How Leading Teams Make Top of the Funnel Pay Off in 2026

The best B2B teams are not asking whether TOFU works. They are asking whether their version of TOFU reduces downstream friction.

That is the right question.

The old model treated top-of-funnel work as the awareness layer at the beginning of a very linear buying journey. The modern model is very different. Strong teams understand that TOFU is valuable because it shapes future conversion efficiency. It increases consideration before a buyer fills out a form. It makes sales conversations easier before an opportunity exists in CRM. It improves pipeline velocity because the buyer shows up with more context, more confidence, and less skepticism.

That matters more now because the margin for waste is smaller. Gartner reported that average marketing budgets fell to 7.7% of company revenue in 2024, down from 9.1% in 2023, which is exactly why top-of-funnel spend has to be tied to efficiency rather than defended with vague language about visibility (Gartner).

Leading teams respond to that pressure in three ways.

First, they define value in downstream terms. They care about increased consideration, higher win rates, better CAC efficiency, faster pipeline velocity, and lower conversion friction, and they do not celebrate traffic for its own sake.

Second, they plan for buying groups, not individuals. A modern B2B purchase rarely happens because one person liked one ad or downloaded one asset. Finance, leadership, security, procurement, and end users often evaluate the same category through completely different lenses. Good TOFU creates alignment across those stakeholders before sales ever enter the scene.

Third, they optimize for decision surfaces, not channels. Search still matters. Paid still matters. Content still matters, but buyers are increasingly influenced by AI-generated answers, review sites, forwarded internal messages, peer conversations, communities, newsletters, podcasts, and social media. That means your job is not to “run channels.” Your job is to show up where buyers form opinions.

This is also where a modern top-of-funnel marketing strategy differentiates itself from disconnected demand-generation programs. The goal is not to create more reach but rather, more qualified future demand.

The 2026 Reality Check: TOFU Isn’t a Stage, It’s a System

A lot of leaders feel like TOFU broke.

That instinct is understandable. The buyer journey is harder to observe than it used to be, and the first touch is often happening somewhere your analytics stack cannot cleanly capture. Buyers now gather information anonymously, compare notes internally, and interact with synthesized answers before they ever visit your site. When a CFO asks, “What did we get for this spend?” there is no satisfying answer if your model depends on last-click proof.

But the issue is not that TOFU stopped creating value. The issue is that buyers stopped behaving in ways that make old TOFU reporting feel neat.

AI-driven discovery is a major reason why. Buyers increasingly get a summarized answer before they click a blue link. Search Engine Land covered Gartner’s widely cited prediction that traditional search engine volume could fall 25% by 2026 as AI chatbots and virtual agents take over more discovery behavior (Search Engine Land). Whether that exact percentage holds or not, the directional shift is clear: discoverability is becoming broader than search rankings alone.

At the same time, most of your market is not ready to buy right now. The Ehrenberg-Bass and LinkedIn B2B Institute research behind the well-known “95-5 rule” argues that roughly 95% of potential B2B buyers are out of market at any given time (LinkedIn B2B Institute; Marketing Week). That means top-of-funnel is not just about generating immediate hand-raisers. It is about building memory, trust, and category understanding so that when buyers do become active, your brand is easier to recall and easier to choose.

This is why “TOFU as a stage” is too small a definition. In 2026, TOFU is a system of buyer-led discoverability, category trust, and signal creation. It is the work that makes future demand easier to capture.

Where Classic TOFU Thinking Breaks (and What Replaces It)

Assumption 1: TOFU Equals Broad Reach

Broad reach sounds good until you realize most of it is irrelevant.

If your program reaches everyone and influences no one inside the ICP, you did not build awareness. You built noise. 

Broad reach inflates spend, muddies reporting, and creates internal pressure to justify vanity metrics. The replacement is category reach inside your ICP. That means measuring engaged exposure, repeat interactions, and account-level penetration among the roles and companies you actually want. Visibility only compounds when the right people see the right message enough times to remember it.

Assumption 2: TOFU Should Produce Leads

This is where many teams quietly sabotage themselves.

When every top-of-funnel asset is forced to produce immediate form fills, the organization starts optimizing for artificial ROI. Content gets gated too early. Messaging gets flattened into conversion bait. And the system trains everyone to value hand-raisers over future demand.

That is not a growth strategy but rather a reporting strategy.

A better replacement is to treat TOFU as the motion that makes the bottom-of-funnel cheaper and faster. When it works, you see fewer objections, stronger branded and category search, more direct and return traffic, better demo acceptance, and better close rates. That is why it helps to think in terms of demand generation vs lead generation, because lead capture is only one piece of the picture.

Assumption 3: TOFU Is a Marketing-Only Job

If marketing owns awareness and sales owns “real opportunities,” you will waste money and time.

Modern TOFU only works when sales, marketing, and RevOps agree on the same definitions. What counts as an engaged account? Which signals matter? When should sales act? When should nurture continue? What behaviors suggest evaluation instead of casual interest?

Without that alignment, marketing creates activity, sales ignores it, and RevOps is left trying to reconcile two different stories about pipeline quality.

Framework: The TOFU Demand-Compounding Loop

The most useful way to run TOFU in 2026 is as a quarterly operating loop, not a campaign bucket.

Step 1: Define “Future Demand (Not Just ICP)

Yes, you need an ICP. But that is not enough.

You also need category entry points: the pains, triggers, constraints, and shifts that push a buyer into evaluation. What changed in their world that makes your category relevant now? What do you want to be remembered for when that moment hits?

That memory should be built around a point of view on the problem, not a list of product features.

Step 2: Build Category Proof That Survives AI Summaries

If your content cannot survive summarization, it will struggle in 2026.

The strongest TOFU assets are clear, specific, and evidence-based. They help both humans and machines answer basic questions fast: What is the problem? What changed? What do leading teams do differently? What happens if you ignore this?

This is where category explainers, research syntheses, benchmarks, teardown-style insights, and frameworks outperform fluffy thought leadership. If you need a benchmark for what that can look like in execution, a good b2b content funnel that converts usually starts by making the problem easier to understand before asking the buyer to take action.

Step 3: Design for Decision Surfaces (Search, AI, Peers) 

Treat distribution like product design.

Your buyers are learning through search, AI answer engines, review sites, communities, newsletters, podcasts, social, events, and internal forwarding. The same idea may need to exist as an article, a short-form narrative, a benchmark summary, a POV deck, a sales follow-up asset, and a LinkedIn post.

That is not duplication. That is packaging for the way decisions actually happen.

This is also why a modern b2b demand generation agency should not think in silos. SEO, paid, content, CRO, and lifecycle all need to reinforce one another if the goal is to compound demand capture.

Step 4: Convert Anonymous Interest Into Real Signals

Not every signal needs a form fill attached to it.

What matters is whether the behavior correlates with evaluation. Repeat visits from the same account. Specific content sequences. Return traffic to solution or pricing pages. Demo page revisits. Review site activity. Branded search lift. High-intent engagement patterns across multiple stakeholders.

The operating agreement here is critical. Sales should know which signals justify outreach and which should stay in nurture. Otherwise, teams default to spamming any contact who twitches.

Step 5: Measure the Loop With Cohorts, Not Clicks

This is where disciplined teams win.

Use leading indicators to steer the program. Use cohorts and influence-outcome analysis to validate it. Do not ask TOFU to prove itself the same way you judge a demand capture campaign, because that guarantees you will underinvest in the work that improves conversion efficiency later.

A helpful way to think about it:

Measuring TOFU Without Lying to Yourself

If you want TOFU to survive a finance review, measurement needs to be honest.

And that starts by separating steering metrics from proof metrics.

Steering metrics are the weekly and monthly indicators that help you manage the program. Think ICP reach, engaged sessions, repeat exposure, content sequences, brand search trends, and account-level engagement patterns.

Proof metrics are the quarterly outcomes that tell you whether the program is creating business value. Think influenced pipeline, win rate lift, improved conversion rates from engaged cohorts, shorter sales cycles, and better CAC payback when you can model it credibly.

Ruler Analytics makes this point well in its overview of top-of-funnel and brand measurement: awareness activity is difficult to evaluate if everything is forced through a last-click lens, so marketers need a broader measurement approach that connects early signals to later outcomes (Ruler Analytics).

The traps are predictable:

• Last-click worship
• Counting hand-raisers as the only valid signal
• Treating MQL volume as a proxy for pipeline quality

These mistakes are why so many TOFU programs look busy but fail to build leverage.

A better approach is stage-appropriate measurement across the funnel, which is also why pieces like b2b advertising insights for every stage of the funnel matter. Different stages do different jobs. Your measurement model has to respect that.

Budgeting TOFU in the “Era of Less”

With budgets under pressure, TOFU has to earn its keep. The goal is not to defend spend for spend’s sake, but to build a portfolio that protects near-term pipeline while making next quarter cheaper.

A better approach is to start with constraints. If pipeline coverage is lagging, you may temporarily allocate more spend to demand capture. But you should still protect the parts of TOFU that create durable memory, category trust, and efficient future conversion.

The key is to define and use “cut lines”.

That means, define what you will stop funding first. Stop non-ICP targeting. Stop assets with no distribution plan. Stop content that says nothing distinct. Stop reporting frameworks that confuse volume for value.

Then reinvest in the things that travel: credible POVs, useful research, strong packaging, discoverability assets, and measurement that links early engagement to later outcomes.

That is the real lesson from the “era of less.” The answer is not to defend spend for its own sake. The answer is to make TOFU operate like a compounding system.

What TOFU Looks Like When It’s Working (Not Just Busy)

When top-of-funnel is doing its job, the signs show up before attribution does.

Sales hears your name earlier in the conversation. Buyers arrive with clearer language about the problem. Demo conversations start with more context and less education. Internal stakeholders are already partly aligned. Discount pressure softens because trust is higher. Late-stage stalls tied to category confusion start to shrink.

You also see stronger discoverability: more branded search, more category search adjacency, more repeat engagement from target accounts, and more influence through third-party or peer-driven surfaces.

That is what separates a thoughtful b2b demand generation saas guide approach from a lead factory mindset. One builds future efficiency. The other keeps chasing immediate proof.

FAQ: Top of the Funnel in Simple Terms

Q: What is top-of-the-funnel marketing?

A: TOFU marketing is the work that helps potential buyers discover your brand and understand the problem you solve before they are ready to evaluate vendors. In B2B, the point is not just visibility. It is becoming findable and believable early, so demand capture performs better later.

Q: Is TOFU still valuable if buyers are researching in dark funnel channels?

A: Yes, but only if you design for the places buyers actually learn. That includes peers, communities, review sites, AI summaries, social, and internal stakeholder sharing. You are influencing what buyers believe before you can track them cleanly.

Q: How long does TOFU take to show results?

A: Leading indicators can move within weeks, especially repeat engagement, branded search behavior, and account-level activity. Revenue impact usually shows over quarters through better conversion rates, stronger pipeline quality, and improved efficiency.

Q: What are the most common blockers to TOFU success?

A: Over-indexing on lead capture. Weak sales and RevOps alignment. Measuring everything through last-click attribution. Publishing generic content with no distinct point of view and building content without thinking about discoverability. 

Q: What is an example of TOFU content for B2B?

A: A strong example is a category explainer or a problem-diagnosis framework, which is a research-backed guide that helps buyers understand an issue and choose an approach before they start comparing vendors.

Move Beyond Manual Top of the Funnel With Directive

In 2026, TOFU wins when it is engineered for buyer-led discoverability and connected to revenue outcomes. It loses when it gets stuck as an “awareness” function measured like lead gen.

That is why Directive’s Customer Generation approach is built around pipeline quality and conversion efficiency, not channel vanity. With DiscoverabilityOS as an operating system for visibility across search, AI discovery, paid, content, and conversion, teams can stop guessing which awareness efforts matter and start building a compounding demand engine.

• Increase qualified pipeline efficiency by aligning TOFU signals with sales follow-up and nurture paths.
• Improve conversion rates downstream by building category trust and reducing evaluation friction.
• Prioritize integrated channels so content, paid, SEO, and CRO reinforce each other, instead of competing.
• Make TOFU defensible in budget conversations with clearer leading indicators and cohort-based validation.

When you’re ready to go deeper, read the top of funnel marketing glossary to align your team on what TOFU is (and isn’t), then use it as the baseline for a compounding demand plan.

The post Top of the Funnel Marketing in 2026: What Still Works and Why appeared first on Directive.

According to Forrester’s 2024 State of Business Buying report, 86% of B2B purchases stall during the buying process. Not because buyers hate the product. Because the channels meant to help them decide are fragmented, contradictory, or missing entirely. When paid search, SEO, content, email, and social aren’t working as one system mapped to buyer intent, you’re creating friction where there should be momentum.

This guide walks you through building that system, channel by channel.

How to Build a B2B Digital Marketing Strategy, Channel by Channel

Here are the 7 decisions you need to make before you touch a single channel. Each one builds on the last, so the order matters. Skip one and the channels downstream will optimize for the wrong outcomes.

1. Define Revenue Outcomes and Your North Star Metric

This step gets skipped because everyone assumes they already agree on what success looks like. Then 3 months in, the CMO is celebrating influenced pipeline while the CFO wants to know why revenue is flat and Sales is complaining about garbage leads. The real problem isn’t a lack of data. It’s that nobody locked a shared definition of what “return” actually means.

Without a North Star Metric tied to revenue outcomes, every channel optimizes for whatever makes its own dashboard look good. Paid search chases clicks, SEO celebrates traffic, content counts downloads, and nobody can connect any of it to the deals that actually closed. That’s how you end up with 6 different teams declaring victory while the board asks why marketing spend went up 40% and pipeline stayed flat.

Start by defining the business outcome you’re accountable for: pipeline influenced, SQLs generated, or revenue closed. Not MQLs. Not impressions. Not engagement. Directive’s Customer Generation methodology forces this decision early because it prioritizes SQLs and customers over legacy lead volume metrics that inflate activity without proving impact. Your North Star Metric should be the single number that connects every channel decision to what Sales and the CFO actually care about.

You’ll know you’re executing well when every channel lead knows how their work connects to SQLs or pipeline, weekly scorecards report on the same metric, and budget reallocation conversations start with “what’s driving qualified pipeline” instead of “what got the most clicks.”

2. Lock Your ICP, Buying Committee, and “Who You’re Not For”

Having a list of firmographics doesn’t mean your ICP is locked. “B2B SaaS companies, 100 to 500 employees, $10M to $50M in ARR” sounds precise until your paid social costs $200 per lead and half the demos are with companies that will never buy.

The real issue is that firmographics aren’t the same as fit, and the actual buying committee rarely gets mapped. Saying “we sell to CMOs” and then acting shocked when deals die in procurement happens because nobody built content for the risk and compliance stakeholders who actually control the budget.

Start by defining the specific accounts, personas, and buying committee roles that matter. Identify the core roles: economic buyer (controls budget and final decision), champion (internal advocate who sells you internally), technical evaluator (vets implementation feasibility and integration), and procurement or risk (manages vendor approval, security, and compliance). For each role, define what they need to believe to move the deal forward, because channels that speak to everyone convert nobody.

Good execution looks like an ICP definition that includes not just firmographics but psychographics (current state pain, desired outcome, decision criteria), content and offers mapped to each buying committee role, and a quarterly ICP review as you learn which accounts actually close and why.

3. Map Buyer Intents, Not a Generic Funnel

Here’s the pattern: a buyer lands on your pricing page, browses for 90 seconds, then bounces. Marketing celebrates the engagement. Sales never hears from them. 3 months later, that same buyer signs with a competitor, and nobody knows why. The reason isn’t that your product was wrong or your pricing was too high. It’s that a problem-aware buyer (still figuring out if they even have a problem worth solving) got treated the same way as a vendor-shortlisting buyer (already comparing you to 2 competitors).

Intent mapping forces you to think from the buyer’s perspective, not yours. A traditional funnel describes where the buyer is in your process. Intent mapping describes what the buyer is actually trying to accomplish. Teams skip this because it feels like extra work on top of the funnel they already built, and because the assumption is that you can just send everyone to the same demo page and let Sales sort it out.

Break the buyer journey into the intents that actually matter: problem-aware (do I have a problem worth solving), solution-aware (what approaches exist), vendor shortlisting (who are the credible options), and purchase justification (how do I prove this decision internally). For each intent, define 3 things: the buyer question they’re asking, the proof required to move them forward, and the next action you want them to take.

Problem-aware buyers need educational content that earns trust quickly (“what is,” “why now,” “how-to” content), and the next action should be subscribe or download, not demo. Solution-aware buyers need frameworks, benchmarks, and selection criteria that shape how they evaluate options, and the next action should be deeper content or a comparison guide. Vendor-shortlisting buyers need proof (case studies, customer stories, competitive differentiation), and the next action can be pricing or demo. Purchase-justification buyers need stakeholder enablement (ROI calculators, security docs, implementation timelines), and the next action is talk to sales.

Before you build a single campaign, get Sales and RevOps to sign off on what “qualified” actually means at each stage and what data fields are required for handoff, because intent mapping only works if everyone agrees on the definitions. The consequence of skipping this isn’t just low conversion rates. It’s a fundamental misalignment between what buyers need and what you’re offering, which is why so many B2B websites feel like they’re yelling at you to buy before they’ve earned your trust.

4. Assign Each Channel a Job and Stop Letting Channels Freeload

The CFO asks which channels are working, and the honest answer is “we have no idea because every channel is trying to do everything.”

Paid search is running awareness campaigns. SEO is targeting bottom-funnel keywords. Content is publishing thought leadership that never ties to a conversion path. LinkedIn is running because “everyone does LinkedIn,” with no defined role, audience, or offer progression.

Nobody can explain what job each channel is supposed to do, which means nobody can explain why performance is mediocre across the board. Channel roles aren’t about listing your tech stack. They’re about defining the job-to-be-done per channel so every dollar has a clear purpose: demand capture, demand creation, trust building, conversion efficiency, or retention and expansion.

Start by defining the job each channel owns. Demand capture channels (paid search, bottom-funnel SEO) convert intent that already exists. Demand creation channels (paid social, top and mid-funnel content) build intent over time by educating buyers and shaping how they think about the problem. Trust-building channels (social proof, case studies, executive POV) validate that you’re credible before buyers take a meeting. Conversion efficiency channels (landing pages, CRO, email) turn interest into pipeline. Retention and expansion channels (lifecycle email, customer marketing) keep revenue growing after the deal closes. Sequencing matters because launching everything at once means nothing compounds.

For examples of how other teams structure channel plans with clear roles, see Directive’s b2b marketing strategy examples.

5. Build an Offer and Content System by Intent

A content team publishes 12 ebooks in a quarter, each with a different topic, different positioning, and a different form. None of them connect to each other. None of them map to a sales conversation. 3 months later, marketing reports 2,000 downloads and Sales reports zero pipeline from any of it. The real cost isn’t just the wasted production time, though that adds up fast when you’re cranking out content that nobody asked for and that doesn’t connect to revenue.

The real cost is that you train buyers to ignore you. They download your ebook, get added to a generic nurture sequence that has nothing to do with what they actually care about, and learn that your content is a transaction (give us your email, we’ll give you a PDF) rather than the start of a relationship. Teams fall into this trap because lead magnets are easy to produce, easy to measure (“look, 500 downloads!”), and politically safe. Nobody gets fired for launching another ebook.

A real offer system is a ladder mapped to buyer intent, where each offer moves the buyer closer to a sales conversation or helps them eliminate themselves as a fit. Start with low-commitment offers for problem-aware buyers (subscribe to a newsletter, download a framework, use a calculator) that earn trust without requiring a meeting. Move to medium-commitment offers for solution-aware and vendor-shortlisting buyers (comparison guides, benchmark reports, recorded demos, case study libraries) that help them evaluate whether you’re the right fit.

End with high-commitment offers for purchase-justification buyers (live demo, pricing conversation, implementation workshop, ROI analysis) that bring Sales into the conversation at the right time. Each offer should answer a specific buyer question, require proof that matches the stage (early-stage proof is “does this approach work,” late-stage proof is “does this work for companies like me”), and lead to a logical next step.

6. Fix Measurement Before You Scale Spend

Attribution at the average B2B company exists in theory, but in practice it’s either so complex that nobody trusts it or so simple that it hides where performance is actually coming from. The failure modes are predictable. Teams build attribution models that require a data science degree to interpret, so Sales ignores them and falls back to “I heard about you from a referral” even when the buyer spent 3 months consuming content before that referral ever happened.

According to Forrester’s 2024 research, 86% of B2B purchases stall during the buying process. That means you need visibility into where stalling happens and which interactions actually move deals forward. Start by defining the required fields for lead handoff so Sales and marketing are working from the same data: source, campaign, intent page, and conversion type. Then build stage-based reporting that tracks progression from lead to SQL to opportunity to closed-won, because the goal isn’t just to measure activity but to measure where deals progress or stall.

Your minimum viable measurement setup includes clean conversion events, consistent UTM parameters across all campaigns, aligned CRM stage definitions that Sales and marketing both follow, and closed-loop reporting that connects leads to opportunities so you can prove which channels influence revenue. For examples of what strong attribution and reporting look like in real programs, see Directive’s b2b digital marketing case studies.

7. Launch in 90 Days, Then Optimize as a System

Marketing leadership that changes the strategy every 30 days because results aren’t immediate, or runs the same campaigns for 9 months without changing anything, fails for the same reason. Both approaches treat optimization like an event instead of a rhythm.

The 90-day cadence isn’t arbitrary. It’s long enough to let channels show signal, but short enough to prevent the “we’ll fix it next quarter” trap where underperforming channels stay funded for political reasons instead of performance reasons.

Optimizing too early means making decisions based on noise, not signal. Waiting too long means missing the compounding effect entirely, because mediocre performance runs unchecked for 6 months while budget that could’ve been reallocated to working channels gets wasted on channels that were never going to deliver.

Break your launch into 3 phases, each with a clear focus and decision gate.

Phase 1 (weeks 1 to 4) is about instrumentation and foundation. Get tracking in place, tighten targeting to your highest-intent segments so you’re not wasting spend on unqualified traffic, fix landing pages so conversion paths are clear and friction is minimal, and publish your core “money pages” (product, use cases, pricing philosophy, comparison content) so you have something worth driving traffic to. The goal here isn’t scale. It’s to prove the system works at small scale before you add budget.

Phase 2 (weeks 5 to 8) is where you make the first reallocation decision. Scale the channels that show qualified signal (conversion rates are improving, SQLs are coming through, Sales isn’t complaining about lead quality), and cut or re-scope the channels that aren’t delivering. This is the most important decision gate because it prevents you from funding mediocrity out of politeness or sunk cost. If LinkedIn is generating engagement but zero pipeline after 8 weeks, you either change the targeting, change the offer, or reallocate that budget to paid search that’s converting.

Phase 3 (weeks 9 to 12) is about building consideration depth so deals don’t stall. Publish comparison content, proof assets, and use cases. Add nurture sequences and retargeting that move warm accounts through evaluation without requiring Sales to do all the education. By the end of 90 days, you should know which channels are working, what messages are resonating, and where deals are progressing or stalling, which sets you up for the next 90-day cycle with a compounding advantage instead of starting from zero.

Channel Roles Across Awareness, Consideration, and Conversion

Before you allocate budget or assign ownership, you need to know what job each channel is supposed to do. Skipping this step is why paid search and SEO keep stepping on each other and why content never converts.

Here’s how channels map to buyer intent and where accountability should live:

If a channel isn’t directly tied to one of these jobs, you’re either funding the wrong work or measuring the wrong outcome.

Paid Media: Capture and Create Demand Without Wasting Spend

Paid media is where budget shows results fast. It’s also where teams burn through $50,000 in a quarter targeting “decision makers in technology” and wonder why their cost per lead looks like a car payment. The goal isn’t to run ads everywhere. It’s to capture existing demand through paid search and create new demand through paid social without paying $80 per click to educate someone on what SaaS means.

Paid Search on Google and Microsoft: Win the Moment of Intent

Paid search is the tax you pay for not ranking organically, and overpaying happens when you treat it like a volume play instead of a precision instrument. The failure mode is predictable. Broad match keywords pull in unqualified traffic, generic landing pages convert at 2% when they should convert at 8%, and attribution gives paid search credit for conversions that would’ve happened anyway because someone searched your brand name.

Start with branded, competitor, and high-intent product keywords where buyers are already looking for a solution like yours. Tight intent targeting and relentless negative keyword discipline are what separate mediocre performance from strong performance. Match intent to landing pages and stop sending everything to one generic demo page. If someone searches “alternative to [competitor],” send them to a comparison page, not your homepage. If someone searches “[your product] pricing,” send them to pricing philosophy or a calculator, not a form that asks for their life story before showing a number.

Paid Social on LinkedIn: Build Familiarity, Not Just Clicks

LinkedIn ads are expensive, and they look even more expensive when you measure them wrong. Job titles alone won’t work because “VP of Marketing” at a 50-person startup has different needs, budget, and authority than “VP of Marketing” at a 5,000-person enterprise.

Layer firmographics (company size, industry, revenue), engagement signals (website visitors, content consumers, past demo requests), and account lists so you’re reaching the right people at the right companies. Creative should speak to pain and outcomes, not features, and it should sound like a peer talking to a peer, not a vendor pitching a product. According to Salesforce’s 2024 social strategy guidance, consistent messaging and a 90-day content calendar mapped to buyer stages outperforms random posts that chase trends every time.

Retargeting as Consideration Insurance

Retargeting without consideration content just reminds buyers you exist, which isn’t a strategy.

The common mistake is retargeting everyone who visited your site in the last 90 days with the same generic ad that says “book a demo,” even though 80% of that audience isn’t ready to talk to sales and half of them bounced after 8 seconds because they were researching the category, not evaluating vendors.

Retarget by behavior, not just site visit. Someone who visited your pricing page is further along than someone who read a blog post. Someone who downloaded a comparison guide is evaluating vendors. Someone who requested a demo and didn’t show up might need a different offer or a credibility signal before they commit. Refresh creative every 4 to 6 weeks to prevent ad fatigue, and rotate offers so you’re not asking for the same action every time.

SEO + Content: Build Compounding Discoverability and Make It Convert

SEO and content aren’t traffic plays. They’re the long-term compounding system that makes everything else cheaper. The catch is that publishing random blog posts with no information architecture and no intent mapping produces organic traffic that bounces faster than a cold email from a stranger.

Start with Information Architecture and High-Intent Money Pages

Nobody wants to talk about technical SEO until a site redesign tanks rankings and suddenly everyone cares about canonical tags, crawl budget, and whether the new CMS murdered the URL structure. This work gets skipped because it’s boring, it requires dev resources, and it doesn’t produce a deliverable you can screenshot for the board deck. What it does produce is a foundation that makes everything else cheaper, because technical debt compounds and every dollar spent publishing content on a broken site is a dollar wasted.

Start with the basics: crawlability, speed, and structured data. Then audit site structure and ensure buyers can navigate by use case, industry, and problem-to-solution paths, not just by your internal org chart or product taxonomy. Prioritize high-intent pages that map to evaluation: product, use cases, integrations, security, and pricing or packaging philosophy. Avoid publishing unverified pricing that creates friction later when Sales gives a different number.

Build an Intent-Based Content Roadmap, Not a Publishing Calendar

A content library built on “we need to post twice a week” with no intent mapping, no buyer journey connection, and no link to what Sales is actually being asked in discovery calls becomes a graveyard of blog posts. The result is content that competes with itself (5 blog posts about the same topic), content that never builds topical authority (scattered topics with no depth), and content that drives traffic but never converts because there’s no conversion path.

Build clusters around core buyer intents, not random keywords. Problem-aware content (“what is,” “why now,” “how-to”) earns trust quickly by educating buyers on the problem before you pitch the solution. Solution-aware content (frameworks, benchmarks, selection criteria) shapes evaluation before buyers ever talk to sales, which is critical because according to 6sense’s 2024 B2B Buyer Experience Report, buyers want transparency and proof early, not after they sit through a discovery call where someone reads their LinkedIn profile back to them. For deeper tactical execution on what good content strategy looks like, see Directive’s b2b digital marketing best practices.

Make Content and Paid Feed Each Other

Content and paid media are usually run by different teams with different goals, different budgets, and zero coordination. That disconnect is how you end up with paid social driving traffic to generic landing pages instead of using your best content as conversion assets.

Use paid search query data to find the exact language buyers use when searching, then build SEO pages that match that language instead of guessing what keywords to target. Use top-performing organic pages (high engagement, long time on page, strong conversion rates) to create paid social creative angles and retargeting sequences, because if content already converts well organically, it’ll convert even better when you put paid budget behind it.

Run a monthly insights swap between paid and SEO or content owners so both teams know what’s working. Paid shares which search terms are converting and which creative angles are resonating. SEO shares which pages are ranking and driving engagement. Both teams use that intel to inform what to build, amplify, or kill.

Updating and consolidating weak pages, improving internal linking to pass authority to money pages, and using content to feed paid campaigns (instead of treating them as separate functions) is how you turn content from a cost center into a compounding asset.

Email + Website Optimization: Turn Interest into Pipeline

Interest shows up and then leaks out through bad handoffs, generic experiences, and sequences that sound like they were written by someone who’s never actually talked to a buyer. Email gets treated like a broadcast channel and the website gets treated like a brochure.

Lifecycle Email: Build a Nurture System That Progresses Deals

The standard B2B nurture sequence is a glorified newsletter where everyone who ever downloaded anything gets the same generic email every Tuesday, regardless of whether they’re problem-aware and researching the category or vendor-shortlisting and comparing you to 2 competitors.

To fix this, segment by intent and stage, not just “everyone who downloaded something 6 months ago.” Design nurture as proof sequencing: case studies that show you’ve done this before, competitive differentiation that explains why you’re different, risk reducers (security docs, implementation timelines, uptime guarantees) that answer the objections buyers haven’t asked yet, and stakeholder enablement content that helps champions sell you internally.

According to Responsive’s 2025 B2B buyer research, 90% of buyers conduct research before first contact, which means email needs to be educational and proof-heavy, not just promotional reminders that you exist.

Website Optimization and CRO: Fix the Leaks Before You Buy More Traffic

Landing pages are where pipeline leaks happen, and the leak goes unnoticed when teams are too busy celebrating traffic numbers to notice that 98% of visitors leave without converting.

Message clarity above the fold matters more than design awards. Put proof near CTAs (not buried at the bottom), reduce form friction (ask for fewer fields), and provide a stronger “next best action” for people who aren’t ready for a demo yet, whether that’s subscribing, downloading a comparison guide, or watching a recorded demo. Baseline conversion rates for B2B landing pages sit around 2% to 5%, so if you’re below that, start with clarity and friction before you blame traffic quality. Run 2 to 3 A/B tests per month and report learnings across channel owners so paid, SEO, and content teams stop optimizing in silos and start learning from what converts.

Measurement and Attribution: Connect Channels to Revenue Outcomes

The average marketing-to-sales handoff is broken because the fields marketing captures aren’t the fields Sales needs to prioritize who to call, when to call, and what to say when they call.

Marketing sends a lead with “Name: John, Company: Acme, Source: Paid Social” and Sales has no idea if this person visited the pricing page 3 times or just clicked an ad once and bounced.

To prevent this, define required fields for lead handoff: source, campaign, intent page, and conversion type. Use stage-based reporting (lead to SQL to opportunity to closed-won) to prevent “CPL theater” where marketing celebrates 500 leads and sales converts 3.

That’s how you measure where deals progress or stall, which channels are actually contributing to closed-won revenue, and whether your cost per SQL is improving or getting worse as you scale. For examples of what good execution looks like in real programs, see Directive’s b2b digital marketing case studies.

Social: Build Trust, Proof, and Buyer-Led Discovery

Social is where your buyer goes to figure out if you’re real or just good at SEO. They check if your CEO has actual takes or just reposts motivational quotes about Monday mornings. They scroll through comments to see if your customers are happy or quietly suffering. They look for proof that you’ve done this before and didn’t ruin someone’s quarter in the process. Social is more than distribution. It’s the credibility check that happens before anyone fills out your form.

Executive and Subject-Matter Expert POV, Especially on LinkedIn

Treating LinkedIn like a press release channel, posting company news, funding announcements, and motivational quotes about hustle culture, produces zero engagement for a reason.

Post consistently about wins, trade-offs, and lessons learned from real work, not just sanitized success stories or vague statements about “the power of persistence.” Short posts, carousels, and video snippets should tie back to the same intent themes as your SEO roadmap so everything reinforces the same narrative instead of feeling random. According to Salesforce’s 2024 social strategy guidance, consistency over viral stunts is how you build authority instead of noise.

Customer Proof and Social Validation

Case studies sit on websites as 8-page PDFs that nobody reads, and the best customer stories never make it into the channels where buyers are actually researching.

Turn case studies into micro-proof assets that work across channels, including before-and-after snapshots, decision criteria that show why the customer chose you over competitors, and implementation stories that set realistic expectations about timelines and effort.

According to Forrester’s 2024 research, 81% of buyers are dissatisfied with their chosen providers. That means proof and expectation-setting are part of conversion, not branding theater. Buyers need to see what success actually looks like, what the onboarding process was like, and whether other companies like theirs got results, because trust is the constraint in B2B deals, not product features.

Prioritize and Sequence Channels by Company Maturity

Not every channel deserves budget at every stage. Early-stage companies that try to run the full playbook burn cash on channels they can’t measure or scale. Enterprise teams that under-invest in proof and stakeholder enablement watch deals stall in legal for 6 months. Match your channel mix to where you actually are, not where you want to be.

Early-Stage with Limited Budget and a Need for Fast Signal

Teams at this stage waste money not because they picked the wrong channels, but because they tried to do everything before they proved anything, optimizing for looking busy instead of learning fast.

Start with measurement and website conversion basics so you actually know what’s working, then paid search for high-intent capture because it’s the fastest channel to prove signal and the easiest to connect to revenue, then a small set of SEO money pages that answer the 3 questions buyers ask most so you’re not paying for traffic you could capture organically. Deprioritize broad awareness spend without a clear ICP and proof system, because you can’t afford to educate the market when you need to convert the people already looking.

Growth Stage with a Need for Scalable Pipeline

Growth-stage companies that try to scale by just adding more budget to the same channels hit a wall because they never built the systems, content, or lifecycle infrastructure that lets channels compound.

If you’re at this stage, expand paid search coverage by intent so you’re not just capturing branded and bottom-funnel traffic, add paid social to reach the buying committee (not just the primary decision maker), and build an SEO and content engine mapped to buyer stages so you have assets that answer questions at every stage of the journey.

Layer in segmented lifecycle nurture and retargeting to support consideration and evaluation. At this stage you can’t rely on every lead converting immediately. You need systems that keep warm accounts engaged until they’re ready to talk to Sales.

Enterprise with Complex Buying Committees and Long Cycles

The typical failure at this stage is assuming that reaching the economic buyer or champion is enough, then being surprised when procurement flags security concerns you could’ve addressed proactively, when the CFO asks for an ROI model you don’t have ready, or when the technical team raises integration questions that your sales engineer has to scramble to answer.

Focus on account segmentation so you know which accounts are worth investing in and which aren’t, stakeholder enablement content that helps champions sell you internally, a stronger proof library that includes customer stories from companies like theirs, and full-funnel measurement that connects marketing to revenue so you can prove which programs are actually shortening deal cycles and improving win rates.

Also expand decision surface coverage with comparison content, third-party validation (analyst reports, G2 reviews, case studies with recognizable logos), and consistent executive POV so buyers see your leadership across multiple channels and conclude that you’re a serious, credible option.

Common Execution Traps That Break Cross-Channel Performance

Siloed KPIs. Everyone optimizes for their own scorecard. Paid celebrates clicks, SEO celebrates traffic, content celebrates downloads, and nobody can explain why pipeline is down 30%. When channels don’t share a North Star Metric, you get 6 different wins that add up to zero revenue.

One-off campaigns. Launching a new campaign every month with a different message, offer, and landing page means nothing compounds because buyers never see the same narrative twice. Consistency isn’t boring. It’s how brands become familiar enough to trust.

Bad handoffs. Leads get routed slowly, with no context, so Sales treats marketing like a random lead generator instead of a pipeline partner. If your CRM handoff doesn’t include source, campaign, and intent signal, you’re asking Sales to guess.

Under-investing in the website. Buying more traffic to a conversion path that leaks at every stage is the highest-waste pattern in B2B marketing. Fixing the website isn’t sexy, but it’s the highest-ROI move that gets ignored.

