Sara Francis
SAAS
30 May, 2024
Do you know that ninety-two percent of SaaS companies especially B2C SaaS companies fail because of ineffective marketing strategies? One big reason is that marketers often focus on selling SaaS tools to big companies for profit. But, research shows that individual customers can generate more sales for SaaS companies.
This is where B2C SaaS marketing comes into play. B2C SaaS marketing is all about creating customer-oriented marketing strategies to sell software solutions to a wide range of customers, rather than just big companies.
In this article, I will talk about B2C SaaS marketing and the challenges and strategies of conducting B2C SaaS marketing. So, let’s get started!
Contents
B2C SaaS marketing is all about using B2C marketing strategies to promote SaaS tools to the target customers rather than large companies. Here, the SaaS companies concentrate on selling their software services directly to individuals.
Suppose you are a graphic designer who uses Canva to create creative designs, posters, and logos. The company offers a trial version of their software to attract customers like you.
So, for 30 days, you get access to Canva’s wide range of templates and tools. As you become familiar with Canva’s features, you will feel the need to upgrade to “Canva Pro” for its premium features. That is how this SaaS company targets individuals and turns them into loyal customers.
Below, I have listed the challenges that marketers face when conducting B2C SaaS marketing.
TSL Marketing surveyed 330 SaaS marketers. According to the respondents, the main challenge in SaaS marketing is limited resources. Small SaaS companies find it difficult to do the following:
As a SaaS marketer, your main focus is to create content that:
The problem is, that you and your competitors are all covering the same topics and making the same claims. As a result, your target audience doesn’t know which software will truly satisfy their needs and solve their problems.
Thus, you should make content that shows your ideal customers how your software will solve their problems. Additionally, try to produce content that showcases the returns on investment your buyers will get by investing in your software solution.
A big challenge in B2C SaaS marketing is building and maintaining strong connections with each customer who buys your software. This is difficult because your customer base is vast and impersonal. Plus, the market is highly competitive and volatile.
Take Zoom, for example. It is a rapidly growing SaaS company globally. During the pandemic, they gained 10 million users who used their software to conduct online meetings regularly.
However, because of this sudden increase in traffic, the company struggled to deliver good customer service and faced security issues. As a result, Zoom lost around $100 billion in market value.
Many SaaS companies fail to grow because their marketers can’t create strategies to attract new clients and keep the ones they already have.
To increase your brand’s ability to bring in new clients, you should use the following tactics:
This way you can keep your current customers engaged, build brand awareness, and reduce customer churn rates.
Many SaaS companies face these two challenges during regular business operations:
Thus, while providing B2C marketing services, marketers try to increase the rate at which marketing-qualified leads become sales-qualified leads. For instance, the software company HubSpot uses marketing tactics like blog posts and free tools to attract new customers.
If you show interest in their products, you become a marketing-qualified lead. HubSpot’s marketing team then provides you with relevant information and personalized content to increase your interest and turn you into a sales-qualified lead.
B2C SaaS marketers commonly use specific channels to market their software solutions to the target audience. Below, I have talked about some of these channels.
SEO is probably the most commonly discussed marketing channel for SaaS products. When you use effective SEO strategies, it helps your website, blog posts, and other content to rank higher for search terms related to your SaaS product.
As your rankings increase, your website has a higher chance of appearing on Google’s first page. This can bring more traffic to your website.
According to a study, when you interact with your customers through email marketing, it helps in the following ways:
So, you can use tools such as Zapier and SendGrid to send personalized and scheduled emails to your users. This allows you to:
Netflix, a popular SaaS company, gained 9.3 million new subscribers this year by doing marketing on social media. You can also promote your SaaS company using the following social media platforms:
This way you can easily and efficiently connect with your target customers who use social media daily. Plus, you can socialize with your customer base and build brand loyalty.
If your SaaS product is a subscription-based phone app, you can use app store marketing to increase its visibility. This means optimizing the app title, description, and icons to improve your app’s ranking in the app store.
When your app has a higher ranking, it is more visible to users in the app store. So, more people are likely to download your app.
You can pay influencers to make short videos and promote the features of your software on social media. This can help you in the following ways:
You should create content that provides engaging and valuable information to your potential customers about your company, the products you are selling, and how these products will help the buyers.
Your content shouldn’t just consist of articles and sales posts. Instead, try to engage with your customers by creating the following:
Viral marketing means your existing users bring in new customers even though you did not actively conduct any marketing activities to gain new customers.
Take Facebook, for example. Initially, loyal Facebook users sent friend requests or recommended the app to their relatives to improve their experience on the platform. This way Facebook gained popularity and millions of users.
Recently, there are many SaaS conferences and marketing events happening worldwide, like The Adobe Summit, SaaSBoomi, and MicroConf. SaaS companies like Canva attend these events to engage with software designers and showcase the unique features of their apps.
So, you should try to attend these events as they will allow you to do the following:
Researchers have discovered that sellers who post short video ads with music and an attractive presenter tend to gain more followers on social media. Plus, their product sales increase.
