Here’s an industry secret few people know:
Most SaaS marketers fail at their own job.
That’s right.
Despite dozens of blog articles, growing a SaaS business is hard.
If that sounds familiar, don’t worry. It’s not your fault—too much of what’s been written about SaaS marketing is incorrect.
This isn’t just high-in-the-sky theory, either. It’s based on practical application I’ve had working with more SaaS marketers than I can count.
The good news is that there are some common errors we can fix.
In this post, I’ll explain:
- Who shouldn’t be doing inbound marketing
- The secret to creating content that actually converts
Most of my examples will focus on SEO and content marketing, but every concept here applies to all types of marketing.
1. Inbound marketing is a waste of your time
You probably didn’t expect this from someone who does inbound marketing, but I’ll say it anyway:
Most industries are wasting their time with inbound marketing.
According to HubSpot, 40% of people don’t read blogs.
Yep. Blogging, video creation, podcasting, whitepapers—it’s a complete waste in a lot of industries, perhaps most industries.
Sure, blogging sounds really cool. But as someone who’s been doing this for a while, it’s easy to become a living version of the cliché—when inbound marketing is your hammer, everything looks like a nail.
It might surprise you that I regularly turn down partnership opportunities when I know inbound won’t be a good fit for them.
For example, I recently turned down a possible partner in the educational space. Their user—a classroom teacher—might love articles or videos with teaching tips.
But the buyer is a school district. And I know from research and experience that school districts are a poor fit for content marketing.
Hiring us would be a waste of their money, so I said no.
Blogging is “cool,” but the truth is that it only works in a handful of industries.
For example, here are six options that might get better results for your industry:
- Trade shows
- Hosting events
- Sponsorship opportunities
- Direct mail
- Cold calling
- Email lists
Do your customers want to read your blog?
Are they reading other blogs? Honestly?
If the answer is no, admit it.
2. You’re a cover with no book
Okay, let’s write a bestseller.
First, find the sections of a bookstore people visit most.
Then, study the keywords in top book titles.
Finally, create a cover that looks like a bestseller and sounds like a bestseller. Of course it will be, right?
Ridiculous? That’s how most SaaS marketing today works.
We copy other successful ventures without focusing on what matters—content that gets people to buy.
To succeed, you don’t need to reinvent the marketing wheel. Just return to the basics of entrepreneurship: talking to customers.
If you’re not actively learning from your customers, then your marketing isn’t going to succeed. The crazy solution is to actually get on the phone with customers to build your success.
We;re too focused on the skunk-infested woman than the everyday customer.
Learning the subtle nuances behind your customer’s motivation can be a game-changer.
And this isn’t about pivoting or changing your product at all (though that might be a side effect). It’s realizing that there are bigger opportunities to sell the same product.
What’s important is to not ask about your ideas, but to get their words.
Then transform those words into ideas.
3. You’re not creating something useful
Okay, so your marketing style is a home run in your industry. And you’re listening intently to customers.
But if you’re not creating something useful, you still lose.
There are three basic criteria I’ve seen for useful content:
- New
- Accurate
- Actionable
Let’s say you’re marketing a project management tool for remote teams.
The most common types of content people produce (blog articles, videos, whitepapers, email opt-ins, webinars, free courses, etc.) are:
- A list of suggestions, “top 48 ways to manage your remote team”
- A roundup, “What 14 team leaders say about remote management”
- A thought leadership piece, “the single management principle behind effectively managing your remote team”
Most content either is a compilation of what’s already online (by far the biggest problem), written by someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about, or with very little practical application.
The solution? Have an expert who knows what they’re doing create original content.
Simple (and difficult) as that.
4. You’re not reaching people ready to buy
There’s a little problem with most content published online.
As the great sales-focused topics are getting scooped up, things like:
– Best running shoes
– Sales platform reviews
… people are turning to easier and easier targets. Which makes sense. But it also means that they’re turning to less sales-focused content.
For most of my writing career, clients asked me to write informational articles. The thinking was that people interested in the popularity of Snapchat were interested in making their own apps, or people interested in Gmail hacks were interested in email software.
It makes sense if you don’t really think about it.
And while it’s still a wildly popular line of thinking, it just doesn’t pan out for SaaS companies.
