The advantages of partnering with a SaaS marketing consultant

Software as a service, known as SaaS, is an area of growing commercial importance. Walk into any modern office, and you’re sure to find people using SaaS for a wide range of purposes. You might see employees messaging each other on Slack while in a Microsoft Teams meeting, making notes on a CRM like Salesforce, reviewing content on WordPress or managing their projects on Asana and Trello.

With so much to love, it’s no wonder the SaaS industry was valued at a whopping $261.15 billion US dollars in 2022, with projections soaring to USD $1164.76 billion by 2030.

But, with this boom comes attention and competition, especially for new and emerging players in the field. The opportunity to provide a niche-specific software solution has led to an influx of new companies in the market, making it challenging to stand out from the crowd.

Often, the differences between products are minimal and nuanced, making it hard for consumers to understand how or why to choose one over another. While constant innovation in areas like integration, UX, customisation and templates are vital, the real key for SaaS success is the ability to effectively communicate a unique selling proposition (USP).

This means, for SaaS organisations, marketing is a crucial part of success, and failure to market effectively can swiftly become an existential threat.

Why SaaS companies need specialised consultants

But why can’t SaaS organisations go to just any traditional or digital marketing consultant?

Well, in short, SaaS marketing is an entirely different beast.

For one thing, the customer lifecycle is far different for a subscription-based product than for a traditional purchase-once product.

According to Harvard Business Review, the SaaS customer journey, which focuses on recurring revenue and customer retention alongside acquisition, looks more like a bowtie than a funnel.

For marketing consulting films, this goes against traditional marketing approaches, where more leads equals more revenue. Instead, SaaS organisations often prefer to go for quality over quantity, focusing instead on better leads that can improve their customer lifetime value.

What’s more, marketing for SaaS aims to sell an invisible, complex product that’s designed to address a specific concern. This can be challenging for traditional or non-specialised marketing agencies who lack the experience and knowledge required to shape an effective, compelling strategy for this product type.

Further, budget is less important (although still a consideration) for many SaaS clients. Removing the barrier of a large upfront investment and replacing it with a regular subscription fee means that bottom-line-focused messaging doesn’t have the same sway it does in other fields.

Finally, as SaaS customers come from all across the business, it’s critical that messaging identifies and solves all their problems: economic, business and technical.

These are just a few of the ways in which this market differs from others, but it helps to indicate the critical role a specialised SaaS marketing consultant can play in a company’s success.

The benefits of working with a SaaS marketing consultant

Marketing consulting firms who have experience working with SaaS companies bring invaluable expertise to your sales and marketing efforts.

Having worked with a range of organisations in the space, they bring with them years of knowledge.

They also bring the expertise that comes with working with different brands in different markets and with different challenges, allowing them to take a wider, more strategic view than an in-house marketing team.

This means you get the benefit of advanced, specialised insights, which can revolutionise your approach, hone your strategy and ensure you get the best possible return on your marketing spend.

What’s more, they can help you identify new and untapped markets or new methodologies, ensuring you’re reaching the right people, with the right message, in the right place, at the right time.

Finally, specialised marketing consulting firms like The Walk understand that every SaaS product is different, which is why we offer bespoke solutions.

Whether you need strategic expertise and insight to hone your approach, extra writing or marketing capabilities to bolster your in-house resources or both, we can tailor our services to you, making sure you get the best possible ROI on your investment.

This makes a specialised, experienced marketing consultancy your ideal partner to navigate the challenges and opportunities of the SaaS marketing landscape.

Case study – Helping Stax stake their claim on AWS

When we first met the team from Stax, they were struggling to stand out in the crowded Amazon Web Services (AWS) market.

As an unknown brand with a highly technical product, they were quickly burning runway—and running out of time to stake their claim.

Our experienced SaaS marketing consultants were able to bring extensive experience, having worked with AWS themselves, as well as other major player brands like Lenovo and Microsoft.

Through our collaborative assessment, we identified three key goals: raising brand awareness, boosting organic SEO traffic and driving rapid growth.

First, we helped Stax zero in on their unique selling proposition. From there, we were able to create compelling content for specific audience segments, helping them reach the right people with the right messaging in the right way.

Through a dynamic ad campaign, we were able to target millions of consumers, reaching 2.8 million people in the first month of the campaign. This boosted their intake of qualified leads and led to an accelerated uptake by new customers.

What’s more, we didn’t just focus on the short-term. We also helped Stax create a long-term SEO content strategy shaped to address real customer pain points. Over time, this helped grow their online presence and authority, leading to an uptick in organic leads.

In this way, we weren’t just able to help Stax get where they needed to be, but we were also able to give them a comprehensive pathway to ensure strong and continuous future growth.

The Walk’s approach to SaaS marketing

At The Walk, we’re proud to be a highly experienced SaaS marketing consultancy.

We’ve helped a number of companies overcome the challenges of the competitive SaaS environment through targeted and tailored marketing solutions.

Key to our success is our unique approach that meets your customers where they are. Bringing together our years of experience, our marketing consultants work collaboratively with you to identify the right solutions for your organisation, drawing on our range of tools, frameworks and strategies, which include:

• Lifecycle marketing – guide your efforts away from a sole focus on acquisition to a holistic, retention-driven approach
• Content pillars – Create effective, compelling content surrounding core themes (pillars) that are central to your value proposition, driving engagement and SEO
• Customer journey mapping – Trace the path your customers take from first touch to last to identify key touch points and craft impactful, user-focused communications
• Data-driven growth – Collect metrics across a range of marketing channels to drive continuous improvement
• Freemium funnel optimisation – Smooth the transition from free user to paying customer for brands that implement freemium models
• API marketing – Boost revenue through marketing your API as a distinct product
• Omnichannel marketing automation – Leverage automation to create seamless and curated experiences across multiple channels to enhance your targeting and reach.

Get in touch today

Of course, that’s just a brief glimpse of the value a great SaaS marketing consultancy like The Walk can bring to your organisation.

By blending experience, industry insight, cutting-edge tools and strategies with our collaborative approach, we can help you stand out from the pack and take your place at the forefront of the exciting and evolving world of SaaS.

Want to find out more? Get in touch today!