Thus, you can use paid advertising channels like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Twitter Ads, and LinkedIn Ads to promote your SaaS tools, reach your potential customers, and increase your sales.
There are some important B2C SaaS growth strategies and marketing strategies that experts swear by. Keep reading to learn about these strategies to increase sales and grow your SaaS company.
You need to find customers who will increase your sales. Moreover, you need to discover what satisfies your target audience and position yourself to stand out among your competitors.
Take Spotify, for example. It is a music streaming company that has become incredibly popular. From the start, they targeted podcast listeners, artists, and music lovers as their ideal customers. So, by 2023, Spotify had gained 113 million monthly active users and 31 million paid subscribers.
Your marketing strategy should concentrate on the benefits and value your software solution offers both during and after purchase. As a marketer, you cannot just depend on your target audience to make an impulse purchasing decision to sell your software solution. Instead, you need to do the following:
You should encourage your loyal customers to tell their friends, coworkers, and family members about your software. You can offer them discounts and rewards for spreading the word.
This will help you gain new customers. For instance, Dropbox offers extra storage space to current users who bring in new users to their cloud storage service.
When someone signs up with a referral link, both the referrer and the new user receive extra storage space as a reward. This way, Dropbox uses its current users to tell others about their software and get new customers.
While purchasing a SaaS product customers want to get the most out of their money. So, you should identify what features your customers value most and set your SaaS product’s price accordingly.
Researchers have found that companies that keep adjusting their prices usually gain more value from each customer compared to what they spend to get those customers in the first place.
You should encourage your customers to choose yearly subscriptions over monthly ones. So, they will feel like they are getting more value for their money.
You should give new customers a short free trial of your software. Before the trial, your customers do not know if they can rely on you. There is no trust yet. But if you let them test your software, you can achieve the following things:
Take a look at the table I have provided below. Here, you will get to know about B2C Vs B2B SaaS marketing.
| B2C SaaS Marketing | B2B SaaS Marketing |
| B2C SaaS marketing focuses on selling software services directly to individuals who want to use SaaS tools for their personal use. | B2B SaaS marketing involves selling software services to big companies that rely on SaaS tools to run their business smoothly. |
| B2C SaaS companies provide entertainment to their target customers and solve their problems through their software solutions. | B2B SaaS companies build an emotional connection with their customers to maintain a close yet professional relationship. |
| Salespeople aren’t able to provide proper SaaS customer support and maintain regular after-sale contact as there are too many customers. | Salespeople maintain regular after-sale contact with the authorities within the company to ensure contract renewal and build long-term relationships. |
| The sale usually happens within 48 hours. | It might take a couple of weeks to close the deal. |
| Marketers use social media and content marketing to attract customers and sell their services. | Marketers use trade shows to introduce companies to their software. Afterward, they use direct sales techniques to convince companies to purchase their SaaS tools. |
| B2C SaaS marketing uses consumer-friendly marketing tactics to connect to the general public. | B2B SaaS marketing provides detailed information and uses industry-specific language to connect with the people within the company. |
| B2C SaaS products often have lower prices and are sold on a subscription basis. | B2B SaaS products typically have higher price points. The pricing is often determined after several negotiation sessions between the seller and the company’s authorities. |
| B2C SaaS products are mainly distributed online, so users can easily find and start using them. | The distribution channels for B2B SaaS products can be complex because companies use various sales models. |
To gain more information on B2C SaaS marketing, you can read the frequently asked questions I have provided here.
Suppose you want to measure the performance of your SaaS marketing campaigns. In that case, you should track and calculate your customer lifetime value, how many customers you are losing, how many people become paying customers after seeing your ads, and how much it costs to get a new customer.
It depends on your target customers. If your B2C SaaS product targets a small, specific market that people don’t search for often on social media, paid advertising might not work for you. But if your audience uses platforms like Google Ads and LinkedIn, paid advertising can increase your brand visibility.
Many people often ask what distinguishes a SaaS platform from a regular software application. The difference is you have to download and install regular software on your device to use it. But, you can access various SaaS programs online and pay a subscription to use them.
Overall, in B2C SaaS marketing, companies use marketing strategies to promote and sell SaaS products to individual consumers. It mainly targets the regular users of the software instead of large firms and government organizations.
Early on, popular SaaS companies focused more on B2B SaaS marketing. But, recently, B2C SaaS marketing has been growing because it allows companies to make sales quickly without lengthy negotiations.
Additionally, it is easier to gather customer data and develop software that meets the needs of a broad range of users.
Sara Francis is a seasoned writer with extensive expertise in SaaS business dynamics. With 3 years of immersed experience in the industry, she aims to help businesses by providing valuable insights and practical advice.
Sara Francis is a seasoned writer with extensive expertise in SaaS business dynamics. With 3 years of immersed experience in the industry, she aims to help businesses by providing valuable insights and practical advice.
