5 SaaS Growth Strategies to Scale Your Business Quickly

September 28, 2022
Contributor: Shubham Gupta

Grow your customer base, expand business reach, drive revenue and scale quickly with these essential SaaS growth strategies.

Launching and growing a software-as-a-service (SaaS) company is no easy task. Many B2B SaaS providers looking to scale their business and customer base encounter various roadblocks, such as inadequate lead generation, high customer acquisition costs, low customer retention rates and less-than-optimal customer lifetime value (CLV).

The increasing popularity of cloud-based services is driving the demand for SaaS solutions. According to Gartner[1], SaaS makes up the largest share of the cloud service market and more than 50% of the overall software market. This share is only expected to increase in the future.

Sizing cloud shift worldwide 2018-2024

With such high demand comes great opportunities but also intense competition. The good news: Despite all the challenges, SaaS growth is attainable. Creating a well-defined SaaS marketing strategy to respond to evolving customer demand for cloud-based solutions is the way to succeed in the SaaS market. 

In this article, we discuss five SaaS growth strategies that can help ensure long-term success and sustainability for your B2B software business. But first, let's understand what exactly the SaaS growth strategy is.

What is a SaaS growth strategy?

A SaaS growth strategy is a set of marketing initiatives and tactics used to drive customer acquisition and expand the reach of a SaaS product. It generally includes a mix of paid, organic and inbound marketing efforts aimed at generating leads and converting them into paying customers.

Three core elements of a SaaS growth strategy

These three core elements establish the foundation of every SaaS growth strategy and help ensure your SaaS company can follow through on its expansion plans.

1. Market strategy

Understand your target market, and find the right way to reach them. This process involves researching your potential customers, their needs or pain points and the SaaS solution they are looking for. It also includes developing a go-to-market strategy that details how to reach your target market and what channels to use to market your SaaS product.

2. Product strategy

Ensure your SaaS product meets the needs and solves the pain points of your target customers. In this step, you conduct customer research, develop a product roadmap and continuously improve your product based on feedback. You also select a pricing plan that is feasible for your target market.

3. Go-to-market strategy

Put your SaaS product in front of your target customers to generate leads. A go-to-market strategy includes developing a SaaS marketing plan, creating compelling content and leveraging the right channels to reach your target customers. It also includes generating a buzz around your SaaS product and building a sales pipeline that converts leads into customers.

5 key SaaS growth strategies

1. Focus on customer acquisition

You need to have a sound customer acquisition strategy in place to drive SaaS growth. This means generating leads and converting them into paying customers. 

Determine your target market (who you are selling to), create buyer personas (what their needs and pain points are) and develop targeted marketing campaigns (what messages will resonate well). Having a laser-focused approach when developing customer acquisition campaigns helps generate quality leads, and that is where account-based marketing (ABM) comes in. ABM is a targeted marketing strategy focused on key accounts and specific decision-makers within those accounts. 

ABM aims to generate quality leads, accelerate the sales cycle and create personalized campaigns that address the specific needs of each target account. As per the Gartner 2021 Technology Marketing Benchmarks Survey[2], 76% of respondents have an ABM function at their organizations, mainly centralized among marketing teams.

Customer acquisition and retention
How to improve customer acquisition and ABM
 
  • Invest in paid advertising. Allocate a budget for paid advertising, and use it to drive traffic to your website or SaaS product landing pages.
  • Emphasize lead generation. Make sure you have a solid lead generation and nurturing plan to attract and convert leads.
  • Improve customer retention. Nurture existing customer relationships and improve retention rates by providing personalized attention to key customer accounts.
  • Leverage content marketing. Create and share helpful and informative content to position yourself as a thought leader in your industry and attract more prospects.

2. Scale your sales and marketing efforts

A solid customer acquisition strategy will only work if you have the right sales and marketing infrastructure to support it. You will need a team of professionals with specialized expertise in fields including, but not limited to, demand generation, lead nurturing, sales enablement and product marketing to attract, convert and close deals. 