Over-investing in underperforming channels. Funding a channel because it’s politically popular or because “we’ve always done LinkedIn,” rather than because it moves pipeline, isn’t a strategy. It’s a sunk cost.

No proof for evaluation. Great awareness content followed by nothing to help buyers choose you is how deals stall. Buyers can’t justify the decision to their boss, procurement, or the committee without proof. Proof isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s how deals close.

The Channel Orchestration Model and How to Run It Weekly

Talking about integration while running channels like separate departments with separate goals is the norm, not the exception. This framework gives you a practical operating model so channel execution behaves like one system instead of 6 people filing reports and hoping someone connects the dots.

Inputs start with the foundation: ICP, intent map, offer ladder, proof library, and conversion paths. If these aren’t locked, your channels will optimize for different outcomes and waste each other’s work.

Channel Roles need clear assignments. Capture: paid search and bottom-funnel SEO pages. Create: paid social and top or mid-funnel content. Convert: landing pages, CRO, and sales handoff. Progress: email, lifecycle, and retargeting. Validate: social proof, case studies, and stakeholder enablement. Every channel should know what it owns and what it feeds.

Cadence should follow a consistent rhythm. Weekly: run a channel scorecard tracking SQLs, opportunities, conversion rates, and top learnings. Bi-weekly: review creative and offers to see what messages are earning consideration. Monthly: pipeline review with Sales and RevOps to identify where deals progress or stall.

Feedback Loops keep the system connected. Paid search terms inform SEO targets. CRO learnings inform ad messaging. Sales objections inform content and email nurture. If channels aren’t talking, you’re guessing.

Decision rule for accountability: if a channel can’t show leading indicators that connect to pipeline quality within a defined test window, change the approach or reallocate budget. When evaluating whether to build in-house or work with partners, see Directive’s breakdown of top b2b digital marketing agencies to understand what support models and capabilities to look for.

FAQ

What is a B2B digital marketing strategy? It’s the plan for how you create demand, capture intent, and convert buying committees across digital channels, mapped to buyer intent and measured through pipeline outcomes. Having paid search, LinkedIn, and a blog doesn’t mean you have a strategy. That’s just a list of channels. A real strategy explains what job each channel does, how they feed each other, and how all of it connects to the deals Sales is actually closing.

Why does channel-by-channel planning matter in B2B? Because buyers self-serve research across many touchpoints before they ever talk to Sales, and if your channels aren’t aligned, you create friction, mixed messages, and deals that stall. According to Forrester’s 2024 research, 86% of B2B purchases stall during the buying process, and that stalling often happens because buyers got conflicting information from your website versus your ads versus your sales rep, or because they couldn’t find the proof they needed when they needed it. Channel-by-channel planning is how you prevent that. It forces you to define what each channel is responsible for, what stage of the buyer journey it serves, and what happens when a buyer moves from one channel to another.

What is the difference between demand generation and Customer Generation? Demand generation optimizes for lead volume. Customer Generation optimizes for SQLs and customers. The practical difference is that demand gen teams celebrate hitting MQL targets while Sales complains about lead quality, and Customer Generation teams skip the MQL theater entirely and measure success on whether Sales wants to talk to the leads marketing sends. Demand gen says “we generated 500 leads this month.” Customer Generation says “we generated 50 SQLs and 12 of them are in active deals.” One is a vanity metric. The other is pipeline.

What is the fastest way to improve results without increasing budget? Fix conversion tracking and the website conversion path, then reallocate spend toward higher-intent segments and offers with clear proof. The pipeline leak usually comes from not knowing which channels are actually driving SQLs, sending traffic to landing pages that convert at 2% when they should convert at 8%, and spreading budget across channels that feel important but aren’t actually contributing to revenue. The fastest wins don’t come from adding budget. They come from stopping the waste and doubling down on what’s already working.

How long until SEO impacts pipeline? It depends on authority and competition, but meaningful compounding usually appears over months, not quarters. The mistake is treating SEO like a project with a fixed timeline instead of infrastructure that compounds over time. The fastest wins usually come from improving high-intent pages (pricing, product, use cases) and internal linking first, because those pages can rank faster and convert better than the 200 blog posts sitting in your backlog. SEO doesn’t finish. It compounds.

What usually blocks cross-channel performance? Siloed reporting, inconsistent positioning, weak proof assets, and slow lead routing and follow-up. The practical reality is that paid search, SEO, content, email, and sales are usually run by different people with different goals who barely talk to each other, so buyers get inconsistent messages, leads get routed slowly with no context, and nobody can explain which channels are actually contributing to revenue. Cross-channel performance requires shared KPIs, weekly coordination, and someone willing to kill the channels that aren’t working instead of funding them out of politeness.

Scale Buyer-Led Discoverability with Directive

Directive’s  DiscoverabilityOS methodology help marketing leaders build an integrated system that earns attention across every buyer decision surface and converts that attention into qualified pipeline. In practice, that means we unify paid media, SEO, content, lifecycle, and CRO under shared pipeline KPIs so your teams stop optimizing in silos and start working as one system.

We use financial modeling and LTV-to-CAC clarity to guide budget allocation so spend follows outcomes instead of politics or gut feel. We implement closed-loop attribution that connects campaigns to SQLs, opportunities, and revenue so your leadership team trusts the numbers and stops second-guessing every budget decision.

We turn cross-channel learnings into a repeatable 90-day optimization cadence so performance compounds instead of resetting each quarter, which is how you go from hoping channels work to knowing they do.

If you’re ready to turn this guide into an executable plan, connect with our b2b digital marketing strategy team to focus on your ICP, channel mix, and pipeline outcomes.

The post Build a Channel-by-Channel B2B Digital Marketing Strategy appeared first on Directive.

Buyers now research for 90-180 days across 15-20 touchpoints before talking to sales. CAC has climbed 60% since 2020 while growth rates have compressed. Boards expect marketing to prove attributable revenue, not just “influenced pipeline” that credits everything. That means you need clear leading indicators (activation rate, PQL volume, intent scores) that predict lagging outcomes (closed revenue, NRR, CAC payback under 12 months).

This guide covers seven proven, measurable strategies: intent-based scoring that routes high-fit accounts to SDRs within 15 minutes, PLG funnels that convert 10%+ of free users to paid, content velocity systems that drive assisted pipeline without killing quality, predictive churn models that save at-risk accounts before renewal, full-funnel ABM that orchestrates buying committees, multi-touch attribution that reallocates budget monthly, and pricing experiments that lift expansion ARR 20-30%. Plus a readiness checklist so you can operationalize all seven in 90 days.

Make Strategies Provably Revenue-Driven (Metrics, Signals, Cadence)

Data-backed doesn’t mean “we have analytics.” It means you have a KPI tree connecting leading indicators to revenue, an instrumentation plan tracking every conversion event, and a monthly readout that shifts 10-20% of budget toward channels with superior payback. Without this governance model, you’re flying blind and optimizing toward vanity metrics that don’t move the business.

Success Metrics and Formulas to Use

Lock these formulas before launching any program: 

CAC payback = Sales & Marketing cost in period / Net new ARR (in months). Target <12 months for healthy SaaS. 

NRR = (Starting MRR + Expansion – Contraction – Churn) / Starting MRR. Target 110-120%+ for durable growth. 

Activation rate = Activated users / New signups. Define “activated” as hitting first value milestone in <14 days. 

LTV:CAC ratio ≥ 3:1 for sustainable unit economics.

According to SaaS Capital’s 2025 private B2B SaaS benchmarks, median growth hovers around 25%, and companies with higher NRR consistently outperform on growth and profitability. Implication: prioritize retention and expansion programs alongside acquisition from day one.

Example: A $5M ARR company with 95% NRR lifts expansion rate from 5% to 8% (3-point improvement). Result: NRR moves from 95% to 103%, which compounds to an additional $800k ARR in year two without acquiring a single new customer. CAC payback drops from 14 months to 11 months because expansion revenue has near-zero acquisition cost.

Owner: RevOps defining formulas and governance, Finance validating calculations, Marketing/CS executing programs. For foundational frameworks, see our saas marketing guide.

Pitfall: Using industry benchmarks as goals without accounting for your ACV, motion, and market maturity. A $50k ACV enterprise product should have 18-24 month payback and 120%+ NRR. A $5k ACV mid-market product should have 8-12 month payback and 105-115% NRR.

Instrumentation and Event Taxonomy

Define and instrument every conversion event: signup, activation (first value milestone), PQL (product-qualified lead based on usage), expansion signal, churn risk trigger. Map events to CRM accounts using identity resolution so you can connect product behavior to pipeline creation. Set UTM standards and enforce them—every campaign URL must have source, medium, campaign, content, and term parameters.

According to 6sense’s State of the BDR 2025 research, teams using AI and better tooling see +15% quota attainment with adequate support and 62% report AI improves productivity. Translation: instrument intent signals, product usage, and account engagement so SDRs route to in-market accounts, not cold leads.

Example: Map core events: user_signup (timestamp, email, UTM params), project_created (first activation milestone), team_invite_sent (viral loop trigger), usage_threshold_80% (expansion signal), feature_adoption_below_median (churn risk). Route PQLs to SDR within 2 hours with context (usage patterns, team size, intent topics). Route at-risk accounts to CS within 48 hours with playbook (education content, success call, discount offer).

Owner: Marketing Ops + Data Engineering implementing tracking, Product defining milestones, RevOps validating data quality. 

Tools: Segment/mParticle for event streaming, Salesforce/HubSpot for CRM, Amplitude/Mixpanel for product analytics.

For instrumentation best practices, revisit the saas marketing guide section on tracking infrastructure.

Pitfall: Launching programs before event QA. You’ll spend 60 days before realizing your PQL definition is broken, UTM parameters aren’t passing through, or account matching is failing. Run a monthly audit: check event naming consistency, UTM governance, CRM data completeness (target 90%+ fields populated), and identity match rate (target 70%+).

Decision Cadence and Budget Moves

Set a monthly attribution readout where you review assisted pipeline by channel, CAC payback trends, and conversion rates by source. Mandate budget reallocation: shift >10% of spend toward channels with superior assisted pipeline and payback, kill channels that can’t prove influence after 90 days.

ProductLed’s 2025 benchmark survey shows 91% of SaaS companies plan to invest more in product-led growth—set aside 20% of budget for PLG experiments (free trials, freemium, self-serve checkout) and measure conversion rates monthly.

Example: Monthly review shows organic content drove $2.8M in assisted pipeline at $120k spend (23:1 return), paid social drove $900k at $80k spend (11:1 return), display drove $200k at $40k spend (5:1 return). Decision: reallocate $20k from display to organic content production (hire freelancer, increase cadence from 8 to 12 pieces/month), maintain paid social, kill display and test LinkedIn video instead.

Owner: CMO leading monthly review, RevOps providing attribution data, Marketing executing budget shifts. 

Tools: Attribution platform (Dreamdata, Bizible, HockeyStack), BI dashboards, forecasting models.

Pitfall: Model-hopping every quarter. If you switch from last-click to time-decay to U-shaped attribution every 90 days, you can’t measure trend impact. Lock a model for at least 2 quarters, validate it’s working, then consider refinements.

The Data-Backed SaaS Marketing Strategies (1-3)

These first three strategies accelerate pipeline velocity and reduce CAC by focusing spend on high-intent accounts and self-serve conversion paths. You’re not chasing volume—you’re routing the right accounts to the right motion at the right time.

1) Intent-Based Lead Scoring (First- and Third-Party)

Score accounts on buying-stage fit by layering firmographic filters (industry, size, revenue), product engagement (feature usage, activation status), website behavior (pages visited, content downloaded), and third-party intent signals (topics researched, competitive searches). Weight recent high-intent actions (RFP template downloads, pricing page visits, competitor comparison research) 3-5x higher than generic traffic.

6sense’s 2025 BDR research shows AI and better data improve SDR productivity by 62% and quota attainment by 15 points when supported properly. Intent scoring does this by routing SDRs to accounts actively evaluating solutions instead of cold outbound to companies not in-market.

Example: Account shows surge activity on “SOC 2 compliance automation” and “security audit software” in last 7 days (third-party intent), visits pricing page twice and downloads ROI calculator (first-party behavior), matches ICP (500-2,000 employees, $50M+ revenue, using Salesforce). Combined score: 85/100. Trigger: SDR outreach within 15 minutes with personalized message referencing audit season and compliance pain points.

Metric: SQL rate from intent-qualified accounts vs. non-intent accounts. Target 2x higher conversion. Track time-to-contact (target <15 minutes for hot leads), time-to-meeting-booked (target <48 hours). 

Owner: Marketing Ops defining scoring model, SDR leadership managing routing and SLAs.

Tools: 6sense, ZoomInfo, Bombora for intent data; Salesforce/HubSpot for scoring and routing; Outreach/Salesloft for SDR workflows.

Pitfall: Static scoring thresholds that never update. Retrain your model quarterly on actual conversion data—if “visited blog 5+ times” correlates with 2% SQL rate but “downloaded pricing guide” correlates with 40% SQL rate, adjust weights accordingly.

2) PLG-Driven Funnel Design Around PQLs and Activation

Make the product the primary qualifier instead of relying on sales to validate fit. Define activation milestones (first value achieved in <14 days) and product-qualified lead (PQL) criteria based on usage patterns that predict purchase intent. Build sales-assist for high-intent users who cross PQL thresholds so AEs close warm opportunities, not cold prospects.

ProductLed’s 2025 benchmarks report median free-to-paid conversion around 9%, with products in the $1-5k ACV range hitting approximately 10%. Use these as sanity checks—if you’re at 3%, your activation or PQL definition is broken. If you’re at 15%, you might be under-monetizing.

Example: SaaS product defines activation as “created first project + invited 2 teammates within 14 days.” PQL criteria: “activated user + hit 80% of feature usage threshold + team size ≥3.” When account crosses PQL threshold, route to AE within 24 hours with enablement email sequence explaining ROI, integration options, and implementation timeline. AE has context: usage patterns, team composition, features adopted, likely expansion path.

Metric: PQL→SQL conversion rate (target 30-50% for well-defined PQLs). Activation rate = Activated users / New signups (target 50-70% for self-serve products). Track time-to-activation (median days from signup to first value) and cohort retention by activation status (activated users should have 3-5x higher retention).

Owner: Growth PM defining activation milestones and PQL criteria, Sales Ops managing routing and AE SLAs, Product instrumenting usage events. 

Tools: Amplitude/Mixpanel for product analytics, marketing automation platform for enablement sequences, CRM for PQL routing.

For tactical PLG implementation steps, see our B2B saas marketing playbook.

Pitfall: No clear PQL definition, so “PQLs” are just active users with no buying intent. Fix with rigorous event schema, quarterly cohort analysis comparing PQL→paid conversion rates vs. non-PQL→paid rates, and continuous refinement based on actual purchase behavior.

3) Content Velocity Optimization for Durable Organic Growth

Publish at a sustainable cadence (8-12 pieces per month for mid-market SaaS, 15-20 for enterprise with larger teams) mapped to topical clusters and buying committee roles. Measure content’s impact on assisted conversions and pipeline, not just traffic or rankings. Quality controls: briefs with clear angles, SME interviews for depth, editorial review before publish, quarterly refreshes for top performers.

Content Marketing Institute’s 2026 B2B trends report notes content teams are prioritizing trust-building assets (original research, case studies, expert POV) and diversified distribution over clickbait volume. Align topics to revenue outcomes—every piece should tie to a solution page and include a bottom-funnel CTA.

Example: Ship 4 authority pieces per month (2,000+ words each: ultimate guides, comparison posts, methodology breakdowns) + 8 supporting posts (800-1,200 words: tactical how-tos, use case breakdowns, feature deep-dives). Each authority piece targets a cluster (e.g., “marketing attribution” cluster includes attribution models guide, multi-touch vs. last-click comparison, attribution platform reviews). Each piece links to relevant solution page and demo CTA.

Metric: Content-assisted pipeline (opportunities where buyer engaged with 2+ content pieces before converting) and first-page keyword share by cluster (% of target keywords ranking top 10). Track assisted pipeline $ per content cluster to see which topics drive revenue, then double down.

Owner: Content Lead managing editorial calendar and quality, SEO optimizing for clusters and technical performance. 

Tools: Ahrefs/Semrush for keyword research, content calendar template, CRM for assisted conversion tracking.

For positioning and differentiation frameworks that inform content strategy, see B2B saas brand marketing.

Pitfall: Velocity without quality controls. Publishing 20 mediocre posts per month tanks domain authority and wastes budget. Use structured briefs (target keyword, angle, required sections, expert sources), peer review before publish, and ruthless pruning (kill bottom 20% of content annually based on zero conversions).

The Strategies That Lift Retention and Revenue (4-7)

These final four strategies compress churn, accelerate expansion, and improve profitability without overspending on acquisition. You’re optimizing the existing customer base for maximum lifetime value.

4) Predictive Retention Modeling to Reduce Churn

Use machine learning to score churn risk based on product usage (feature adoption below cohort median, declining login frequency, stalled workflows), support signals (multiple tickets with negative sentiment, escalations, unresolved issues), and billing patterns (failed payments, downgrade requests, pricing complaints). Trigger automated playbooks—education campaigns, CSM outreach, retention offers—before renewal at-risk period.

Gainsight’s Pulse 2025 session on predictive retention shares operational patterns for using AI to flag risk accounts and automate intervention workflows, reducing manual monitoring burden while catching issues 60-90 days before renewal.

Example: Model flags account as high-risk when “feature adoption below 50th percentile + 2+ support tickets in last 30 days + payment method expiring in 45 days.” Triggered playbook: automated email sequence with onboarding videos and feature guides (Day 1), CSM outreach call to diagnose blockers (Day 3), executive sponsor intro if enterprise account (Day 7), 15% discount offer if still at-risk at Day 30.

Metric: Save rate on at-risk cohort (% of flagged accounts that renew after intervention vs. control group). Track GRR (Gross Revenue Retention) and NRR movement by playbook to see which interventions work. Target: 90%+ GRR for healthy SaaS, 110-120%+ NRR with expansion.

Owner: CS Ops building models and playbooks, Data Science validating signal quality, CSMs executing interventions. 

Tools: Gainsight, Pendo Predict, Totango for CS platforms; predictive models built in Python/R or using platform ML features.

Pitfall: Black-box models where nobody understands which signals drive predictions. Document input features, validate quarterly against actual churn outcomes, and retrain when correlation degrades. If “low NPS score” predicts churn at 30% accuracy but “feature adoption <25th percentile” predicts at 75%, adjust model weights.

5) Full-Funnel ABM with In-Market Intent

Prioritize accounts showing in-market signals (intent surge on relevant topics, job changes indicating buying committee formation, budget approval indicators). Orchestrate multi-touch campaigns across ads (LinkedIn, display retargeting), content (personalized landing pages, ROI calculators), direct mail (executive gifts, printed ROI reports), and SDR outreach (personalized video, tailored pitch decks) targeting the full buying committee—economic buyer, technical evaluator, end user champion.

AdRoll’s 2025 ABM analysis cites strong adoption with reported retention impact—ABM isn’t just for acquisition, it’s lifecycle marketing. Use ABM nurture for expansion (upsell campaigns to existing customers) and retention (win-back campaigns for churned accounts).

Example: Target 30-account pods (Tier 1 strategic accounts). Each account gets: personalized 1:1 LinkedIn ads addressing specific pain points, invitation to executive webinar with custom ROI model, direct mail package with case study from similar company, SDR multi-threaded outreach to 3-4 buying committee members with role-specific pitch. Rotate pods every 60 days based on intent signals and engagement scores.

Metric: Account engagement score → SQO rate (% of engaged accounts that become sales-qualified opportunities). Track win rate by tier (Tier 1 should have 40-60% win rate vs. 15-25% for non-ABM). Monitor pipeline velocity (days from first touch to closed-won, should be 20-30% faster for ABM accounts with full committee engagement).

Owner: Demand Gen orchestrating campaigns, SDR Manager managing account coverage and multi-threading, Marketing Ops tracking engagement scores. 

Tools: 6sense for intent and orchestration, Salesforce for opportunity tracking, Sendoso/Alyce for direct mail, LinkedIn Campaign Manager for ads.

For broader strategic context, see saas marketing strategies covering full-funnel approaches.

Pitfall: Bloated tiers where “Tier 1” has 500 accounts and SDRs can’t provide white-glove coverage. Cap Tier 1 at 20-50 accounts max depending on team size, move rest to Tier 2 (programmatic ABM with less personalization) or Tier 3 (standard demand gen).

6) Multi-Touch Attribution for Budget and Channel Decisions

Pick one attribution model that matches your sales cycle: time-decay (gives more credit to recent touches, good for 60-120 day cycles), U-shaped (splits credit between first touch and last touch, good for clear top/bottom funnel motions), or data-driven (algorithmic, requires 1,000+ deals for statistical validity). Measure assisted pipeline by channel (how much pipeline $ each channel influenced) and CAC payback by channel to inform monthly budget reallocation.

Set a monthly review cadence: compare last-click attribution vs. multi-touch to see which channels get under-credited. Move 10-20% of budget from low-assist channels (high last-click credit but low assisted pipeline) to high-assist channels (low last-click but high influence across journey).

Example: Last 50 closed deals analyzed. Last-click attribution: Paid search credited with 60% of revenue, organic content 20%, paid social 15%, events 5%. Multi-touch time-decay attribution: Organic content 45%, paid search 30%, paid social 15%, events 10%. Decision: reallocate 15% of paid search budget to organic content production (hire 2 freelance writers, increase cadence), maintain paid social, double event budget because conversion rate is 3x higher than other channels despite lower volume.

Metric: Assisted pipeline by channel (total opportunity $ where channel had 1+ touchpoint in buyer journey), CAC payback by channel (how many months to recover acquisition cost). Track forecast accuracy (predicted pipeline vs. actual closed revenue by source).

Owner: RevOps implementing attribution model and running monthly reviews, Marketing executing budget shifts, Finance validating payback calculations. 

Tools: Attribution platforms (Dreamdata, Bizible, HockeyStack), data warehouse for custom models, BI dashboards.

Pitfall: Overfitting to low sample sizes—don’t reallocate 50% of budget based on 10 deals. Use rolling 90-day windows, require minimum sample size (50+ opportunities), and validate trends over 2-3 months before major shifts.

7) Pricing and Packaging Experimentation

Treat monetization as a growth lever, not a “set and forget” decision made at founding. Run quarterly pricing experiments: test new tiers (usage-based vs. seat-based), adjust thresholds (where you trigger upgrade prompts), refine discount controls (max discount by segment, approval workflows), and align packaging to value moments discovered in product usage data.

SaaS Capital’s 2025 research shows expansion ARR is capturing a growing share of total new ARR—optimize upsell paths and thresholds to lift NRR from 100-105% (flat growth from existing customers) to 115-120% (strong expansion offsetting all churn).

Example: Product usage data shows customers who hit 1,000 monthly API calls convert to paid at 3x the rate of those who don’t. Introduce usage-based tier with soft cap at 1,000 calls/month that triggers upgrade prompt when user hits 80% threshold. Pair with in-app messaging: “You’re approaching your API limit. Upgrade to Pro for unlimited calls + priority support.” Result: 22% of users hitting threshold upgrade within 7 days vs. 7% upgrade rate for generic pricing prompts.

Metric: ARPA (average revenue per account), expansion ARR % (what % of new ARR comes from existing customer upsells/cross-sells), discount rate trend (average discount given, target <15% for healthy pricing power), LTV:CAC ratio ≥ 3:1 (higher ARPA improves unit economics without increasing CAC).

Owner: Product Marketing defining packaging and positioning, Finance modeling revenue impact and setting discount guardrails, CS enabling customers on new tiers. Tools: Pricing experimentation platforms (ProfitWell, ChartMogul), usage analytics (Amplitude, Mixpanel), CRM for cohort tracking.

Pitfall: Changing pricing without updating messaging or enabling CS team. Customers get confused, adoption stalls, and churn ticks up. Always pair pricing changes with: updated website copy, sales enablement decks, CS playbooks for handling objections, and migration communications for existing customers.

Actionable Module: Checklist—Data Readiness to Operationalize the 7 Strategies

You can’t run data-backed strategies without data infrastructure. This checklist ensures you have instrumentation, KPIs, signals, and cadence in place before launching programs.

Instrumentation: All core events tracked with proper naming (signup, activation, PQL, expansion trigger, churn risk flag). User-to-account identity resolution working (70%+ match rate). UTM parameters standardized and tested across all campaigns (source, medium, campaign, content, term).

KPIs: Shared KPI tree with formulas documented (ARR growth, NRR, CAC payback, PQL→SQL conversion, activation rate, content-assisted pipeline). Weekly scorecards owned by RevOps showing leading indicators (PQL volume, intent-qualified accounts, activation rate) and lagging outcomes (closed revenue, expansion ARR, payback trends). Monthly attribution readouts showing assisted pipeline by channel.

Signals: Third-party intent topics mapped to your solution (10-15 high-intent topics like “RFP template,” “vendor evaluation,” “pricing comparison”). Scoring thresholds validated against historical conversion data and retrained quarterly. Product usage signals defining activation, PQL, expansion opportunity, and churn risk documented with clear criteria.

Cadence: Monthly attribution review with >10% budget reallocation mandate toward channels with superior assisted pipeline and payback. Quarterly model and governance review to validate KPI tree, scoring thresholds, and attribution approach. Weekly ops sync to QA tracking, review dashboard reconciliation, and unblock data issues.

Common Pitfalls and QA Checks

Run these QA checks monthly to prevent data quality degradation: Dashboard reconciliation (CRM closed-won revenue should match BI dashboard within 2%, investigate any variance >5%). Event naming audit (check last 30 days of events for inconsistent naming like “user_signup” vs. “userSignup” vs. “User Signup”—enforce one standard). UTM governance (spot-check 20 recent campaign URLs, verify all 5 parameters present and formatted correctly). Identity match rate (user email → CRM account matching should be 70%+, below 60% indicates broken enrichment or deduplication).

Common pitfalls that kill data-backed programs: Launching campaigns without event QA (you won’t know tracking is broken until 60 days in). No clear PQL definition (every “active user” becomes a “PQL” and conversion rates tank). Attribution model-hopping every quarter (can’t measure trend impact). Content velocity without quality controls (domain authority tanks, conversions drop). Static scoring thresholds that never retrain (model accuracy degrades as buyer behavior changes).

Owner: RevOps running monthly QA cycles, Marketing Ops maintaining UTM standards and event taxonomy, Data Engineering validating identity resolution and match rates.

For foundational data infrastructure guidance, revisit our saas marketing guide.

Scale Distribution and Velocity Without Sacrificing Quality

High-performing SaaS companies publish 12-20 pieces of content per month, run 8-12 active campaigns, and coordinate founder POV across LinkedIn, podcasts, and webinars—but they do it with quality controls and distribution systems, not just throwing more budget at production.

Set the Cadence and Protect Quality

Establish a monthly content quota (8-12 pieces for mid-market teams, 15-20 for enterprise with dedicated content teams) with mandatory quality gates: detailed briefs specifying target keyword, angle, required sections, and expert sources; SME interviews with product, CS, or customers to add depth; editorial review before publish checking for accuracy, voice consistency, and technical correctness; quarterly refresh cycle for top 20% of content based on traffic and conversions.

CMI’s 2026 B2B trends research notes trust-building assets outperform clickbait—invest in original research, detailed case studies, and expert POV rather than generic listicles and keyword-stuffed fluff.

Prioritize topical clusters tied to revenue pages: every cluster should map to a solution page or product category. Build hub-and-spoke structure: one pillar guide (3,000+ words) + 6-10 supporting posts (800-1,500 words) linking to pillar and solution page. Each piece includes bottom-funnel CTA (demo request, pricing inquiry, ROI calculator).

Metric: Content-assisted pipeline per cluster (track which topics drive opportunities), first-page keyword share (% of target keywords ranking positions 1-10). Monitor domain authority trend (should grow 5-10 points per year) and organic traffic to revenue pages (not just blog traffic).

Owner: Content Lead managing calendar, briefs, and editorial process; SEO optimizing technical performance and cluster strategy. Tools: Ahrefs/Semrush for keyword research and rank tracking, content calendar, editorial checklist template.

For content strategy tied to revenue outcomes, see saas marketing strategies.

Pitfall: Publishing without quality controls to hit velocity targets. You’ll rank for low-intent keywords, generate traffic that doesn’t convert, and train Google that your domain produces thin content. Better to publish 8 great pieces than 15 mediocre ones.

Distribution and Amplification System

Plan distribution at the brief stage, not after publish. Every content piece needs a distribution plan: LinkedIn posts (3-5 posts per piece: contrarian take, tactical breakdown, founder POV), email newsletter feature (dedicated blast or inclusion in weekly roundup), partner co-marketing (cross-promotion with complementary SaaS companies or agencies), paid amplification (LinkedIn Sponsored Content promoting to TAL + intent segments), retargeting campaigns (show piece to website visitors who haven’t converted).

Build repurposing loops: webinar → long-form guide → 8-10 LinkedIn posts → 15-20 short video clips → email nurture sequence → retargeting ads. One core asset generates 30+ distribution touchpoints.

Metric: Reach-to-engaged ratio (email CTR target 3-5%, LinkedIn engagement rate target 2-4% of followers), assisted opportunities from distributed content (track which distribution channels drive conversions). Monitor amplification rate (shares + reshares per post) and cost per engaged viewer for paid distribution.

Owner: Demand Gen managing distribution calendar and paid promotion, Content Lead coordinating with partners and internal teams. 

Tools: Marketing automation platform (HubSpot, Marketo), LinkedIn Campaign Manager, email analytics, retargeting pixels.

Pitfall: Publishing without a promotion week. You spent 20 hours creating the piece—spend 5 hours distributing it. Set calendar reminders: Day 1 (publish + LinkedIn announcement), Day 3 (email newsletter), Day 7 (partner cross-promotion), Day 14 (LinkedIn follow-up post with different angle), Day 30 (paid amplification to TAL accounts who haven’t engaged).

Conclusion

SaaS marketing in 2026 requires proving every dollar spent generates measurable pipeline, not just “influenced” vanity metrics. The seven strategies in this guide—intent-based scoring, PLG funnels, content velocity, predictive retention, full-funnel ABM, multi-touch attribution, and pricing experimentation—all share one trait: clear measurement plans that connect leading indicators to revenue outcomes.

Most SaaS companies run programs without instrumentation, chase MQLs instead of PQLs, and can’t prove which channels drive payback under 12 months. The companies that grow efficiently do the opposite: they instrument every conversion event, define KPIs that predict revenue (activation rate, PQL volume, expansion signals), run monthly attribution reviews that reallocate 10-20% of budget toward high-performing channels, and treat pricing as a growth lever with quarterly experiments.

Start with the data readiness checklist: instrument core events (signup, activation, PQL, expansion, churn risk), document KPI formulas (CAC payback, NRR, LTV:CAC), map intent signals, and establish monthly attribution cadence. Then operationalize the seven strategies one per month over 90 days.

Ready to deploy these seven data-backed plays and turn your marketing programs into predictable ARR growth? Book a strategy call with our B2B saas marketing team to build your 90-day implementation roadmap.

The post 7 Data-Backed SaaS Marketing Strategies Driving Growth in 2026 appeared first on Directive.

B2B SaaS marketing in 2026 = positioning + lifecycle programs + revenue attribution working as one system to produce predictable ARR. Measure what moves the business: NRR, CAC payback, and pipeline coverage—not clicks and impressions.

We’ve worked with 250+ B2B SaaS companies. The ones that grow predictably don’t have bigger marketing budgets or fancier tech stacks. They have a system: clear positioning that informs pricing, lifecycle programs that maximize NRR, and attribution that connects spend to revenue. The ones that struggle are running the same playbook from 2019… MQL-obsessed + last-click attribution.

The reality is B2B saas marketing in 2026 requires a bowtie funnel approach where activation, adoption, and expansion drive as much pipeline as new customer acquisition. According to LinkedIn’s 2024 SaaS metrics analysis, the metrics that matter are LTV, payback period, and product adoption. Not vanity counts like traffic or form fills.

If your marketing program isn’t generating predictable ARR with improving unit economics, you’re building on the wrong foundation. Here’s how to fix it.

How B2B SaaS Marketing Drives Predictable ARR in 2026

Predictable ARR comes from three things working together: knowing exactly who you serve and what problem you solve, building programs that move customers from signup to expansion, and measuring which marketing touches actually influence revenue. Most companies get only one of these right and wonder why growth stalls.

What Changed About the B2B SaaS Buyer in 2026

The B2B buyer journey isn’t linear anymore. It’s a web of research, evaluation, and consensus-building across 6-10 stakeholders. Buyers complete 70% of their learning before talking to sales, according to research cited by Martal Group. That means your content, product experience, and positioning do more selling than your SDRs.

B2B SaaS deals now touch 15-20 marketing and product interactions before close. One person researches on LinkedIn, another reads your blog, a third signs up for a trial, and a fourth attends your webinar. If you’re using last-click attribution or optimizing for demo bookings alone, you’re missing 90% of what actually influenced the deal.

Example: A marketing automation company tracked 50 closed deals. Average touches before close: 18. Channels involved: organic search (3-4 touches), paid social (2-3 touches), product trial (5-7 touches), sales calls (3-4 touches). Last-click attribution credited paid social with 60% of revenue. Multi-touch attribution showed organic search and product experience drove 65% of influence.

Metric: Activation rate = activated users / new signups. PQL rate = PQLs / signups. Track both to understand how many signups actually experience value and which ones show buying intent. 

Owner: Product Marketing + Growth working together to define activation milestones and PQL criteria.

Pitfall: Treating every buyer the same. A product manager researching tools cares about integrations and API docs. A VP approving budget cares about ROI and payback period. Segment your content and product experience by role or you’ll lose both.

The Bowtie Funnel Over the Classic Funnel

The classic funnel ends at customer acquisition. The bowtie funnel starts there. Activation, adoption, retention, and expansion are just as important as new customer acquisition…sometimes more important depending on your NRR and churn rate.

Here’s why this matters: if you’re acquiring customers at $10k CAC and they churn after 12 months on a $15k ACV contract, you’re barely breaking even although your LTV:CAC might look okay on paper. But if you activate customers in 14 days, drive adoption of three key features, and expand them 30% in year two, suddenly your unit economics start to work.

According to Contentsquare’s 2024 SaaS funnel research, the highest-performing SaaS companies treat post-sale marketing as equal to pre-sale marketing. They measure activation rate, feature adoption, NRR, and expansion ARR with the same rigor they measure pipeline and win rate.

Example: A project management SaaS company had 90% GRR but only 95% NRR (5% expansion). They added an expansion motion: usage-based triggers for seat expansion, CSM-led QBRs with ROI proof, and in-app prompts for add-on features. Within 6 months: NRR climbed to 112%. New ARR from expansion exceeded new customer ARR for the first time.

Metric: Activation rate (% of signups who hit first value milestone in 14 days), NRR (Net Revenue Retention), Expansion ARR % (what % of new ARR comes from existing customers). 

Owner: Lifecycle/Growth for activation, CS for retention/expansion, RevOps for measurement.

Pitfall: Building lifecycle programs after you hit scaling issues. Start on day one. Define activation milestones, build onboarding flows, and create expansion plays before you have 1,000 customers not after.

Choosing the Right GTM Mix (PLG, SLG, ABM) for your ACV

Product-led growth (PLG) works for low-touch, self-serve products with fast time-to-value. Sales-led growth (SLG) works for complex products with 6-figure ACVs and long implementation cycles. Account-based marketing (ABM) works when you’re targeting 500-2,000 named accounts with multi-stakeholder buying committees.

Most companies need a blend. PLG to generate PQLs and drive product adoption. SLG to close enterprise deals that require customization and contracts. ABM to build pipeline in strategic accounts with high intent.

Here’s the decision framework: if your ACV is under $10k and implementation takes less than 30 days, lead with PLG. If ACV is $50k-$500k with 90+ day sales cycles, lead with SLG and use PLG for product-qualified expansion. If you’re selling to Fortune 500 with $500k+ ACVs, lead with ABM and use PLG/SLG as supporting motions.

Example: A data observability platform serves three segments. SMB (ACV $8k): pure PLG with self-serve signup and credit card checkout. Mid-market (ACV $40k): PLG trial → sales-assist close. Enterprise (ACV $200k): ABM with personalized demos, POCs, and multi-threading across buyer committee.

