11 Ways to Attract New Customers to Your SaaS Business

How To Attract New Customers To Your Business

Diversity in your marketing strategy is key to attracting new customers to your business. To reach a widespread audience and attract new customers, it's essential you understand how to advertise through various forms of communication channels and, with any form of advertising, having an organized marketing plan will make your business grow effectively. As Smart Insights states, "A well-thought-out plan based on research into your customers' needs will help you to stay focused and on track for growth."

As the old business adage goes, "When you're green, you're growing. When you're ripe, you rot." Stagnation is the enemy of any thriving business. Agile marketing principles emphasize the importance of continuously iterating and optimizing your marketing efforts based on real-time data and customer feedback. Failing to attract new customers and expand into new markets can quickly lead to declining sales and market irrelevance.

That's why having a strategy to continuously acquire new customers across different markets and channels should be an ongoing priority. As Entrepreneur magazine states, "Acquiring a new customer is hard, but keeping those customers is just as difficult. Developing a customer acquisition strategy for both the short and long term is crucial to your success."

Keeping a steady flow of new customers or signups for your company will help you maintain profitability by counterbalancing customer churn rates. As Forbes advises, "It costs 5 times more to attract a new customer than to keep an existing one." Strategic planning with a focus on customer retention should be closely monitored, and marketing efforts should be continually adjusted based on performance data to ensure positive outcomes.

Different businesses will require different approaches, and most entrepreneurs know it's essential to have a thorough plan of actions in place for the best chance at success. But how do we decide on which strategies are right for our goals? As Entrepreneur recommends, "Conduct market research to better understand your target customers' needs, preferences and behaviors. Use focus groups, surveys and data analytics to gain insights that can inform your marketing strategy and product development."

If you're struggling to define the most effective avenues for your business to attract new customers in different markets, we have covered this list of 11 proven strategies. As Inc. advises, "The key to successful marketing is developing your marketing plan and strategies based on a well-defined and researched target market." With the right market insights, you can tailor your marketing mix to effectively reach and engage new customer segments.

1. Clearly Define Your Ideal Customer

To be successful in attracting new customers, you need to know first and foremost who your products were designed for and what needs they fulfill. As Entrepreneur emphasizes, "Defining your ideal customer is one of the most important steps in starting a business and launching a product." Identifying your ideal customer profile means you've clearly defined your target market and buyer personas, which allows you to design highly targeted and relevant marketing campaigns with those specific audiences in mind.

Target markets differ from an overall demographic. They are specific to the identity, psychographics, and lifestyle of a particular group of people. For instance, your users may be men from 18-25, but to hone in and accurately target your niche market you need to be hyper-specific. This means your ideal customers might be men between the ages of 18-25 attending university on an athletic scholarship, majoring in business, and interested in entrepreneurship. Seems narrow? It's meant to be! As Entrepreneur advises, "The more specific you can be in defining your target market, the better you'll be able to create marketing campaigns that speak directly to their needs and interests." For perspective, this highly targeted group may make up less than 1% of the American population.

By honing in on a specific niche group, you are able to design a highly targeted marketing campaign more easily and cost-effectively. In this example, instead of wasting resources advertising en masse to every university in the country, you could first focus on campuses that offer athletic scholarships, then target their business and entrepreneurship departments with a customized incentive, promotion, or content marketing campaign tailored to that audience's specific interests and pain points. As Forbes advises, "The more you narrow your target market, the easier it is to determine the best way to reach potential customers and the marketing tactics to use."

Remember, you've already determined this highly targeted group to be the ideal customer profile most likely to find value in your product or service offering. This laser-focused strategy of creating hyper-personalized marketing campaigns will undoubtedly capture the attention of your niche market. As McKinsey research shows, "Personalized promotions and recommendations are highly effective, increasing revenue per visitor by over 20 percent." By making your customers feel like you deeply understand their specific needs, you increase the chances of converting them from prospects to loyal buyers.

2. Set SMART Goals

Setting goals is essential for any business aiming to acquire new customers, but those goals need to be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound - the SMART criteria. As Entrepreneur states, "SMART goals provide a structured approach to setting goals that are clear, trackable and achievable." Here's a quick checklist to get you started:

The concept of SMART goals is to identify the overarching goal of acquiring new customers in different markets, and work backwards to divide the strategy into smaller, manageable tasks and campaigns. As Inc. states, "Setting specific, measurable goals is the first step to acquiring new customers. Without goals, you'll have no way to track your progress or determine whether your efforts are paying off."

