A Guide to SaaS Lead Generation- 11 Strategies + 4 Tools

Generating leads is one of the foremost needs for any SaaS business. And while a SaaS model could be extremely profitable and low on maintenance, SaaS lead generation can be a tricky task.

Hence, in this blog, we will look into a bunch of strategies, tips, and tools that will make the SaaS lead generation process a lot smoother for you. Let’s dive right in!

What Is SaaS Lead Generation?

SaaS lead generation focuses on finding prospects who might be interested in your services and that can be qualified into making a purchase. 

Leads for SaaS companies come both organically and inorganically through organic searches, social media, and ads. The ultimate goal is to attract good leads that have the potential to be converted into customers.

How Is Lead Generation Different from SaaS?

SaaS lead generation is slightly different from the conventional ways. For a SaaS company, there is no physical product demo. Their services are provided online, which eliminates the physical element. Hence, customers are more likely to skim through your website and product demo videos rather than call for a physical meeting.

Secondly, for most SaaS models, prospects prefer to try out the offerings themselves. They are based on a free-trial basis that gives prospects the freedom to try out the software before buying a subscription plan.

These two differences provide an advantage to SaaS companies because before you actually approach the prospect, they have already had a chance to go through your product. This ensures that they are willing to buy when they talk to you.

Now that we know what SaaS lead generation is, let’s go over some strategies to generate leads.

Some Tried-and-tested SaaS Lead Generation Strategies 

We will now look into some of the best lead-generation strategies you can apply to get the right leads for your SaaS company.

1. Set S.M.A.R.T Goals

Before formalizing any strategy, you need a goal—something you want to achieve as the result. Goals serve as a guide for everyone. S.M.A.R.T stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound. Hence, setting S.M.A.R.T goals can act as a foundation for the achievement of long-term targets.

Moreover, lead generation automatically becomes easier when your goals are S.M.A.R.T and you have a clear idea of how to move ahead. They give you a fixed, achievable, and realistic target to achieve. This makes the process of acquiring leads smoother since you know where, when, and how you are going to generate leads.

A S.M.A.R.T goal would be- Generate 20 leads by the end of the week, through paid ads. This goal gives you a specific lead generation target to hit, in a certain period. Eventually, you end up saving time and effort.

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2. Use Content Marketing

Content marketing is another great strategy for SaaS lead generation. It is useful for differentiating your products from others and giving your brand a unique identity.

Content marketing strategies include curating guides for your target audience to make it easier for them to understand your product. You can also add product reviews to your website to help your prospects in making an informed purchase decision.

Blogs are a classic when it comes to long-form content. Having a blog on your website is a compelling way to capture leads for your SaaS company. You can add CTAs and signup links to your blog post to drive the users. Adding newsletter signup bars also helps in collecting leads. 

You can also go beyond blogs and provide free downloadable pdfs, ebooks, or other content material to generate your lead’s interest.

BONUS: Learn how to get more out of your existing blog posts.

3. Utilize Interactive Content Marketing

Interactive content encourages maximum user participation by making content posting a two-way communication. It helps in the lead generation process by offering real value to customers.

It also helps in initiating communication between you and your users. Interactive content types such as Quizzes, Calculators, and Chatbots attract leads and give maximum conversion rates.

Interactive quizzes act as a phenomenal tool for lead generation. Embedding quizzes on your website will help in engaging your leads. Since taking a quiz is fun, intriguing, and also offers relevant outcomes, most of the prospects that visit your website will give their information willingly.

For example- This quiz will help your users understand which plan suits them best and accordingly make an informed decision. Embedding such quizzes on your website ​​not only gives an overview of your product to the users but also provides a personalized experience. Users exploring Outgrow will be attracted by this quiz and would like to see which plan suits them.

Another example of an effective interactive tool is a calculator. Calculators ask a set of questions to the user and give them a logically computed quantitative result. SaaS companies can embed calculators on their websites to generate more leads.

Moreover, interactive calculators are beneficial for customers who are looking for quick answers to their problems. So, embedding a calculator can speed up the lead generation process for you.

PRO TIP
Use Outgrow to create an interactive calculator wherein you can insert a lead form at the beginning or the end of your calculator to convert more visitors into leads.

Example: An ROI calculator will help the user understand the worth of his investment before committing. This will help in getting an estimated value of the returns they will get. Besides, a quantitative representation makes decision-making easier.

SaaS companies are increasingly using live software such as Chatbots to generate leads. Chatbots have the scope of turning every website visitor into a lead. Chatbots allow customer representatives the ability to conduct conversations in real-time.

There is a high chance of a visitor converting into a lead when their problems are solved instantly through chatbots. Moreover, they ensure 24/7 availability for users. Hence, adding live chatbots on a website motivates more buyers to shop from you.

Create fun-looking chatbots like this, easily by using Outgrow’s templates.