Metric: PQL→SQL rate (what % of product-qualified leads convert to sales-qualified opportunities). CAC payback = Sales & Marketing cost in period / Net new ARR (months). Track by segment to see which motion delivers fastest payback. For deeper channel strategy, see The Only B2B SaaS Marketing Channels for New Customers.

Owner: Product Marketing defining motions by segment, Demand Gen executing programs, Sales partnering on PQL handoff. 

Tools: Product analytics (Mixpanel, Amplitude), CRM, intent data (6sense, Bombora).

Pitfall: Forcing one motion across all segments. Enterprise buyers don’t want to “try before you buy” with a credit card. SMB buyers don’t want to sit through discovery calls. Segment your GTM or waste budget on mismatched experiences.

Positioning That Wins in Crowded Markets

Positioning is not your tagline. It’s the strategic decision about which problem you solve, for whom, and why you’re the best answer. It informs your pricing, packaging, messaging, content, and pipeline creation. Get positioning wrong and everything downstream breaks.

ICP and Problem Framing That Quantify Value

Most ICPs are too vague: “mid-market SaaS companies” or “enterprise marketing leaders.” That’s not an ICP—that’s demographics. A real ICP defines the painful, budgeted problem you solve and quantifies the value in dollars saved or revenue generated.

Run interviews with 10-15 customers who get the most value from your product. Ask: what problem were you trying to solve? What did you try before us? How do you measure success? What would happen if this problem went unsolved? Translate their answers into quantified value: “Cut QA time 30% → $250k annual labor savings” with proof from real customers.

According to LinkedIn’s 2024 SaaS metrics research, the metrics that reflect long-term value are LTV, payback period, and product adoption. Not lead volume or MQL counts. Position around outcomes that tie to these metrics.

Example: A security tool originally positioned on “faster threat detection.” Customer interviews revealed the real value: compliance teams avoiding $2M+ fines by proving audit readiness in 48 hours instead of 3 weeks. New positioning: “Audit-ready in 48 hours, not 3 weeks.” ACV increased 40% because they were selling to a budgeted pain (compliance risk) not a nice-to-have (speed).

Metric: LTV:CAC target ≥3:1 for sustainable growth. If you’re below 3:1, either your positioning is weak (you’re not capturing enough value) or your acquisition cost is too high (you’re targeting the wrong accounts). For guidance on standing out in crowded markets, see how to get your B2B saas brand discovered in sea of sameness.

Owner: Product Marketing leading positioning with input from Sales, CS, and product usage data. 

Tools: Win/loss interviews, CRM analysis, positioning canvas templates.

Pitfall: Positioning on vague benefits (“we help you grow faster”) without quantified proof. No one believes “grow faster.” They believe “$250k labor savings validated by 3 customers in your vertical.”

Category, Differentiation, and Pricing Alignment

Decide: are you competing in an established category or defining a new subcategory? If you’re competing in a crowded category (project management, CRM, marketing automation), you need a clear wedge—1 to 2 killer outcomes you deliver better than anyone else, with proof.

If you’re defining a subcategory, you need to educate the market on why the old category doesn’t solve the problem anymore and why your approach is the future. This takes longer but creates more defensible positioning.

According to OpenView and High Alpha’s 2024 SaaS Benchmarks, companies that actively optimize pricing report meaningfully higher growth rates than those who “set and forget” pricing. Positioning and pricing must evolve together.

Example: A workflow automation tool competed in the “no-code automation” category dominated by Zapier. They repositioned around “IT-approved automation with governance and security”—a wedge targeting enterprise buyers who needed compliance features. New pricing: per-workflow instead of per-task, aligned to enterprise budgets. Result: 60% increase in enterprise ACV.

Metric: ARPA (average revenue per account) change post-repositioning. Track CAC payback trend by cohort to see if new positioning improves acquisition efficiency. Target: CAC payback under 12 months for healthy SaaS.

Owner: Product Marketing with Finance on pricing modeling. 

Tools: Competitive analysis, pricing calculators, packaging matrices.

Pitfall: Changing your positioning story without updating pricing or packaging. If you reposition around enterprise outcomes but keep SMB pricing, you’ll confuse buyers and leave money on the table.

Messaging Architecture and Homepage-First Execution

Positioning is internal strategy. Messaging is external execution. Build a messaging hierarchy: who it’s for (ICP), problem they face, value you deliver, 3 proof points, critical features that enable value, CTA, and social proof.

Your homepage is the most important asset you own. According to LinkedIn’s 2024 bowtie model research (LinkedIn, 2024), post-sale messaging (activation, adoption, expansion) is just as important as pre-sale messaging. Make sure your site speaks to existing customers too: add product docs, adoption guides, and expansion offers.

Example: Above-the-fold messaging for the security tool: “Audit-ready in 48 hours, not 3 weeks” (value prop) + “Trusted by 200+ compliance teams at Series B–D companies” (social proof) + logo bar from recognizable brands + “Get audit-ready” CTA. Below the fold: 3 proof points (speed, accuracy, compliance coverage) with customer quotes and specific outcomes.

Metric: Homepage bounce rate (target <50%) and demo-start rate (visitors who click primary CTA). Track by traffic source to see which channels send qualified traffic. For more on translating positioning to content, see SaaS marketing strategies.

Owner: Product Marketing building messaging framework, Marketing/Web executing site updates and testing. 

Tools: Figma for wireframes, analytics for tracking, A/B testing platforms.

Pitfall: Feature soup. Listing 20 features without explaining why anyone should care. Fix with outcome-first copy: lead with “reduce audit prep time 90%” not “automated evidence collection.”

Step-By-Step Playbook: Build Your B2B SaaS ARR Engine in 90 Days

SaaS marketing programs take 6-12 months to see results because teams skip foundational work and jump straight to tactics. That’s why campaigns launch without proper tracking, lifecycle programs ship without activation definitions, and attribution never gets implemented. Here’s the 90-day build that prevents all of that.

Phase 1 (Days 1-30): Strategy, Metrics, and Data Plumbing

You can’t optimize what you can’t measure. The first 30 days are about alignment: agree on ICP, offers, and KPIs (ARR, NRR, CAC payback, pipeline coverage). Map the KPI tree. Define formulas. Get everyone, marketing, sales, CS, product, finance, aligned on what success looks like.

Then build the data infrastructure. Implement identity resolution to connect anonymous website visitors to CRM accounts. Define activation events (signup, first login, first value milestone). Tag product-qualified lead (PQL) signals based on usage patterns. Set up UTM standards and enforce them.

According to Salesforce’s 2025 attribution research, 41% of marketing organizations now use attribution modeling to measure ROI, but most don’t set it up until month 6 or later. Build for multi-touch attribution from day one or you’ll never know what’s working.

Example: A Series B SaaS company spent Days 1-30 aligning on metrics. Marketing wanted to report MQLs. Sales wanted SQLs. Finance wanted CAC payback under 12 months. The CEO wanted NRR above 110%. They built a KPI tree that connected all four: MQLs → SQLs → Closed-Won → Activation → Retention → Expansion → NRR. Everyone owned a piece.

Metric formulas: CAC payback = S&M spend in period / Net new ARR (in months). NRR = (Starting ARR + Expansion – Contraction – Churn) / Starting ARR. For foundational frameworks, see our SaaS marketing guide.

Owner: RevOps leading data infrastructure, Product Marketing defining activation/PQL criteria, Finance validating formulas. 

Tools: CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot), product analytics (Mixpanel, Amplitude), identity resolution (Clearbit, Demandbase).

Pitfall: Launching programs before you have clean data. You’ll burn budget for 60 days before realizing your tracking is broken and you can’t measure anything. Always QA tracking before launch.

Phase 2 (Days 31-60): Launch Lifecycle Programs That Move NRR

Now you ship the programs that maximize customer lifetime value: onboarding flows that get users to first value in under 14 days, adoption nudges that drive usage of core features, PQL routing that hands high-intent users to sales, and CS expansion plays tied to value milestones.

This is where most SaaS companies fail. They treat customer success as reactive support instead of proactive revenue generation. Top performers do the opposite. According to SerpSculpt’s 2025 analysis, companies exceeding 120% NRR treat expansion as a core revenue motion with dedicated programs, offers, and measurement.

Example: A project management SaaS built a 14-day onboarding sequence: Day 1 (welcome email + onboarding checklist), Day 3 (video tutorial on first workflow setup), Day 7 (in-app prompt to invite team members), Day 10 (CS check-in for accounts with 5+ users), Day 14 (success milestone email if activated). Activation rate improved from 45% to 68% in 90 days.

Metric: Activation rate (% of signups who complete onboarding milestones), PQL volume (# of product-qualified leads generated monthly), Expansion ARR ($ of new ARR from existing customers). Target: 50%+ activation rate for self-serve, 120%+ NRR for healthy SaaS.

Owner: Growth team building onboarding and activation, CS building expansion playbooks, Product instrumenting PQL signals.

Tools: Email automation (Customer.io, Iterable), in-app messaging (Appcues, Pendo), CS platforms (Gainsight, Totango).

Pitfall: Treating customer success as support. If CS doesn’t have revenue targets and expansion quotas, you’re leaving money on the table. Assign clear expansion goals with enablement and compensation tied to outcomes.

Phase 3 (Days 61-90): Scale Demand with ABM + Content + PLG

With lifecycle programs running and attribution tracking live, now you scale demand. Launch role-specific content mapped to the buyer journey. Align your paid mix across search, social, and display. Set SLAs between marketing and sales for PQL/SQL follow-up within 2 hours. Build pipeline forecasting models based on historical conversion rates.

According to LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, the 60/40 brand-to-demand budget split is linked to durable growth in B2B. 60% on brand-building that primes future demand, 40% on direct response that captures in-market buyers. Calibrate this based on your growth stage.

Example: A Series B company launched quarterly content pillars: Q1 (category education), Q2 (buyer’s guide comparing solutions), Q3 (implementation playbooks), Q4 (ROI calculators and benchmarks). Distribution: LinkedIn organic + paid, retargeting to website visitors, founder-led POV posts, webinars with customers. Result: 40% increase in organic pipeline, 25% reduction in CPL on paid.

Metric: SQO rate (sales-qualified opportunity rate from marketing programs), Opp win rate (closed-won % by source), Pipeline velocity (days from MQL to Closed-Won). For channel selection frameworks, see The Only B2B SaaS Marketing Channels for New Customers.

Owner: Demand Gen leading content and distribution, SDRs/AEs on follow-up SLAs, RevOps on forecasting.

Tools: Content calendar, DSPs (The Trade Desk, LinkedIn Campaign Manager), CRM for pipeline tracking.

Pitfall: Over-indexing on last-click paid channels. If you only measure last-click conversions, you’ll starve brand and organic programs that influence 70% of deals but don’t get credit.

Pitfalls and QA Checklist

Before launch, run these QA checks: event naming conventions are consistent across web and product, UTM parameters are passing through to CRM correctly, lead-to-account mapping is working (no orphaned contacts), offline conversions are syncing from CRM to ad platforms, dashboard metrics reconcile with CRM source of truth.

Common pitfalls that kill 90-day builds: shipping programs without data plumbing (you can’t measure anything), no clear activation definition (you don’t know when customers get value), no handoff SLAs between teams (PQLs sit for 3 days before follow-up), no attribution governance (every team reports different numbers).

High-performing teams are revamping their metrics to focus on revenue outcomes instead of activity metrics. Make quarterly KPI reviews a ritual. Don’t wait for annual planning to fix what’s broken.

Owner: RevOps facilitating QA, Marketing/Sales/CS participating in weekly syncs. 

Tools: QA checklist template, dashboard reconciliation scripts, weekly ops meeting agenda.

Lifecycle Marketing That Maximizes NRR

Net Revenue Retention is the single most important metric in B2B SaaS. NRR above 100% means you’re growing revenue from existing customers faster than you’re losing it to churn and contraction. NRR above 120% means you can grow without acquiring a single new customer. Expansion alone drives ARR growth.

Onboarding to Activation in Under 14 Days

Speed to first value determines whether a customer stays or churns. If a customer doesn’t experience value in the first 14 days, they’re 3x more likely to churn in the first 90 days. Design the path to first value: onboarding checklist, product templates, in-app guides, success webinars. All segmented by role and use case.

Don’t make everyone go through the same onboarding flow. A product manager signing up for a developer tool needs API docs and integration guides. A VP evaluating the same tool needs ROI calculators and executive dashboards. According to LinkedIn’s 2024 SaaS metrics research, the metrics that matter emphasize adoption and retention over lead volume. Optimize activation relentlessly.

Example: A BI platform segmented onboarding by role. Data analysts got SQL training and dashboard templates. Marketing ops got campaign reporting templates and attribution setup guides. Executives got pre-built KPI dashboards and mobile app walkthroughs. Activation rate increased from 52% to 71%.

Metric: Activation rate (% of signups who hit first value milestone), Time-to-first-value (days from signup to activation). Target: 60%+ activation rate, sub-14 day time-to-value. 

Owner: Product team defining milestones, Growth team building onboarding programs.

Tools: Product analytics (Mixpanel, Amplitude), in-app messaging (Appcues, Pendo), onboarding platforms (Userpilot), customer behavior tracking (Contentsquare, Mouseflow).

Pitfall: Same onboarding for self-serve and enterprise pilots. Self-serve users want speed and automation. Enterprise pilots want white-glove support and customization. Split your flows or frustrate both segments.

Expansion Plays That Create Durable Growth

Most SaaS companies treat expansion as accidental…something that happens when customers ask for more seats or features. Elite companies treat expansion as systematic. They instrument usage signals, build CS playbooks, and tie offers to value milestones.

Product-qualified expansion signals: hitting usage thresholds (80%+ of seat capacity), adopting add-on features (integrations, advanced reports), reaching value milestones (processed $1M in transactions). CS playbooks: QBRs with ROI proof, seat expansion offers tied to team growth, feature upsells tied to new use cases.

According to SerpSculpt’s 2025 analysis, top SaaS companies generate 50%+ of new ARR from existing customer expansion. Set expansion share goals: target 40-60% of new ARR from expansion depending on market maturity. For lifecycle frameworks, see SaaS marketing strategies.

Example: A marketing automation platform instrumented expansion signals. When an account hit 80% of email send capacity, CSM received an alert to propose higher-tier plan. When an account adopted webhooks (power user signal), CSM offered API access upsell. Expansion ARR grew from 20% to 45% of total new ARR.

Metric: Expansion ARR % (what % of new ARR comes from expansion vs new logos), NRR (Net Revenue Retention—target 110-120%+). 

Owner: CS leading expansion playbooks, Product instrumenting signals, Sales closing expansion deals.

Tools: CS platforms (Gainsight, Totango), product analytics for usage signals, CRM for expansion tracking.

Pitfall: Treating expansion as reactive support. If CS only engages when customers have problems, you’re missing 90% of expansion opportunities. Be proactive with usage-based triggers and value-tied offers.

Retention Benchmarks and What “Good” Looks Like

Average annual retention in B2B SaaS hovers around 74%, according to SerpSculpt’s 2025 benchmarks. Elite companies hit 90%+ Gross Revenue Retention (GRR) and 120%+ Net Revenue Retention (NRR). Where you fall on that spectrum depends on ACV, market maturity, and product stickiness.

GRR measures pure retention: what % of revenue stays without counting expansion. NRR measures retention + expansion: are you growing revenue from existing customers faster than you’re losing it to churn? Track both. Cohort NRR by signup month to see if retention is improving or degrading over time.

Example: A company had 85% GRR and 95% NRR—positive but weak. They ran a churn diagnosis: 60% of churn came from customers who never adopted 3 core features. Solution: feature adoption campaign (in-app prompts, CSM outreach, usage webinars) + 90-day save offer for at-risk accounts. GRR improved to 92%, NRR to 108% within 6 months.

Metric: GRR (Gross Revenue Retention—no expansion), NRR (Net Revenue Retention—with expansion), Cohort NRR (track each signup cohort’s retention over time). Target: 90%+ GRR, 110-120%+ NRR.

Owner: RevOps measuring retention, CS implementing save plays, Product improving feature adoption. 

Tools: Cohort analysis dashboards, churn prediction models, usage analytics.

Pitfall: Only tracking logo churn. A customer can stay (logo retained) but downgrade from $50k to $20k ARR (revenue contraction). Monitor both logo retention and revenue retention or miss half the problem.

Revenue Attribution You Can Trust

Attribution is the difference between knowing what’s working and guessing. Multi-touch attribution shows which marketing and product touchpoints influenced revenue across long SaaS buying journeys. Without it, you’re flying blind. Shifting budget based on gut feel instead of data.

Choose the Right Multi-Touch Model for Your Cycle

Time-decay attribution gives more credit to recent touches: best for long sales cycles where momentum matters. U-shaped attribution splits credit between first touch (awareness) and last touch (conversion): best for clear top-of-funnel and bottom-of-funnel motions. Data-driven attribution uses machine learning to assign credit: best when you have 1,000+ deals for statistical significance.

According to Salesforce’s 2025 attribution research, 41% of marketing organizations now use attribution modeling to measure ROI. If you’re not in that cohort, you’re making budget decisions based on incomplete data.

Example: A company compared last-click vs time-decay attribution on 50 recent closed deals. Last-click credited paid search with 70% of revenue. Time-decay showed organic content and product trial contributed 55% of influence. Budget reallocation: -30% on paid search, +20% on content, +10% on product-led growth initiatives. Result: CAC dropped 22%, pipeline quality improved.

Metric: Assisted pipeline by channel (how much pipeline $ each channel influenced), CAC by channel (fully-loaded cost to acquire customers by source). 

Owner: RevOps implementing attribution model, Marketing analyzing results and reallocating budget.

Tools: Attribution platforms (Dreamdata, Bizible, HockeyStack), CRM with campaign influence tracking, data warehouses for custom models.

Pitfall: Model hopping. Switching attribution models every quarter makes year-over-year comparison impossible. Lock an approach for at least 2 quarters before evaluating changes.

Data Design, Identity, and QA

Attribution only works if your data is clean. Set standards for UTM parameters (campaign, source, medium, content, term). Define event naming conventions across web, product, and CRM. Implement identity resolution to connect anonymous users to known accounts as they convert.

B2B SaaS buyers touch an average of 266 interactions before buying. If you’re only tracking 10-20 touches because your data capture is incomplete, you’re missing most of the story.

Example: A company audited their data capture. Only 40% of web sessions had proper UTM tags. Product events weren’t syncing to CRM. Anonymous users weren’t resolving to accounts post-conversion. They fixed: enforced UTM standards with validation scripts, built event pipelines from product to CRM, implemented reverse IP lookup for account matching. Attribution coverage improved from 40% to 78%.

Metric: Data completeness % (what % of sessions/events have required fields), Identity match rate (% of conversions successfully matched to accounts). Target: 70%+ data completeness, 60%+ identity match rate.

Owner: RevOps + Data Engineering implementing standards, Marketing enforcing UTM compliance. 

Tools: Tag managers (GTM, Segment), identity resolution (Clearbit, Demandbase), data warehouses (Snowflake, BigQuery).

Pitfall: No QA process. Data degrades over time: tags break, naming conventions drift, integrations fail. Schedule monthly audits and dashboard reconciliation or your attribution will quietly break.

Decision Cadence: Using Attribution to Plan Spend

Attribution is worthless if you don’t act on it. Set a monthly or quarterly review cycle: analyze which channels deliver the best assisted pipeline, NRR impact, and CAC payback. Reallocate budget toward high performers. Kill or fix underperformers.

CAC payback improves as companies mature, but only if you’re actively optimizing spend based on attribution data. Track by segment to avoid overextending into low-value accounts. For foundational planning, revisit our SaaS marketing guide.

Example: A Series B company ran quarterly attribution reviews. Q1 data showed: organic content had 18-month payback but influenced 40% of enterprise deals. Paid social had 8-month payback but 60% churn in year one. Budget shift: +$30k to content, -$20k from paid social, +$10k to product-led growth. Result: Q2 pipeline quality improved 35%, CAC payback dropped from 14 to 11 months.

Metric: Budget reallocation % (how much spend shifted based on attribution insights), Forecast error (actual vs predicted pipeline by channel). Target: <15% forecast error after 2 quarters of optimization.

Owner: CMO + Finance leading quarterly reviews, Marketing executing budget shifts. 

Tools: Attribution dashboards, budget planning spreadsheets, forecasting models.

Pitfall: Chasing volume over revenue quality. A channel generating 1,000 MQLs at $50 CPL looks great until you realize only 2% convert to paying customers. Optimize for revenue outcomes, not activity metrics.

The Playbook for Predictable ARR Growth

B2B SaaS marketing in 2025 isn’t about running more campaigns or buying more tools. It’s about building a system where positioning informs pricing, lifecycle programs maximize NRR, and attribution connects spend to revenue.

Most SaaS companies are stuck optimizing acquisition while their retention and expansion leak revenue. The companies that grow predictably do the opposite: they build for lifecycle first (onboarding, activation, adoption, expansion), measure what matters (NRR, CAC payback, LTV:CAC), and use attribution to make smart budget decisions.

If your marketing isn’t generating predictable ARR with improving unit economics, start with the 90-day playbook: align on strategy and data (Days 1-30), launch lifecycle programs (Days 31-60), scale demand with attribution in place (Days 61-90).

Ready to build your ARR engine? Book a strategy call with a B2B saas marketing agency to implement the 90-day playbook and start generating predictable, profitable growth.

The post The 2026 Blueprint for Scalable B2B SaaS Marketing appeared first on Directive.

• Most SaaS companies fail to measure ROI correctly because they don’t align timelines, attribution, and customer value.
• Marketing campaigns need to map directly to outcomes like pipeline, MRR growth, or customer lifetime value.
• ROI isn’t just a QBR metric – it’s important to regularly monitor how your B2B SaaS marketing agency is driving revenue, not just activity.
• LTV:CAC is your north star – track it across every marketing channel and improve it over time.
• Great dashboards show how spend leads to revenue. If yours doesn’t, it’s time to rethink your reporting.

Let’s get something out of the way upfront: tracking ROI from B2B SaaS marketing services shouldn’t be complicated, but it’s a widespread struggle. If you’ve ever found yourself asking, “How do I know if this SaaS marketing agency is worth it?”, you’re not alone.

Whether you’re optimizing ad spend, building brand awareness, scaling SEO, or trying to move the needle on MRR, the core question remains the same: how do we measure and maximize ROI from our marketing investment and prove that it’s actually contributing to revenue?

In this guide, we’ll show you how to cut through the noise, focus on what really matters, and set up a strategy that drives measurable, scalable, and repeatable growth, backed by data, not opinions.

Looking for help executing this? Our team builds SaaS marketing campaigns that map directly to ROI. Explore our B2B SaaS marketing services here.

Why ROI is the metric that matters most in SaaS marketing

Today’s marketing budgets aren’t getting bigger; expectations are. Whether you’re a growth-stage SaaS business or scaling a mature product line, ROI is how you connect marketing efforts to actual business outcomes.

Why ROI matters:

• It focuses the conversation from “what did we do?” to “what did it drive?”
• It helps clearly justify marketing spend to leadership and investors
• It identifies which marketing channels are driving the most revenue
• It empowers SaaS companies to double down on what works and kill what doesn’t

And most importantly, measuring ROI holds both internal marketing teams and SaaS marketing agencies accountable for performance. When your entire marketing strategy ties back to actual revenue generated (not just leads or pageviews), your marketing team has to become a revenue driver, not just a cost.

What ROI really means for SaaS companies

Let’s break this down.

The classic formula is simple:
ROI = [(Revenue generated – Marketing costs) / Marketing costs] x 100

Still useful, but a bit oversimplified for SaaS. You’ve got recurring revenue. You’ve got longer sales cycles. You’ve got expansion, upsell, retention, and all the moving parts of a subscription-based model.

That’s why measuring ROI from SaaS marketing efforts means zooming out. You can’t just look at one campaign. You need to track full funnel impact, from initial click to customer expansion.

That means tracking several important key performance indicators:

• Understanding customer acquisition cost (CAC) by channel
• Calculating lifetime value (LTV) by segment
• Looking at CAC payback period to see how long until the investment returns
• Tracking monthly recurring revenue (MRR) growth by source
• Monitoring churn rate

Ideally, your marketing strategy should aim for an LTV:CAC ratio of 3:1. That means if it costs you $10,000 to acquire a customer, that customer should be worth $30,000+ over their lifetime.

And if you’re not hitting that? Either the acquisition channel is off, the funnel’s inefficient, or retention needs work.

The complete roadmap to measure and maximize ROI from SaaS marketing

After over a decade of working with the world’s leading SaaS companies, here’s the roadmap we use to help teams not just measure ROI, but improve it quarter after quarter.

1. Define what ROI means for your business

This might sound obvious, but many teams don’t start here. Before diving into dashboards, you need internal alignment on what “ROI” actually means in your context.

Ask:

• Are we optimizing for closed revenue, or pipeline contribution?
• Are we measuring CAC at the campaign or account level?
• Are we tracking ROI at the channel level or overall marketing?

Set clear definitions early:

• For early-stage SaaS: Focus on CAC, CAC payback period, and conversion rates
• For growth-stage: Add LTV, pipeline contribution, and channel-level ROI
• For enterprise: Layer in retention, expansion MRR, and multi-touch attribution

You need this baseline to measure what matters and ignore what doesn’t.  As your organization (and your marketing team) grows, complexity will as well.  It’s critical to make sure there is clarity in these fundamental elements before moving forward.

2. Map every marketing activity to a measurable outcome

Whether it is your internal marketing team or a marketing agency at the helm, every channel, campaign, or content asset should map directly to one or more business outcomes.  While those may vary widely, it’s important, again, to have clarity around the outcome you expect.  For example:

• Organic content → drives SEO visibility, brand trust, and demand capture
• Google Ads / paid search → drives bottom-funnel traffic and conversions
• Social media campaigns → build top-of-funnel awareness and remarketing lists
• Email marketing → drives nurture, retention, and upsell opportunities

Don’t stop at surface metrics. Make sure to also tie everything to:

• Opportunities created
• Pipeline sourced
• Closed-won deals

With these expected outcomes clear, you can see how campaigns, channels, and strategies perform, before also identifying what to scale.

Note: While this all is simple to say as a standard, the reality is that marketing data can be some of the messiest there is, especially for large organizations.  While setting your expectations and having a measurable success metric is crucial, it’s virtually pointless if you can’t trust your data sources or don’t have a simple way to aggregate them.  If you need expert assistance with this, check out our Revenue Operations services here.

3. Use multi-touch attribution and LTV:CAC to get the full picture

No single touchpoint wins the deal anymore. SaaS buyers are influenced by multiple channels, formats, and messages before converting.

That’s where multi-touch attribution helps:

• Linear attribution shares credit across all touchpoints
• U-shaped attribution gives most credit to first and last touch
• Time decay favors more recent interactions

Whichever specific model you choose, this data will help you give credit where it’s due. Most importantly, it will help you make better decisions based on the data you have, as you can double-down on winning strategies and cut losing ones.

Different marketing platforms, like Dreamdata, can provide this data to give you a full picture of where each customer is coming from.

Once you have this data, layer in LTV:CAC, and you’ve got a powerful ROI engine that tells you:

• Are we acquiring high-value, long-retaining customers?
• Are our high-CAC channels delivering long-term value?
• Is CAC trending up or down over time and why?

When working with SaaS marketing agencies, ensure they keep LTV:CAC front and center for all of their strategic efforts.  This ensures your marketing dollars are being used appropriately, while their focus stays on driving valuable customers.  Here at Directive, this is a core part of our Customer Generation methodology.

4. Track performance over a reasonable timeframe

One of the most common SaaS marketing mistakes? Expecting ROI to show up too fast.

If your average sales cycle is 90 days, tracking ROI on a 30-day window is going to lead you astray. For some organizations, sales cycles can be over a year, making ROI nearly impossible to measure fast enough to make changes.  In these cases, using metrics higher up the funnel can be more effective, like SQL and estimated pipeline revenue.  Working backwards from these numbers to get to estimated revenue can give you a helpful ballpark number for your LTV:CAC calculations.

Additionally, when measuring the ROI of marketing agencies, you want to make sure your expectations also align with the reality of their strategies.  If you are working with them primarily for SEO, expecting dramatic ROI within 30 days and attempting to make decisions based on that can lead to major missed opportunities.  For more information on how to measure enterprise SEO ROI, see our related guide.

5. Build dashboards that highlight ROI, not just activity

Don’t build dashboards for the sake of dashboards. Build them to tell a clear, ROI-first story.

Dashboards are most helpful for speed, allowing you to glean insights from data quicker than normal data pulls.  However, overloading your dashboards or including too many key metrics can defeat this point entirely.

Your dashboard should:

• Roll up ROI/LTV:CAC at the most impactful levels (campaign, solutions, channel)
• Include channel-specific leading KPIs (like keyword rankings, impression share, conversion rates, etc)

Good dashboards show relevant data. Great dashboards make next steps obvious. SaaS marketing agencies should have this mastered and should make it easy to show the ROI of their services.

To learn more about how we build dashboards for enterprise SEO, check out our guide.

What to expect from a high-performing SaaS marketing agency

To reiterate, if you’re working with a SaaS marketing agency, here’s the truth: they should be talking about ROI from day one. Not just traffic, not just leads, but revenue.

Not only should they be talking about it, but they should lead the conversation about defining ROI and should make it clear for you to understand ROI through their dashboards and reporting.

The best agencies:

• Start with your business goals and reverse engineer strategies
• Use attribution and LTV:CAC modeling to guide decisions
• Give you clear visibility into what’s working and what’s not
• Proactively cut what’s underperforming
• Align their reporting cadence to your growth metrics

And they don’t just drop a report in your inbox. They talk you through the insights of it, while owning the outcomes. They think like an extension of your team, not just a vendor.

Tired of SaaS marketing agencies who can’t prove their value?

SaaS marketing isn’t cheap. Neither is the opportunity cost of a misaligned agency or campaign that doesn’t convert.

But with the right data, models, and partners, marketing ROI can become your most powerful growth lever.

You don’t need 20 tools or 10 dashboards. You need an agency partner that’s as obsessed with ROI as you are.

That’s what we do. At Directive, we help SaaS brands:

• Track full-funnel ROI
• Build marketing strategies that map to revenue
• Create content that actually converts
• Report like a CFO would

If you’re ready to move past vanity metrics and focus on what really moves the business – we’d love to talk!

Explore our B2B SaaS marketing services and connect with us to finally see consistent ROI.

The post How to Measure & Maximize ROI with B2B SaaS Marketing Services appeared first on Directive.

• Focus on What Converts: SEO success in SaaS isn’t about traffic growth. It’s about driving demos, signups, and pipeline.
• Simplify the Foundation: Logical URLs and clean keyword grouping often outperform heavy-handed technical fixes.
• Refresh What You Already Have: Updating existing content including product pages and top-of-funnel blogs can unlock faster wins than new content creation.
• Link It All Together: Internal linking bridges the gap is underrated and allows you to inform search engines about what keywords a page should rank for.
• Think Like Your ICP: Every new content piece should solve a real pain point and connect to your product narrative.
• AI Isn’t Replacing SEO: The fundamentals still matter. AI visibility will depend on the same relevance, authority, and trust signals.

If you’ve been following the conversation around SEO lately, you know it’s getting much harder to distinguish fact from noise.
The fast expansion of AI search makes so many B2B leaders feel like the ground is shifting under their feet, while an endless number of unhelpful “SEO hacks” flood LinkedIn daily.

For most B2B SaaS marketing leaders, that leaves more questions than answers:

• • How do we account for AI?
  • Has SEO changed completely?
  • Is all this technical optimization still worth it?

• Is there a framework we can follow to improve our search visibility?

The truth is, the perceived complexity of AI and SEO have made us discard the fundamentals (hint: they still work!). What has changed is how we prioritize them and incorporate them into a holistic SEO plan.

At Directive, as the industry-leading B2B SEO agency, we’ve seen too many SaaS teams waste months chasing perfect technical scores or publishing hundreds of unoptimized blogs in a desparate attempt to grow visibility. My goal for this guide is to give you a roadmap of the most important fundamentals of B2B SaaS SEO (that actually work) to help you make meaningful strides in improving your SEO visibility, without pulling your hair out. 

This roadmap will help you stabilize your existing SEO presence, uncover low hanging fruit opportunities in your current site, and build a plan that can create measurable and meaningful pipeline growth.

Step 1. Start With the Right Foundation (But Don’t Overcomplicate It)

Let me be clear: a strong SEO foundation still matters, but it’s often misunderstood.
Too many SaaS SEO strategies start with 60-page technical audits that never get implemented (many of which have now become even more complicated to seem accommodating for AI search).  The reality is, the biggest ranking lifts often come from fixing the simplest issues.

Here’s where I’d recommend to focus immediately:

• Logical URL Structure: Use subfolders to group related topics, such as /solutions or /use-cases. Google better understands and rewards this hierarchy, despite what you may hear.
• Keyword Inclusion: Include primary keywords directly in your URLs. If you are targeting the keyword “b2b seo agency” with your page, you should be sure it’s URL slug is close to “/b2b-seo-agency”.  It’s old-school, simple advice that still works, and we’ve measured consistent ranking gains from it.  Below is an example of almost immediate growth in Page 1 keywords for a client after product page URLs were changed to better align with target keywords.
  
  
• Broken Links and Poor User Experience: Reviewing across the site for broken links is one of the best ways to clean up your technical health and make an immediate difference in your rankings (while also reducing potential issues with user experience).  
• Performance Hygiene: Keep your site fast and your structure intuitive (easy to navigate with clear user pathways), but don’t chase perfection.  Using your competitors as clear benchmarks in https://pagespeed.web.dev/ will get you to a good spot!

While many guides emphasize SEO fundamentals, most never clarify how to prioritize them.  That’s where most SaaS marketers get stuck – knowing what matters but not what to tackle first.

A B2B SaaS SEO agency like Directive can help build a customized roadmap tailored to your goals and resources. But even without outside help, starting small with these foundational improvements (logical URLs, keyword-aligned structure, and crawl accessibility) is a consistent, proven way to strengthen both your organic and AI search visibility.

Step 2. Optimize What Already Exists (Your Fastest Wins)

Before investing in new content, start by improving the content that already has traction. Most SaaS sites have dozens of underperforming assets hiding major potential, including their main core Product/Solutions pages.

Upgrade Product and Solutions Pages

These pages are your conversion workhorses – and they’re often the most neglected. They are the best match to rank for valuable bottom-of-funnel (BOFU) terms like CRM software for SaaS startups or B2B data enrichment tools.  Thus, improving these pages is one of the fastest ways to grow your pipeline quickly.

To unlock that potential:

• Expand copy to address key use cases and decision criteria.
• Add keyword depth using 3rd party tools without losing readability.
• Add FAQ sections that include target keywords and answer common user questions.
• Incorporate proof points like client logos, testimonials, or short success metrics.
• Prioritize keyword use in H2 and H3 headers
• Link to these pages using target keywords to tell search engines what keywords the page should rank for.

A well-optimized solutions page can outperform months of new content production.

Refresh and Reoptimize Existing TOFU Content

Your existing blogs and guides likely have untapped SEO potential. Older posts often suffer from outdated information, missing schema, and thin keyword coverage.

Refresh them by:

• • Updating stats, key information, and examples.
  • Rewriting intros and CTAs for modern search intent.
  • Adding internal links to updated BOFU content.
  • Expanding keyword density naturally using 3rd party tools to capture secondary queries.

• Updating the date posted/modified on the page to show freshness of content, a major factor for search engines and AI models

We’ve seen extremely fast improvements in page 1 keyword visibility for TOFU content immediately after refreshing:

Step 3. Strengthen Internal Linking

Internal linking is the bridge that connects all your optimization efforts. It helps search engines understand what keywords the linked page should rank for and funnels authority from top-performing content to high-value pages.

Follow this general structure:

• Top-of-funnel → Mid-funnel → Bottom-of-funnel: Link educational content to their corresponding product and proof pages.
• Cross-link by cluster: Connect use-case and product page content to each other.
• Add contextual links: Use keyword-rich anchor text that mirrors real queries.

Again, although internal linking is commonly mentioned by top B2B SEO agencies, it’s importance is commonly underemphasized, often because of how simple it can be!

Step 4. Create Valuable Content That Solves ICP Problems (Not Just Adds Keywords)

Most SaaS blogs focus on volume – publish fast, publish often. But the brands that win in 2025 are the ones that create intentionally for their ICP’s specific pain points.

Start by asking:

• What are our ideal buyers searching when they first encounter their problem?
• What blockers or objections slow down their evaluation?
• Where does our product naturally fit into that journey?

