforms:
LinkedIn Campaigns
Meta: Facebook & Instagram
Targeting:
The wider industry. Because out-market is a longer play, include future decision makers. This should include re-marketing, ensuring multiple content touch points.
Messaging:
Content and messaging can be more emotive to grab attention. Show you understand their day today struggles and how to solve them. Provide genuine value to them. Find a faction and lean into it.
Not covered: Content. Sort out your content pillars.
2. In-market Lead Generation
Generate hot leads from people actively seeking a solution. Ensure your solution shows up during their research phase. This includes mopping up the fruits of your Demand Gen work with Google Search Ads.
Your Demand Generation work will mean your brand is trusted when they do reach this stage. When they see your brand during their Google Search, they’re more likely to a) click, b) convert to a lead in that first session c) move through the sales process faster.
Objective:
Lead Generation.
Note: it’s usually dependent on relevant search volume. If there’s low search volume in your industry, this is going to be a slow burn and you’ll need to put more effort into Demand Gen.
Measure of success:
Lead generation via website demo bookings or contact forms.
Timeframe:
In-market leads are generally hot leads and want information quickly. Leads are more likely to convert in the same session here. This is heavily affected by your website optimisation, make sure the call to actions on your website are clearly visible and appropriate.
What this looks like:
Campaigns only on platforms where you can target in-market intent, where they are actively seeking to buy a solution in your product category. Again: we do not have full control over the volume of industry in-market, so we need to balance this with demand gen/out-market activity.
Likely Platforms:
Google Search Ads
YouTube (sometimes)
Note: Social media platforms usually don’t have suitable B2B behavioural targeting for intent to buy. In-market campaigns usually only cover Google Search ads, where you can target intent.
Targeting:
Keywords as niche and long tail as possible, coupled with intent to buy indicators where available. eg. “best email marketing software” is good, vs. “email marketing” which could be any number of things with no intent.
A note on optimisation: never use broad match, build up your negative keywords list quickly. See more here.
Messaging:
Straight forward, to the point. At this stage they want to get the information they’re looking for as quickly as possible. Google Search ad copy should be tailored for each ad group to reflect the search terms and maximise relevance.
Notes: So often we see this pattern of Demand Generation activity not converting directly from out-market campaigns. But it often leads to a Google Search, with a visit to your site from there. This then shows up in analytics as source=Organic Search, BUT it’s been driven by your Demand Generation work. It’s important to have this understanding. A mistake we often see is short-sightedness in relation to where conversions are coming from . In niche B2B industries your ICP could have a long thought process driven by social proof and offline conversations that you will never hear about. These are often catalysed by Demand Generation activity, especially when the content is social proof or showing your industry network.
3. Account Based Marketing (ABM)
Coordinated targeting alongside your sales team. A forensic, coordinated sales and marketing approach to your target list of companies that have product fit and are low hanging fruit. Segment as appropriate and get started.
Objectives:
Demos booked from companies in the target list.
Warm up targets with content so that when sales team reach out, there is already brand awareness.
Measure of success:
Volume of demos or leads from target companies.
LinkedIn ads demographics analysis
Brand familiarity feedback during sales outreach
Timeframe:
Suggest starting with a 1 month cycle.
What this looks like:
Identify target companies and individuals that are low hanging fruit in your market.
Target them via campaigns with tailored content. Ideally, group the targets by persona per ABM cycle.
Using LinkedIn Sales Navigator (TeamLink Extend is great), the sales team identify network in common for potential intros and warm approaches.
While the list are being targeted and warmed up with content, the sales team reach out to targets using any intros to ensure a warm approach, recording any intel in the CRM.
Results to be reviewed as a team at the end of the ABM cycle.
We suggest starting with a 1 month cycle.
Likely Platforms:
LinkedIn campaigns
Targeted sales outreach using a warm approach wherever possible eg. forensic network approach using LinkedIn TeamLink Extend to leverage intros where possible.
Note: Meta and YouTube campaigns in the out-market ad groups will likely overlap to some of these targets via general targeting and re-marketing.
Targeting:
LinkedIn: Narrow based on the target companies and job role list in the current ABM cycle.
Messaging:
A combination of both out-market and in-market content and messaging approaches.
4. Lead Nurturing
In niche markets with limited TAM and long sales cycles, we need to respectfully nurture each and every lead. Lead generation is just the start of a lifelong relationship.
Often, and especially for long buying cycles, the “burning platform” of need isn’t something you can create for them (still try though!). This means a solid nurture program is essential to take the pressure off the sales team, while maintaining communication to back burner leads.
Effort spent here is usually most valuable when you’re communicating with a lot of back burner leads, or with a high volume of content generated leads.
Objectives:
Move Lead to Deal, and;
Deal to Customer
Measure of success:
Volume of demos booked from existing leads
Deals progressed
Sales funnel velocity increasing
Timeframe:
Lifelong. With a chosen allocation of effort and resource to each deal stage. Eg. Back burner leads will have less effort allocated compared to leads in a technical demo stage.
What this looks like:
A mix of sales and marketing touch points via personal outreach and automated email sequences based on lead stage, industry segment and job role in CRM.
Likely Platforms:
Email sequences via CRM
Re-marketing via social channels.
Targeting:
Lead stages in CRM
Re-marketing on social platforms.
Messaging and content:
A combination of content pillars and approaches. Content should be new to them, focus on their needs, provide value or demonstrate product value relating to their day to day. Involve those in your deal pipeline with your content creation, it’s a great way to build relationships.
5. Customer Marketing
Most of this activity will come from a Customer Success or Account Manager role. Though there’s no substitute for genuine Customer Success, you can also incorporate this activity into digital marketing.
Objectives:
Customer success
New revenue via customer activity
Stay top of mind to encourage referrals
Measure of success:
Engagement with features
Upsells
Expansions
Referrals
Campaign engagement
Timeframe:
Lifelong.
What this looks like:
Marketing efforts to continually show the value of the product, remind them about new features, stay top of mind in order to encourage referrals.
Likely Platforms:
Personal Customer Success and Account Management contact with clients.
Email marketing eg. onboarding sequences, NPS,
Re-marketing on social media for customer centric urls.
Targeting:
Customers.
Messaging and content:
Make existing customers aware of features and benefits so they get the most out of the product. Broadcast other products and add-ons available.
Target customers with content via re-marketing on social channels. It’s a great way to stay top of mind without pestering them over email.
Build relationships by involving customers in content creation eg. guest articles and case studies that champion the client.
Hopefully that gets the ball rolling for you!
Let us know if you have questions. You can drop us a line at hello@cusp.co.nz.
This article doesn’t cover content, which is a huge part of each approach, but that’s a whole other topic.
If you’re keen to know what working with us as a marketing partner would look like, get in touch for a chat.
Best,
Annemarie