4. Use Email Marketing Strategies 

Email marketing is a cost-effective way of generating leads and growing your SaaS business. It allows you to reach out to prospects in bulk and is a tried-and-tested method that has proved to be reliable.

Incorporating an email newsletter app into your strategy can streamline the process, making it easier to manage and personalize your email campaigns.

Your emails can talk about your service offerings or a new product that you are about to launch. The key to email marketing is making your emails highly personalized as personalized emails gather more leads than spam emails.

Tip: Use interactive content to make your emails stand out. Tools like forms and product recommendations are highly advantageous in emails. On top of that, forms are the most organic way of generating leads. They are extremely useful when embedded in emails, for example, to allow users to sign up for a free trial directly from the email. Additionally, after a free trial ends, you can send an invoice email reminding the user about the conversion to a paid plan and thanking them for their business.

5. Make Use of Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is becoming one of the most effective ways of generating leads. It drives connection, interaction, and customer data. They are a cheap, fast, and accurate way of achieving real-time results for generating maximum leads.

Use social media to post interactive content such as polls and giveaways to engage your audience. Polls on stories perform particularly well. They are an easy and effective way of understanding your audience.

In addition, when you understand your audience, you are able to filter them as potential and non-potential leads.

Example: If I like donuts as a dessert, I would love to see how many people think the same or how many don’t.

Interactive Giveaways can translate one-time sign-ups into long-term relationships. They help to convert visitors who sign up, into leads through a reward system. Since giveaways are quick, don’t require much effort, and provide great value in the form of rewards, people are more likely to enter their information. Social media is a great platform to host contests and giveaways and increase your follower count while boosting engagement and leads.

6. Host Webinars

Webinars are the best SaaS lead generation tool since they enable companies to establish a direct communication channel with potential customers. They provide you with a platform to demonstrate your product live and see audiences’ reactions in real-time. Direct connection with leads during webinars makes it easier to convince them.

You can make your webinars even more exciting by offering bonus rewards to all the attendees at the end. Such practices ensure maximum participation. Consequently, ensuring maximum leads.

7. Use Networking Strategies

Networking strategies help in expanding the scope of your network. People don’t always necessarily discover products through search only. You need to make sure to capture leads through different channels and platforms that go beyond website searches.

The goal of networking strategies is to tap into the audiences on other platforms. This can help you in entering some of the lead-generating areas indirectly.

One of these strategies is community marketing. Here, you build your community of like-minded people who have similar interests. It builds a safe space for prospects to discuss things. You can use platforms like Telegram or Discord to create communities.

Community marketing engages and pushes your loyal customers to bring in more people who might enjoy being a part of a special community.

Additionally, educating your target audience is also an efficient networking strategy. Using educational content to capture leads is extremely beneficial. Platforms such as Twitter and YouTube are powerful sources for imparting information. Tutorial videos on YouTube act as a great way of attracting users. Education on topics relevant to your product, helps you build a wider audience.

Another networking strategy is using LinkedIn. LinkedIn is one of the most effective channels for SaaS companies. The key here is to use LinkedIn as an account-based marketing tool to generate leads. LinkedIn as a platform allows you to pinpoint specific leads so that you can focus only on the potential ones. Look for and attend events that your target audience attends. Offline events are a great way to develop personal connections and create a lasting impression. Consider carrying a digital business card to allow your prospects to conveniently store your essential information.

8. Revamp Pricing Plans

Pricing is a crucial part of staying in the competitive SaaS market. In the age of monthly or even weekly subscriptions, your pricing structures are the most important. These allow you to capture maximum leads through plans and promotions.

Hence, you need to understand and devise pricing strategies beforehand. The balance that you create between your fees and your features makes all the difference. Revamping your pricing plans is a good way of creating and maintaining that balance.

There are different methods that you can use to revamp the pricing plans for your SaaS company.

You can use the “Freemium Model” which provides a free version of your product with an upgrade to add more features. If you want the maximum number of leads to use your software, opt for the freemium model. Spotify and Slack are some big names that use this type of pricing model.

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Another type of pricing model is the “Feature-based pricing model”. This model is a system where the price is determined according to the different features one opts for.

“Free plans and trials” is also used to generate leads. It allows prospects to access some of your plans at zero cost. Here, you are allowing them to give the platform a try without making any financial commitment. They get to make up their mind before paying, and you get your lead. To make this model more effective, you can even add premium features to free plans. This will attract more leads toward your product. EngageBay uses this pricing strategy.

Lastly, capturing leads using free tools is another effective way to revamp your pricing strategy. Crazyegg uses this strategy by providing every user with a free heatmap of any webpage.

9. Incorporate Referral Marketing

Referral marketing strategies help in finding leads through other people. Simply put, you can get the lead generation job done by others. These strategies include generating leads through influencer marketing, affiliate marketing, and referral programs.