This approach moves content from vanity impressions to measurable influence on MQLs, SQLs, and revenue.

How to Apply This

• Map ICP challenges to funnel stages and build content for each stage: Problem → Solution → Product → Proof.
• Build content around questions your audience actually asks in calls, demos, or communities.
• Create “pathway content” that educates and subtly introduces your solution as part of the fix.
• Include real examples, screenshots, or expert commentary (leverage subject matter expert interviews where needed to fill knowledge gaps).

When your content connects customer pain to your solution, it doesn’t just stop at ranking, it drives meaningful pipeline.

Step 5. The Ongoing B2B SaaS SEO Roadmap

Once your foundation and content are optimized, the real work begins: maintaining and multiplying that initial momentum. To be clear, an ongoing B2B SaaS SEO strategy isn’t a static checklist, but it is a consistent, continuing process that combines optimization, expansion, and authority-building into your day-to-day marketing operations.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

Continual Optimization

SEO isn’t “set it and forget it.” Every quarter, review what content is working and what isn’t. Update metadata, refresh underperforming content, expand internal links, etc. This cadence ensures your pages stay competitive even as search algorithms and user behaviors evolve.

Authority and Brand Building

In the current landscape with AI search, authority is more than backlinks – it’s brand visibility.  Google’s algorithms (and now AI-powered search models like ChatGPT) prioritize brands that are mentioned often, while showing consistency, expertise, and trust across multiple channels.

That’s where digital PR plays a crucial role:

• Earn Mentions Across the Web: Secure placements on reputable SaaS review sites, partner blogs, or industry roundups.
• Leverage Owned Data and Research: Create proprietary reports of your first-party data or original studies that other publishers cite.
• Collaborate With Influencers and SMEs: Co-create webinars, podcasts, or LinkedIn posts that drive external mentions and referral traffic.

In practical terms:

• The more your brand appears on credible third-party sources, the more likely AI models and search engines are to surface your content in their responses.
• Digital PR placements act as validation layers, signaling that your company is relevant, trusted, and worth surfacing for relevant prompts.
  • For example, when someone searches “what is the best B2B SEO agency” in ChatGPT, your site being listed on three external sources and mentioned in Business Insider could help you secure the number one spot in results.

Expanding Topical Coverage

After your core content clusters are established, broaden your topical authority by adding new pages for emerging features, applications, integrations, or industries. This step ensures your brand continues to capture new search demand as your product and its applications evolve.

Alignment With Demand Generation

SEO works best when it aligns with broader marketing initiatives. Integrate your organic content releases with product launches, paid media campaigns, events, and more to maximize visibility.
Think of SEO as the long-term compounding layer underneath your go-to-market efforts.

Once you have these processes in place, your team can move into a predictable rhythm that balances optimization with innovation.  This, of course, will vary depending on the organization, but can serve as a rough outline for your first year of SEO/content marketing work:

Where Does AI Fit Into This SEO Roadmap?

AI is changing how people discover, evaluate, and choose SaaS products. While this topic deserves a full guide of its own (check out the Directive blog for related insights), here are the essentials to focus on today:

• Stick to SEO Fundamentals: AI models still surface the same trustworthy, authoritative content that ranks well in search. Good SEO practices continue to pay off. 
• Track AI Visibility: Use tools like Scrunch or Profound to monitor where your site appears within AI-generated responses for target prompts.  If you see you aren’t appearing for certain prompts, create new content or optimize existing content that could appear for that specific prompt.
• Create Listicle-Style BOFU Content: “Best X for Y” or “Top Tools for Z” content tends to perform better within AI-generated results.  Directive’s own site has seen incredible growth in AI visibility by creating this type of content and including Directive’s name.
• Humanize Your Content: AI can surface factual info, but thought leadership, perspective, and real-world proof keep you differentiated for readers.

For a deeper breakdown, watch our video covering 4 ways to rank better in AI Overviews and AI platforms, where we dive into examples and new approaches in detail.

B2B SaaS SEO Case Study: Inscribe

To provide a brief example of the power of strong SEO for B2B SaaS, check out one of our B2B SEO case studies with Inscribe.  Inscribe is a fraud detection and automation platform that uses AI to return fraud insights in seconds. 

The challenge – Inscribe had a relatively small site that showed potential but hadn’t been refined. After a Series A, they wanted to grow organic quickly and direct effort toward quick, high-impact wins.

Knowing this focus on low-hanging fruit, Directive shifted early effort from heavy website auditing to content research and frontloaded briefs to accelerate publication (aiming to obtain the quick wins mentioned above). The approach focused on a full-funnel demand generation plan anchored to core topics like fraud detection and document collection, while carefully targeting bottom-funnel intent within those SERPs. The team also managed keyword research, content briefs, and coordination with Inscribe’s internal writer and developers to move fast on core pages.

The results:

• 32% increase in organic traffic quarter over quarter
• 237% increase in organic keyword rankings quarter over quarter
• 50% increase in Domain Authority, including a 16-point DA lift in Q2 while a primary competitor gained 1 point in the same period

This is the power of aligning quick execution with proven fundamental B2B SaaS SEO strategies..

When to Bring in a B2B SaaS SEO Agency like Directive

B2B SaaS SEO is evolving (as it always has), but it’s not disappearing.  The fundamentals, of course, still matter, and the winners in SEO and AI search will be the organizations who execute efficiently and focus on what’s been proven to work.

If your SEO has plateaued or your team is spread too thin to maintain a consistent roadmap, it may be time to bring in an expert to make life easier for you and your team.

Directive’s team of B2B SaaS SEO consultants help SaaS brands connect technical optimization, content strategy, and digital PR into one unified growth engine.

We help you:

• Simplify your foundation for faster wins
• Optimize existing pages and refresh outdated content
• Develop ICP-led content that drives real pipeline
• Integrate AI and digital PR into your SEO strategy
• Most importantly, drive the results you’ve always wanted from search

To learn more, check out our SEO service page, visit our content marketing service page, and connect with our team for more personalized information.

The post A Practical Roadmap for B2B Saas SEO (From our Experts) appeared first on Directive.

You’re not alone in this struggle. The harsh reality is that most B2B SaaS content drives traffic, not trials. Marketing executives face increasing pressure to show real ROI from every dollar spent. It’s time to stop playing the vanity metrics game and start building content that actually moves the revenue needle.

Key Takeaways

• Most B2B content strategies fail because they prioritize easy-to-create content over high-converting content that directly influences purchase decisions.
• Revenue-first content prioritization starts with bottom-of-funnel pieces and works backward, delivering 2-3x higher conversion rates than traditional awareness-first approaches.
• B2B buyers research in non-linear patterns across multiple stakeholders, requiring content that addresses different concerns simultaneously rather than following traditional funnel progression.
• Effective content measurement tracks deal velocity and pipeline influence through multi-touch attribution, connecting content consumption to actual revenue outcomes.

Why Your Current Content Strategy Isn’t Moving the Revenue Needle

The Harsh Reality Check for SaaS Marketing Leaders

The uncomfortable truth is that 47% of B2B marketers don’t measure ROI from their content marketing efforts. Even more telling, among those who do track performance, 56% struggle with difficulty attributing ROI to content efforts.

This creates what I call the content marketing graveyard where well-intentioned strategies go to die because nobody can prove they’re worth the investment. When your board asks “What’s our content ROI?” and you respond with engagement rates and time-on-page metrics, you’re essentially admitting that your content strategy is more art project than revenue driver.

The accountability crisis runs deeper than measurement challenges. SaaS companies average 9.7 competitors each, so generic content approaches that worked five years ago now blend into background noise. Your prospects can choose from dozens of similar solutions, and they’re making those decisions based on who provides the most compelling, relevant content throughout their buying journey.

The SaaS Content Paradox

Here’s where things get interesting: 91% of B2B marketers use content marketing, but only 58% rate their content strategy as moderately effective. Translation? Everyone’s doing content marketing, but most are doing it wrong.

The problem isn’t volume. It’s relevance and attribution. Your blog might get 50,000 monthly visitors, but if those visitors aren’t converting to qualified trials, you’re essentially running an expensive digital magazine. The differentiation challenge in crowded SaaS markets means that content needs to do more than educate. It needs to demonstrate unique value and guide prospects toward specific business outcomes.

Consider the complexity of B2B SaaS buying decisions. You’re not just selling to one person. You’re influencing entire buying committees where technical buyers care about implementation details while economic buyers focus on ROI projections. Generic “thought leadership” content fails because it doesn’t address the specific concerns of each stakeholder in your deal.

The Strategic Foundation: Building Content That Your CFO Will Actually Love

Aligning Content Goals with Business Objectives (Because “Brand Awareness” Doesn’t Pay the Bills)

The most successful content strategies start with revenue-focused KPIs that actually matter to your business. Instead of tracking generic metrics like “brand awareness,” focus on metrics that directly correlate with pipeline generation: content-influenced opportunities, marketing-qualified leads from specific content pieces, and the average deal size of content-sourced prospects.

Companies that can demonstrate content ROI see 30% higher growth rates than those without clear attribution models. This isn’t coincidence. It’s the result of treating content as a strategic business function rather than a nice-to-have marketing activity.

The quarterly accountability framework requires connecting every content initiative to specific business outcomes. When you create a case study, you should know which deals it’s designed to influence. When you publish a comparison guide, you should track how it impacts competitive win rates. This level of specificity transforms content from a cost center into a measurable revenue driver.

Understanding Your Buyer’s Journey Beyond the Typical Funnel

The traditional TOFU, MOFU, BOFU model oversimplifies how modern B2B buyers actually research solutions. The reality is 67% of B2B buyers rely on content more than ever to educate themselves during the decision-making process, and they’re consuming that content in non-linear patterns.

Your prospects don’t neatly progress from awareness to consideration to decision. They might start with bottom-of-funnel research (comparing specific solutions), jump back to educational content (understanding implementation requirements), and then circle back to competitive comparisons. Understanding complex B2B buying committees requires recognizing that procurement specialists focus on getting the best deal and may prioritize price over value, while technical buyers evaluate how well the solution meets technical requirements and compatibility with existing systems. (Flowla)

This complexity is why the new B2B demand waterfall focuses on buying group influence rather than individual lead progression. Your content strategy needs to account for multiple decision-makers consuming different content types at different stages, often simultaneously.

The B2B SaaS Content Strategy Framework That Scales

The Revenue-First Content Prioritization Method

Most content strategies fail because they prioritize easy-to-create content over high-converting content. The revenue-first approach flips this logic: start with bottom-of-of-funnel content that directly influences purchase decisions, then work backward to create supporting awareness content.

Companies using bottom-of-funnel content first see higher conversion rates because they capture prospects with high buying intent before investing in broader awareness campaigns. This approach aligns with Directive’s Customer Generation methodology, which prioritizes revenue outcomes over traditional marketing metrics.

Your content investment strategy should reflect this priority by focusing resources on high-impact content first. Research from content marketing experts shows that bottom-of-funnel content delivers 2-3x higher conversion rates compared to top-of-funnel educational content. Start with conversion-focused content (demos, comparison guides, ROI calculators), then build supporting consideration-stage content (case studies, feature explanations, implementation guides), and finally create awareness content (industry insights, thought leadership, trend analysis) to attract new prospects into your funnel.

Product-Led Content Strategy

The most effective SaaS content integrates your product into educational content without feeling salesy. This approach works because 60% of B2B buyers make their final purchase decisions based on digital content, and they prefer content that shows rather than tells.

Product-led content solves real problems while naturally demonstrating your solution’s capabilities. Instead of writing “5 Best Practices for Data Management,” create “How We Reduced Data Processing Time by 75% Using [Specific Feature].” The educational value remains high, but the content clearly demonstrates product benefits in a real-world context.

Learning from digital content marketing storytelling techniques, product-led content uses narrative structures that resonate with technical buyers while providing concrete evidence that influences economic decision-makers.

SEO Strategy for B2B SaaS: Beyond Generic Keyword Research

SaaS-Specific Keyword Strategy

Traditional keyword research often misses the high-intent, product-specific terms that drive qualified traffic to SaaS companies. Your keyword strategy should focus on three tiers: product-category keywords (what you do), competitor comparison keywords (how you’re different), and integration/use-case keywords (how you fit into existing workflows).

SEO manager best practices show that SaaS companies achieve better results targeting long-tail keywords with clear purchase intent rather than competing for broad, high-volume terms. “Project management software” might have high search volume, but “project management software for remote teams with Slack integration” attracts prospects much closer to a buying decision.

The competitive intelligence component requires understanding not just what keywords your competitors target, but how they position themselves in those conversations. This analysis reveals content gaps where your unique value proposition can capture market share.

Technical SEO for SaaS Websites

SaaS websites face unique technical challenges that impact content performance. Complex product offerings require clear site architecture that helps both users and search engines understand your solution portfolio. Directive’s content marketing and SEO services address these technical challenges by optimizing page speed for demo-heavy pages and implementing structured data that helps generative engine optimization accurately represent your solution in AI-powered search results.

International SEO considerations become critical as SaaS companies expand globally. Your content needs to address local compliance requirements, regional feature differences, and cultural preferences in business communication styles.

Measuring What Matters: Content Analytics for Revenue-Focused Leaders

Setting Up Attribution Models That Actually Work

The biggest challenge in content measurement isn’t tracking engagement. It’s connecting content consumption to revenue outcomes. 84% of B2B marketers struggle with integrating and correlating data across multiple platforms when measuring content performance.

Multi-touch attribution becomes essential for SaaS companies with longer sales cycles. Your attribution model needs to account for content influence across multiple touchpoints, often spanning several months. Understanding the 5 stages of the consumer decision-making process helps create attribution models that reflect how enterprise buyers actually research and evaluate solutions.

The most effective measurement frameworks track content influence on deal velocity (how content consumption affects sales cycle length) and deal size (whether content-engaged prospects close larger contracts). These metrics directly correlate with revenue impact rather than vanity metrics.

Key Performance Indicators for Content Success

Leading indicators predict future performance, while lagging indicators confirm what already happened. Your content measurement strategy should track both. Leading indicators include content engagement depth (time spent consuming multiple pieces), content progression patterns (movement from awareness to decision content), and sales-content alignment scores (how often sales uses your content in active deals).

Lagging indicators focus on outcomes: content-influenced pipeline value, conversion rates from content to trial, and customer lifetime value differences between content-engaged and non-content-engaged customers. Top B2B marketing agencies measure success using these revenue-correlated metrics rather than traditional content metrics.

Your 90-Day Action Plan: From Strategy to Execution

Month 1: Foundation Building

Start with detailed audience research that goes beyond basic demographics. Interview recent customers about their research process: what content they consumed, when they consumed it, and how it influenced their decision. This research forms the foundation for content that actually resonates with buying committees.

Conduct a competitive content audit focusing on gaps rather than similarities. Identify topics where competitors provide surface-level coverage and your company can deliver deeper, more actionable insights. Set revenue-focused KPIs that align with quarterly business goals: pipeline influenced by content, marketing-qualified leads from content, and content’s impact on sales cycle velocity.

Month 2: Content Creation and Optimization

Focus content production on high-intent, bottom-of-funnel pieces first. Create comparison guides, ROI calculators, and implementation templates that directly support sales conversations. These assets generate immediate value while providing baseline performance data for future content decisions.

Implement SEO optimization that prioritizes conversion over traffic volume. Target keywords with clear commercial intent, even if search volume is lower. Optimize for featured snippets and AI-powered search results that influence early research phases.

Month 3: Measurement and Iteration

Deploy analytics that track content influence throughout the sales funnel. Connect content consumption data with CRM information to understand which pieces drive qualified opportunities. Use this data to refine content strategy for the following quarter.

Scale successful content formats and distribution channels while eliminating low-performing initiatives. The goal isn’t perfect content. It’s profitable content that demonstrably impacts revenue growth.

When DIY Isn’t Enough: Accelerating Results with Proven Expertise

Most marketing teams are already stretched thin managing day-to-day operations, quarterly campaigns, and ongoing demand generation. Adding the complexity of strategic content transformation while maintaining current performance creates a resource allocation challenge that many teams can’t solve internally.

The companies that master content marketing transformation don’t try to do everything in-house. They recognize that specialized expertise in content strategy, SEO optimization, and revenue attribution requires dedicated focus that internal teams rarely have bandwidth to provide.

Directive’s Customer Generation methodology turns content into qualified pipeline rather than just MQLs because it’s designed around revenue outcomes from day one. Our approach to content marketing and SEO services focuses on driving meaningful engagement and conversions by building content that earns placements in AI-generated search results and influences buying decisions before prospects even visit your site.

The difference between working with B2B content marketing agencies versus generalist firms comes down to understanding SaaS business models, sales cycles, and the specific attribution challenges that enterprise software companies face. Generic content approaches fail because they don’t account for the complexity of selling recurring revenue solutions to multiple stakeholders.

Your Content Marketing Transformation Starts Now

It’s clear that content marketing works, but only when it’s designed around revenue outcomes rather than engagement metrics. The framework exists. The data is available. The only question is whether you’ll take action or watch competitors claim your content marketing opportunity while you’re still optimizing for vanity metrics.

Your transformation doesn’t require a complete overhaul overnight. Start with revenue-first prioritization, focus on bottom-of-funnel content that directly supports sales conversations, and implement attribution models that connect content consumption to pipeline outcomes. The companies that get this right don’t just survive in competitive SaaS markets, they use content as a sustainable competitive advantage.

Building and executing this revenue-focused content strategy requires more than good intentions. You need the right framework, deep audience insights, and the ability to create content that performs in both traditional search and the emerging AI-powered discovery landscape.

That’s where we come in. Let’s talk about how Directive can help you build and execute a strategy that turns your content into qualified pipeline and measurable revenue growth. Because in today’s market content that drives revenue isn’t optional, it’s essential for sustainable SaaS growth.

The post The Complete Guide to B2B SaaS Content Marketing That Actually Drives Revenue (Not Just Vanity Metrics) appeared first on Directive.

It’s easy to think of leadership impact in terms of the “big” moments—announcing strategy shifts, leading an all-hands meeting or even managing a crisis. But in reality, it’s the seemingly small moments that often mean more. A leader’s response to a missed deadline, the tone in a check-in meeting or the facial expression over a Zoom meeting. The moments that can either uplift or deflate the person(s) receiving them. These micro-moments either reinforce a culture of clarity and care or cause confusion and disengagement.

As leaders, we should be conscious that communication is not just the words we say or the exchanges we have. It’s what others hear, feel and carry forward— sometimes long after the conversation ends.

Positive Ripples: Amplifying Trust and Ownership

When leaders communicate with empathy and clarity, they create a positive multiplier. Asking a thoughtful question in a team meeting can spark ownership in a junior employee. Offering a word of genuine recognition can inspire loyalty. Sharing a glimpse into their own vulnerability can grant others permission to be authentic. For example, a leader admitting they struggled early in their career gives permission for others to speak openly about their own growth areas.

Similar to skipping a stone across a lake. One word or action—when well-intentioned—creates ripples far beyond the original point of contact. Ripples that build a culture of trust, inclusion and accountability. Not by grand gestures, but by consistent, intentional communication.

Negative Ripples: When Silence Speaks Loudest

Conversely, the absence of communication or an offhand remark can create ripples too—often in ways that remain unseen until it’s too late. Ambiguity breeds anxiety. Lack of feedback creates doubt. Sarcasm, even if unintended, can erode psychological safety. One dismissive comment in a leadership meeting can cascade into an entire team second-guessing their value or decisions.

And unfortunately, negative ripples often move faster and stick longer than positive ones, because our brains are wired to protect against threat more than to internalize praise. That’s why emotional intelligence and self-awareness are non-negotiable for leaders.

Build Your Leadership and Create Your Own Ripples

Every leader can own their communication ripple effect. The question is: are you aware of yours? And are the ripples you’re sending building momentum—or stirring unrest?

What you intend to communicate may not be what’s received. But great leaders can bridge that gap—by listening more than speaking, by being present instead of reactive and by treating every conversation as a chance to build something, not just say something.

And that is how culture is built. Not in offsites or slide decks—but in conversations. A million of them. Remember that as a leader, you shape our culture every time you speak. Make it count.

Interested in joining a culture of trust and leadership?

We continue to build a team where every moment matters and every voice counts. Learn how you can make an impact and explore careers at Directive.

The post The Ripple Effects of Leadership: Why Every Conversation Counts appeared first on Directive.

While standing out from the competition in the B2B SaaS market may seem daunting, it is essential to break through this clutter and capture the attention of potential customers. To do this, B2B SaaS companies must differentiate themselves in meaningful ways.

Differentiation goes beyond simply highlighting product features or pricing. It’s about understanding the target audience’s unique needs and pain points and crafting a compelling value proposition that captures attention through relevancy and resonates deeper. By identifying a brand’s unique selling points and communicating them effectively, the B2B SaaS company can be positioned as the preferred choice in the market.

This article explores ways to differentiate a B2B SaaS brand and how to stand out from the competition by applying effective B2B saas digital marketing strategies.

The article discusses the importance of understanding the target audience, crafting a compelling value proposition, and leveraging effective marketing tactics to drive brand awareness and generate leads.

Understanding Market Saturation

The B2B SaaS market has experienced exponential growth in recent years, creating a highly competitive and crowded landscape. 

One reason for the market’s recent hypergrowth is the relatively low barrier to entry. While the cost of starting a SaaS business was quite high in the past, the costs are now relatively low, making it accessible for entrepreneurs and investors. In addition, the market experienced an increase in VC investments, with firms realizing its potential and pouring funds into the sector.

Other factors influencing the industry’s growth include the increasing demand for digital solutions to streamline operations and improve efficiency, specifically as brands undergo digital transformations. In fact, digital transformations became an accelerated initiative for many enterprises in 2020 when the world “went virtual. The rapid pace of technological innovation also enables the development of new SaaS products and services quicker than ever before.

With all of this growth comes a tipping point–the tides turn, and the industry experiences market saturation, which presents significant challenges for marketers seeking to differentiate their brands and attract customers. Some of the key challenges B2B SaaS marketers are facing due to market saturation include:

• Noise pollution: The sheer volume of marketing messages makes it challenging to stand out and capture attention.
• Feature parity: Many B2B SaaS solutions offer similar features and functionalities, making differentiation based on product alone challenging.
• Buyer fatigue: With a sea of available options, buyers may feel overwhelmed and suffer decision paralysis because they fear duplicating functions or wasting budget on unnecessary capabilities.
• Price sensitivity: In a competitive market, buyers have the luxury of being price-conscious and may be willing to sacrifice certain features or functionality to save money.

To overcome these challenges, B2B SaaS marketers must think of traditional marketing tactics and focus on digital marketing strategies that truly differentiate the brand and resonate with the target audience.

Strategies for Differentiation

A strong and unique value proposition is paramount to standing out in the crowded B2B SaaS market. A well-crafted and thought-out value proposition should clearly articulate the benefits of the product or service and how it addresses the main audience’s pain points–either by reducing or eliminating those issues. 

Consider applying the following strategies for B2B SaaS product differentiation:

• Focus on a niche market: Rather than trying to appeal to everyone, focus on a specific niche within the B2B SaaS market. This can help the brand be viewed as the go-to solution for a particular group of customers.
• Highlight unique features and benefits: Identify the specific features and benefits that set the product or service apart from competitors, then clearly communicate these differentiators using channels that appeal to the target audience.
• Emphasize customer success stories: Showcase how the product or service helped real customers achieve business goals. (Doing this can build trust and credibility.)
• Provide exceptional customer service: Deliver outstanding customer support to differentiate the brand and foster loyalty (and note that this is an area where many SaaS companies are lacking).

In addition to a strong value proposition, innovative content strategies can also help a B2B SaaS brand stand out. Consider the following approaches:

• Thought leadership content: Position the company as an industry expert by producing high-quality, informative content that offers value. Consider doing this through contributed bylines placed through earned media outreach or amplifying unique leadership POVs on social platforms such as LinkedIn.
• Interactive content: Create and activate interactive content elements such as quizzes, calculators, or webinars that can engage an audience and generate leads.
• Personalized content: Tailor marketing content to address the specific needs and interests of the target audience. In other words, make content as personalized and relevant as possible (and avoid being creepy about it).
• Video marketing: Create videos that demonstrate the product or service, putting it into “action.” Video content is also a great way to share compelling customer testimonials or offer educational content that is easier to digest with a visual representation.

Combining a strong value proposition with innovative content strategies can effectively differentiate a B2B SaaS brand and will capture the attention of potential customers–the exact goal marketers must achieve. 

Leveraging Data and Analytics

B2B SaaS companies must rely on analytics to help them make informed decisions and optimize their marketing efforts. Tracking and analyzing key metrics offers valuable insights into the target audience’s behaviors and the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. It can also help identify what isn’t working and highlight areas for improvement.

The key benefits of data-driven decision-making include:

• Improved targeting: This happens when the data helps identify the ideal customer personas and leads to tailored messaging that meets their specific needs.
• Enhanced personalization: Data can help marketers deliver highly personalized experiences that are valuable and memorable for the target audience.
• Optimized marketing campaigns: Measuring campaign effectiveness enables marketers to track performance and implement data-driven adjustments for improved performance.
• Increased ROI: Data can also offer insights about high-performing channels, messages, and tactics leading to more efficient marketing budget allocation.

Some tools that can assist with analyzing and optimizing marketing efforts include:

• Google Analytics: A powerful tool for tracking website traffic, user behavior, and conversion rates.
• HubSpot: A comprehensive marketing automation platform with built-in analytics capabilities.
• Salesforce: A CRM platform that provides insights into customer interactions and sales performance.
• SEMrush: A digital marketing suite that offers tools for SEO, PPC, and social media analytics.
• Adobe Analytics: A web analytics platform with advanced features for analyzing user behavior and measuring marketing effectiveness.

Leveraging data and analytics helps marketers gain a deeper understanding of the target audience, the impact of marketing efforts through campaign measurement, and the ability to make data-driven decisions that optimize the B2B SaaS marketing strategy.

Quick Wins for Immediate Impact

Here are some practical tips that can be implemented right away, which will help differentiate the B2B SaaS brand and drive results:

1. Website refresh: Ensure the website is modern, user-friendly, and clearly communicates the value proposition.
2. Optimize digital content: Create high-quality, informative content that resonates with the target audience and ensure it lives and is distributed on channels used by the target audience.
3. Leverage social media: Build a strong presence on relevant social media platforms and engage with the audience.
4. Start a blog: Use a blog to share industry insights, thought leadership pieces, and case studies.
5. Offer free trials or demos: Offer potential customers the opportunity to experience the product or service firsthand through low or no-commitment free trials and demos. (Bonus: Include this offer in social CTAs that drive to landing pages with one specific offer. Consider using a platform to create custom landing pages for each audience.)
6. Leverage customer testimonials: To build trust and credibility, showcase positive feedback from satisfied customers through video testimonials or within social media content.
7. Network with industry influencers: Connect with thought leaders in the industry to expand reach and visibility. (Pro tip: Reach out to B2B influencers with newsletters and ask how to be included.)

Implementing these quick wins can help differentiate a B2B SaaS brand and drive immediate results.

Interested in more? Download our latest guide, The New Playbook for B2B SaaS Marketing Growth today!

The post How to Get Your B2B SaaS Brand Discovered in Today’s Overflowing Sea of Sameness appeared first on Directive.

According to recent data, Google Ads click-through rates are on the rise across industries. Plus, around 80% of users interact with Google Ad content on an almost daily basis.

The problem is that so many B2B SaaS businesses make glaring mistakes when in their approach to Google Ads. You might be wondering what makes us an authority on the subject. We’ll tell you.

Over the last four years, Directive has run over $65M in Google ads for the top companies in tech. During this time, we’ve seen what works—and what doesn’t—when it comes to SaaS Google Ads strategies. So many B2B SaaS companies lose with Google Ads. But it doesn’t have to be this way. It really doesn’t.

Here, we’re going to explore the common we’ve discovered with B2B SaaS Google Ads marketing to help you navigate your business towards paid media success.

Falling down the ‘informational intent’ rabbit hole

We encounter this glaring Google Ads mistake with almost every single audit we perform.

Droves of B2B SaaS businesses focus on informational intent queries when crafting the concepts and messaging for their ads. The reason these types of Google Ads rarely convert is because they typically appeal to the wrong phase of the B2B consumer journey.

Rather than investing in ad copy centered on answering information curiosities, going for the commercial jugular is far more effective. By honing in on Google Ads copy armed with commercial intent, you’re far more likely to engage a prospect who’s on the cusp of making a commitment or a decision (or in other words, taking a desired action).

Here’s a commercial intent example for your reference:

Keyword: “project management software for teams”

Ad Copy:

• Headline 1: Get Stuff Done with [Brand name’s] Project Management Tool
• Headline 2: Track Progress, Assign Tasks, and Say Goodbye To Silos.
• Description: Skyrocket productivity and cement collaboration. Try our free trial.

This particular example gets to the heart of the message, leads with value, and appeals to the target prospect’s commercial intent.

FYI: By segmenting your target prospects into specific groups or categories, your Google Ads messaging will strike a personal chord. And by leading with commercial intent, you’ll enjoy a healthy ROI rather than casting your ad budget into the digital ether (never to see it again).

How to optimize your Google Ad budget for the better…

Step 1: Dive into non-brand queries

• Filter your search to hone in on non-brand keywords.
• Refine or filter those keywords to look at “keyword text contains” and input all relevant modifiers.
• Compare these keywords to “keyword text does not contain” modifiers.

Prime examples of effective commercial intent modifiers: Software, Services, Provider, Company, Quote, Vendor, Solution, Best, Tool, Platform, Buy, Top, Comparison.

Step 2: Segment your Campaigns by Intent

• Ensure your commercial and non commercial keywords don’t sit in the same campaign (for example, don’t have “employee recognition” in the same campaign as “employee recognition software”).
• Control your budget on the campaign level. Make sure you don’t have commercial intent keywords fighting for budget with lower intent keywords that have more search volume.

Step 3: Max out budget on those high intent Keywords

• Expand your keyword pool by sourcing more commercial intent keywords from scraping and looking closely at relevant software directories.

Read: Subscribe to the Directive Digest newsletter to keep your finger well and truly on the B2B SaaS pulse.

The problem with the ‘request a demo’ CTA

While it may seem logical to add the ‘request a demo’ CTA to your Google Ads—it can create a certain level of hidden cognitive friction. Why, exactly?

From our experience, it’s because the ‘request a demo’ approach lacks urgency. It’s a passive request that a prospect or target can essentially gloss over and forget about. Oh, and it also creates friction because it conjures up imagery of clicking through, filling out a form, booking in a date…the list goes on.  This is not ideal in a direct response advertising situation.

According to our very own data and discoveries, here the B2B SaaS Google Ad CTAs that do work:

• Start your free trial
• See it in action
• Let’s talk
• Get started
• Subscribe and save

By taking a more direct approach to your Google Ads CTAs and performing regular split testing, you’ll earn consistently solid conversion rates from your content.

NOT auditing your Google Ads experience

From your initially target search terms to the scheduling phase of the operation, you must audit every step of the Google Ads funnel. If you take this critical step, you’ll be leap years ahead of most B2B SaaS brands.

This…

From Search Term > Ad Copy > Landing Page > Form > CTA > Scheduling

It all needs to be audited before you start developing your ad assets, creating your copy, and rolling out your strategy. Let’s take a closer look at each key phase of the funnel.

Search term: Google ads makes out that it targets by keywords. But the hard truth in how you gain real visibility is in your search term report. Audit and understand this first, then make definitive decisions around your campaign’s target terms.

Ad copy: Don’t give Google full control of your messaging. If you do, Google is likely to keyword stuff your ads and that just won’t work. Your ad copy needs to be sharp, actionable, and read naturally to make a real impact.

Landing page: When you’re analyzing any landing page related to your Google Ad copy—ask yourself these questions. Is it fast? Does it deliver on the promise of the ad? Will it transition or positively push my lead further along the funnel?

Form: Is your form too long or too complex? Can you create a two column layout for a field? Does it have the copy to entice your audience to actually convert? How long is the trial you’re offering? Are you using an enrichment tool to optimize your efforts? All valid queries to ask yourself when performing your Google Ads audit.

CTA: What is the copy on your form submit button? Can you be more compelling or creative? Will your messaging prompt direct action or does it appear too passive. Look and then look again before signing off your ad copy (or hire a copywriter to help you).

Scheduling: What happens after they convert? Can they schedule a call? Do they have to wait for sales? Are they added to a retargeting campaign to support your lifecycle conversion rates? Think about the end goal and ensure you guide your prospects through the process friction-free.

Your B2B SaaS Google Google Ads checklist…

Read: The pillars of demand generation for B2B SaaS companies

Winning with Google Ads: Final thoughts…

Anyone who says Google Ads don’t work anymore is, well…wrong. It’s poorly managed and un-audited campaigns that don’t work.

So, what’s the best approach? Put yourself in the virtual shoes of your prospect. Experience your ads like your audience would. Be critical and analytical. Test, improve, and evolve.

Investing ample time in clearly defining your demand generation goals and auditing every key stage of your Google Ad funnel will result in consistent growth. 

Avoid the mistakes we’ve mentioned at all costs and you’ll transform your Google Ads strategy into an ongoing success story.

Audit, audit, audit—and you’ll give your B2B SaaS brand the edge it deserves. If you need professional guidance to create a Google Ads strategy that earns a consistently healthy ROI, sign up for a free consultation with our in-house experts today. We look forward to working with you.

The post How B2B SaaS Companies Lose With Google Ads (And How to Fix It) [Infographic] appeared first on Directive.

One of the most glaring issues we see in the B2B SaaS marketing agency sector is a distinct failure to invest in well…marketing.

It’s a growing issue that is becoming increasingly difficult to navigate. But if you can spot the red flags, you’ll be able to pick the right B2B SaaS marketing agency for you—with confidence.

We’re going to help you avoid the snake oil and walk the path to success right here in this guide.

Identifying the genuine agencies. Some insider advice.

To avoid slipping on the snake oil of empty promises, knowing which red flags to spot when investing in a marketing agency is a good place to start.

Avoid these B2B marketing agency red flags

Circling back to our original point, droves of B2B SaaS marketing agencies don’t invest ample time or budget in their own promotional efforts. This is a red flag (does the phrase, ‘practice what you preach’ spring to mind?).

When we ask marketing agency decision-makers about their ongoing promotional strategy, many of them are pretty blasé.

Here’s the scenario…

Question: “How much do you invest in your own marketing?”

Answer: “We don’t need to do our own marketing.”

Translation: “We are not competitive and passionate about our craft.”

Here’s another common red flag that we see. One that suggests a certain level of misplaced complacency. Again, here’s the scenario…

Statement: “We have more demand than we can keep up with.”

Translation: “We have not invested into talent acquisition and don’t know how to match your needs to properly trained and vetted labor, powered by a methodology that earns consistent results.”

Last but not least, this red flag statement is something we come across frequently. If you hear this statement in any way, shape or form—think twice:

Statement: “Our priority is your marketing.”

Translation: “We treat the agency like an ATM and underinvest in research & development (R&D).  Oh, and you’re the guinea pig.”

The cold hard truth? This industry is full of fractional tourists who want to spend your budget, offering little return in the process. Beware.

What to look for in a solid B2B SaaS marketing agency

You know which red flags to avoid. Now we’re going to give you some advice on what to look for in a results-driven agency that has your back with this checklist.

• A proven track record in your niche or industry
• A team of proven industry specialists
• A selection of genuine case studies and success stories to showcase
• An ability to communicate clearly and collaboratively
• A clearcut passion and knowledge for modern marketing strategies
• A drive to develop a tailored B2B SaaS marketing strategy based on your needs and budget
• A strategy that includes matching the right KPIs to your campaigns to drive sustainable results

Read: 5 must-know marketing principles for SaaS brands who refuse to play small

The (vital) importance of self-investment

FYI: If an agency is not committed enough to get consistent results for themselves, they will lack the insight required to drive results for you.

To win on the B2B SaaS battlefield—and keep winning—self-investment is vital. Why? If you can’t keep your house in order as a marketing agency, how can you be trusted with a client’s precious brand and budget.

For more context, self-investment showcases that a B2B SaaS marketing agency can:

• Manage and optimize marketing budgets effectively
• Drive genuine growth and a consistent return on investment (ROI)
• Be trusted to deliver on their promise and put their values into practice
• Run a collaborative and cooperative team dedicated to lifelong learning and development
• Keep on top of the latest industry trends, updates, and tech innovations
• Be bothered to care about their brand, business, and craft
• Work with you to help you get the results you deserve

Directive spends $3m a year on R&D. Our tight-knit team of dedicated industry experts invest more budget than most of our clients into every ad unit, channel, and service we offer to them.

