SaaS marketing
SaaS marketing is the work of getting a subscription product found, tried and kept, where the first payment starts the relationship instead of ending it.
Also called software as a service marketing, B2B SaaS marketing.
SaaS marketing is the work of getting a subscription product found, tried and kept. It differs from marketing a one-off purchase in one way that changes everything downstream: the sale is the start. A customer who signs up in March and leaves in May has paid for two months and cost more than that to acquire, so the job is unfinished when the card goes in.
What is different about marketing a subscription
Churn is the score. A channel that brings in people who leave within six weeks looks fine on the signup chart and is quietly losing money, so retention is read next to acquisition from the first month.
A trial does the selling. Almost every SaaS is tried before it is bought, so the marketing aims at getting someone to a first useful moment inside the product rather than at closing them on a call. Onboarding emails and the first screen a new account sees are marketing surfaces, though nobody in marketing usually owns them.
The pricing page is content. It is the most read page after the homepage, it is where a buyer decides whether this is meant for a company like theirs, and it ranks for the product's name plus "pricing".
Early on, the founder is the marketer. Nobody else yet knows the product or the buyer well enough to write about either, and a founder's name gets replies that a company account does not.
A SaaS marketing strategy for a small team
Some channels work before there is a brand, and some do not. Search works early because the phrases a buyer types ("X alternative", "how to do Y") are specific and the pages that rank for them are often weak. Cold email works early because it needs no audience, only a clear picture of who buys and a real reason to write to them. Communities work if the founder answers questions there for months before mentioning the product. Directories bring a backlink and a page where buyers compare. A public changelog is the cheapest content there is: the work was already done.
Paid acquisition at scale and brand campaigns tend not to work yet. Paid needs a conversion rate that has been measured rather than guessed and a landing page that has been through a few versions. Brand needs years of repetition and a budget a small team does not have.
Sequence follows. Start with cold email and one landing page, because they produce replies inside a week and the replies teach the positioning. Add search content once the phrases are known, since articles take months to rank and should target phrases real buyers used in those replies. List the product in directories the same month. Try a small paid test only once the trial converts at a rate you can state.
How to measure it
Replies first, then trials, then accounts still paying at ninety days. Impressions and followers are what a channel reports about itself. A reply to a cold email is a buyer saying the problem is real; a trial started says the pitch was clear enough to try. Only the account still paying at ninety days is revenue. Cost per qualified lead ties them together: spend divided by the number of people worth talking to.
Kamu runs the early channels in this list for a founder: cold email one person at a time, search articles for phrases with buyers behind them, directory listings, and a landing page rewritten when the numbers say to. Paid ads are off by default, being the one job that spends money.
In practice
- A two-person team that spends its first quarter on cold email and one landing page, then writes search articles against the phrases buyers used in their replies.
- A pricing page rewritten with a plan named for the buyer ("for agencies") after three replies in a month asked whether the product was meant for them.
- Not SaaS marketing in the sense used here: a one-off software licence sold with a launch campaign and no follow-up, where churn is a number nobody tracks.
Questions
What is the difference between SaaS marketing and B2B marketing?
B2B marketing is defined by who buys: a company rather than a consumer. SaaS marketing is defined by how the product is sold: as a subscription, usually with a trial, where the customer can leave any month. Much B2B software is both. The subscription is what changes the job, since it makes retention part of marketing and turns the trial into the main sales conversation.
Which marketing channels work first for a new SaaS?
Cold email and one landing page, because they produce replies within a week and cost time rather than money. Search content next, written against the phrases buyers actually used in those replies, since articles take months to rank. Directory listings alongside, for the backlinks. Paid acquisition last, and only once the landing page converts at a rate that has been measured.
How do you measure SaaS marketing?
By replies, trials started and accounts still paying after ninety days, rather than by impressions or followers. The first two say whether the message lands with a stranger. The third says whether the channel brought people who stay, which is the only one of the three that is revenue. Cost per qualified lead ties spend to the number of people who were worth talking to.
Does a SaaS need a marketing hire before it has customers?
Usually not. Before there are customers the work is finding out who buys and why, and the founder is the only person who can change the product and the price in the same conversation. A first marketing hire tends to work better once the positioning has stopped moving and there is a repeatable channel for them to run.
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