You will also need the right tools and technologies, such as CRM software, marketing automation software and sales intelligence software, so your team can focus more on high-level tasks such as strategy and execution.

How to improve sales and marketing efforts
 
  • Create a robust marketing plan. Identify the right mix of marketing channels and activities to generate more leads for your SaaS product.
  • Invest in sales enablement. Equip your sales team with the resources they need (such as product collateral, sales scripts and training) to close more deals.
  • Measure, track and optimize results. See what metrics you will track to measure success. These could include the CLV, customer acquisition cost and gross margin. Optimize your efforts based on the results.

3. Develop a comprehensive pricing strategy

Pricing strategy plays a crucial role in SaaS growth because it determines how much revenue you generate from each customer. You need to find the right balance between generating revenue and attracting customers. 

A lucrative pricing strategy in the SaaS industry is offering a free trial so customers can try out your product before committing to a paid subscription. It also helps upsell customers on premium features.

Software pricing model selection process
How to improve the pricing strategy

  • Create different pricing tiers. Offer various pricing options, and allow customers the flexibility to choose a pricing plan that meets their needs.
  • Develop a pricing strategy for each customer segment. Determine how you will price your SaaS solution for each type of customer and how that will impact your growth.
  • Consider a subscription model. Find an ideal subscription model for your SaaS product to generate more revenue.

4. Invest in SEO and content marketing

Ignoring SEO and content marketing when trying to scale your SaaS company is a huge mistake. SEO helps attract more visitors organically, while content marketing helps convert those visitors into leads and paying customers.

This process involves producing high-quality content that is keyword-rich and informative. (The image below lists the content types buyers consider most valuable when making a software purchase decision.) Also, emphasize optimizing key pages such as your homepage and landing pages for higher conversions.

Content considered most valuable when making a final decision
How to improve SEO and content marketing
 
  • Make your website SEO-friendly. This includes optimizing your website for the right keywords, having a mobile-responsive design and improving the site speed.
  • Generate quality leads with content marketing. Create helpful and engaging blog posts, infographics, case studies, ebooks, videos, etc., to attract your target audience.
  • Promote your content. Get the word out about your content by promoting it through social media, email marketing and other channels.

5. Expand into new markets and geographies

Don't limit yourself to just one market or geography. Instead, think about ways to expand your SaaS business into new areas. This strategy will help you tap into new customer segments and accelerate SaaS growth. 

Expanding into new markets will allow you to diversify your customer base and reduce the dependence on any one market or geography, making your business more resilient and increasing its growth potential.

How to improve expansion in new markets
 
  • Build a local presence. Target new geographies by creating pages specific to those locations and optimizing them for local SEO, including country-specific keywords.
  • Keep researching new markets. Use market research to identify SaaS markets with high potential, and target those markets for your expansion plans.
  • Adapt your SaaS solution. Modify your solution to better meet the needs of customers in your newly targeted markets or geographies.
  • Develop a go-to-market strategy. Plan how you will enter the new market and what type of marketing and sales efforts will be required.

Keep improving and innovating to win more customers

The SaaS industry is constantly evolving and changing. As a B2B SaaS provider, if you don't find ways to improve and innovate your product, you will fall behind. SaaS customers have high expectations, and they are always looking for solutions that offer more value. Keep the following things in mind to ensure you are always improving your SaaS product:

  • Monitor SaaS industry trends. Track what is new in the industry and what is working for other SaaS companies.
  • Experiment with new things. Don’t just follow the trends; create them! Be bold and try new things.
  • Listen to feedback. Use customer feedback to improve the design and functionality of your SaaS product.

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Shubham Gupta

Shubham Gupta is a Content Writer at Gartner Digital Markets who ideates and creates purpose-driven content to help modern technology businesses achieve their goals. Outside of work, he enjoys reading thriller novels and Urdu poetry, as well as spending time with his dog. Connect with Shubham on LinkedIn.

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Sources

  1. General Manager Insight: Keys to Becoming a Profitable SaaS Provider, Gartner
  2. Tech Marketing Benchmarks Survey 2021: Account-Based Marketing Insights, Gartner
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