This level of enduring commitment, dedication, and self-investment means that we’re perfectly equipped to elevate our B2B SaaS clients to the next stage of their journey—earning consistent results with marketing methodologies that offer real personal value. We set the standard and practice what we preach.

Read: Our ever-expanding library of Directive Success Stories to see our people-first, results-driven marketing methodologies in action.

Establishing trust and credibility as a B2B SaaS leader

To work with the right B2B marketing agencies in a cohesive and collaborative way, you have to be confident in their ability to deliver the goods.

Explore the evidence

Before you commit to any B2B SaaS marketing agency and hand over your hard-earned budget, you should do your due diligence. Look at reviews, testimonials, case studies, and any other credible signs of social proof to ensure that your potential agency is not only trustworthy—but is a leader in their field.

Ask for an intro

By booking an intro call or meeting with a prospective marketing agency, you can explore their credentials and build initial trust by asking questions, requesting case studies or examples, and exploring potential strategies. Taking this step is important as you can ask the questions you need and get a feel for how your working relationship may work out in the long run.

Be transparent about your goals

When you’re looking to work with a B2B SaaS marketing agency, being 100% transparent about your specific goals and the budget you have is essential. Without knowing what you want from your agency, what you’re looking to achieve, and establishing quantifiable goals, it’s unlikely that you’ll ever get the most from your relationship. Take the time to do the work here and you’ll reap the right rewards.

Avoid slipping in the snake oil: Final thoughts…

As a B2B SaaS leader, knowing which potential pitfalls to avoid will prove paramount to choosing a marketing agency that elevates your business in a way that aligns with your goals.

As a leader, you have to have a clear cut understanding on where you want to take your business  as well as you core target audience segments. You also have to take a proactive stance when it comes from working with your talent—internal and external alike.

Take the time to know what you want from your marketing collaboration. Work with trusted stakeholders to establish a sensible budget—then follow the advice outlined in this guide.

And we’ll say it again: If an agency is not committed enough to get results for themselves, they will not have the insight required to drive sustainable results for you.

These snake oil salespeople don’t have a methodology or opinion into what will get you from where your SaaS marketing is today to where you want to be.

If you need a fresh approach from your B2B SaaS marketing agency, book an intro call with us. We want to work with you, using our unique approach and expertise to get you the results you deserve.

The post Navigating the Marketing Agency Landscape: How B2B SaaS Professionals Avoid the Snake Oil appeared first on Directive.

In a digital landscape that moves at what seems like warp speed, it’s never been more important to run with the right SaaS B2B marketing mix. Why? It’s because hitting the right channels will give you a deeper understanding of your target audience and help you build customer relationships that actually grow your business.

With a wealth of SaaS lead generation avenues out there to explore, knowing where to focus your efforts can be stressful. But armed with insider know-how—you can attract valuable new leads like a boss.

The most effective marketing channels for 2024 (and beyond)

Shooting in the dark and hoping for the best won’t result in B2B SaaS success. So, let’s look at the best channels to include in your marketing mix.

Email marketing

Did you know? 77% of marketers have seen an increase in email engagement over the last 12 months. And for good reason.

While some industry naysayers said it was a B2B lead generation tool of the past, email marketing has seen somewhat of a renaissance. With more active smartphone users than ever before, email marketing offers a direct way to get under the noses of potential prospects and shout about your SaaS solutions in a way that’s tailored to their needs.

A solid email series will allow you to be direct yet creative, showcase your USPs on a personal level, and warm up your leads faster than a bag of popcorn in a microwave. 

Your…website

Okay, this may sound obvious—and we’re not patronizing anyone here—but optimizing your SaaS business website can score you heaps of inbound traffic. And when leads come to you—they usually need a small budge in the right direction to convert.

Investing in optimizing your website for search engines to improve web visibility and working with UX-savvy designers to ensure a seamless browsing experience are two of the most effective SaaS marketing strategies around.

Make sure your website copy shines your USPs in the best possible light, and showcasing an authority in your niche will also empower you to use your website as a major B2B lead generation tool. Oh, and don’t forget to add frequently asked questions to your website—Google loves FAQs.

Thought-leadership

Guess what? 51% of C-Suite Executives say they spend over an hour per week reading and reviewing thought leadership than ever before.

So, expanding on our last point, being a thought leader in your field will seriously level up your SaaS lead generation game.

By using your internal blog or reaching out for guest writing opportunities within your SaaS niche, you’ll boost your brand awareness while showcasing your subject authority to the B2B marketing audience of your choice.

Deloitte, for instance, has an audio-visual blog that screams I’m the top dog in my field. Yes, the leading professional services network uses a cohesive mix of video, audio (audio snippets and podcast episodes), and written content to share emerging trends and insider insights with its B2B audience. And  initiatives have accelerated the company’s growth year on year.

In 2025, ongoing digital transformation and an increasing need to become that glistening needle in a giant digital haystack means that thought leadership content will continue to drive B2B leads. So, mix up your (media) medicine—and shout about your industry expertise from the virtual rooftops.

Paid advertising

Paid advertising budgets are expected to rise in the B2B world in 2025—and beyond. But, for sustainable SaaS B2B marketing success, diversifying the channels you use is essential.

While good old Google Ads are great for boosting your search presence, it is a saturated space. So, you should pick around three paid advertising channels and focus on creating value-driven ads that command attention. That’s the way to enjoy a solid return on investment (ROI).

According to 40% of top B2B marketers, LinkedIn is a potent space for generating fresh leads. Combine your thought-leading content with your paid marketing efforts—and you’ll reap the rewards.

Oh, and with young digital natives (a.k.a. Gen Zers) making up a healthy portion of the workforce, investing in TikTok ads is likely to turn heads. Why? Well, because droves of Gen Z decision-makers love TikTok. It’s also a paid advertising medium that gives you the freedom to showcase your value prop in extra creative ways. Get filming.

Mobile.

As a tech-based B2B brand, showcasing your commitment to digital innovation will prove paramount to your SaaS lead generation efforts.

With multimedia marketing (MMS) on the rise in the SaaS B2B space, creating personalized mobile experiences will not only help you attract quality leads—it’ll transform them into loyal customers.

72% of B2B buyers value the convenience of a self-service account. Launching a mobile B2B portal or app will empower you to attract leads and land conversions. You can by offering exclusive content, self-service features, gamification, and personalized offers in one portable space.

The savvy thing about mobile is that you can use it as an asset to grab the attention of B2B marketing leads and drive more value from them once they’ve arrived at the party. It’s a double threat that will make you ultra-competitive this year…and beyond.

How to attract high-quality business leads

By using the channels we’ve covered in a cohesive way, you’ll attract a steady flow of B2B SaaS marketing leads. Here’s how to use them to snag SaaS marketing leads.

1. Choose your marketing weapons

To maximize the value of every SaaS B2B marketing channel in your mix, you should avoid spreading yourself too thin early on.

Choose around three channels to focus on and create a sense of synergy between them. For instance, you might decide to:

• Create a dedicated product landing page
• Launch a personalized email campaign and showcase your landing page to potential leads
• Offer a free product demo and guide them to your mobile portal

Takeaway: Approach your SasS B2B lead generation by creating a cohesive digital experience to command attention, build trust, and cement loyalty.

2. Network it

Attending networking events (virtual and in-person) will empower you to get in front of potential B2B leads and place your unique value prop before them.

 By sparking a connection, you can showcase your solutions on a personal level and direct people to your digital marketing channels to keep the conversation going.

Networking events will also give you the chance to forge mutually beneficial B2B partnerships that extend your network and develop marketing initiatives that will showcase your SaaS offerings to a new business audience.

3. Dive into data

Data-driven marketing isn’t going anywhere. It’s only going to become more valuable.

Using AI-powered data analytics tools to your advantage, you can test the impact of your messaging, design, and approach on each channel without breaking a sweat.

Using AI-assisted data platforms, you’ll be able to:

• A/B test your landing pages and emails to see what works best
• Gather key engagement and conversion data to decide where to focus your efforts
• Grab demographic insights to tweak your messaging for specific business audiences

Salesforce and Adobe use data-driven marketing to continually evolve their efforts. That’s why they’re leaders in their fields—it’s time to follow suit.

The importance of a comprehensive B2B marketing mix

Epic B2B SaaS marketing success does not come from putting all of your hard-earned eggs into one digital basket.

Having a comprehensive B2B marketing mix will boost your brand awareness, help you tap into a broader audience, and create experiences that attract and convert leads.

94% of top B2B decision-makers state that omnichannel marketing is paramount to their lead generation success.

Take Squarespace, for instance.

Okay, this might be a bit big budget—but it’s a prime example of using a cohesive mix of marketing channels to attract a big pool of business leads.

Thinking outside of the box, the website that makes websites uses a mix of video marketing, paid advertising, and social media messaging to deliver this head-turning B2B marketing hook.

The result? Droves of engagement and a further 16% in year-on-year growth. Not too shabby.

The takeaway? Lead with your biggest USPs, create a unique hook, and use a mix of marketing channels to amplify your efforts. That’s the key to consistent B2B SaaS marketing success.

The latest SaaS B2B marketing trends and innovations

Besides what we’ve already talked about, here are some emerging B2B marketing trends in SaaS marketing.

Predictive analytics

The AI bots have arrived, and they’re here to stay. We touched on AI earlier—but it’s important, so we’ll mention it again. As we’re getting closer to the dawn of a new year, we should note that predictive analytics is fast becoming an essential tool in every SaaS B2B marketer’s toolkit.

According to Forrester, 53% of marketing leads plan to use predictive AI tools to gain deeper customer insights, better quality leads, and create highly targeted marketing experiences within the next 12 months.

Many B2B marketers looking to showcase their innovation will also turn to generative AI tools like CharGPT and Gemini to scale up their lead-generating content creation efforts.

By sourcing a predictive AI tool that aligns with your business needs and getting to grips with generative AI prompts—you can push yourself ahead of the SaaS pack in 2025.

Account-based marketing (ABM)

ABM is expected to ramp up in 2025 as SaaS B2B brands look to set themselves apart from the competition and establish long-lasting connections.

This branch of B2B marketing is all about sourcing those high-value leads and honing in on them with hyper-personal messaging that suits their exact needs down to a tee. Working with an ABM platform that suits your current business size and goals will streamline your efforts. And (as you may have guessed), these tools will come packed with an increasing number of automated features in 2025.

Oh, and once you know who you’re targeting, understanding your lead’s pain points will empower you to create super personalized omnichannel marketing campaigns that deliver the goods.

Calendly, for instance, uses its software to deliver extra personalized ABM marketing interactions. The savvy SaaS B2B provider reaches out to potentially valuable leads and incentivises them to set up a free account in exchange for a virtual product demo.

Once a lead signs up, Calendly uses its virtual demo to showcase its product USPs, share personalized marketing content, and convert free account customers into paid ones. And it works.

Short-form video content

Did you know? Short-form videos boast the highest ROI among today’s visual marketing mediums.

Short-form video content isn’t exactly new. But, it is a SaaS lead generation tool that’s expected to ramp up from now onwards.

B2B video marketing is on the uptick. It’s a prime opportunity to inspire, educate, and demonstrate your unique value across a host of mediums—its cost-effective, too.

To ride the crest of this trending B2B marketing wave, you should:

• Create a strong video concept or hook
• Lead with value and solutions
• Make it snappy. Try not to create vids that are longer than around two minutes
• Distribute your video across your most engaged marketing channels
• Gather the data. Keep testing. Always evolve your efforts.

Start creating videos now, and you’ll have plenty of lead-generating assets to weave into your marketing mix. It’s go time.

Oh, and here’s a hand-picked short-form B2B video for your inspiration…

How to measure SaaS B2B marketing success

Measuring the success of your marketing communications and campaigns is essential to continually improving your efforts and enjoying a healthy ROI.

Here are some of the best metrics you should measure to ensure long-term SaaS B2B marketing domination:

• Website traffic and time on page
• Shares and social media engagement
• Email open, click-through, and conversion rates
• Lead volume and quality
• Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
• Customer lifetime value (CLTV)
•  Customer churn rate

These are the most effective sets of metrics to track to gain a balanced insight into the efficiency, success, and value of your marketing efforts across various channels. Monitor them regularly, and you’ll gain the insight needed to squeeze every drop of juice from your B2B SaaS marketing efforts.

PRO TIP: Work with a tool or platform that consolidates your most valuable data from a range of sources and allows you to gain valuable insights from one central location. That way, you’ll be able to harness the business-boosting power of these KPIs without eating into your creative marketing resources.

Final thoughts…

When prepping your marketing channels for SaaS success, it’s important to harness emerging tools and innovations.

By taking a cohesive approach to your B2B marketing efforts and using the right tools to drive efficiency across the board, you’ll create communications that deliver a consistently healthy ROI.

In 2025, AI and account-based marketing will dominate the space and targeted omnichannel campaigns—complete with short-form video content—is likely to make the biggest impact.

So, choose your SaaS B2B marketing weapons, showcase your value, and don’t be afraid to be bold. Fortune favors it—or something like that.

Best of luck and for more insider B2B marketing advice, check out our ever-growing in-house marketing blog.

The post The Only B2B SaaS Marketing Channels That Matter For Attracting Customers appeared first on Directive.

They both must remember that they are ultimately marketing to humans.

As B2B businesses recognize and respect the human element behind every purchase decision, they must embrace B2C tactics as an essential contributor to building strong relationships and driving growth. This article will explore why adopting B2C tactics in B2B marketing can be a game-changer for designing an effective B2B saas marketing strategy.

The Shift in B2B Marketing

Traditionally, B2B marketing is characterized by a more rational, data-driven approach. Tactics such as cold calling, trade shows, and content marketing focus on technical specifications and product features. The goal of B2B marketing is to establish credibility and demonstrate expertise to decision-makers within organizations.

However, this traditional approach has limitations. In the world of all things digital, buyers are more informed and have more choices than ever. Therefore, buyers are less likely to be swayed by technical information and instead, they seek personalized experiences that resonate with their needs and values. In addition, the increasing complexity of the B2B buying journey, which looks nothing like its linear ancestor, makes it nearly impossible for a business to rely only on traditional marketing channels.

Why Human-Centered Approaches Matter

The psychology behind human-centered marketing lies in understanding that people are not merely rational decision-makers; they are emotional beings influenced by myriad factors. Focusing on the human element of decision-making inspires B2B marketers to create more engaging and relatable campaigns, which in turn, are more effective.

Human-centered marketing strategies emphasize empathy, storytelling, and personalization. It involves understanding the needs, desires, and pain points of the target audiences on a deeper level. By connecting with customers emotionally, B2B companies can build stronger relationships, foster loyalty, and drive conversions.

Salesforce is a prime example of a B2B saas marketing that successfully leverages a human-centered marketing approach. Through its storytelling campaigns and customer-centric approach, Salesforce positioned itself as a trusted partner for businesses of all sizes. By highlighting the human stories behind its customers’ successes, Salesforce created a strong, practical, but still emotional connection with its audience.

Another notable example is HubSpot, which adopted a content marketing strategy aimed at offering valuable resources and insights to its target audience. Through educational and thought leadership content and by building a community around its brand, HubSpot became a trusted, credible thought leader in the inbound marketing space.

In essence, human-centered marketing is about recognizing that B2B buyers are individuals with emotions, aspirations, and personal motivations. Understanding these factors and creating aligned messaging will result in more effective and impactful B2B marketing campaigns.

Key B2C Tactics to Adopt

For B2B companies that want to successfully reach their customers and adopt B2C marketing tactics for more effective campaigns, here are a few key B2C tactics worth exploring.

Social Proof. Providing social proof builds trust and credibility and can include:

• Customer reviews and testimonials: Reviews and testimonials are essential for showcasing positive feedback from satisfied customers, which can build trust and credibility.
• Social media following and engagement: Highlight a brand’s social media presence and engagement metrics demonstrates the company’s popularity and relevance.
• Awards and certifications: Showcasing awards and certifications earned by the business establishes authority and expertise, especially if the awards are industry or capability-specific.

Personalization. Providing personalized B2B marketing will foster strong connections and can include:

• Tailored content: Create and distribute content that is relevant to specific customer segments or individuals based on their interests, preferences, or behaviors.
• Personalized emails: Distribute targeted emails that contain personalized content (e.g., name, content blocks aligned with interests, etc.), subject lines, and calls to action to give the recipient a sense of connection.
• Product recommendations: Leverage AI and machine learning technologies to recommend related products or services that may be of interest to the user, which is based on their individual customer preferences and purchase history.

Engagement. Encouraging engagement through content can include:

• Interactive content: Content that requires “participation” can include quizzes, polls, surveys, or other formats–all of which encourage user participation and engagement creating an improved user experience and more involved connection.
• Social media contests and giveaways: Launch social media-specific contests or giveaways to generate excitement, increase engagement, and to reach new audiences connected to existing/engaged customers.
• Live streaming: Consider hosting live events or webinars that offer value and will connect the business with its audience in real-time.

Storytelling. Sharing stories about a business and its customers is essential in bringing the product or service to life and includes:

• Brand narratives: Develop a [truthful] compelling brand story that resonates with the target audience and activates the emotions most closely tied to their purchasing decisions.
• Case studies: Share success stories highlighting how the brand’s products or services helped customers address their pain points, conquer their challenges, and achieve their goals.

So are you ready to transform your B2B marketing? Download our comprehensive worksheet and start integrating B2C tactics today.

Download the Worksheet Here

Practical Steps for Integration

While taking time to understand how to translate B2C tactics into effective B2B marketing tactics is essential to understand, it is even more important to ensure these tactics are activated. This can be accomplished by actioning a set of chronological steps, which are listed below.

1. Define the Target Audience:

• Conduct thorough market research to identify approximately three ideal customer personas.
• Take the time to truly understand each persona’s needs, pain points, and preferences.

2. Create a Customer Journey Map:

• Visualize the steps customers take throughout the funnel–from initial awareness to conversion.
• Analyze the journey to identify opportunities and the journey touchpoints where B2C tactics can be applied.

3. Leverage Social Media:

• Establish a strong, strategic social presence on platforms including LinkedIn and Facebook.
• Share valuable content, engage with the audience, and participate in relevant discussions within the social platforms.

4. Use Content Marketing:

• Create high-quality, informative content that resonates with the target audience.
• Consider leveraging effective storytelling, compelling case studies, and interactive content.

5. Implement Email Marketing:

• Compile a segmented email list and activate by sending personalized, targeted campaigns.
• Use automation tools to streamline email marketing efforts.

6. Leverage AI and Data Analytics:

• Use AI-powered tools to analyze customer data and personalize marketing efforts.
• Track key metrics to measure effectiveness of B2C tactics.

To activate B2C marketing tactics into a B2B marketing plan, there are some useful tools and platforms that can help. 

These include:

• HubSpot: A comprehensive marketing automation platform with tools for email marketing, content management, and CRM.
• Salesforce: A CRM platform with features for sales, marketing, and customer service.
• SEMrush: A digital marketing suite with tools for SEO, PPC, and social media marketing.
• Adobe Analytics: A web analytics platform for measuring website traffic and user behavior.

Use this checklist to ensure you are prepared and to make the process as seamless as possible  and get started with the integration:

• Did you define your target audience and their needs?
• Did you create a customer journey map?
• Are you actively using social media to engage with your audience?
• Are you producing high-quality content that resonates with your target audience?
• Are you leveraging email marketing for personalized communication?
• Are you using AI and data analytics to optimize your marketing efforts?

By following these steps and leveraging the right marketing tools and platforms, you can successfully integrate B2C tactics into your B2B marketing strategy and drive significant results.

Final Thoughts

In today’s competitive B2B landscape, marketers cannot rely on only activating traditional marketing tactics. By defining a marketing mix that incorporates human-centered, B2C-inspired strategies, businesses can build stronger relationships with their customers, drive engagement, and achieve long-term success.

By understanding the psychology behind human-centered marketing, leveraging social proof, personalization, engagement, and storytelling, and taking practical steps to integrate these tactics into B2B strategies, a B2B business will be positioned for growth and differentiation.

Remember, the future of B2B marketing lies in recognizing the human element and adapting strategies accordingly. Embracing B2C tactics will create more engaging, personalized, and effective marketing campaigns that drive results.

The post We’re All Human: Why B2C Tactics Are the Future For B2B SaaS Marketing Strategies (+ free worksheet) appeared first on Directive.

But here’s the thing: all those cliché and AI-generated turns of phrase are, regrettably, true. That’s why you need to (queue David Bowie) “turn and face the strange Ch-ch-changes.” 

Yes, the competition is fierce. So, to stand out, there are a few key strategic principles you can implement to stay ahead in the industry. Let’s chat about them. 

1. A Manually Verified TAM Is Foundational

If your SaaS product dominated the industry and had no real competitors, what is the maximum amount of revenue you could generate? Estimating that potential demand for your product is your Total Addressable Market, or TAM. 

The simplest equation for calculating TAM is:

Average revenue per customer × Total number of potential customers in your target market

(If you’re not sure how to best source the data for calculating TAM, check out Directive’s three-part YouTube series.)

A clear and manually verified TAM is a crucial foundation for SaaS marketers—it will drive your entire content marketing approach. 

Wait, why manually verify? 

Relying solely on black box advertising and automated tools or algorithms will lead to skewed insights. The data provided can sometimes misclassify companies and industries or otherwise give inaccurate or outdated info. If you want to target legit potential buyers, manually verify your TAM.

And by manually verify, we mean manually search each company on your TAM list and check out their website. According to Syed Wasif A., head of digital marketing at Confidential, “Without this step, there’s a risk of including companies that don’t belong to the chosen industry, have been acquired, or encounter issues like website redirects or 404 errors. Taking the time for thorough manual checks helps maintain the integrity of your data.”

Once you’ve identified and manually verified your TAM, upload that data to Salesforce and tag it appropriately. This process will help you accurately report on market share, track performance metrics, and visualize a solid marketing strategy.

Knowing your TAM can ensure that your content reaches the right audience, maximizing the ROI of paid media and minimizing wasted impressions.

2. You Need Better Content, Not More Content

With a TAM, you know who to market to. Now make sure you’re offering up quality content to that audience.

There tends to be this floating notion among content marketers that quantity—a constant flow of digital ads, emails, and social posts—equals success. But if you’re producing a bunch of content that lacks substance, it’s going to dilute your brand’s message and fail to resonate with your target audience. 

Here’s the deal: The market is already saturated with repetitive, uninspiring, unreliable, and low-quality content. Don’t add to the garbage pile. Instead, take the time to create content that you and your team can stand behind.

Aim to entertain, inspire, and educate your audience. You can play around with different formats—from case studies, podcasts, and webinars to blogs and social media posts (like this one). Once you’ve generated this content, ask yourself: are you proud of it? Do you believe it adds genuine value to your audience? If not, go back to the drawing board. 

Here are a few tips to improve your content:

• Focus on Storytelling: Weave in narratives to connect with your audience on an emotional level. 
• Use Multimedia: Keep your audience engaged with content that uses visuals, infographics, and videos.
• Encourage Feedback: Engage with your audience through comments and discussions to refine your content strategy continually.

As Directive CEO Garrett Mehrguth opined, “The world needs art, in the form of content, that its creators are obsessed with.” 

3. Optimize For Attention

When your target audience is already bombarded with messaging from all sides, capturing attention can feel impossible. 

To stand out, you have to not only produce quality content but back it up with a unique brand voice, a strong point of view, and a clear methodology.

“No one cares about your SaaS brand,” Mehrguth says. “That’s fine and you can fix it. No one cared about me or my agency either until I stood for something.”

There’s already a lot of digital noise out in the ether—so consider taking a risk and trying out some bold marketing stunts that will both garner attention and foster a deeper connection with your audience. 

As long as it aligns with your brand voice, don’t be afraid to get weird.

Check out some of these recent strange—and certainly unforgettable—marketing campaigns that broke through the noise:

• Michael Cera’s brilliant and cryptic collaboration with CeraVe
• Daniel Craig’s inspired dance moves for Belvedere Vodka
• Liquid Death’s partnership with Bad Birdie (spoiler: it’s a golf club you can urinate in)
• Katy Perry’s new QR code tattoo promoting her upcoming album 

Customers love brands that can prove they understand the industry while daring to be different. In Mehrguth’s words, “BE SHOCKINGLY MEMORABLE.” 

4. Less Sales Enablement, More Brand

So what’s holding you back from creating fresh, interesting, and “out there” content? 

Many SaaS companies fall into the trap of creating content solely for sales enablement, which often results in mediocre content that just doesn’t drive conversions.

So if that’s you, it’s time to rethink your approach. 

Yes, sales enablement is important. But if you have tunnel vision on outreach and only create content that converts, your team will never hit its creative stride, and prospective clients will quickly forget you.

That’s why you need to invest in a brand campaign if you haven’t already. Show your audience what your brand stands for and why they should care. It doesn’t matter if you have a fantastic product—that alone won’t lead to demand generation.

Customers these days expect more. They want to commit to a brand that’s authentic, evocative, and moving. “Focus on inspiring, not converting,” Mehrguth says. 

Look at Heineken’s We’ll Meet Again campaign, for example. Launched in the middle of COVID-19, this campaign resonated with its audience on a global scale: It tapped into our shared feelings of isolation and uncertainty while offering a vision of hope for the future. Its relatable message, compelling visuals, and alignment with its socially driven brand identity created a positive and memorable connection with consumers.

Brands like this, which focus on authenticity and building community, often see increased brand affinity and cultivate a loyal customer base. 

5. Do More Events, But Differently

Folks, it’s time to think outside the booth. 

Event marketing is a powerful tool, but the traditional approach—setting up a booth at a trade show—isn’t the most effective strategy anymore. 

For one, it’s just expensive. Be honest: Are you seeing a clear ROI for what you’re paying? 

Cost aside, as CEO of Groover Commerce Ethan Griffin put it, “People have changed in terms of what they find valuable at events. They prefer the experiential side of things, and not endlessly circling the trade show floor.”

Don’t stick to the conventional event playbook. Try switching it up:

1. Find a Local Event: Scout around for a sporting or music event in the same city as the original conference or trade show. Consider what experience would best align with your target consumer. 
2. Rent a Box: Venues often offer box rentals for events, which provides an exclusive experience for your guests. As a bonus, these venues tend to handle most of the logistics, so you can focus on socializing and customer engagement.
3. Co-Market with a Partner: Collaborating with another company can both lower costs and expand your reach and brand awareness. 
4. Build a Landing Page: Create a dedicated landing page promoting your event. This can be your central hub for event info and RSVPs.
5. Leverage Google Ads: Launch a targeted Google ad campaign to direct traffic to your event landing page.
6. Geofencing Campaigns: Use geofencing on social media to invite locals to your event (psst, make sure to zero in on your verified TAM). 
7. Evaluate Success: After the event, debrief on what worked and (more importantly) what maybe didn’t. Assess the long-term impact of the event with a trailing 12-month lookback. A few metrics to look at:

• Engagement Metrics: How did attendees engage with follow-up content or products after the event?
• Lead Generation and Customer Acquisition: Did the event result in any new customers?
• Revenue Growth: Was there an increase in sales that we can link back to the event?

8. Celebrate Your Success: Take the time to celebrate what went well with your team and recognize those who contributed to the event’s success. This will reinforce a culture of support, creativity, and innovation in your future marketing efforts.

The Bottom Line

It’s up to you to make people care and invest in your brand. 

The best marketing strategy will never come from churning out generic content or following the status quo. It comes from understanding your target audience and then committing to quality, authenticity, continual learning, and creative solutions. 

“The best artists in the world are the ones that make people feel something,” says Garrett Mehrguth. 

When everything is digital and media-driven, it’s easy to forget that you’re marketing to real humans, not robots. 

So let’s try to keep it interesting and make those humans feel things. 

The post 5 Must-Know Marketing Principles for SaaS Brands Who Refuse to Play Small appeared first on Directive.

Among the thousands of conversations we’ve had with marketers, we’ve noticed a troubling pattern. When asked if they read white papers or company blogs, the answer is almost always “no.” (This was just good for Directive’s content team to know, too.) Yet, when we peek into their company’s LinkedIn ad accounts, a staggering 90% of their paid ads promote the very content they claim not to consume themselves. Riddle me that one, Batman. 

Getting to the Root of the Problem

What’s causing this disconnect?  It’s pretty simple, actually: blind adherence to “best practices” and an overwhelming yearning for attribution. This is what has stifled marketers’ ability to think creatively and step outside the box. Deep down, B2B marketers know what they should do, but fear holds them back from pitching, persuading, and executing truly remarkable work.

3 Real Solutions for Real Impact (+ a worksheet)

1. Go a mile deep and an inch wide

It’s common knowledge (or it should be), that more marketing activities don’t result in more bookings. The depth of execution is far more critical than ticking off every activity on a checklist—be it Google Ads, Paid Social, Events, or Brand PR. It’s easy to get caught in the whirlwind of tasks, only to celebrate what goes live rather than the creativity and impact behind the efforts.

TAKEAWAY: As Strava co-founder and executive chairman Mark Gainey opines, “Pick a niche, what some people may call too small of an opportunity, and going really deep there; trying to be authentic there, and develop leadership there in the hopes that the opportunity leads to something bigger.” 

2. Set your sights higher.

It’s natural to want to avoid pointing out when something isn’t good enough for the brand. If your beloved and seldom-wrong Content team (ahem) just spent months crafting a killer asset, and there’s a push to “get it live”—especially if it’s in response to lead gen being down—you still have to ask yourself, is this enough? Is this the right thing to do? Is good enough, good enough?

The short answer is no. 

The long answer is, building a brand should be about creating a market staple, not merely achieving a numerical target. To truly excel, we must set our aspirations high and hold everyone accountable to their creative potential. Remember, great marketing takes a leader willing to say “no” more often than “yes.”

As Directive’s Director of Video, Mike Farnham likes to say, “You need come back to the deeper purpose (brand ethos) and reasons why you are crafting particular assets, and hold that up to a mirror to see if it passes the test before shipping it. “ 

Mike goes on to say, “A brand is the sum of thousands of touchpoints, and there’s no room for mediocrity/anything less than 100%. CMOs/marketers that have the brand oozing from their pores will intuitively say no more than yes, and that’s a muscle you need to develop. If you are just shipping stuff that meets the minimum, you might have weaker convictions than you think. The best tech marketers don’t settle for ‘B2B’s generic best practices’. Rather, they challenge the norm because they have a distinct POV/conviction.” 

3. Don’t just know your product, be immersed in it. 

How can you come up with the brilliant ideas to make people care about your product if you aren’t a power user yourself? We do a little exercise here: We immerse ourselves in our service pages, listen in on strategy calls, take the time to understand our clients’ wants and needs, then we look at our brand value propositions. And sometimes, most times, we need to make some marketing shifts. (It happens.) Marketers suffer from a perception problem—we stop engaging with our customers, cease using our own products, and construct narratives disconnected from reality. 

TAKEAWAY: Want to try this exercise? It’s pretty fun, tbh. We’ve created a worksheet for you to track your findings:

Make sure you take notes during every “Aha Moment” and then assess whether your marketing effectively communicates these insights to your target audience. 

From Hypocrisy and Fear to a Culture of Innovation

If you really, really want to shift the narrative of your B2B SaaS marketing strategy and push past fear, fostering a culture of innovation within your team is paramount. This involves creating an environment where taking risks is encouraged and where failures are viewed as stepping stones rather than setbacks. (Side note: Our leadership at Directive does this a lot, and the results are pretty incredible.) When team members feel safe to propose wild ideas or challenge the status quo, the potential for breakthroughs increases exponentially.

4 Ways to Build a Culture of Innovation

Embrace Experimentation

If encouraged-experimentation is not a part of your marketing initiatives, rethink why. Team members should be applauded for wanting to test new channels, messaging strategies, and content formats. And there should be zero talk of immediate return on investment. Maybe it’s a video series about customer stories or trying unconventional ad placements, recognizing that not every experiment will yield immediate success, you create a space for exploration where creativity flourishes. Remember, some of the most successful marketing campaigns arose from unexpected experiments that initially seemed too risky.

HOW: 

Look beyond your industry for inspiration. Brands like Liquid Death, Chubbies, Wendy’s, and Duolingo. They took the “script” and threw it out completely. 

As Mike Cessario, CEO of Liquid Death accurately states, “Marketers can be too literal about making sense – there is a tremendous value in confusion. If you can confuse people, you can stop them.” 

Celebrate Wins and Learn from Losses

Sometimes it’s better if a marketing campaign fails. It offers very, very clear guidelines on what not to do next time. With that in mind, it’s important to celebrate both successes and failures publicly within your marketing team and beyond. When a team member successfully implements a creative campaign, acknowledge it, share the results, and explore what made it work. Conversely, if an initiative doesn’t perform as expected, facilitate a constructive debrief. What can be learned from the experience? This open dialogue not only solidifies team cohesion, it also fosters a growth mindset, empowering everyone to approach challenges with confidence.

Ultimately, true marketing leadership lies in cultivating an atmosphere where creativity, experimentation, and accountability coalesce, leading to innovative strategies that resonate with your audience. Commit to pushing boundaries, embracing fears, and transforming your brand’s story into something extraordinary.

HOW: 

Foster Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration

The most jargoned piece of advice is probably around “breaking down silos” and “cross-collaboration.” However, saying it and implementing it are two wildly different things. 

We’ll say it loudly and definitively (for those in the back): Marketing cannot exist in a silo. 

Marketing only truly works within collaboration and an integration of diverse perspectives across your company. If you are in charge of a marketing team, next time you meet, encourage your Content team to chat with Sales. Tell your Demand Gen team to talk to IT. Maybe Social Media and HR need a happy hour. Whatever it is, teams need come together, leveraging insights from product development, sales, customer support, management, and beyond, to uncover richer ideas and a more holistic understanding of your market. 

HOW:  

• Reward collaboration
  • Make collaboration part of the employee review process
  • Recognize and reward those who work effectively across the organization
• Transparent organizational communication 
  • Company-wide transparent communication helps break down silos and fosters collaboration.
• Make networking a thing
  • Employees with diverse networks within the organization significantly enhance value and promote effective collaboration. 
    • Maximize the flow of knowledge and information by actively fostering workplace relationships and ensuring that all offsite retreats and workplace events provide enough opportunities for social interaction beyond work
• Align around unified goals
  • Success hinges on a unified team focused on common objectives and goals. Leaders play a crucial role in understanding and communicating the organization’s overarching goals, emphasizing the need for collaboration across various departments to hit targets.
• Drive innovation through diverse thinking
  • Creativity only happens through “collective diversity” — that special blend of POVs from people with varied backgrounds, thought processes, and expertise.
    • Prioritize collaborative innovation, leaders can form cross-functional teams that harness these diverse viewpoints to drive breakthrough ideas.
• Focus on trust-based relationships
  • Collaboration can only exist where trust exists. People must feel confident in others. 
    • Maintain positive group dynamics to serve as the foundation for collaboration and strong working relationships.

Invest in Continuous Learning

Do you know why you never want to be the smartest person in the room? Because, usually that person is a know-it-all that is devoid of taking into account anyone else’s experience, and merely pontificates on what they “know.” But we digress… encourage your team to explore new skills, whether through formal training sessions, online courses, or industry conferences. 

Investment in professional development not only equips your team with fresh ideas but also instills a sense of growth and empowerment. When individuals feel supported in their learning journeys, they are more likely to contribute innovative ideas that elevate the entire organization.

HOW: 

Final thoughts

While it may not be readily apparent, exceptional marketing requires more backbone than creativity. 

What’s the saying? If it’s too loud, you’re too old? Well, same goes for here: if your brand’s marketing doesn’t make you uncomfortable—if you’re not afraid of the work required—then you’re not dreaming big enough. Stop publishing marketing that doesn’t excite you. You should be your biggest fan—and if you are, your audience will be too.

Tell fear and hypocrisy to hit the bricks and get your marketing to a new level. 

To being fearless.

The post The Dual Threat to B2B SaaS Marketing Success: Hypocrisy and Fear appeared first on Directive.

So, how do you separate the all-stars from the amateurs? We’re here to help. This article dives into the must-have qualities of a top-notch performance marketing agency that have been around for 10+ years.