The reality is pretty simple: people research a problem or curiosity they have.
If your marketing partially solves that problem, but your product solves it completely, you’re on your way to a sale.
If not, you’ve just wasted a few minutes of server time.
This is why some markets excel at informational content. If your revenue comes from ads or more information products (courses, ebooks, etc.) then information is a great way to win over leads.
But otherwise, stick with content that solves problems your paid solution also solves.
5. You’re not convincing people
This brings us to the most shocking statistic I know of in marketing.
According to HubSpot, most people don’t measure sales as a facot rin the success of their market.
[https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/53/tools/state-of-marketing/PDFs/Not Another State of Marketing Report – Web Version.pdf]
[https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/53/tools/state-of-marketing/PDFs/Not Another State of Marketing Report – Web Version.pdf]
That’s right, they’re not even measuring sales as a measure of marketing success.
This is insane to me.
Of course, the analytics industry really makes it easy to focus on vanity metrics, like clicks or traffic, while sales fall through the floor.
But successful SaaS marketers focus on the metrics that really matter—sales, and to a lesser extent the metrics that lead up to sales.
One of the biggest mistakes I see in inbound marketing is the effort not to sell. I find this mind-boggling.
I’ve even been told multiple times by multiple partners to make sure I don’t use an article to sell something. Which is downright confusing.
In content that does sell, the biggest problem is a complete lack of congruency.
So a piece will talk about a high-traffic keyword, then end with a copy-and-pasted pitch for a product that’s tangentially related at best.
This is going about things backwards.
Instead, we need to build up to the sale. The article should basically provide a partial solution to the user’s problem, but clearly explain that the SaaS product is the final step to solving that problem.
In other words, your content should essnetially function as a sales letter.
6. You lack an outsider perspective
A quick yes/no pop quiz. In the last month, I’ve…
… used our product exactly as an ideal customer would for more than an hour.
… subscribed as a new user to find weak spots in our onboarding.
… read more than half the blog/video/podcast content we’ve published.
… listened to any of that content in my spare time, because it was that interesting.
… interviewed one or more customers just for feedback (not sales, support, etc.)
How’d you do?
If you’re like 99% of the SaaS executives I know, you’re missing out on at least one.
We get caught up in our bubble and lose track of how the customer interacts with what we’re creating.
This is easy, it’s natural, and it affects the best of us.
We spend our days thinking about problems like the bug we’re trying to fix, or how to get metrics up on our marketing campaign, and we forget the bigger picture.
Real intuition and insight come from using our own products. For example, Steve Jobs made a last-minute switch from plastic to a glass screen on the iPhone (between the announcement and release). Why? Because he carried it in his pocket and realized the plastic scratched too easily.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZgULosw6cY]
Product teams know and need this.
The problem is that for most marketing teams, customer conversations are siloed in sales and customer support, and ne’er the twain should meet.
As a result, marketing teams move mostly blindly, not really knowing what features the customers want.
This has been one of the biggest breakthroughs we’ve found with our own partners.
When we partner together for a campaign, our third-party insight into what customers are actually doing with the product often makes a big difference.
It allows us to share insight into better marketing strategies.
And in short, it results in better, more effective campaigns for SaaS companies.
7. You fall into old habits
Okay, so that’s great.
But if you’re like the vast majority of SaaS marketers I’ve worked with, all that content won’t matter come Monday morning.
(Or whenever you get back into the thick of what you need to do.)
You’ll just slip back into your own routines. There’s no shame in admitting that, it’s what most people do.
Right?
But because I deeply care, I don’t want that to happen to you.
Even though I’m sitting behind a keyboard here, you’ll be different. I’m not going to let you slip back into those habits.
If you want real, lasting change then you need to put yourself in a situation with constant contact with the new system.
That’s why I encourage you to schedule a consultation with me.
I don’t charge for the consultation, and there’s zero risk and pressure.
You’re probably thinking “this isn’t for me, I’m not there yet.”
Maybe you’re right.
As I mentioned, I often tell companies to not work with me.
If you have 22 minutes, it’s worth it.
It’ll take you two minutes to fill out the form.
Then our call will be 20 minutes.
The worst that can happen is you get valuable advice from me that you can use to change your complete strategy.
