Marketing tactics for your SaaS: how to get the word out

Hosted byJustin Jackson

We received some product marketing questions from Nirav Mehta:

• How to get the word out about your SaaS?
• Should you pursue partnerships?
• How can you get distribution for your software product?
• What marketing channels work best?

Build anticipation before you launch
One big opportunity many folks miss is building up anticipation before they launch. Examples:

• Adam Wathan and Steve Schoger shared design tips on Twitter and on their blog for 6 months before they released their book, Refactoring UI.
• Derick Reimer allowed people to “Claim their username” for Level.App before he launched. So far 5,787 people have registered.
• Ben Orenstein talked about Tuple.app, his new product, on podcasts for months before they launched.

Build a reputation for being helpful

• Adam, Steve, Derrick, and Ben also have something else in common: they were consistently helpful to their respective audiences for years before they launched anything.
• Being helpful now, in forums, on Twitter, in podcasts, on your blog, in your mailing list, at conferences, at meetups, in email, is an investment in your future.
• It’s an advantage that can’t be easily copied or replicated.

Bake SEO into everything you do

• The most underrated, and often under-pursued, grow strategy is investing in Search Engine Optimization.
• “SEO is the biggest growth lever that you have and it's something that you should prioritize." - Ryan Hoover, Product Hunt”
• Think about it, when people have a desire to solve a problem, what do they do? They Google it! If your product is the answer to people’s question, you want to make sure they can find it on Google.

Quick SEO tips:

• Explore what questions are asking on: Answerthepublic.com.
• Use a tools like Ahrefs.com on your competitors’ sites! See what keywords people are using to find their site, and what their most popular pages are.
• Make sure you have Google Search Console set up for your website. They have a new “Performance Report” that will show you what keywords people are using to find your site, and where you could rank better.
• Focus on what matters on each page:• Main title - should feature the focus keywords, preferably at the beginning of the title.
• Subheader or first paragraph – expanded description, should also feature the focus keywords.
• Alt text in images – alt text was designed to show text when an image is not loading properly, or if someone has to use a screen reader. This text is read by Google as any other content.
• Meta description – a short, concise (usually 300 characters or less) description of a webpage, shown in search results.
• Keep a document on “blog post title ideas.” For example, I can see, through all my research, that “podcast distribution” is a good keyword combination to pursue. So I could write a blog post with the title: “Podcast distribution made easy - 5 steps.”
• Write these authoritative guide on a topic. Ben Orenstein noticed that there weren’t any good pair programming guides, so he wrote one! http://learntopair.com. These guides typically get shared a lot, which means you’ll get high quality backlinks to your site (which is important for SEO).
• People will also search for “[competitor name] alternatives.” Those are great keywords to target.

The big list of marketing channels:

• Ads: Facebook Ads, Adwords, LinkedIn ads, etc.
• Partnerships: finding influencers that have a similar audience to you, and cross-promoting
• SEO: getting backlinks to your landing page from other sites, and ranking for certain keywords
• Content marketing: blogging, infographics, viral videos
• Platform marketing: engaging in Facebook Groups, on forums, in comments threads
• Direct mail: sending your prospects stickers, postcards, or letters by post
• Events: attending tradeshows, conferences, and meetups and handing out busine