To make your life even easier, we’ve shortlisted the top 5 agencies you should have on your radar. Ready for some serious growth? Let’s dive in.

What are Performance Marketing Agencies?

Performance marketing agencies laser-focus on driving tangible results, through developing and managing marketing strategies. Marketing pros refer to these measurable results as “key performance indicators” or KPIs (think clicks, conversions, or even direct sales.)

These agencies should know your target audience as well as you do. This isn’t a new concept to the marketing landscape; it’s a refined one.

Performance marketing has matured alongside the digital landscape, consistently adapting to the ever-changing worlds of the internet and social media.  In an overcrowded field of marketing agencies, those specializing in performance marketing stand out by ensuring that every strategy, and every action, delivers quantifiable value to the businesses they serve.

Choosing the Right Performance Marketing Agency

Choosing the right performance marketing agency goes beyond the allure of promised results — anyone can talk a big game. So, how do you make sure you’re choosing the right agency? To sum it up: don’t just look for an agency that promises the moon.  Here’s a breakdown:

1. Consider their alignment with your brand. We’re talking big-picture — boosting sales, ramping up visibility, or perhaps a mix of many objectives. The agency needs to get your vision, get you, believe in your brand, and have a clear path to help you achieve it.
2. Transparency and communication are the golden rule. An effective partnership thrives on open dialogue. An agency should be an open book for discussing strategies, sharing performance metrics, and presenting results. Think of it as a two-way street where the lines of communication are always open.
3. Flexibility and a knack for innovation are must-haves. The digital world doesn’t stand still, and neither should your agency. You’ll want a team that proactively adapts and always seeks ways to innovate. They should be on the cutting edge, cooking up fresh strategies to keep you ahead of the curve.
4. Expertise and specialization should be paramount. ‘Do it all’ is code for ‘does everything mediocre.’ Look for an agency that offers exactly what you need help with. If an agency has prior experience in your industry, consider it a big plus. They’ll bring valuable insights to the table, tailoring strategies that resonate with your specific audience.

Performance Marketing – Explained

When it comes to making a lasting impact with your marketing dollars, not all agencies are created equal. Sure, a general marketing agency might offer you a wide swath of services, but are they accountable for the outcomes? Enter the realm of performance agencies, where the focus shifts from general activities to concrete results.

Benefits of Performance Marketing

Accountability: In the performance marketing space, agencies are held to the fire for actual results, instilling a level of trust and confidence that’s hard to find in other corners of marketing.

Measurable success: In a world where data is king, performance marketing reigns supreme. With well-defined KPIs, you can continuously track the effectiveness of your campaigns. It’s not about gut feelings; you need hard numbers that prove ROI.

Cost-effectiveness: No more rolling the dice on strategies that might work. In performance marketing, you’re putting your money on outcomes, not just efforts. This ensures a more efficient use of your budget, and more importantly, peace of mind knowing you’re investing in strategies that genuinely work.

Targeted reach: Broad strokes? Not here. Performance marketing lets you connect with your audience on a more personal level. It’s about targeted, precision-based reach that ensures your message is hitting home, not getting lost in the digital abyss.

5 Top Performance Marketing Agencies Celebrating 10+ Years

When it comes to choosing the right agency, it’s not as simple as which company has been in the game the longest. Our criteria for choosing the best fit should also consider exceptional service and innovative strategies.

Here’s our list of the 5 top-performing marketing agencies, in alphabetical order.

Agency #1 – Directive Consulting [Celebrating 10 Years]

Directive entered the marketing world in July 2013 with a crystal-clear mission — to challenge the status quo and elevate standards. Their rise from humble beginnings to an impactful, time-tested agency is a testament to their dedication to their clients. They don’t just go through the motions; they set the pace.

Core Values and Mission Statement

Innovation, integrity, and a relentless drive for excellence — that’s the DNA of Directive. They’re not content with just doing business as usual. They aim to deliver tangible results that significantly impact the bottom line. Directive’s mission is to help 15,000 people do better SaaS marketing by 2024.

Notable Clients and Case Studies

When it comes to their client roster, Directive isn’t just adding names to a list. They’re building partnerships with industry leaders, making waves in the tech world with over 200 top-tier clients, including big hitters like Adobe and Amazon. But it’s not the names that impress; it’s the outcomes of the success stories.

Innovative Strategies and Approaches

Digital marketing is an ever-evolving game, and Directive is always a step ahead. With innovative approaches in SEO, SEM, and more, they differentiate themselves from the competitors. Directive recognizes the importance of staying ahead of the curve and adapting to future challenges in the world of performance marketing.

Technology and Data-Driven Solutions

Directive thrives on data-driven decisions. Utilizing cutting-edge technology, they offer solutions that are not just impactful but also scalable. They’re not in for the short haul; they build strategies that adapt and grow.

Thought Leadership and Industry Contributions

Directive is a team of thought leaders who contribute actively to the growth of the evolving industry. They’re a trusted voice in the marketing landscape, whether it’s insightful articles, podcast interviews, or speaking at conferences. All things considered, Directive brings a blend of collaborative spirit, technological prowess, and a relentless commitment to excellence, making it a top choice for businesses looking to make real gains.

Directive Consulting is a Leading Agency in the Field

If you’re in the tech industry, you know the intricacies of marketing in such a competitive field. Boasting a team of over 150 specialized tech marketers, Directive has the trust of more than 200 tech companies, generating over $1 billion in revenue for their diverse clientele that ranges from early-stage startups to industry giants like Adobe and Amazon.

Unlike agencies that offer “one-size-fits-all” solutions, Directive provides a fully integrated approach that caters to each brand’s unique needs, giving each company the attention it needs. Their key services encompass common offerings like paid media and SEO, but also offer specialized strategies that extend into lifecycle marketing, creative design, and even financial modeling.

Directive also employs a proprietary “Customer Generation” methodology that goes beyond merely capturing leads. Instead, they focus on acquiring high-value customers, emphasizing the complete user lifecycle.

They differentiate by committing to innovation, like devoting $3 million annually to marketing R&D to develop new success strategies. Their performance metrics align both immediate KPIs and their North Star Metric, ensuring a focus on long-term growth rather than quick wins.

With a track record of success, you can’t go wrong with Directive as your partner.

Agency #4 – Simple Tiger [Celebrating 19 Years]

Simple Tiger offers comprehensive marketing solutions tailored to meet specific business needs. Simple Tiger is one of the oldest agencies in the SaaS and B2B space and was founded in 2005 by Jeremiah and Sean Smith.

Overview and Strengths

Simplicity is their strength. By offering clear and comprehensive strategies, Simple Tiger ensures that clients’ marketing efforts are aligned with their goals. Their specialty in search engine optimization and commitment to getting their clients the fastest possible success makes them a standout option.

Services Offered:

• Conversion Rate Optimization
• SEO and Content Marketing
• Link Building
• Paid Advertising

Agency #2 – Single Grain [Celebrating 19 Years]

Single Grain was established by founder Eric Sui back in 2005. Sui later repurchased the agency back in 2014 for $2.00. Single Grain is known for being a digital marketing agency that combines expertise and innovative solutions for their SaaS and B2B clients.

Overview and Strengths

Single Grain has carved out its specialties in E-commerce, pay-per-click, search engine optimization, lead generation, conversion rate optimization, and performance marketing. With a team of highly specialized marketing experts, they excel in search engine optimization, social media marketing, and data-driven strategies.

Services Offered:

• Conversion Rate Optimization
• SEO and Content Marketing
• Paid Advertising
• Analytics and Reporting

Agency #5 – Tinuiti [Celebrating 20 Years]

Tinuiti is a team of brand performance marketers that focus on maximizing clients’ growth through integrated, full-service marketing efforts. Tinuiti was founded by Ben Kirshner in 2004 and rebranded from its original Elite SEM name.

Overview and Strengths

Tinuiti claims themselves as the largest independent performance marketing firm out there, boasting a holistic approach that spans from affiliate marketing and Amazon Seller’s Central to SEO and content marketing. Their data-backed strategies are crafted to help brands forge enduring relationships with their target consumers.

Services Offered:

• Conversion Rate Optimization
• SEO
• Paid Media
• OTT and Streaming
• Affiliate and Influencer Marketing
• Creative
• Analytics
• Commerce sites like Amazon, Walmart and Target

Agency #3 – WPromote [Celebrating 23 Years]

WPromote was founded in 2001 by Michael Mothner while he was still in college. The firm came from humble beginnings in their founder’s dorm room and rose to one of the fastest-growing and widely recognized performance marketing firms in the country.

Overview and Strengths

With a focus on crushing business challenges, WPromote has mastered the art of delivering measurable results earning over 52 awards including 2021 Agency of the Year. Their combination of visually appealing content with solid performance marketing strategies has earned them a place among the best performance marketing agencies.

Services Offered:

• Conversion Rate Optimization
• SEO and Content Marketing
• Paid Advertising
• Email Marketing
• Affiliate and Influencer Marketing
• Analytics

FAQS

What is the importance of Performance Marketing and its significance?

Performance marketing is a critical component of today’s business landscape. It allows companies to measure their marketing efforts and optimize strategies for better results.

How were the Top Performance Marketing Agencies of 2023 determined?

The selection process involved careful analysis of expertise, client success stories, innovation, year founded, and overall market impact.

What services can I expect from these top marketing agencies?

From search engine marketing to social media marketing, a full-service agency will offer comprehensive solutions tailored to meet specific business goals. Other key service lines should include:

• Digital advertising services
• Digital marketing strategy
• Paid social advertising
• Affiliate and influencer marketing
• Content marketing
• Analytics and Reporting

How can partnering with a top-performance marketing agency benefit my business?

Working with a top-performance marketing agency can drive measurable results, increase brand visibility, and foster growth. Ultimately, top-performing marketing agencies offer the highest ROI.

Are these top-performance marketing agencies suitable for businesses of all sizes?

No, these agencies are best suited for businesses that are in a position ready to scale and can fully leverage the specialized services offered.

What are some Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) used in Performance Marketing?

When it comes to Click-Through Rate (CTR), think of it as your campaign’s pulse. It measures more than just clicks; it reveals how engaged your audience is. A strong CTR? That’s a sign your message resonates.

Moving on to Conversion Rate: This is where the rubber meets the road. This KPI zeroes in on the percentage of visitors who follow through with a desired action from a specific call to action. Whether they’re signing up for a newsletter or hitting ‘buy now,’ this rate tells you if your content has real pull.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) serves as your financial guide. It distills all the expenses — ads, labor, tools — into a single figure. On a high level, this number helps you make smarter budget decisions and sharpens your overall performance marketing strategy.

For Return on Ad Spend (ROAS), think of it as your ROI spotlight. It shows how much bang you’re getting for your advertising buck, this should be your most influential number for measuring the effectiveness of each campaign.

Tips for Selecting the Right Agency for Specific Business Needs

While there is no definitive “perfect agency”, here are five practical tips to help you cut through the noise in your decision-making process:

#1: Look For Specialization

Don’t just skim the surface — dig deep into an agency’s specialty areas. If you’re in the SaaS sector, you want an agency that understands the intricacies of SaaS marketing, not just general marketing know-how.  Various industry knowledge is key in today’s world.

#2: Scrutinize Client Success Stories

Past performance is a reliable indicator of future results. Take the time to delve into an agency’s case studies and testimonials. Reach out to some of their past clients if possible; their insights might be the golden ticket you need to make your decision.

#3: Make Sure You’re Listened To

An agency could be a rockstar in their field, but if they don’t “get” your brand and your goals, it’s a no-go. Ensure that they’re willing to adapt their strategies to align with your specific objectives.

#4: Over-Communicate

How quickly does the agency respond to your queries? Do they clearly explain their strategies and metrics? Good communication is the backbone of a successful partnership, and an agency that values transparency will instill confidence.

#5: Prioritize Adaptability

The digital landscape changes at breakneck speed. Your chosen agency should keep up and strive to be a frontrunner in adopting new techniques and technologies. The best results speak for themselves.

Conclusion

Ready to take the next step? We’re here to help your business thrive. Book a discovery call and position your company at the forefront of your industry.

The post 5 Top Performance Marketing Agencies Celebrating 10+ Years appeared first on Directive.

Not quite, though. Despite projections forecasting the total SaaS spend to reach $171.9 billion in 2022, most buyers still prefer free solutions. In fact, according to Blissfully’s 2020 SaaS Trends Report, organizations use three times as many free apps as they do paid ones.

But what does this mean for businesses marketing cloud-based software?

Well, it’s simple. The data clearly shows that achieving stellar conversion rates doesn’t just take investment in getting more people to become aware of your solution. On the contrary – achieving exceptional results (and a healthy revenue) requires a fully-optimized bottom section of the advertising funnel.

So what better way for SaaS brands to secure conversions than to ensure their pricing pages perform as well as possible? The following eight SaaS pricing page strategies are sure to help boost conversion rates.

Don’t Clutter the Decision-Prompting Elements

One easy fix to improve conversion rates on SaaS pricing pages is to look at the overall design and remove unnecessary clutter.

The logic behind designing minimal pricing pages is simple, and it has to do with the standard buyer’s journey.

The sales funnel moves people from one decision-making stage to the other by gradually presenting them with relevant information on what they can expect from a solution. Considering that pricing pages occupy the final stage of the funnel, it’s safe to assume that the web visitors looking at these assets already have a solid idea of what features and functionalities they’ll be getting.

So, the best way to utilize pricing pages is not to repeat information potential customers already know. Instead, you’ll want to focus your efforts on persuading them to convert.

Minimal design can do a lot to make this happen because the way it uses negative space allows high-value elements, like call-to-action (CTA) buttons, to draw attention.

Of course, this doesn’t mean pricing pages shouldn’t provide details on the differences between plans. But considering that people will spend 80% of their page viewing time looking at content above the fold, the first screenful of your pricing pages needs to focus on the act of convincing people to invest in your product. And one way to do this is to use minimal design to let your unique value proposition shine.

For an excellent example of a clutter-free page that lets decision-prompting elements shine, check out Aura.

As you can see, this page captures buyers’ attention with a well-worded sales proposition. The proposition invites users to “unlock the power of intelligent repricing with the #1 Amazon pricing tool.” Then, it presents two subscription plans, distinguishing them with core differentiators only, and encourages visitors to start their free trial with an attention-grabbing CTA button.

Speak Directly to Each Plan’s Target Persona

One common conversion killer that sneaks onto pricing pages is choice paralysis. When you present users with too many options, they simply become too overwhelmed. They get stuck and have no idea how to proceed.

Fortunately, there’s a simple strategy to overcoming choice paralysis on your SaaS pricing pages: speaking directly to each plan’s target persona.

By using copy (and visuals) to help potential customers decide what subscription plan caters to their needs, you can help them move through the bottom stage of the sales funnel. In other words, you need good copy and visuals to prevent them from leaving your website without converting.

For example, if you check out the MURAL pricing page, you’ll see that it does several things right.

• First and foremost, the brand names each tier according to the type of user it’s meant for.
• Secondly, it uses tier descriptions to specify the pain points each plan solves.
• Lastly, the section below each CTA button lists the product features that make each plan suited to its target persona. This helps web visitors identify the best choice for their needs and allows them to convert without worrying about potentially making the wrong choice.

Promote Annual Subscriptions

Don’t forget that, as a SaaS business, you’re bound to lose a portion of your customers every month.

Hopefully, your monthly churn won’t be higher than 1%, which will get you to that sweet spot of a 5-7% annual churn rate. But to ensure that your users stick around for longer (warranting an increased customer lifetime value, improving cash flow, and garnering a more predictable revenue for your business), it’s not a bad idea to promote your annual subscriptions.

Squarespace does this rather well by setting the annual subscription option as the default on its pricing page. The brand also encourages new users to pay up front by highlighting how much customers save when they get a yearly subscription.

For a slightly more user-oriented way to do this, look at the Mighty Networks site. This brand chooses to add an interactive toggle to its pricing page, allowing potential customers to see for themselves the difference between paying on a monthly vs. an annual basis.

If this strategy doesn’t apply to your business model, look for alternative ways to harness its benefits on your pricing pages.

For example, SkillCrush sells a pricey learning program that comes with lifetime access. So, to ensure that web visitors convert, the brand allows buyers to choose between two payment options. They can either pay in three monthly installments or get the course with a one-time payment. Note how the second option allows them to save $50, providing users with the benefit of paying a lower price and giving the brand quicker access to the funds from the sale.

Use Meaningful CTAs

Optimizing calls to action is another excellent strategy to implement on SaaS pricing pages.

When designing CTAs, most marketers follow copy and design best practices that promise to increase conversion rates. These include:

• Placing calls to action above the fold to ensure they grab user attention.
• Utilizing attention-grabbing and high-contrast colors to help CTA buttons visually stand out.
• Using negative space and repetition to maximize button visibility.
• Making typography choices that increase CTA readability.
• Keeping calls to action short, to the point, and using action-oriented language to encourage conversions.
• Creating a sense of urgency by using time-oriented words.
• Utilizing trust-building microcopy to present offers as risk-free.

However, while all of this advice can lead to higher conversion rates, there’s one thing that not all SaaS brands know how to get right: making their CTAs meaningful.

Think about making your offer come off as relevant to your audience’s needs.

Don’t just use pricing pages to show how much it costs to solve your audience’s pain points. Instead, present potential customers with meaningful CTAs that encourage them to fix their frustrations by investing in your software solution. Moreover:

• Communicate rewards.
• Give web visitors agency.
• Ensure that each CTA you use appeals to the specific audience segment it targets.

For example, see how Canva uses three different CTA buttons on its pricing page. To convert users who want the free plan, the brand invites them to “get started.” For those who need pro-level features, it encourages them to “try for free for 30 days.” And knowing that large teams require custom solutions, Canva invites enterprises to “contact sales” to get a personalized offer.

Don’t Be Afraid of High-Touch Sales

There are numerous benefits to a highly-automated sales cycle. But the fact that you’ve optimized your SaaS website (and pricing pages) to do all the hard work doesn’t mean you should shy away from human contact.

More often than not, what separates successful brands from their competition is their personalized approach to solving consumer needs. And what better proof than the fact that 9 in 10 people consider customer service as a decision-impacting factor when deciding what brand or product to choose.

So, as you look for ways to boost conversions on your SaaS brand’s pricing pages, consider whether encouraging interaction might give you that extra edge over your competitors.

For example, if enterprise users continually bring in a lot of revenue for your brand, why not encourage them to get in touch and have your expert sales team present them with a solution that will turn them into loyal users of your product?

For an excellent example of how you can do this, check out the Optimal Workshop pricing page.

This brand allows visitors to select the number of users on their team. When that number exceeds ten users, the CTA changes from “subscribe” to “talk to us,” encouraging potential customers to reach out and get an offer personalized to their unique requirements.

Note how Optimal Workshop’s approach also gives sales teams more flexibility. It allows them to present potential users with lucrative offers without being limited by pricing plans shown on the business’ website.

Recommend One Option

Is there one subscription plan in your offer that brings the highest value to most of your customers? If that’s the case, highlighting that plan might be an excellent way to make decision-making easier and boost conversion rates on your SaaS website.

Of course, when doing this, be transparent about why you’ve selected that plan. Does it offer the most value for money? Does it include the maximum number of features? Is it the most suited for your primary target audience, like small or medium-sized businesses?

Formstack, for example, highlights its Teams plan, as it’s the most popular in its offer.

Adobe encourages users to go with the Creative Cloud All Apps plan, which includes all apps, pointing out that this particular subscription option offers the best value for money.

Use Anchor Prices

From a consumer psychology point of view, one excellent pricing page tactic to boost conversions on your SaaS website is anchoring.

Essentially, price anchoring is a strategy that allows you to set a suggested price point (which automatically ties your product to a monetary value) but offer subscriptions that are below that suggested price.

The strategy works not just because it gives your audience the impression that they’re making considerable savings. More than that, it allows you to direct web visitors towards your target product by assigning high prices to your most advanced subscription tiers.

For an example of this strategy in action, check out the Ultimate Meal Plans pricing page. As you can see, each subscription option features an anchor price, which is then crossed out and replaced with a “discounted fee.” This gives web visitors the impression that they’re making considerable savings.

Or, if you’re looking for more advanced applications of price anchoring, take a look at the MailChimp website.

Here, the first tier shown costs a whopping $299 per month. But, the very next price point only sets users back by $17 per month, making it the preferred option for the majority of MailChimp’s target audience of small and medium-sized business owners.

Of course, this SaaS brand also offers a free subscription. But by implementing the price anchoring strategy and visually highlighting the Standard plan, the brand ensures that potential users attribute that particular tier with the best value for money.

Remember the Social Proof

Finally, to boost conversions on your SaaS pricing pages, don’t forget that this is where your leads make their final decision on whether they want to buy from your brand or not. So adding a dose of social proof to these assets might just be the way to guide your audience through the bottom section of the sales funnel.

The great thing about social proof is that it can be as versatile as you need it to be.

If your users include well-known brands, showcasing their logos allows your SaaS business to position itself as trustworthy and an authority in your niche. Look how Teamwork did it, for example.

Alternatively, you can display a credible testimonial that highlights a specific benefit of your products.

For example, Bench shows a quote from a customer who claims to have managed to save six hours per month of accounting work. It’s an excellent illustration of the value the brand’s product provides.

In Closing

When choosing pricing strategies to implement on your SaaS website, your ultimate goal is always to boost conversions. So, whether you decide to use one, two, or all eight of the tactics we’ve talked about here, make sure you’re keeping an eye on website analytics. They’ll help you stay on track and ensure you’re getting the results you’re after.

If you’re making changes to already existing pages, do it gradually. That way, you’ll be able to measure your results and revert to the old state of things if you find that the new approach doesn’t benefit your brand.

Last but not least, never forget to consider your specific target audience and your brand identity. These hold the key to what will or won’t work to boost conversions.

The post 8 SaaS Pricing Page Strategies to Boost Conversion Rates appeared first on Directive.

Mapping the customer journey gives you insight into how a customer interacts with your brand at each stage, how they feel and what their challenges are.

In this article, we’ll help you learn more about the SaaS customer journey, why you need to map it, and how to leverage each stage to optimize the customer experience, drive more conversions and retain customers for longer.

What is the SaaS Customer Journey?

The SaaS customer journey involves the various steps and interactions that take place between a SaaS company and its target customer from the moment the customer becomes aware of the brand to when they decide to make a purchase.

But here’s the thing — the customer journey usually does not end at the purchase stage, especially for SaaS businesses. Customers continue to interact with your business long after they purchase a plan or sign up for a trial.

For example, they might be using your software to achieve specific goals, trying out new features, chatting with support or recommending you to their friends.

SaaS Customer Journey Example

Let’s look at a real-life example of a typical SaaS customer journey for Visme — a subscription-based design and content creation platform.

• Potential customers become aware of Visme through blog content, landing pages, YouTube videos, social media ads or referrals.
• Interested people learn more about the tool by visiting the website, signing up for a free account, subscribing to the email newsletter, downloading an eBook, contacting support or requesting a demo.
• Leads evaluate Visme by using the free version, engaging with newsletters, reading online reviews and comparing it to competing software. Larger organizations that requested a demo are put in touch with Sales.
• Free registrants purchase a paid plan to access premium features or templates, and Enterprise accounts are set up and onboarded by the Sales team.
• Enterprise accounts get ongoing, priority support, while individual users explore the platform with the help of support, guided tours, tutorials and in-app wizards.
• Customers continue using the software to achieve goals, and join the Visme Facebook community to engage with experts and other users.
• Loyal users renew their subscription at the end of its period, upgrade the plan to access more features and/or recommend the software to their peers.

As a SaaS company, it’s important to understand the customer journey on a deeper level, and this is best done by representing it in the form of a customer journey map. We’ll talk more about why customer journey mapping is integral to your SaaS company’s success in the next section.

The Importance of SaaS Customer Journey Mapping

A customer journey map helps visualize the customer experience, touchpoints, emotions, actions, pain points and other elements associated with each stage of the journey.

SaaS customer journey maps are useful strategic tools that help marketers, salespeople and business owners alike understand how customers interact with their platform.

This helps them implement better processes, deliver memorable experiences, boost conversions and retain more customers.

Below are some specific benefits of customer journey mapping for SaaS businesses:

Attract more inbound leads

Visualizing the customer journey can help you create more effective inbound marketing strategies. As a result, you’ll have more inbound leads to work with as opposed to outbound leads, which not only cost more but are also more difficult to convert.

When you understand the customer journey, you can create more relevant messaging and show up at the right time on the right channels. In return, you get more inbound leads that are genuinely interested in your product.

Boost sales and conversions

Mapping out the customer journey can help you create better, frictionless business processes that convert more customers.

For example, you may find that your website visitors first check out your landing page, look at your “About Us” section, and then go to the pricing page before signing up for a free trial.

If you have a messy landing page that’s hard to navigate, a big chunk of your traffic might drop off at the first step. You can solve this by implementing a clean, easily navigable landing page design and adding prominent CTAs in the right places.

Improve customer retention

When you understand how customers interact with your brand, you’re able to delight them at every step of the way. This automatically results in increased loyalty and more subscription renewals for your business.

Plus, as we mentioned earlier, a typical SaaS customer journey doesn’t end at the purchase stage. You can offer good after-sales support, implement an effective onboarding process, share tutorials and more to retain customers and ensure they keep using your platform.

Deliver better customer experiences

Customer experiences are more important than you’d think.

Studies show that 32% of all customers would walk away from a brand after just one bad experience. And this is not just for first-time users. In the US, 59% of customers would stop engaging with a brand they love after several poor experiences.

For SaaS businesses, ensuring great customer experiences should be of utmost priority. Not only is it easy for your customers to switch to a competitor with a click of a button, it also doesn’t take long for them to cancel their subscription or walk away after a free trial.

Introduce new features and products

One of the most important benefits of customer journey mapping for SaaS businesses is that it helps them roll out new features and products that are aligned with customer needs. It’s simple — the more you understand your customers’ problems, the better you’re able to solve them.

For example, Spotify created a customer journey map to help them launch a new music-sharing feature.

Notice how granular Spotify’s customer journey map is. By detailing all the major touchpoints, steps, emotions, thoughts and actors along the way, the UX designers were in a better position to develop and implement a feature that users would actually use.

Align all your business departments

Learning about how customers interact with your SaaS company is not just a job for your marketing department. It’s just as important for your finance, sales, IT, content, support and other teams to be on the same page.

That’s because knowing the customer journey helps every department set customer-focused goals, and consistently deliver memorable experiences at every single touchpoint.

The SaaS Customer Journey Stages Explained (& How to Leverage Them)

Every customer journey consists of several different stages. These stages, however, may vary from business to business, depending on the goal of the map, the type of software, the problem or solution, the target audience and other factors.

Typically, the customer journey for SaaS includes the following stages:

• Awareness
• Engagement
• Evaluation
• Purchase
• Onboarding & Support
• Loyalty

Let’s look at each stage in detail and how you can leverage it for your SaaS business.

1. Awareness

This is usually the first stage of any customer journey, when potential customers first come across your software or solutions. For example, they might hear about you from a blog post, video or ad.

For SaaS companies, it’s important to create tailored content at this stage that attracts the right kind of traffic, essentially turning strangers into visitors.

Another goal at this stage is to create awareness about the problem your software is able to solve. It’s possible your potential customers might not even know they have a problem until you point it out.

For example, if you offer keyword research software, you may want to create content that helps marketers understand why SEO is important in the first place. Why should they invest in keyword research? What’s going to happen if they don’t optimize their content?

Goals

• Increase brand awareness
• Increase problem awareness
• Generate leads
• Drive website traffic

Strategies

Articles & Blog Posts

Publishing high-quality blog content that generates brand and problem awareness is undoubtedly the most popular strategy at this stage.

People looking for this content might not necessarily know about your tool, but they may become aware of it and how it can help them after reading your posts.

For example, if you’re a project management software, you could create content around Gantt charts or the stages of the project life cycle.

Here’s an example of how monday.com publishes problem-solving content on their blog to attract unaware audiences and generate leads.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Implement SEO tactics like researching SERPs, using relevant keywords, adding internal and external links, optimizing headings and more to craft content that’s more likely to rank for the chosen keywords.

You can use a tool like Ahrefs or SEMrush to conduct keyword research and learn more about competitor websites or pages.

Videos & Podcasts

At the awareness stage, SaaS brands can create videos and podcasts that solve specific problems, similar to the blog posts we talked about above.

For example, if I search for “how to make a video collage” on YouTube, this video from Kapwing — an online video editor — shows up. Now, I may not know about Kapwing at this stage, but after watching the video, I’m aware the software exists and how it can solve my problem.

At this stage, your videos don’t necessarily need to be promotional — they can simply be informative. But make sure you brand them and add appropriate CTAs to help customers progress through their journey.

Paid Advertising

Paid advertising is a great strategy to implement alongside organic content marketing, especially for newer SaaS companies that may find it difficult to outrank larger, more established competitors based solely on organic efforts.

Conduct keyword research to find paid ad opportunities that cost less and attract a niche traffic. Experiment with multiple ad formats on social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, depending on your target market.

Social Media Marketing

Stay active on social media by regularly sharing insightful posts, tweets and threads, engaging in conversations, running polls, promoting your videos and blog posts, and repurposing existing content into bite-sized social media posts.

Social media content doesn’t always mean creating viral videos and memes, although that could work if it aligns with your brand voice and you have the creative capacity.

Influencer Marketing

Partnering up with relevant influencers in your niche can be a great way to spread the word about your software. Plus, since influencers usually have a loyal, engaged following, you’re more likely to build trust and credibility around your brand.

2. Engagement

For SaaS customers, the second stage in their journey is usually engaging with the software’s website or the software itself. In this age of self-aware and proactive customers, it’s expected that customers would want to do their own research.

But at this stage, they are just exploring their problem and looking for a solution. They might not know what the solution is exactly, but if they like your tool, they’ll move on to their evaluation stage.

For instance, they might visit your website because they came across an ad on their LinkedIn feed. Once in, they’ll attempt to learn more about what solutions you offer, and possibly sign up for a newsletter, watch an explainer video or ask some basic questions through live chat.

Goals

• Turn visitors into qualified leads
• Educate leads about the product and its features

Strategies

Website & Landing Pages

As a SaaS business, your website is your storefront. Make sure it not only looks good, but is also easily navigable and has everything a potential customer might be looking for.

Create pages that describe your product, solutions and features. It’s also a good idea to create industry or use-case specific landing pages to help visitors find your tool relatable and useful. Biteable, for example, has a page designed specifically for teams looking for an internal communication solution.

Make sure you add plenty of CTAs at distinct points on your website and pages. You can track activity using a tool like Hotjar — view heatmaps and recordings, and understand how users interact with your website.

Tutorials & Demos

At this stage, potential buyers want to learn more about your software. So, make sure you have plenty of video tutorials and demos on your website and/or YouTube channel to help them understand what exactly it is you offer.

Lead Generation Forms

Remember, your goal at this stage is to capture leads and turn these interested visitors into prospects. Add opt-ins on different pages of your website to capture their contact information, and make sure you offer something valuable in return.

For example you can offer research, a weekly newsletter, an eBook, a checklist or a workbook in exchange for their name, email address, job title and industry. Here’s an example of how Zendesk does this.

Once you have information on your lead, you can start nurturing them into customers by implementing tactics that help you educate and convince. More on this later.

Live Chat & Support

Another thing potential customers might do at this stage is reach out to you directly via live chat on your website.

They might have basic questions about your pricing, relevant pages, solutions and features. Make it easy for them to move on to the next stage by being fast, responsive and helpful.

3. Evaluation

Once visitors have engaged with your website and possibly left their contact information with you, they’ve made it to the evaluation stage — they know the problem, they know you can solve it and they are now evaluating their options.

It’s time for you to emerge as the best solution for them, and convince them that buying from you would be a good decision. At this stage, customers have likely already signed up for a free trial of your software, or requested a demo from your team.

Your pricing page will play a big role at this point. Make sure you detail as many features as possible in your pricing plans, showing you offer lots of value. This will help them make a purchase decision in your favor.

Goals

• Emerge as the best option/solution
• Delight trial leads

Strategies

Email Marketing

At this stage, you should have some information on your leads, specifically email addresses you obtained through pop-ups and lead magnets. Use this information to nurture your leads.

Send marketing emails that educate leads about your product’s features and benefits, and show them how you’re different from your competitors and why you’re the best fit for their needs.

Reviews & Testimonials

Positive reviews and testimonials from your existing customers can go a long way in building trust with potential customers.

Regularly ask for feedback from loyal customers, gather positive reviews from online review sites, and then showcase these reviews on your website and landing pages, retargeting ads and social media.

Case Studies

Reach out to engaged customers, write and publish case studies that cover the client’s industry, problem and how they used your software to solve it. Notion, for example, has a dedicated page for showcasing customer stories.

Dig for quantifiable information, such as statistics and percentages. Did your software help a client save time? How much time would they say it helped them save on average per day or week?

Lead Activity Tracking

Understand how leads feel about your software by tracking repeat logins, user activity and engagement. This will put you in a better position to nurture leads to conversion.

4. Purchase

Finally, your leads are ready to buy from you. They’ve made their decision, but they might change their mind at the last minute, so you have to ensure they experience a frictionless purchase process.

Not only that, you can also take this opportunity to upsell or cross-sell buyers, and ensure you get the most revenue out of them when you close the deal.

Goals

• Convert leads into paying customers

Strategies

Discounted Pricing

A classic technique that most SaaS businesses use at this stage is to offer discounted “bundles” to drive more long-term subscriptions. For example, Sendlane offers 2 months free in their annual plan, which customers naturally find more value in.

Urgency

Using tactics like scarcity and urgency is just as effective in SaaS as it is in retail or eCommerce. Here’s an example of how Hostinger uses a countdown timer to create urgency and motivate leads to make a purchase.

Upselling & Cross-Selling

During the checkout process, you can try upselling or cross-selling different features or add-ons to increase the average subscription value. Here’s an example of how HubSpot does it.

5. Onboarding & Support

The SaaS customer journey rarely ends after the purchase stage. Your software needs to retain customers and ensure subscription renewals to stay afloat.

That’s why onboarding and support are so important after welcoming a new customer. At this stage, your focus should be to ensure a seamless customer experience.

Goals

• Improve customer experience
• Retain customers

Strategies

Ongoing Support

New customers are naturally going to have a lot of questions, and your team should be available and responsive to answer them. Make sure you provide multiple channels for customers to reach out to you, such as via live chat, call, email and more.

Live Team Training & Demos

If you’ve signed up a large organization for a team plan, it’s a good idea to onboard your client’s entire team via live training or product demo. This helps build a personal relationship and reduces friction during the onboarding process.

Tutorials & Documentation

Make sure you have a comprehensive repository of video tutorial and support documentation (with screenshots) to help new users figure out their way around your software. This may include installation, usage, downloads, updates, integrations and more.

6. Loyalty

Customer retention and loyalty is typically the last — but ongoing — stage of SaaS customer journeys. When customers love using your software and continue to do so for a long time, they automatically move to this stage.

Your goal at this stage is not only to keep your existing customers, but also to help spread positive word-of-mouth about your software.

Goals

• Retain customers
• Get referrals

Strategies

Discounted Renewals

You can increase the chances of a subscription renewal by offering existing customers a time-sensitive discount towards the end of their current subscription period.

Referral Programs

Referral and affiliate programs can help turn loyal customers into advocates of your brand. Offer perks in exchange for mentions and referrals. For example, Wise offers money to users in exchange for referrals.

Community Building

Building an exclusive community of users can help them feel special, and provide them a space where they can interact with other, like-minded users. This helps them feel more connected to your software, and can build loyalty in the long haul. For example, you can create an invite-only membership portal or a closed group on Facebook.

New Features & Updates

Last but not least, as a SaaS tool, you need to keep delighting your customers and stay updated with the latest technology and trends in your industry.

Invest in innovation, research and development, and roll out regular updates, features and more to keep your customers hooked to your software.

Take Advantage of the SaaS Customer Journey Stages

Understanding the customer journey is only one part of the puzzle. You also need to leverage each stage and create the right content to successfully attract, nurture and convert leads.

If you’re looking to create a powerful SaaS marketing strategy, Directive’s customer-led approach can help you get there faster.

The post How to Leverage SaaS Customer Journey Stages appeared first on Directive.

All the “standard” marketing advice out there that talks about how to sell to consumers as a B2C or even as a B2B brand won’t cut it. The customer journey is different, their buying process is different, and that means that your strategy needs to shift, too.