Setting SMART goals for your customer acquisition efforts is meant to provide clarity and focus, not make you feel overwhelmed. The SMART system helps break down ambitious targets into realistic, achievable milestones.

3. Determine The Best Acquisition Channels For Your Target Markets

One crucial factor when determining which acquisition channels to focus your marketing efforts on is each channel's popularity and engagement levels among your intended customer groups in different markets. As Neil Patel advises, "The best customer acquisition channels will always be the ones where your target audience is most active and engaged." Thoroughly researching the media consumption habits and platform preferences of your ideal buyer personas is essential.

Each marketing platform and channel has distinct advantages and disadvantages for reaching different customer segments effectively. Like search engines, some social networks are better suited than others to reach specific demographic groups based on factors like age, location, interests, and online behaviors. For instance, Facebook remains the most popular social media network among older adults over 55, while Instagram skews towards a much younger millennial and Gen Z audience, with around a quarter of its users under 25 years old. Thoroughly understanding these nuances is key to allocating your marketing resources effectively.

While social media presence is important for increasing brand visibility, it's best for most businesses to use an integrated multi-channel marketing strategy to effectively attract new customers across different platforms and touchpoints. As Lyfe Marketing states, "Multi-channel marketing helps you reach more of your target audience by allowing you to be where they are, when they need you." This omnichannel approach maximizes your chances of connecting with prospects through the channels and content types they prefer.

If you aren't sure which channels and platforms your target customers prefer, it's a smart idea to reach out directly to your current customer base with surveys and polls to gather that valuable data. Ask them which channels they use most, what types of content resonate with them, and how they'd like to receive communications from your brand. As Forbes highlights, "Existing customers can offer valuable insight on what discouraged them from the company, and what drove them to return." This type of open communication and willingness to incorporate customer feedback is highly valued, and is an excellent way to build brand equity while optimizing your acquisition strategies.

4. Publish Relevant, Useful Content

This content marketing strategy focuses on engaging your target audiences with educational, entertaining, or insightful content that demonstrates your brand's expertise and value proposition. It's an effective approach for attracting new customers - in fact, 82% of marketers actively use content marketing, with generating leads as one of the top goals. As Forbes advises, "Creating content that speaks directly to the needs and interests of your target market is key to attracting and converting new customers."

To effectively engage your target audiences, you can employ a variety of content formats and distribution channels. This could include hosting webinars or livestreams, appearing as a guest on relevant podcasts, writing long-form articles or ebooks, guest blogging on industry publications, or creating educational video content. As Forbes Agency Council advises, "Content creation isn't enough - you need a distribution strategy to increase your visibility and promote your company's expertise in a way that helps generate new leads and interest."

Building your brand through content marketing and thought leadership can be an effective way to increase your visibility, credibility, and attract new customers in your target markets. However, it's crucial that the content you share relates closely to the specific interests, pain points, and culture of your ideal customer profiles. As Content Marketing Institute's research shows, "69% of the most successful B2B content marketers have a documented strategy for building audiences with characteristics that match their buyer personas."

5. Ask For Referrals

Referral campaigns can be extremely effective for collecting and analyzing data from prospective clients, which can be used to personalize future outreach efforts. Developing a referral program that best suits your business and marketing goals is most important.

Current customers are an excellent opportunity for you to generate new leads because they already know the value of your business.

Once you’ve gained a customer’s loyalty, ask them to refer their friends. Customers who are already familiar with your product or service can be a goldmine of potential. Simply asking them to consider others like themselves will result in leads that fit your brand and these high-value clients won't hesitate purchasing from someone else like themselves again. Additionally, those referrals have a higher chance of converting into long term buyers when they know that purchase is not only beneficial to themselves but also helps out a friend.

Instead of hoping for referrals, take control by developing an actionable plan which actively solicits positive feedback on purchases made after following up email to make sure customers were happy with the purchase. By creating referral-generating activities in conjunction with your sales process, take control over the customer experience by inviting customers to refer their friends for a gift and reward them for doing so.

Email referral campaigns are extremely effective but it's not the only option. Your website could include an easy way for users to submit referrals, such as by including a ‘Refer-A-Friend’ link on your home page or other key pages on the site. This allows you to leverage the word of mouth marketing network formed through social media already in place without having to develop new tools.

