We’ve seen it before. If you’re leading an up and coming SaaS startup and have just received funding, you need results fast.
You’re left between a couple not so great choices:
- Focus on marketing a software product that’s not yet fully developed
- Forgo marketing to build a complete product
- Or scale your team with no idea of how to structure new employees
All of these choices, although well intentioned, can lead to mistakes and inefficiencies. It’s times like this that you may want to consider outsourcing your marketing to a startup marketing agency. And what better agency is there than one that specializes in the B2B industry and T2D3 growth.
Let’s first take a look at where you are currently and how you can tell if you are in need of agency services. Firstly, you and your web developers have likely just built your software website, or you don’t have one yet (that’s okay!).
Now that your product has officially been launched into the market, you find yourself in lingo. You have no marketing function, and prospects and customers are beginning to approach you. Although this is great news, it’s also problematic if you don’t have the right answer to their questions. If you don’t accurately describe what and who your product is for, they may not understand it, causing you to miss out on customer opportunities.
If this scenario sounds familiar to you, it may be time for you to invest in a B2B SaaS startup marketing agency. Now let’s run through exactly what you gain access to by doing this:
A fractional CMO
Some B2B SaaS startup marketing agencies offer fractional CMOs that can join your organization’s team as the head of your marketing function. Fractional CMOs are an invaluable resource because they formulate your product or service’s entire strategy, enabling you to achieve your challenging end goal: exponential, but sustainable growth and profitability.
They’ll achieve this through various ways, but one of the core is through achieving Product Market Fit (PMF). PMF refers to positioning your product accurately, and to be successful among paying early adopters.
Once you achieve PMF, you’ll work together to generate leads from every channel that’s useful to your business. You’ll learn which prospects love and have a need for your product the most, and create metrics around getting more of them.
To quickly reach PMF and new leads at every turn, your fractional CMO will optimize your budget, website, brand, and all surrounding marketing strategies. They’ll work with the rest of the team from within the startup marketing agency to ensure you:
- Determine optimal product pricing and launching strategies
- Build a high-ranking online presence
- Create a timeless brand that reflects your innovative product
- Become a thought leader within your industry with content marketing
- Reach new leads with paid search marketing and ABM
- Hire and on-board your first marketing team as you scale
- Ensure you achieve your next round of funding
As you continue to grow beyond achieving PMF and leads, your fractional CMO will also drive your product's credibility, by showing proof of benefits within all advertising channels.
Now that we’ve covered what your fractional CMO will lead, let’s browse through the many other essential services you gain from working with a startup marketing agency.
Content marketing
All of the most successful organizations in the world rely on content marketing, no matter their industry. These big name brands include organization’s like P&G, Microsoft, Cisco Systems, John Deere, and many more.
And startups need to take note! Content marketing services are an affordable way to:
- Drive leads
- Gain visibility online
- Become known as an industry thought leader
- Generate customer loyalty
- Make your budget go further
- Use content as a profit center
Content marketing makes all this possible for one simple, confusing reason: it’s not directly trying to sell your product. You may be wondering, “Well, how does this work then?” It works because the content’s sole purpose is to actually benefit or interest your audience.
Readers can gain valuable industry or product insights, and if done really well, your startup’s content may even become a form of entertainment.
Just think: when you’re really excited or in need of buying a product, how does this anticipation build?
It likely wasn’t from having constant sales emails spamming your inbox or because a sales person was standing behind you when you were looking at a product in store. More often than not, you learned about the product slowly. Maybe you saw someone you admire use it, or you read a really great review. Or perhaps you read articles or watched youtube videos about all the available products within the industry, which lead you to your best option.
Content marketing is capable of doing all this and more, by leading your leads down the buyer’s journey, so they realize one step at a time that they need your product or service.
And strong marketing is impossible without great content! Regardless of what formats of content marketing you’re most interested in pursuing with your startup marketing agency, it’s an essential part of your process.
After all, without content, you wouldn’t be able to deliver and achieve:
Paid search
Meanwhile, paid search is available and highly profitable with the right strategy. In fact, it can contribute to up to 27% of your website’s traffic.
Paid search is a form of digital marketing where your startup marketing agency will create ads for relevant search engine results pages (SERPs), such as those of Google and Bing.
This form of advertising gives your business a competitive advantage by ensuring your ad is present when a user googles a keyword with intent to research or purchase. And the good news is that a startup marketing agency can work with you to formulate a personalized paid search strategy —from SEO to the content behind the ads.
Another of its great benefits is that it’s based on a pay-per-click model, meaning you don’t pay unless someone clicks on your ad. Although you will still need to be reaching the right leads, this model makes it a marketing channel that’s easy to control and measure.
It also makes your SaaS product a lot more accessible to the tens of thousands of people searching on Google at any given moment. Not to mention, many may even be googling the very solution your business is looking to provide with its SaaS product.
ABM
Startup marketing agencies can also strategize and execute your business’s end-to-end account-based marketing (ABM). Not only does outsourcing your ABM strategy save your team a ton of time, but it also helps your company make sales.
So how does your chosen startup marketing agency facilitate your ABM program? The team will first identify your top customer personas and filter a list of high-value, active social media accounts that match them. From there, they will use targeted messaging to reach out to potential customers directly.
This makes ABM a highly personalized form of marketing that can be tweaked to match the stage your SaaS product is in development.
Reach success with a startup marketing agency
Put simply, B2B SaaS startup marketing agencies have a proven track record in helping young and scaling businesses grow their brands online. Looking to learn more about exactly what these startup gain from outsourcing their marketing function? Click here to learn what our clients have to say about Kalungi!