Let’s dive deep into everything you need to know about SaaS campaign management to create campaigns that will give you the growth momentum you need, including specific tactics to reach, convert, and retain clients.

How SaaS Marketing Is Different Than Standard B2B Marketing

SaaS marketing can overlap with B2B marketing, and there are similarities. You’ve got a longer buying cycle compared to B2C, filled with more research and often personalized attention between the lead and the business. You also have the challenge that the end-user may be different from the decision maker who you need to sell to.

That being said, the focus with SaaS marketing will be a push to a free trial (or, in some cases, a demo)— not a contract or a big purchase. The purchase isn’t made upfront, it comes after. That’s an entirely different and sometimes extra step in the sales funnel.

Even once customers convert to a trial, there’s also the possibility that they’re testing multiple tools at once. You need to keep them engaged during that trial process to increase the odds of purchase and ideally upsell them to either an annual plan or a higher-than-base-level plan.

And you don’t just need to sell them once. You need to continually ensure that they’re happy and engaged continually, so that they’re using the tool and finding value on an ongoing basis.

This all requires a specialized marketing strategy and an understanding of SaaS campaign management.

Different SaaS Marketing Campaigns to Create

A crucial part of SaaS campaign management is understanding how different types of marketing can help at every stage of the digital sales funnel.

These are a few core types of marketing to consider:

• Inbound marketing. This is the practice of putting measures in place to help customers find you. Common examples include search engine optimization and content marketing. It ensures that when customers are searching for you that they’ll be able to find your brand, at least in theory.
  In some cases, inbound marketing can take time and momentum to show results, so it may not be an “immediate” solution.
• Outbound marketing. Outbound marketing is all about reaching out to users where they’re already engaged. Think everything from advertising on third-party platforms, getting listings on software review sites, and cold calling. It doesn’t rely on waiting for customers to come to you.
  Depending on which strategies you use, outbound marketing can be fast-acting and help drive results quickly.
• Email marketing. Email marketing is invaluable when used to nurture contacts to leads and leads to customers. It can help with relationship building, driving conversions, and both upselling and cross-selling.
• Social media marketing. Social media marketing can fall under outbound marketing, but it’s so distinct that we felt it deserves its own bullet point on our list. It’s a great place to stay in touch with engaged followers, and plenty of SaaS brands are even using it for community-building with features like Facebook Groups.

How to Develop an SaaS Marketing Strategy for Every Stage of the Sales Funnel

A tricky part of SaaS campaign management is knowing when to use each type of marketing and how exactly to do so.

While each company and audience segment is unique, making your individual Customer Generation process unique, there are also a few tried-and-true strategies that can consistently help SaaS companies get results at each stage of the sales funnel.

 Let’s take a look at each.

Utilize Outbound Marketing to Get On Your Customers’ Radar  

 The first part of your sales funnel needs to be focused on pushing customers into your funnel.

In order to aggressively reach new members of your target audience right away, you’ll want to leverage outbound marketing to expand your reach and your visibility. The idea is to show up where people are actively searching for you, or where they may already be engaged.

For SaaS campaign management and development, we strongly recommend the following outbound marketing approaches:

• Using PPC platforms like Google Ads (especially search ads) to generate brand awareness with high-intent audiences
• Having review articles written by experts on trusted sites that have wide audiences
• Getting organic and paid listings on well-known software review sites that users are likely to utilize when researching decisions and looking for new tools

The most important factor here is to consider where your specific audience is active so that you can make sure your marketing can reach them there.

Use PPC Ads to Reach Decision Makers

We’ve already mentioned PPC Ads for capturing search intent above, but there are multiple platforms and strategies to consider here.

In addition to using advertising in order to reach users who are searching for new solutions, you can also use PPC Ads for discovery purposes by proactively showing relevant audiences your SaaS product while they’re browsing online.

LinkedIn Ads can be an outstanding platform for this, especially since they have targeting options that can allow you to be laser-focused.

You can make sure to target your decision maker (not just a general audience who works in the industry you’re targeting) by adding criteria like job role, experience, or even the exact company they work for.

When you’re running these particular PPC ads, remember to focus on who the decision maker is and be conscious of what their specific pain point would be. It may be different from the ultimate end user, and that needs to be reflected in the ad.

The end user may prioritize, for example, ease of use and automation; the decision maker might care more about reporting features, teamwork features, and scaling capability. If you’re unsure which pain points are most significant, you can (and should!) always run split test ads.

Use Retargeting to Keep Users Moving Through Your Funnel

In addition to using PPC campaigns to help users discover your SaaS product, you can

also use retargeting ad campaigns on multiple platforms (including Facebook, Google Ads, LinkedIn, and more) to show ads to users who have interacted with your business in some way.

Retargeting campaigns can go a long way in helping you to keep users engaged to the point where they book a trial or demo, or even to where they’ll convert. It makes your other campaigns more impactful because it decreases the likelihood that you’ll have high-value leads slip away.

Retargeting ad campaigns allow you to target audiences like the following:

• Those who visited your website after discovering it through SEO, a software review site, an initial ad
• Potential customers who have signed up for your newsletter or for a lead magnet like a webinar in the past
• Users who have visited a specific landing page and either did or did not take a specific action like signing up for a trial or getting in touch
• Existing users who you want to upsell higher-cost plans or cross-sell new features to
• People who watched an ad about your software to Facebook Ads to completion but who didn’t click
• Users from a list of leads, contacts, or customers that you’ve created; you can use integrations to push these lists from your email software or CRM tool to the PPC platforms

Each platform has their own unique retargeting capabilities. And while it’s worth noting that the iOS 14.5 update did throw off some of the data and tracing abilities, retargeting is still going strong and can help you ensure that no one slips between the cracks.

Utilize Content Marketing to Build Trust & Capture Lead Information

Content marketing should be a priority for every SaaS company out there right from the beginning.  

Content marketing is the practice of leveraging value in order to build relationships, trust, and ultimately your client list.

Blogging is often a main pillar of content marketing for most SaaS brands. It can make a huge impact on SEO, it’s great for link building (which boosts the overall domain authority of your entire site), and it can demonstrate that you truly are an expert in your field. Many SaaS companies shoot for at least one blog post for week, but some go for more.

Content marketing goes beyond blog posts, too. It may also include the following:

• Free webinars that can share information with your target audience, and may or may not have experts from other industries or businesses
• Lead magnets like ebooks, checklists, templates, or whitepapers that are relevant to the product (think a social media audit template for social media marketing software)
• Infographics that are ideally shared widely on social media
• Informational and educational YouTube videos

The entire point of content marketing is to offer valuable, quality content to capture all the benefits we’ve discussed above, so remember to ensure that every piece of content you publish has these qualities:

• It’s competitive compared to what the competition is already offering
• It’s unique compared to what’s already been written and published
• You’re focusing on actionable tips that people can actually walk away with and use after reading
• You cite your sources and back up your points
• There are visual components like images, infographics, or videos
• Your content is strategically optimized for the sales funnel and you have a relevant CTA to drive real results from it (this can be pushing users to a lead magnet for a mid-funnel post or to a trial page from an end-of-funnel post)

Doesn’t Content Marketing Take Too Long?

We want to address a question that we’re often asked by our clients: Doesn’t content marketing and blogging take too long? I want results quickly.

It can and often does take some time for content marketing to really take effect with new sites, but it’s a long-term strategy that you want to implement right away.

It’s like your retirement account. Would you rather put 10k into a retirement account today, or have 10k from ten years ago that’s collected compounded interest?

Content marketing is the same way. The best time to start was yesterday, but the second best time to start is today, and the results you see will be worth it even if it takes a little time. It’s all about those compound results and the momentum overtime.

Looking for help with your content marketing? Take a look at our content marketing services for SaaS brands.

Have Product Tours Readily Available

Some people don’t think of what’s on your site as part of a marketing campaign for SaaS companies, but it is.

And that means you’re going to want to have readily-available product tours that are engaging and visible on your site right off the bat.

Product tours are media that shows users what using the tool is really like. This can include any of the following:

• Images of the SaaS tool’s interface on both desktop and mobile
• Videos of the tool in use, showing the interface and walking viewers through different features
• Free “demo accounts” that users can access to see how the tool works with plenty of data already in it and set up complete
• Demos that can be booked to walk potential customers through the tool and answer their questions

In many cases, a combination of multiple options above is a good way to go so that users are able to experience product tours in the way they prefer to.

Some would much rather watch a video, for example, than book a demo at a specific time; other high-value spenders want to get a personalized demo with a specialist.

You can also use  the media in ads, email, and on social media in addition to on your site, so they’re well worth investing in.

Highlight Use Cases on Your Site

In many cases, a single SaaS product will appear to multiple different audience segments for multiple use cases.

If this is the case for your tool, it can be useful to highlight those different audience segments or use cases on your site.

Some tools, for example, may work for individual freelancers, mid-sized teams, and enterprise-level companies, but each may have specific features or plans that they most benefit from.

Others may have specialized features for different industries; it’s not uncommon to see CRMs promote unique features for financial organizations, medical organizations, and real estate agents.

Highlight this clearly on your site in a visible way to show every segment that your tool is a good fit for their needs right off the bat. Clear headers in the navigation bar is a great option, because it catches their attention and immediately puts them on a landing page that was written to be hyper-relevant for them.

You won’t have single-person companies thinking that the tool is too intense or overwhelming for them, and you won’t run the risk that the high-level enterprise clients will think it’s too simple and won’t have the capacity for scale.

You can see an example of how Calendly does this here:

Take Advantage of Your Email Welcome Series

Once users actually sign up for a free trial, it’s essential to nurture them during that brief trial period (whether it’s a week or a month).

You want to ensure that they’re getting the most out of the SaaS product to really see it’s value, because that’s the best way to 1) Ensure that they become a paid customer and 2) Are more likely to choose a higher-cost plan.

Remember that if users complete your free trial and don’t convert that there’s a good chance they won’t be back and that they’ll choose another tool.

As a result, it’s crucial to use every tool in your arsenal to keep them engaged during that trial. Email will be your best weapon here.

Email allows you to get directly into a user’s inbox, and you can use it to slowly introduce them to the tool.

First, make sure that your welcome series thanks them for joining but also walks them through the set up process.

The more they put into the tool during trial, the more likely they are to become invested and wind up becoming a conversion. Include CTAs to “set up the tool now” in an email, which takes them to your in-app onboarding.

You can also show them how easy set up is, and that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, by telling them the few simple steps that will be involved.

Once set up is complete, you should also email them frequently with a welcome series that’s designed to slowly walk them through the tool and highlight key features they may have missed.

A handful of emails that shows them advanced or automated features can get them back into the tool, excited about it, and really understanding what you have to offer.

Email Beyond Lead Nurturing & Trials

Don’t forget to make it easy for users to get in touch, and to have all of these emails include a line that puts them in direct contact with a customer service or sales representative if they need it at any point. You do not want to make it hard for them to decide to purchase.

And pro tip: Once users officially become customers, you can still use email to keep them engaged. Let them know when new features or updates come to the platform, or new side products are available. This is an easy way to show your existing customers that the tool is growing and changing alongside their business.

Incentivize Referrals

Happy customers are often very willing to refer your tool to their friends and colleagues.

As a freelancer, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen posts in writing groups asking for recommendations about writing tools, project management software, and invoicing options. Each time, the threads are filled with people sharing their favorites. And each time, that person picks a tool from that list and becomes a client.

You can incentivize this further with an official referral program. Offer a valuable reward, like a free month of service or a free add-on feature, for both new customers and the referrer who sent the customer your way. It builds a relationship and can go a long way in driving new, highly-qualified customers your way.

And don’t forget; referral programs are often well-worth their cost, and then some. Customers that come through referral programs have a 37% higher retention rate than other customers, they spend more on average, and they’re also more likely to convert to begin with.

Final Thoughts

SaaS campaign management will require its own unique strategies and best practices, but with those strategies and tactics in your back pocket, it will become much easier to attract high-value members of your target audience.

Remember that above all else that your specific audience segments should be at the absolute center of everything that you’re doing. It will drive which platforms you choose to market on, the types of use cases you highlight on your site, and even what types of product tours you have available.

By taking a customer-led approach, you’ll have better immediate and long-term success. This is everything that we do for our SaaS clients here at Directive Consulting, knowing that the customer really should always be first.

Interested in learning more about SaaS campaign management and our customer-led approach? Check out our Customer Generation Methodology.

The post How to Create an Effective SaaS Marketing Strategy appeared first on Directive.

While many organizations operate this way, successful companies value “customer marketing” to increase retention and help with same store growth. Here we will go into why customer marketing is valuable and some ways to implement campaigns. 

What is Customer Marketing?

Customer marketing differs from other forms of marketing in that it targets your current customer base instead of new business. While some tactics can remain the same, the approach and messaging will vary in pretty significant ways. Existing customers have already made the hard decision to sign with your business, your marketing strategy should now be all about retention and growth into different service lines. 

Why is Customer Marketing so important? 

Often neglected, customer marketing can actually have a tremendous impact on your business. It’s easy to focus on new logos coming into your company, but retaining and growing your current customers is more cost effective. Generally, it can cost 5x as much to acquire a new customer versus retaining an existing one. Also, you can usually see a much higher chance of selling to an existing customer instead of to a new one. These numbers can vary from a 50-70% chance to sell to a new customer, as opposed to 5-30% chance of selling to a new one. 

So why do so many people neglect customer marketing? For some it can be hard to understand as a growth channel, and usually you can get bigger deals from selling into new clients. Customer marketing also requires a significant amount of consistency that can be hard to achieve if it’s not an organizational priority. 

How to get Buy-in for Customer Marketing Initiatives? 

Conducting effective customer marketing initiatives usually involves a decent investment in both money and time. This can be hard to sell internally, especially if you’re in a sales/new business focused environment. So what are some steps you can take to get buy-in across the organization? 

Gather the Stats

Besides the numbers referenced above about the cost effectiveness of keeping clients and growing current ones, there’s a lot of information you can get within your organization that can help make your case. Most SaaS companies should be able to pull the following:

• Churn rate – how many clients is the company losing either monthly or annually? Since customer marketing can make a big impact on client retention this is an important one to speak to. 
• Cost per acquisition – this tells you the current cost associated all in with getting a new account. By pulling cost per acquisition you can then calculate how much you could reduce this number by growing current customers. More profitable sales makes for a happier executive team.  
• Lifetime Value – this shows the total revenue derived from the average company you work with. Customer marketing can extend the amount of time a client works and spends with you, which in turn should improve the overall lifetime value of accounts. 

Make a Plan

Once you’ve put together all the relevant information, it’s time to make a plan for how to improve these numbers. Start with your end goal; decreasing churn and increasing same store growth. From there work backwards into what strategies might work to affect both of these numbers. The best approach will vary a lot by industry and company. Try to get as specific as possible by addressing who is using your service and why these approaches are the best way to impact their satisfaction with your brand. 

Develop Other Champions

If you want to make change within an organization, it’s significantly easier to accomplish if you have multiple people bought in before discussing with a decision maker. If you know that you ultimately need signoff from the CEO to get your plan moving, start with finding others who might help back up what you’re saying.

This could be the head of marketing, sales lead, or even the service teams working on the account. The message becomes a lot more powerful if multiple people are bringing up the initiative. 

Start Small, Show Wins

If you can’t get approval on a full blown campaign, start small. Pick one or two initiatives (maybe ones that don’t have an external investment) and show the impact they have had. If you can provide evidence that it’s worth it to pursue, you’ll have an easier time getting the larger budget you might want to implement. 

Customer Marketing Tactics and Strategies

Now that you have buy-in it’s time to come up with customer marketing tactics and strategies to implement. Remember, the main goals are customer retention and same store growth. With that in mind here are some proven ways to approach customer marketing:

Provide an Exceptional Service or Product

This one is obvious, but it’s going to be hard to build an effective customer marketing strategy if people don’t like your product or service. If churn is already high, this might be tough to overcome through just marketing. 

Consistent feedback loops will be important here. This can come from net promoter score (NPS) surveys, customer interviews, or even just check-ins with your points of contact. Use this information to find out what is most compelling about your product, as well as what might need work. 

It’s also important from the beginning with new business to target your ideal customer profile, or ICP. If you can make sure you’re only targeting the right people upfront you can be sure there won’t be satisfaction issues on the back end. 

Develop a Referral Program

Once you know you have happy customers that are bought into your brand, you can create a referral program. This could take the form of an incentive to send over new business, or to champion you internally to other business units in the organization. You get a large benefit from the social proof of someone saying, “I love this service, and you will too!” It should make your time to close shorter and cost overall lower. 

The referral program could include gift cards, donations, or gifts that you provide if a referral closes. This can vary depending on the person, and some level of flexibility could be helpful. Something personalized will go much further than a generic isolated mug as a thank you, for example. 

Incentivize Same Store Growth

The people who are going to have the most success growing accounts are going to be the ones closest to the clients. With that in mind, give your account managers incentives to grow their book of business. This will depend on your margins, but the more you incentivize the more likely they will prioritize. A $20 gift card will not net nearly as much growth as say a percentage of the upsell. 

Training also becomes very important here. Make sure they know what trigger words or how other business lines could positively impact their clients. This also requires a decent amount of repetition, and constant celebration of managers who see the most growth of accounts. If an account manager is not seeing their accounts grow at all, it’s worth reviewing how they are approaching clients and if their satisfaction scores are as high as others. 

Show your Appreciation 

Continually showing your appreciation to your current customers goes a long way in improving retention and engendering brand loyalty. There are a number of ways to accomplish this:

• Utilize a gifting platform for big milestones or calendar events like Sendoso or Goody. These allow for personalized gifts that show appreciation for them as a person. 
• Have executives reach out or send handwritten messages to show that the client isn’t just a number, but instead someone to show gratitude towards. This becomes less scalable the more clients you have, but also more impactful. 
• Adding value outside of the current service can help build good will. You can even build in the margin for these extra services without letting the client know, making this both delightful and scalable. 
• Conducting combined case studies can help your point of contact look good as well as show social proof for your company. This can also help in combined speaking engagements or industry awards. 

Content & Email Marketing

Two tried and true methods of customer marketing are through content and email. Consistently developing new, value adding content targeting your ICP can help in showing value and remaining top of mind to current customers. If they feel like they are getting more value than just your service you know that you’ll have a better chance in both keeping them and growing them. Email marketing is a great way to continue to stay in front of your customers for very little cost. Through some automation you can easily disseminate your content as well as make sure they are aware of all the services you provide. Segmenting by customer type, size, and services used can help in really feeling customized to each account.  

Continue to Target your Current Clients

If you know that your current clients are more likely to purchase your services, targeting them with ads can be a great way to remain top of mind. Since you already have first party data, utilizing programmatic or social media to show ads for services they are not currently using can help both to prime them for a conversation as well as make sure they are aware of other services you provide. There’s nothing worse than finding out your customer went with a different vendor because they didn’t know you could help them with their problem. 

Tying it All Together

Customer marketing is an incredibly valuable tool to any organization to grow and optimize in a cost effective way. While we went into some strategies here, there are so many different ways to engage your current customer base. Finding the optimized strategy for your accounts will be crucial to continued success. 

The post What is Customer Marketing? And Why Does It Matter To SaaS? appeared first on Directive.

If you’re like 93% of consumers today, you’re incredibly likely to read reviews before you purchase. 

B2B buyers looking at SaaS tools are no different, and they’re just as likely to dive deep into detailed reviews that highlight the pros and cons of several different software options. Even though plenty of SaaS tools offer free trials, buyers don’t want to waste their time learning multiple tools only to find out another could better suit their needs.

As a result, SaaS review sites that feature extensive software products reviews are crucial to the buyer’s journey in many cases… which means that they should be a part of your SaaS brand’s customer-led marketing strategy. 

In this post, we’re going to go over everything you need to know about the best software review sites in 2022, including which sites you should focus on and how to leverage them to effectively attract new customers. 

Why Software Review Sites Are So Valuable 

Many SaaS businesses focus heavily on getting sponsored placements in publications, featuring big-name clients on their sites, improving local SEO with technical SEO audit tools,  and running aggressive ad campaigns with PPC software. Many forget about software review sites, even if they’re taking advantage of B2B directories. 

Software review sites should be a core part of your marketing strategy, however. In many cases, B2B buyers are using these review sites to get an in-depth look at different tools and get a stronger understanding of which tools are the best fit for their brand. You take advantage of organic search listings and paid listings on many of these sites.

No one wants to go through the hassle of adopting a tool only to find out that there’s something else better out there after they’ve done demos, been onboarded to the tool, trained their team, and established workflows.

Buyers trust these review sites. A study including software review site G2 found that over 92% of B2B buyers are more likely to purchase after reading a reivew that they trust. They’re actively looking for reviews on the review sites to help them make a decision, which means they’re incredibly high-intent buyers. 

Taking advantage of paid and organic advertising on these sites, therefore, can be a goldmine as you build trust and capture user interest while they’re actively searching for products like yours.

The 7 Best Software Review Sites in 2022 

Ready to take a look at the best software review sites in 2022 when it comes to marketing for SaaS brands? 

These are our top choices, which are the most impactful, detailed, trusted, and with the widest reach across the board. 

1. G2.com 

G2 is probably the largest and one of the most trusted software review sites in 2022. That’s largely due to the fact that it gives users absolutely everything they need to make a decision. 

G2 makes it easy for users to browse products in a given category to quickly find what works for them. They’ve got both a grid view of products and a list view showing different scores and USPs. 

Some products have thousands or even tens of thousands reviews on G2, and the site shares everything from highest-rated features, pricing data, industries represented as clients, and customer reviews and discussions. 

It has great features available for SaaS businesses, too. You can claim your tool as a Seller, where you can get detailed analytics and even create deals to encourage users on the platform to purchase. Paid plans also allow for review collection and generation, content subscriptions to create UGC videos to build up your review profile, competitive insights, and more. 

2. Capterra 

Capterra is another one of well-regarded software reviews sites that you may already be familiar with. 

They have an extensive database of software categories you can browse to find the products you need, and they also have a quiz to direct you to their recommended products of choice. 

Like G2 and other review sites on this list, Capterra has a breakdown of a tool and the ability for users to upload their own reviews. They also have great “Save” and “Compare” features to help brands make faster decisions by easily spotting differences between several tools they’re considering. 

You’ll see below, too, that brands have an option to get a leg up here in the search results. When users first view a product category, the reviews are sorted by “Sponsored,” meaning that the sponsored products are at the top. Users can change this, but it gives top-ranking brands here a massive boost in visibility. 

Capterra’s part of Gartner Digital Markets, and their Vendor features come through them. Their premium plan allows you to increase visibility and reach, along with benefits like marketing services and content, access to competitor analysis, and buyer insights. You can also choose to get a free  basic listing. 

3. SaaS Genius 

SaaS Genius isn’t the most extensive review site, as it doesn’t feature quite as many products as several of its competitors. There are fewer marketing tools on this particular site compared to others, for example. 

That being said, it’s still a great platform if this is where you suspect your audience is turning. 

One reason this tool should be on your radar is their “Alternatives to” section. It’s displayed prominently on product pages next to the full product summary, and it’s a great way to potentially connect with users who may not have found you otherwise. This is a chance to grab a customer from your direct competition. 

Their Premium plan for vendors is $197 per month, and includes perks like premium placement in the software directory, additional links ot your site, and activity reports. 

4. Software Advice 

Software Advice works a little differently than most of the review sites on this list. 

Instead of compiling an abundance of reviews and presenting readers with organized data, they take a more one-on-one approach. While you can search their article database to see posts like “5 HR Tools With the Features Your Business Needs,” the power in this platform is that users are connected to an actual person who helps them select an SaaS tool that meets their needs. 

This process is free, and it just takes about 15 minutes. And for users who don’t want to spend time sifting through reviews, this is an appealing solution.

And just as their approach to providing software advice is unique, so is their vendor approach. 

Vendors can tell the platform exactly what they’re looking for in leads, and the advisors can put you in touch with highly-qualified leads that meet that profile. You’re not paying for reach or search results; you’re paying for warm, high-intent leads that someone else has already qualified for you. 

5. GoodFirms 

GoodFirms has over 40,000 reviews that are all created by real customers; there’s no bias here, which can be appealing to users who don’t simply want to be referred to the highest bidder. It’s a solid trust-building move, which means if you can do well on this platform, it’s a good in with the readers on the site. 

GoodFirms works like most other review sites; you can search for specific product types or browse product categories, and easily review the basis and compare tools quickly. 

The downside: There aren’t sponsored options here with this platform for businesses. You need to rely entirely on organic listings submitted by users to boost you up. 

That being said, you can create a profile and encourage your customers to come leave reviews. And since this is an unbiased site filled with truly-real reviews, if you do well, it could land you great clients. 

6. TrustRadius  

TrustRadius boasts over 366,000 reviews from verified customers, which is downright impressive. They verify all reviews, and they prioritize in-depth and quality reviews from customers. 

And, like GoodFirms, there are no “sponsored” options for brands, so everyone is on equal footing. 

This is appealing to many customers.

One cool thing about this review site: They show a list of the 5 top-rated tools in each category. This gives those tools a massive boost of credibility and visibility all at once. If you can land in one of those spots, you have a good chance of attracting new customers.

There are no sponsored listings for vendors here, but don’t count out this platform yet. They have over 1M monthly visitors who are incredibly engaged, spending an average of 11 minutes on each product comparison. These readers are intent on being diligent in finding the right tool.

They do offer paid solutions for brands, which includes review syndication for improved SEO, product insights, and more. 

7. AlternativeTo 

AlternativeTo is a little different from some of the other sites we’ve looked at, but it can be a strategic win for small SaaS businesses that are still building brand name recognition. 

The entire idea of AlternativeTo is to search for a specific product and find alternatives. Users may do this if they know of a well-recognized tool (like Salesforce) but know it isn’t a fit for some reason. It’s possible the tool is too expensive, too complicated for the team to learn, or lacks features they need. 

You can actually leverage your competitor’s strength against them, especially since the customer knows of that tool but knows they don’t want to use it. In some cases, it may also be used by users who have already used said tool but want to make a switch. 

Creating an account is free, so businesses can set up their own listing in no time. This is a platform that’s worth jumping on right away. 

How SaaS Companies Can Leverage The Best Software Review Sites to Gain More Customers 

SaaS companies can and should leverage software review sites to get in front of high-intent potential clients. Here at Directive Consulting, this is a core strategy we use for SaaS brands in our customer-led approach to help them get results at a massive scale. 

These are some of the strategies that we use to leverage the best software review sites to help our SaaS clients attract more leads: 

• Utilize both paid and organic listings to dominate the search results on the core review sites that their clients are most likely to be using 
• Prioritize showing up at every part of the customer journey in order to increase the likelihood of attracting leads, whether they’re early in the buying cycle or even if they’re already considering a competitor 
• Assess the customer lifetime value to customer acquisition cost (LTV:CAC) ratio on different review site listings to find the most high-value review sites and marketing options for each individual client to ensure that we’re driving qualified leads at an affordable cost 

It’s not just about getting on “the best software review sites” but finding the best software review sites for you and optimizing accordingly. 

You can learn more about our unique customer-led approach to customer generation for SaaS brands here. 

Final Thoughts 

We’ve looked at some of the best software review sites that SaaS brands can leverage to build trust, expand their reach, and connect with high-intent users who are at different stages of the digital sales funnel. 

Finding the best software review site for your brand, however, will be imperative. This typically involves active testing on multiple platforms to see which brings you the highest-value leads for the best price. Ready to make SaaS review sites a core part of your marketing strategy? Learn more about what makes Directive Consulting’s approach to Customer Generation.

The post How to Leverage the Best Software Review Sites for SaaS Brands appeared first on Directive.

Are they satisfied with it? Do they keep coming back? How often do they use your product? These are just some of the questions you need answers on to understand your customer experience. 

Not only is it good for your customers, but it’s good for business as well. According to HBR, getting a new customer is between 5X-25X more expensive than retaining your current customer. And your existing customers want a great experience when they use your products. 

To provide them with a great user experience, you will need to start measuring customer experience to get that valuable data and make data-based decisions. In this article, we will cover the following 12 best customer experience metrics: 

• Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
• Net Promoter Score (NPS)
• The Customer Health Index (CHI)
• Upsell & Renewal Rate
• Customer Effort Score (CES)
• Customer Retention Cost (CRC)
• Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)
• MRR Churn Rate
• Average Revenue per Account (ARPA)
• Daily and Monthly Active Users (DAU/MAU)
• First Contact Resolution
• Average Time to Resolution
• Qualitative Feedback

Why is Measuring Customer Experience Necessary for SaaS Companies?

The best way to convince you that you need to measure customer experience is to look at data: 

• According to Watermark Consulting, companies that are CX leaders outperform their competition by 3X.
• According to Gartner, most marketers (81%) will compete solely based on customer experience differences
• PwC stated that customers would pay 16% more for premium service if it provides a better customer experience.
• And CMS Wire reported that over 66% of customer loyalty is caused by great customer experience.

These are just a couple of stats, but plenty more are there that confirm how important customer experience is. So if you want to leave your competition behind, lower the churn rate of your customers, create a great customer journey, and increase customer satisfaction, you should pay attention to customer experience and start measuring it. 

But that’s easier said than done. When you get into customer experience metrics, you might get completely lost in all of it since there are too many of them. That’s why we will cover the best customer experience metrics, explain why they’re good, and provide the pros and cons of using them. With that, you will have an easier task of deciding which CX metrics you will use to measure customer experience for your Saas business. 

12 Best Customer Experience Metrics 

In this section, we will go over the best customer experience metrics and help you understand which ones you should use in your business: 

Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

CSAT is an acronym for customer satisfaction score. CSAT provides results on a scale from 1-100%.  When you give your customers a CSAT survey, you will receive direct feedback from your customers since they will talk about how they feel about your product, brand, and services in the survey. 

You have an excellent customer experience if you receive 80% or more on your CSAT score. The formula that you use to calculate CSAT is the following: 

CSAT (%) = Total Response Scores Given / Total Possible Response Scores X 100

Even though CSAT is simple to create and use, you will have some trouble discerning the scores. The customers grade you on a Likert scale from 1-5 (example: very unsatisfied, not satisfied, neutral, satisfied, very satisfied). Also, your CSAT only asks about the customer’s last interaction with the business so the results can be skewed. 

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

NPS is an acronym for Net Promoter Score. 

NPS is quite a simple survey— it only has one or two questions. The first one asks your customer the following: 

“How likely are you to recommend our product/service/brand/company to others?” 

The customers grade this answer on a scale from 1-10.

The other question simply asks, “Why is that?” and can be added to receive some qualitative feedback. 

With NPS, your customers are divided into three groups, depending on their answers: 

• 0-6— Detractors. These customers aren’t satisfied with your service or product and won’t recommend it to others. 
• 7-8— Neutrals. These customers are lukewarm about your product— they tend to use it and it’s okay for them for now, but they’re not loyal to the brand.  
• 9-10— Promoters. These customers are your brand ambassadors and they love your product. 

You calculate NPS with the following formula: 

NPS = % Of Promoters – % Of Detractors

An excellent NPS score goes over 70, but anything in the 30-70 range is still deemed quite good. 

The Customer Health Index (CHI)

Sometimes, NPS can provide you with a really great score, but the customer can still close their account. With that in mind, we will look at the customer health index (CHI). CHI gives you an overall view of the relationship you have with your customer and it sorts them into three categories: 

• Good health
• Average health
• Poor health 

Customer health index considers the entire relationship your customer had with you— from the stranger/visitor stage all the way to the moment when they renewed or upgraded your product to a higher tier. 

CHI divides the entire lifecycle of the customer into 10 steps and assigns 3 key performance indicators (KPIs) for each step. CHI then measures all those metrics in real-time on a 1-100 scale to determine the relationship’s health. 

Upsell & Renewal Rate

Upsell rate is a percentage number that is determined by the purchases your customers make above the initial product purchase. 

The upsell rate can be calculated with the following formula: 

Upsell rate (%) = # Of Customers Upsold / # Of Customers Who Had The Potential To Buy An Upsell In That Timeframe

The renewal or retention rate is the percentage of customers who decided to extend your company’s relationship by buying another cycle of your product or service. 

A renewal rate of 80% is quite good, even though most businesses aim for it to be 100% (not to lose any customers). The renewal rate can be calculated with the following formula: 

Renewal rate (%) = # Of Customers Who Renewed Their Contracts / # Of Customers Who Have The Potential To Renew Their Contracts X 100

Customer Effort Score (CES)

CES is the acronym for Customer Effort Score and it’s a metric that measures how easily customers can interact/use your products and services. With CES, you can measure how much effort your customers need to start using your product or service. 

The easier it is to use your product, the higher your CES score and the more satisfied your customers will be. CES usually has a 1-5 or a 1-7 Likert scale. 

You can calculate Customer Effort Score by using the following formula: 

Customer Effort Score = # Total Sum Of Responses / Number of responses

Customer Retention Cost (CRC)

With the Customer Retention Cost or CRC, you are calculating how much does it take you, as a company, to keep/retain your current customers. 

You can use the following formula to calculate your retention cost: 

CRC = # Total Retention Costs / # The Number Of Customers Retained

Customer retention cost is business-specific since you will need to calculate the cost of all operations needed to retain your customers. For some businesses, that could include the cost of training, customer support teams, customer marketing, etc.

Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)

Customer Lifetime Value (LTV or CLV as you will find it somewhere) helps businesses by determining how much revenue they will receive from one customer in a span of their lasting relationship. 

The simplest way to calculate lifetime value would be the following:

LTV = The Average Order Total X Average Number Of Purchases in 1 Year X Average Retention Rate In Year

Improving the LTV of your customers can provide you with great ROI and some of the things you could do to improve it are: 

• Provide an easy onboarding process
• Creating a loyalty program 
• Being there for your customers by enabling 24/7 customer support
• Investing in customer experience overall

MRR Churn Rate

MRR churn rate is the rate by which your business loses revenue on a monthly basis. The number can be presented as absolute or in a percentage. The churn rate can be calculated by using the following formula: 

MRR churn rate = The Sum Of All Cancelled Contracts In That Month / Your MRR At The Beginning Of The Month X100%

Tracking the MRR churn rate can be essential for your business for multiple reasons. First of all, you should be aiming for a zero churn rate and then you should work on improving your customer experience so that the churn rate becomes even lower.

Daily and Monthly Active Users (DAU/MAU)

The DAU/MAU is an acronym for the daily and monthly active users of your product, service, or application. 

This can help you determine if your customers are returning to use your product or app. For example, your customers’ activity can be anything from logging on to their account or viewing a product, all the way to making an (additional) purchase or completing their tasks. 

You can use the following formula to calculate DAU/MAU:

DAU = Total # Of Active Users In 1 Day
MAU = Total # Of Unique Users In 1 Month

DAU/MAU ratio = Total # Of Daily Active Users / Total # Of Monthly Unique Users x 100%

First Contact Resolution (FCR)

First contact resolution or first call resolution, as you will find it somewhere, is a metric that measures the ability of employees in the call center to resolve the customer’s problem on the first contact or call. 

It’s also used to measure the ability to resolve first contacts via chats, calls, and emails. 

With a high first contact resolution, your customers will have their problems sorted out on the call with the first person instead of jumping through endless hoops of calls, repeating the same lines over again to different people. This will improve your customer experience vastly. 

A good first call resolution rate would be 70-75%. 

You can calculate the first call resolution rate with the following formula: 

FCR = # Of Customer Problems Resolved On The First Contact / Total # Of Unique Customers Who Called About A Problem

You should connect this customer experience metric with the following one.

Average Time to Resolution (ART)

Average time to resolution or mean time to resolution is the average amount of time it takes for your customer support rep to handle a customer’s problem. 

Your customer support reps usually talk to multiple customers simultaneously, so they must choose the fastest route to solving the customer’s problem to focus on the following customer. 

You should measure ART along with FCR because you don’t want your customer support agents just to have short calls— you want them to solve their problems…in the least amount of time.

You can use the following formula to calculate Average time to resolution:
ART = Total Duration Of Resolved Conversations / # Of Customer Conversations

The average benchmark for ART is up to 9 minutes. 

Qualitative Feedback

And the last customer experience metric, but not the least, is qualitative feedback. 

You should always give your customers the opportunity to provide you feedback and asking for qualitative feedback is an excellent way to do it. With qualitative feedback, you’re asking your customers open-end questions where they can write a lot of information that can help you out with determining: 

• What’s great and should be continued
• What’s lacking and should be started 
• What’s not so good and should be stopped 

Maybe you won’t get quite a lot of information with qualitative feedback because it takes more effort, but the information you receive will be precious. So don’t forget to leave an open communication channel that goes directly to your customers. 