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6. Tap Into Your Network

There are many ways you can raise brand awareness within your immediate network. You may already be networking with people in your professional circle but remember it is important to explore all avenues available to you that could potentially lead to new connections.

This could mean joining your local chamber of commerce, a networking organization, or even talking about your business with your beer-league baseball team at Thursday practice. You can do your own word-of-mouth marketing, and there could be no better person for it than you. Get out there, be involved and get to know people who will help your company grow in the long run.

7. Build A Community Around Your Product

Community driven marketing strategies are hot in 2021 and for good reason.

Nowadays, people don't care about buying just a good product - they're seeking quality connections with people who share their values and interests. Building a community around your product will create a captivated audience of individuals within your niche market, looking to connect with other similar mindsets.

Community building has three key components that make this strategy so progessive:

8. Invest Into Email Marketing

Email is your direct line to your most engaged and potential customers.

When it comes to SaaS marketing strategies, email campaigns nearly always provide a higher return on investment and it builds better relationships with a wider audience. Email marketing gives companies the ability to deliver a personalized message, including tone and content, to specific segments of their demographic. As a result, email marketing is one of the most effective and profitable advertising channels.

Here are five clear-cut reasons you need email marketing:

Still not convinced ? Here’s a fun fact: Email campaign sales projections for the global email marketing industry are expected to climb to $1.9 billion by 2021. Inbox full, anyone? 

9. Run A Win-Back Campaign

Haven't heard from your customer in a while? Why not get in touch ? Create a regular schedule of reaching out to clients who have dropped out or discontinued services. Contact them with a message of encouragement or incentive to come back to your company. This could be in the form of a "we miss you email", direct mail containing a voucher or promo code or even a personal phone call. It's important to focus on the value you can offer returning clients, not what they will receive if they decide to come back.

Win-back campaigns are an excellent way to improve retention. Returning customers can offer valuable insight on what discouraged them from the company, and what drove them to return. This information can be helpful for companies looking to increase LTV by addressing underlying issues or ironing out any kinks in the customer journey.

10. Create Strategic Alliances

Strategic alliances or partnerships can have a broad and long-term impact on corporate performance and valuation. A strategic alliance is a close and collaborative relationship between two or more entities that align strategic efforts with overlapping products or markets towards a common goal.

Strategic alliances are formed to create a competitive advantage in the respective market.

Not to be confused with joint ventures, where both parties combine resources to develop a separate business entity, strategic alliances allow both companies to retain their autonomy.

Strategic alliances might be the ticket for continued growth - take a look at alliances in action: 

For years, Slack and Atlassian were rivals on the business communication market until they decided to join forces. The early days of this partnership seemed to report an admission of defeat from Atlassian, no longer able to compete with Slack; though the outcomes suggest practically unprecedented growth for both companies.

After Atlassian and Slack developed their unexpected alliance. Atlassian freed up resources to focus on their core apps, while Slack gained access to Atlassian's user base in order to more effectively compete against Microsoft Teams.

This power in numbers partnership has kept both companies in the game and provided them the resources to continue development.

11. Offer Content Upgrades

Generating new, high quality leads can be a challenge for any company, but offering content upgrades is a great way to keep your existing audience coming back and building up that ever important email list.

A content upgrade should be an irresistible bonus to already relevant content. There's a lot of room for creativity, but the idea is a mutual exchange of valuable information. Your website could be full of underutilized opportunities for content upgrades but to improve conversion rates, you need to present your upgrade in the right way.

A few examples of content upgrades are:

• Case studies
• PDF Guide.
• Video or Audio content
• Email Course
• Recipes 
• Mini eBook or Workbook
• Checklists
• Resource Library.
• How-to guides
• Mini eBooks
• Checklists

Again, the options for upgrades are limitless, so just make sure the offer is attractive to the audience you're trying to capture.

Key Takeaways. 

Attracting new customers can be tricky, but once you know your target audience and cover all the right bases with your marketing strategy, you’ll have a steady flow of leads. Here are the main points to focus on if you're just getting started.

• Identify and understand your target audience.
• Set attainable marketing goals for your company.
• Ensure your content is relevant and attractive to your market.
• Remember that coasting kills. Failure to produce a steady stream of new qualified leads could have a negative effect on the growth and profitability of your company.

🙏 The 10 Commandments of B2B SaaS #LeadGen 🙏

Feeling lost trying to grow your business?

Here’s the guidance you’re looking for! 🧵

— Chris Tweten 🍁 (@ctwtn) May 28, 2021

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