Why You Should Use The Customer Generation Methodology to Improve Your Customer Experience

There are three reasons why you should use Directive’s customer-generation methodology to improve your customer experience: 

• Customer-first. Our methodology always starts with the customer. We need to understand the customers’ pain points and problems that they face in specific situations. Your product isn’t for everyone, but our methodology enables us to find the people who are the right match for your product.

• SQLs instead of MQLs. We focus on Sales Qualified Leads instead of Marketing Qualified Leads. Because sales/revenue is what will push the needle and improve your company’s bottom line.

• Data-driven decision-making. Everything we do is backed up by feedback and data. So measuring customer experience is the foundation of our customer-led approach because biases would rule the world without data. 

Conclusion

Measuring customer experience is essential for Saas companies to stay competitive in the market. We have seen the data that indicates that more and more companies will start investing in customer experience because that will become one of the biggest differentiators in the market. 

With that, we introduced the most important CX metrics that you should track when it comes to your customers. If you want more information about aligning your current pain points and goals and creating a strategy that’s specifically suited for your market, you should book an intro call with one of our agents.

The post Everything Your Saas Business Needs To Know About Customer Experience Metrics appeared first on Directive.

Whether your plan is meticulous, loose, or a combination of both, having that plan will keep you focused. Depending upon what market you are targeting, you will need a different mix of strategies and channels addressed in your marketing plan.

For B2B marketers, creating marketing plans is part of your job description. Your marketing plan dictates how your business runs as it helps develop content, timelines, etc. Developing content requires an understanding of your market’s demand.

Market demand informs what content customers want to read—and this is informed by what questions (or keywords) they are typing into the search engines.

When you provide the content your customers are looking for, your business is more likely to grow.

10 B2B Marketing Plan Examples to Inspire You

Of course, knowing where to start with your marketing plan can be a challenge. To help you find direction, we’ve rounded up ten marketing plan examples to help you stay organized.

#1: Brilliant B2B Digital Marketing E-book by Smart Insights

When looking for B2B marketing plans, a great place to start is with actually building the outline of the plan before deciding what tactics, strategies, and KPIs to fill it with.

Enter Rene Power and his Brilliant B2B digital marketing e-book. You’ll find the critical questions you need to ask yourself and your company to understand your current position in the field.

Are you targeting the right keywords? Is your website built for the future?

Sometimes you need to start there before you can employ that killer email marketing strategy or clever viral campaign.

#2: Building an Email Marketing Strategy by Bronto

Developed by e-mail marketing consultant, Tamara Gielen, this plan is all about using email for marketing advantages. It focuses on creating a comprehensive plan that uses emails as primary market outreach.

Email marketing utilizes customer outreach as a way to create focused content as well as grow your customer base. Perfect for marketers and market executives, this plan is strategic yet straightforward.

It’s important to remember that different types of outreach follow different best practices. For instance, you wouldn’t send the same copy in an email as you would a LinkedIn message. For email outreach, however, we’ve done an extensive amount of testing on how to increase response rates and closed/won opportunities.

For actionable tips on how to increase your response rate in your email outreach, you can read this post we wrote on how we improved our email response rates in our link building outreach campaigns.

#3: The Four Step Marketing Plan for Ideal Campaigns

SJWeaver keeps it simple with their Four Step Marketing Plan for Ideal Campaigns. However, there is actually complexity under the hood, so we’ll break it down into easy-to-swallow steps:

1. Step 1: The Unique Selling Propositions/Points
2. Step 2: The Platforms and Offers
3. Step 3: The Marketing Arsenal
4. Step 4: Marketing Automation

And if you’re more of a visual learner, they’ve compiled some solid videos that break down each step into more detail:

While not purely focused on B2B, this marketing plan is great for anyone struggling to define their unique selling propositions or creating the automation needed to support their marketing.

#4: Brainrider’s B2B Content Marketing Strategy Template

Detailed and easy to understand, this plan runs through B2B marketing basics. This tool provides a framework or “skeleton” for marketers to use as a template for their plans.

The plan runs through prioritizing objectives and articulating your business goals to customers. It also focuses on targeting your audience and finally creating content for them.

In short, this is another highly-customizable B2B marketing plan. As long as you’ve got the framework, there’s no limit to what strategies you can test out, and start making a difference for your clients!

#5: The Complete Guide to B2B Marketing

When Salesforce decides to throw their hat into the ring, people listen. Their Complete Guide to B2B Marketing is a great piece for beginning marketers and expert executors alike, and it includes beneficial checklists and actionable worksheets to incorporate with your team.

Below, you will find an example of a “Call-to-Action Checklist,” which is helpful for marketers to ensure that landing pages and blog content leave an impact and encourage their viewers to take action… every time.

B2B marketing strategies sometimes focus too narrowly on one aspect of the funnel without taking a holistic approach to your entire philosophy behind your marketing. This marketing plan helps you understand models that marketers need to make a great plan, tests theories in a real way and then enables you to learn and grow from those same exercises.

It’s a must-read for all B2B marketers and should become a roadmap for those losing their way in the digital world!

#6: Business-to-Business Marketing Summary by SAGE

The digital marketing template focuses mainly on the top internet marketing strategies.

The plan teaches readers to build a framework, communicate better, and also teaches many other skills that lead to successful B2B marketing. The most significant advantage of this sample plan is that it is widely comprehensive.

Different marketing strategy situations are explored. The most successful strategies are identified.

In short, this B2B marketing plan example hits all the right spots and won’t leave you confused.

#7: B2B Marketing Segmentation by Circle Research

Compiled and created by Circle Research, this plan is more of a “how to” that focuses on B2B market segmentation. It looks at case studies and different marketing plan approaches to inform and build new plans.

The plan also breaks down segmentation. You’ll find the following included:

1. Outlines the different approaches to segmentation in B2B environments.
2. Provides a step-by-step guide to adopting each approach.
3. Looks at how to effectively implement and action a segmentation model.
4. Offers links to B2B segmentation case studies.

The overall template offers an interesting look at B2B marketing plans through a different lens. Marketers can benefit from this slightly elevated approach after taking the time to dive in.

#8: Single Statement Templates from CMI

Single statement marketing plans are an actual thing. They may sound minimalist, but they are a solid way to stay focused.

Developed by Content Marketing Institute, single statement plans refer to creating an objective by establishing a single, active, mission statement for your campaign. The statement will be one that hits all the points and goals of your company. It should include what you do, who you help, and why you help them.

Content Marketing Institute offers useful examples and templates for this plan. In a sort of “ad-lib” set up, marketers can fill in the blanks and create a statement that acts as a starting point for a marketing plan.

See an example of this below:

#9: The Why.Who.How Workbook from CMI

This is another big find from Content Marketing Institute. Audience-focused B2B marketing plans use your audience demographic to fuel content. The idea is to build a target audience with in-depth customer profiles. They should be focused to the point that each ICP (ideal customer profile) has a name, a job title, key concern, personality, interests, and age.

See below:

You can also give them a funnel position, the type of B2B needs they have, and what they care about in terms of metrics. The more your customer develops a well-rounded persona, the more you can take action to serve them better. This template is part of a larger whole, but it is a great starting point.

#10: The Essential Data-Driven Content Strategy from CMI

The last entry from Content Marketing Institute to discuss are data-driven B2B marketing plans. Looking at your data is essential to craft your marketing plan and conquer your goals. Craft the plan backward by looking at the results of previous plans:

• Take the data you have compiled and study it.
• See what worked and what did not.
• See what B2B customers responded to, and what fell flat.
• See who your content reached, and where you could reach a bit more.

Data-driven B2B marketing plans are a way of fixing past mistakes to make stronger decisions moving forward. Reverse engineering your campaigns from where your previous strategies have converted users is a great way to start your strategy off on the right foot.

Takeaways

These 10 B2B marketing plan examples should help you come up with plans of your own. The success of your business hinges on how well you market it and its services. By studying these plans, you can stay organized, find focus, and begin creating plans that work. If you want to know how we develop marketing plans backed by financial modeling, we’d love to get on a call. Schedule a call today to find out how our proven Customer Generation approach will bring your tech company results.

The post 10 B2B Marketing Plan Examples To Help You Stay Organized appeared first on Directive.

As the SaaS space becomes increasingly crowded, marketers are tasked with creating contextual ad experiences that can cut through the noise. A good ad campaign will generate clicks and impressions, but that won’t always be enough to fill your marketing pipeline with qualified leads. A great ad campaign is one that is rooted in targeting the buyer throughout every stage of the marketing funnel to provide a more personalized experience.

In this article, we’re going to discuss the importance of creating B2B advertising campaigns that align with different stages of the marketing funnel as well as provide key insights to help guide your paid strategy.

Before we dive into the details, let’s start with a quick overview.

What is B2B advertising?

Business-to-business (B2B) advertising refers to any advertising activities created to target a business audience. This differs from business-to-consumer (B2C) advertising, which refers to advertisements that are created to market a product or service to general consumers.

When you advertise to businesses instead of consumers, there are a lot of moving parts that must be accounted for. For starters, the B2B decision-making process is much longer and more drawn out than it is for consumers. Purchasing decisions are based on logic and efficiency, instead of impulse or emotion.

Additionally, there are often multiple stakeholders involved. Sales reps may have to engage multiple members of a team or even work across internal teams at an account in order to get buy-in from the right contacts. Having a prospective buyer click on your ad isn’t nearly enough to get a deal over the finish line.

Full-funnel insights to fuel your B2B advertising strategy

Most B2B organizations have a complex sales funnel that requires marketing support throughout every stage, even after a prospect becomes a customer. It’s not as simple as launching a great ad campaign and waiting for the sales to roll in. For this reason, it’s crucial to have an advertising strategy that’s effective at targeting prospective buyers as they progress from one stage to the next.

Marketing funnels can be interpreted differently across different companies and industries. For this article, we’re going to keep it simple and use a 3-step funnel: awareness, consideration, and decision.

Let’s look at each stage individually.

Awareness

A prospective buyer in the awareness stage may or may not know that they are in the market for a solution yet. The goal in this phase is to amplify your brand and educate your audience about your business and its offerings.

There are a variety of advertising channels that are effective during this stage, such as:

• YouTube ads
• Google Display ads
• Facebook ads
• LinkedIn ads
• Podcast ads
  

You may be tempted to cast a wide net, but it’s still important to use customer data in order to narrowly define a target audience and segment your ads based on that information.

The key is to identify which channel is going to yield the best results based on your target audience and their needs. In order to accurately evaluate different paid channels, marketers must hone in on what metrics will be used to measure success.

Key insight: Top-of-funnel ad campaigns shouldn’t be judged by the same metrics as bottom-of-funnel campaigns.

You have to be aware of how you’re grading success for each advertising channel. Many marketers are conditioned to looking at one or two universal metrics across every channel but this isn’t always going to be the best strategy. Assigning metrics based on the different advertising goals you aim to achieve during a specific stage allows for a more streamlined way of tracking ad effectiveness.

So, what do these metrics actually look like?

When looking at top-of-funnel campaigns, the metrics you may want to focus on are:

• Click-through rate
• Impressions
• Social shares
• Conversions
• User engagement

On the other end, here are some bottom-of-funnel metrics to be aware of:

• Number of leads generated
• Marketing-sourced opportunities
• Marketing-influenced revenue

It’s important to note that the final metrics you decide on will vary based on the channels you’re using and their capabilities.

Key insight: Top-of-funnel campaigns generate demand for your business, as well as other businesses that offer similar solutions.

Top-of-funnel demand generation ad campaigns can have a major impact on campaigns you’re running at the bottom of the funnel to fuel lead generation. These buzzwords are frequently thrown around in B2B, but each practice plays an essential role in streamlining the marketing funnel. Generating demand for your product or service doesn’t mean much if that demand never equates to leads and sales opportunities.

For example, let’s say you work for a company that sells HR management software and you recently began running podcast ads to promote your offerings. Although the ads are primarily focused on promoting your specific business, they are also informing listeners about the enterprise HR software category as a whole.

This opens a window of opportunity for those listeners to then use a search engine to learn more about HR software. If you don’t have paid (or organic) visibility on this new channel, then you’re failing to capture the demand that your ads generated at the top of the funnel.

The main takeaway is that your demand and lead generation campaigns need to be unified across all relevant platforms to ensure visibility across the board. Failure to do this can lead to a leaky marketing funnel and cost your company qualified leads and sales.

Consideration

In the consideration phase, buyers are aware that they have a business problem and are actively searching for a solution. During this time, buyers are weighing different options and looking for information to help narrow down a list of businesses to move forward with. They are reading case studies, asking their peers for recommendations, and reading online reviews.

What does this mean for your ad strategy?

At this point in the buying journey, the stakes are high. It’s imperative that your business has visibility in front of these in-market buyers. One of the most effective paid channels for capturing high-intent traffic are third-party directories.

Key insight: Third-party directories can be exceptionally effective at capturing high-intent traffic.

Bottom-of-funnel advertising should focus on gaining a share of the search engine results pages (SERPs) for high-intent keywords. One way to do this is through PPC search ads, another way is to leverage third-party directories.

Let’s circle back to the previous example. You’re a marketer at a B2B software company that sells an HR management solution. After doing some initial keyword research, you identify “best HR software” and “HR software reviews” as key search phrases that you want your website to rank for. When you Google these terms, you notice that the majority of organic results populating the first page come from third-party directories.

One option is to bid on these terms as part of your paid search strategy. The downside? These are high-intent, bottom-of-funnel search terms. That means they’re expensive.

The second option is to allocate some of that spend towards the third-party directories that are already ranking organically in top positions for these search phrases. Our data shows that search ads average at a 2% to 5% click-through rate and a higher cost-per-click. Comparably, a third-party paid list can generate a 30% click-through rate at the first position, around 20% at the second, and 15% at the third.

In other words, leveraging third-party directories as part of your paid ad strategy has the potential to bring in big returns.

Action

Lastly, we have the action phase, sometimes referred to as the decision phase. At this point, the prospective buyer takes action and expresses interest in buying your product or service. Most commonly, a web visitor will do this by filling out a lead form or requesting a demo. From here, the visitor is converted to a marketing qualified lead (MQL) and passed off to the sales team in the hopes of eventually turning into a customer.

What does this have to do with advertising?

Well, all of the work you’ve done in terms of organic and paid marketing has led the buyer to this point. If your ad strategy was set up correctly from the get-go, then you’re in a position where only the most qualified traffic has made it this point in the process.

The final piece of the puzzle is to ensure that your website is optimized properly to encourage conversions and form fills. Failure to do so can create a challenge for buyers that have made it this far, causing them to fall out of the funnel. A properly-optimized website has a user-friendly interface that makes it simple for users to find what they’re looking for.

Bottom line

B2B advertising is competitive. It’s going to take more than a “set it and forget it” mentality to achieve meaningful advertising results. With a full-funnel approach, your ads will be designed to better serve your audience, address their pain points, and nurture them effectively as they move closer to becoming loyal customers.

Looking for additional expertise to fuel your B2B advertising plan? Check out Society, our online Slack community dedicated to helping marketers reach their search marketing goals.

The post B2B Advertising Insights For Every Stage of The Funnel appeared first on Directive.

1. We outlined 8+ different SaaS marketing metrics you must track.
2. Learn how each of these SaaS metrics can help you make better decisions that lead toward growth.
3. Understand where each of these SaaS metrics fit into various and real financial situations.
4. See the SaaS marketing template our team utilizes: the LTV:CAC method.
5. Review how our team incorporates these metrics into our real strategic decision-making process.

The only way to measure growth from SaaS search marketing (and all other marketing) campaigns is revenue.

However, that doesn’t mean revenue is the only metric your team should be focused on.

There are numerous metrics that are indicators of success and are vital to have access to and reference during your campaigns.

SaaS marketing metrics that matter

Conversion-based success metrics

For most SaaS companies, a conversion-based success metric could be a request demo form or a free trial sign up.

It doesn’t have to be a customer buying your product or service right away.

You must track these metrics because they give you a sense of the quality of inbound leads you’re receiving. Depending on the information gathered, the various conversions can be weighted differently.

For example, if your “free trial” sign-up form only requires an email to convert, then the ability to determine the qualification of that lead may be more challenging to do.

However, if the “request a demo” form requires more information, and it auto-qualifies each lead, then you can more easily determine if this lead would be a match for your company.

Depending on your total leads that come in from the different conversions, you may want to prioritize pushing users to specific conversion paths.

For this example, we are going to use the term auto-MQL, which means that the moment someone fills out the form, the lead turns into an MQL. This usually requires specific fields to be filled.

The “request a demo” form completion auto-MQLs at a rate of 80%, and you generate 1000 leads a month. The “free trial” sign-up form completion does not auto MQL, but you generate MQLs 50% of the time, and you typically generate 2000 leads per month.

Which path do you push to your audience more?

The weight of the “request a demo” form may be higher, but you generate more MQLs from the free trial sign-up in this situation. This depth of knowledge can help you and your marketing team, make decisions on which form you should be prioritizing in your navigation, in your ad campaigns, and more.

Sales-based success metrics

The SaaS industry is forecasted to experience a 17.8% increase in revenue growth and reach $278 billion by 2021.

For most SaaS businesses, revenue is that sales-based success metric; however, you can also include other metrics, including the total number of sales, average order value, customer lifetime value, and more.

Overall, a continuous flow of revenue is crucial for your business to grow. To fund new ideas, marketing initiatives, products, and services, you must have the capital.

For businesses that don’t want to debt or equity finance their companies, continue to fuel growth through sales, and reinvest those profits into proven marketing and sales channels.

Do your research!

Free trial conversion rate

The free trial conversion rate is the percentage of free trial users that became paying customers. The metric, especially for SaaS businesses, is a critical factor when forecasting future growth.

For example, you are a log management software company, and you typically get 2,000 new users using a free trial per month. After the 1-month trial, 500 of those users become customers. You can deduce that when you are forecasting future growth, regardless of the size of the growth of free trial sign-ups, you should expect 25% of those to become paying customers.

Track this metric to help you forecast future revenue.

Churn rate

For SaaS businesses, a target churn rate is typically around a 5-7% annual churn.

Churn rate is the percentage of customers that stop using your product or service, annualized.

Churn is focused on by almost every business in all industries because it can be applicable for products, services, employees, and more.

In reference to SaaS products, churn is another forecasting tool that helps you determine the loss of future revenues.

For example, if you typically churn 5% of your customers annually, then you know that you must grow at a rate of greater than 5% year-over-year.

Depending on the price of your product, the customer lifetime value (LTV), and operating costs, this concept becomes a little bit more complicated, but for the most part, the idea is the same.

You must generate more revenue than you churn.

How do you reduce churn?

You can learn a lot from product reviews. The best way to reduce churn is to listen to your customers and pivot your product and services based on what the main concerns of the customers are.

Average Order Value (AOV)

The average order value (AOV) is calculated by dividing the total revenue generated from sales by the total number of sales. AOV, in conjunction with gross margin (GM%) and customer lifespan (in years), is needed to determine the LTV.

All else equal, as you increase your AOV, you increase your LTV, which increases your long-term profitability. These numbers also help you determine the most effective pricing strategy.

There are many ways to increase your AOV, such as cross-selling, upselling, volume-based discounts, coupons, and more.

For example, if your company sells CRM software and a chatbot, you can cross-sell CRM customers with the chatbot, and chatbot customers with the CRM software. You can also upsell CRM customers with additional features such as applications, integrations, storage, and more.

“Simply put, an upsell is expanding or adding to an existing service/product, while a cross-sell is adding on additional or complementary services/products.

One may be more valuable than the other in your organization, but both should be an integral part of your overall strategy.”

– Jonathan Verstegen, Directive Account Executive 

Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)

Customer lifetime value (LTV) is the total amount of revenue generated from the average individual customer over the lifetime of that average customer. To determine LTV, you must specify the gross profit of the average customer (AOV multiplied by GM%) and divide it by the average customer lifespan.

For subscription-based products, another way to calculate LTV is GM% multiplied by 1/monthly churn multiplied by monthly subscription revenue per customer.

LTV = GM% * (1/churn) * (Revenue/customer)

LTV is a powerful way to determine the efficiency of your business’s growth.

Revenue is a critical success metric for growth, as you need to be making money to grow your business. However, what about the number of sales or the number of customers? Why track those metrics as “sales-based success metrics”?

A well-known essay was written by Kevin Kelly back in 2008 called “1,000 True Fans”, and it maps out the importance of “true fans”. According to Kelly, “a true fan is defined as a fan that will buy anything you produce”.

For SaaS businesses, this works slightly differently, but the concept is the same.

You want to have a solid group of customers who continuously reinvest in your product. These are the customers who help maintain revenue streams and fuel growth.

Ultimately, they are the customers that help you maximize your LTV overall.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is the cost associated with acquiring customers. This is an essential metric when calculating growth efficiency and scale. Calculate CAC by taking all of the expenses related to obtaining all customers and divide them by the total customers acquired.

CAC is most valuable when you can determine a value for every sales and marketing channel.

For example, if it takes you a total of $20,000 to acquire 50 customers through paid channels, but only costs you $10,000 to acquire 50 customers through organic search, then you might want to reallocate capital to organic channels to improve profitability at scale.

The best way for you to determine profitability, however, is incorporating the CAC and LTV metrics into a ratio – the LTV:CAC ratio.

LTV:CAC Ratio

The LTV:CAC ratio compares our LTV and CAC metrics and determines profitability and efficiency.

The value of your customer should be at least three times more valuable than the cost at which you acquired them (a ratio of 3:1).

If you are higher than 3:1, you are not spending enough money and most likely missing out on valuable revenue opportunities.

If you are lower than 3:1, you are overspending, and most likely need to improve your process of acquiring for those channels or need to reallocate capital to other channels.

This is a metric that you should be consistently tracking across all marketing channels. At Directive, we have found that this metric is the best way to determine what is “working” and what is not, from an efficiency and scale standpoint.

We have even built out a calculator that you can utilize for your own SaaS products, which you can find here: LTV:CAC Model for SaaS [Template].

How to effectively integrate these metrics into your growth strategy

When Directive works with SaaS clients, we focus on the metrics starting at the top-of-the-funnel (clicks, impressions, etc.) and make it all the way to revenue and growth metrics (sales, LTV, CAC, and more).

From a business standpoint, we can work with your team to identify what those LTV, CAC, churn, and other growth metrics are, and apply them to organic, paid, and other digital marketing channels that we influence.

From those metrics, we can find out what directly influenced them to be beneficial for your brand or what might be hindering your growth.

To effectively decide what our next step in our search marketing strategy is, we have to be able to analyze what worked and what did not.

Based on analyzing those conversion-based and sales-based metrics, we can identify exactly what content strategies worked (or did not work), what ad campaigns worked (or did not work), and more. We can take real insights and apply them to page-level analysis.

Using trends, we look at MoM and QoQ increases, identifying specific pages that are performing or not. From there, we utilize HotJar and other CRO tools to determine visual opportunities to improve conversion rates.

By taking this approach, your business can get granular insights on your marketing, whether that be through search, social media, events, or something creative and new.

Are you ready to see real growth and discoverability for your brand? See what we can do for you.

Review our case studies today.

The post How to Use SaaS Marketing Metrics To Track Your Growth appeared first on Directive.

1. Search marketing is incredibly effective in driving traffic and leads with purchase intent.
2. You must build a lead nurturing process to generate more revenue for those without purchase intent.
3. Email campaigns, lead generation content, and other campaigns can be useful to improve your lead volume.
4. Integrate sales and marketing to activate your leads and generate sales.
5. Incorporate lead activation and search marketing to close the gap in your growth marketing strategy.

Not every user that comes to your website is ready to buy your SaaS product or service.

It’s critical to have a plan B on how your team can generate leads and nurture them until they are ready to make a purchasing decision.

This is where lead activation comes into play.

Lead activation is the process of engaging with potential customers before they are at the point of purchase intent. The process of activation gives the customer various opportunities to interact with your business without feeling like they are locked down to a contract.

This allows your company to provide value for customers without having to ask for anything in return. From a brand perspective, this is powerful in building relationships with your audience.

But where do you start?

Lead generation tactics that improve activation

1. Email drip campaigns + automation

Email marketing is an affordable and effective way to interact with your target audience. According to 99 Firms, 80% of marketers claim email is best for customer acquisition. How?

The average email open rate is 17.6% for tech and SaaS companies.

If you have a list of 100,000 emails in your database, a good email campaign should result in around 17,750 interactions with potential and current customers.

So how do you know which emails to send and when?

Depending on how the user converted on your website, the interest of your users, and the different products and services that you offer, you should build different workflows to match those characteristics.

For example, Directive is a performance marketing agency specializing in SEO and PPC. Depending on the interest of our users, we must create different email marketing campaigns that match the interest in PPC, SEO, or both.

In our lead generation campaigns, we ask for that interest up-front, so when users submit their email information, we are properly serving them content that fits that interest.

Even further, these indicators help our sales team understand what exactly the user wants. Those conversations can then be shifted to SEO services, PPC management, or full-service.

Ensuring you have the full activation funnel mapped out and integrated with your sales team so every touchpoint is accounted for is crucial for this process to be successful.

When you see potential gaps in your email campaigns, create new content to ensure that touchpoints are quality and timely.

Depending on the goal of your campaign, the content for each email varies. For example, if you want to share an educational article with your prospects, the format and content that you deliver are different than an email promoting your latest product discount.

Transactional emails have an average CTR of 4.8%, and the overall average CTR is around 2.5%. As a SaaS marketing leader, you must understand the impact of email compared to traditional marketing channels.

2. Creative lead generation content

There is a lot of content on the internet.

What does your content offer that earns you your audience’s viewership? Sharing fluff content in 2020 will get your emails landed in your audience’s spam inbox.

For example, HubSpot creates their yearly State of Marketing report, which takes information gathered from thousands of marketers and develops unique statistics and trends that only they are providing in the industry.

Not only is this a valuable lead generation tool, but it also strengthens their brand, improving the volume of people having natural conversations around their company name.

Why does this matter?

This leads to more people searching their name and bringing them into conversations around marketing and sales (and their product, CRMs).

What are some other examples of compelling content that you can create?

When you strategize what type of content you want, think about the following:

• Who is your target audience, and what do they need to be successful?
• What is the trigger that will make them want to interact with this content?
• What resources do you have, and which ones do you need to invest in to be successful?
• What is the specific purpose of each piece of content you create?
• What are your expected results of these campaigns? (*Don’t skip on this part.)

Once you can fully understand and map out what you want your campaign to accomplish, begin determining what types of content you must create to fulfill your customers’ needs.

• Build a tool that solves a problem for your audience.

A look inside of our search marketing benchmark data tool, Pulse.

• Create a course educating users what you do and reward them with a certification showing that they have a proficiency in your industry.
• Perform unique research that your audience may need to make decisions about their business.
• Create case studies based on similar customer success to prove with real examples that you can help them too.

Regardless of the direction that you choose, ensure that your workflow is built to promote the content effectively.

Depending on the content’s intent, you can create pop-ups using tools like Optinmonster to promote particular pieces for different audiences and meet them at different phases of the marketing funnel.

Further, we must ensure that leads generated from this content can be properly fit into the lead nurturing process.

3. Lead nurturing and management

Once you develop new content and build email drip campaigns, there must be a process of integrating your sales and marketing teams to nurture and manage these leads effectively.

This is a crucial part of your content strategy.

For example, once you generate leads, where are those leads going?

What is the first email that they receive? Second? Third?

What if they fill out a request for a demo form?

You must map out every possibility of further interaction (or lack thereof) with your business. If not, you are susceptible to leads being lost in your database of contacts. That is considerable revenue that could be lost based on a lack of structure in your lead management process.

By incorporating sales and marketing, you ensure that there is no lead drop-off and a continuous flow of information from contact → lead → potential revenue. You also must ensure that there is a clear line of communication between your sales and marketing teams.

For example, here is what potential email drip campaign looks like:

As you can see, prospects are given different forms of content that eventually lead them into a product demo or service proposal, which is where the sales team starts to work their magic.

By enriching your sales funnel with multiple pieces of content that engage your audience, you enhance your sales process and allow your sales team to interact with these potential customers with quality conversations and touchpoints.

Activation in current growth strategy

Search marketing is a powerful way to generate leads and drive revenue for SaaS companies; however, unless there is a lead nurturing process in place, it is challenging to maximize the potential of search marketing as a whole.

Although we specialize in SEO and PPC, our team can work with your in-house team to ensure that we are strategizing and creating assets that improve your lead activation and nurturing processes.

The post Activation: The Missing Component of SaaS Search Marketing appeared first on Directive.

Most of the time, it is challenging to group these people into one pool and call them an “audience”.

Audiences vary for numerous reasons, including:

Intent

Brands face different obstacles and have various sizes of teams and budget ranges.

Some people want to learn about your expertise in the space, and others want to gather specific details about your product right now.

When potential customers Google a keyword, find your product, and begin showing an interest, keep in mind that they may not be in the market for your product specifically.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that the touch was not valuable.

For example, if you Google the term “log analysis”, many ads for log analysis platforms show up. However, when you look at the SERP, the top articles are educational in nature.

Key point: The intent of this SERP is educational, but was the impression as an ad worth it?

Make sure you have a trackable goal (for example, conversions, conversion rate, etc.); test it out.

Sales readiness

Some visitors are ready to buy today; some are taking their time to weigh their options and fully comprehend if your product is the one.

Regardless, make sure that you address all of these potential customers through your content.

Example: Have data-driven and resonating case studies available alongside videos that break down how your product can solve specific problems.

So what audiences do you need to build and how do you effectively interact with them? 

Total Addressable Market (TAM) on LinkedIn

Your TAM (or Total Addressable Market) is a term used to describe the total opportunity for your business to generate revenue from.

For example, if you are a log management software company, your TAM is any business that digests data. That is a basic example but truly shows you how massive your TAM can be.

For SaaS companies, your TAM can be best defined in LinkedIn, as you can determine the exact number of people available to interact with, similar to ABM (account-based marketing).

Determine your TAM by using tools such as LinkedIn Sales Navigator and LeadIQ.

We go through a similar process of addressing TAM in our post about Sourcing Guest Posting Opportunities.

To segment your TAM, build a series of tiers based on factors that qualify certain businesses – for example, company size, revenue, number of employees, private vs. public, and more.

Create your TAM in LinkedIn by setting an audience that targets specific businesses and job titles, effectively targeting your potential lead, and build ads off that audience.

There are various ad formats that you can use in LinkedIn, including text ads, dynamic ads, lead gen forms, and more – all of which you can utilize your TAM for targeting purposes.

*This assumes everyone in your TAM is on LinkedIn, which the majority probably are. Although this gives the best estimate of your TAM.*

Remarketing audiences

Remarketing is a way to connect with users who have interacted and shown interest with your website or ad previously. With remarketing, you ensure that you communicate with users who are interested in what you’re offering. You’re getting warmer.

For remarketing, it’s critical to have specific audiences, based on behavior:

Converters

Converters are your users who have previously submitted information to you but were not ready to seal the deal. For example, they may have downloaded a piece of gated content but did not spend money.

Create a funnel-based remarketing campaign and provide your audience with the next piece of content to excel their journey down the funnel and to the next lead stage.

Let’s build out a scenario.

• A user comes to your website from an organic search about “log analysis” and then submits their email address to download a gated case study around enterprise log analysis.
• You can create a remarketing audience around every user that performs that action and serve them an ad featuring an offer to gain access to a free trial for log analysis.
• These audiences can be built out in almost any ad platform: LinkedIn, Google, Bing, Facebook, and more.

Depending on where your target audience lives and the type of ad you utilize, all of these ad formats can be successful.

Our recommendation?

Test out each platform to determine which allows you to advertise at scale and generated the most revenue. It comes back to what works for your and your audience.

Key page visitors

Similar to the converters, you want to build remarketing audiences with the highest intent to convert when offered another ad.

A useful way to segment these users is by creating a remarketing audience for anyone who has visited a product page on your website.

These pages have higher intent (they’re looking at what you’re offering rather than just reading your content, etc.) and can be viewed as more valuable than the other traffic to your site.

Referral traffic

Referral traffic encompasses any traffic that comes from a person clicking a link that leads them back to your site.

Referral traffic can be vital for conversions and also creating remarketing campaigns. Users who visit platforms like Capterra and G2 have purchase-intent already. If they see your site listed there and continue to come back to you, you know they are considering what you’re offering.

You can create audiences in GA (Google Analytics) based on users who have landed on your website from these different platforms, and serve them ads explicitly calling out your ranking in Capterra or how many stars or reviews you have.

This audience is already comparing solutions; it could be powerful to aggressively target these groups of users and show how your product is different and meets their needs.

Paid social

Paid social encompasses advertising on platforms such as Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

Where audience building and paid social come together is through list building. Build lists based on your target accounts and your ABM efforts. Pair them with demographic fits such as job title, seniority, and more.

This concentration on ABM + demographics is immense.

You can upload email lists of people currently in your database and target those individuals through a variety of ad formats such as remarketing.

Where to start

There are numerous options available for building audiences, interacting with them, and improving your lead volume.

So, where do you start?

1. Directories

In our opinion, starting with directories and improving your profiles through reviews is the easiest and least expensive option.

The pricing of paying for placements in these directories can be costly, and the price depends on the competitiveness of your industry. We would suggest interacting with each review platform to determine the best for ROI.

You can organically dominate platforms like Capterra by being laser-focused on improving the number of positive reviews. You can utilize platforms like GatherUp, TrustPilot, and Yext to automate review management and generation.

These platforms, such as Capterra, G2, and Software Advice, likely will have the best quality leads.

Ensuring you are at least organically featured on these platforms is crucial to discoverability.

2. Google & paid search

If you have the budget, Google is the next most desirable option to be in front of your audience. Begin advertising around your core keywords and offerings.

Let’s use “review management software” as our example.

Type your core keywords into the SERP: What are your competitors offering?

When you go through the SERP, you notice that there are three businesses selling review management software, and then Capterra.

If you know anything about Capterra, this seems to be a successful keyword for them. If you pay to be on their “Review Management” list, they are taking that money and paying for additional traffic for you. This may cause you to decide to invest in Capterra and not in paying for an ad for this keyword.

For the other competitors, go through their form and lead generation processes on the landing page, and find out how you can improve them, and find a specific differentiator.

For example, if you look at Podium’s landing page, you have to scroll down to fill out their form. We would suggest testing the form above the fold to keep visitors’ attention.

Build your offering based on your competitive analysis and ensure that your landing page experience is ultimately customer-focused and built to meet your guest wherever they are.

3. Lead nurturing

Did you know that, on average, 50% of leads in a sales system are not ready to buy?

Do you have a lead nurturing process?

If you do not currently produce assets for users based on every step in the sales cycle, prioritize this step to enable your sales team with resources to potential customers.

If you do not currently focus on lead nurturing in your sales cycle, take a step back, and create an effective plan with your sales team.

A basic lead nurturing flow could look similar to the following:

You can build audiences based on converters of educational assets, similar to the first step shown above.

In your forms, create a form field around interest that allows you to place the lead into a particular lead flow based on that interest.

Generally, you can enrich your data with tools like ZoomInfo, requiring only a name and an email address.

Pretty excellent, right?

4. TAM targeting

If you have the capabilities, build audiences based on your TAM, and exclude anyone who doesn’t fit your target company size, industry, job title, and more.

Don’t waste time marketing to people who aren’t your ideal fit.

Again, this will take further investment into tools than are NOT available in Google. Google has some demographic targeting you can use, but in my experience, these may be less reliable.

This would require investment into a tool such as Demandbase.

Demandbase is an ABM tool that you can hook up to Google Analytics (GA) to build audiences based on company size and industry. Once these audiences are made in GA, you can send that data to Google Ads using the Demandbase cookie data and build ads toward that target audience.

Targeted audience building = more effective ads

So why should you care? What are you missing?

If you do not currently build out these audiences, you may be missing a considerable chunk of your TAM, and therefore potential revenue.

Some of these audiences may require more from your sales and marketing teams to accurately track and attribute your efforts to success and revenue. Still, in our opinion, those processes are necessary to be effective in the software space.

If you are looking to drive growth and generate revenue-driven campaigns, you must have tested or considered testing the audiences we mapped out here.

They are proven strategies that have worked for us in growing some of the largest SaaS companies in the industry. It’s your turn.

The post Audiences that SaaS Companies Need to Build Now appeared first on Directive.