SaaS influencer marketing is marketing your product through anyone who has an online presence and the power to influence buying decisions of your target market. Find the right influencer who speaks about topics relevant to your products. If their advice is trusted by a huge audience, you will see an increase in the number of leads.

Affiliate marketing is something similar, but it can be done by anybody who thinks they can sell your product. It could be third-party publishers who will recommend your product to their audience. This works on a commission basis for each signup or sale.

Referral programs are trusted by some of the biggest names in the SaaS industry. They are a staple strategy to generate leads. These programs involve rewarding your customers for referring you to other prospects.

For example- PayPal used to pay up to $20 to users for every friend they invited to use the payment solution.

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10. Pay Attention To SEO 

Research shows that 26.4% of SaaS website traffic comes from organic searches. Naturally, it becomes essential for any SaaS company to optimize its website.

Proper keyword research is the first step in optimizing your website. These keywords are the connectors between you and your customers. How and when your website appears in SERPs, highly depends on the keywords you utilize. This means that the better optimized your website is in terms of keywords, the more leads you will get.

No matter how amazing your content and how good your products are, if your website is not optimized enough for the search bots to find it, your target audience will never be able to discover you. Improve your on-page SEO by adding title tags and meta descriptions.

11. Ensure a Smooth User Experience

Websites and web pages play a major role in any SaaS company. Since you are selling your service online, improving user experience becomes imperative. In fact, a smooth user experience = high-quality lead generation.

Many users nowadays open websites on their smartphones. Therefore, it is important to make sure that your website is mobile-friendly. You should also try to reduce page loading time on your website. Also, there should be an option to filter and adjust according to the visitor’s needs.

UI/UX designs make a huge difference in how your website looks. They hold the power of attracting leads and persuading them to take action. Embedding crisp CTAs on significant pages of your website will generate more leads and even compel them into making a purchase decision.

Let’s now look into some of the tools that you will need to implement these strategies.

Tools Needed to Implement Lead Generation Strategies

1. Interactive Content Tool

By now we have understood the importance of using interactive content. Interactive content builds trust by answering the right questions at the right time. It offers real value to your customers. Hence, having an interactive content tool will give you an edge while generating leads and nurturing them.

One such tool is Outgrow. Outgrow’s no-code interactive content builder will make the process of creating interactive content fun and easy. It will help you engage with your customer by making them a part of the narrative itself.

Outgrow’s features include a vast variety of tools that are designed to increase engagement and conversion rates. These tools include quizzes, calculators, forms, product recommendations, assessments, and even chatbots. And this is not it. You can even create interactive polls and giveaways using Outgrow.

You can explore Outgrow with its a 7-day free trial. If you like the interactive content you have made with Outgrow, you can continue with a free or paid plan as per your requirements.

BONUS TIP
If you’re in a hurry and do not have the time to create your interactive experience from scratch, check out Outgrow’s examples page, select a suitable template, and customize it as per your needs. You’re good to go!

2. Subscription Management Software

For any SaaS company, its pricing model and pricing structure strategies play the most critical role. To keep these up-to-date, you will need good subscription management software.

Moreover, a subscription management platform will help you create different models, test variations, and optimize your pricing strategy. Their main aim is to assist you in a way where you will be able to manage your subscriptions while increasing productivity.

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Paddle is another such platform that offers a complete solution for all payment, tax, and subscription-related problems for a SaaS business. With Paddle, you can create several types of billing models very conveniently. It offers you extensive subscription features specifically designed for software products.

Paddle also lets you manage free trials and free plans, while also managing customer upgrades and downgrades. Additionally, it helps create and send invoices to customers directly.

3. Landing Page Builder

As a SaaS company, your website, and your landing pages are the first things a customer sees. And since landing pages are a deciding factor for SaaS lead generation, all of them should be optimized for maximum conversions. This is the reason why you need a landing page builder tool.

A landing page builder is an essential lead generation tool that allows you to build, test, and optimize your landing pages easily. This tool is also crucial for implementing your SEO strategies and making integration easier.

An example of such a tool is Instapage. It is a good choice for both beginners and experts, comes with A/B testing functionality and real-time analytics, and offers a drag-and-drop editor as well. Instapage is relatively cheaper and enables super-fast landing page creation with great analytics reports. 

4. Email Marketing Software

Email marketing software is an all-in-one CRM and automation platform. They help you in nurturing your leads and convert your subscribers into customers.

SendinBlue is a very effective email marketing software. It has multiple nurturing tools including an intuitive and responsive email editor and helps you communicate, personalize and then convert leads.

It has a built-in CRM which helps you keep track of all integrations. Furthermore, SendinBlue lets you handle SMS and even site chat messages. Therefore, it enables you to attract and retarget all of your leads impressively.

Conclusion

In this blog, we saw the 11 best strategies that will help you boost your SaaS lead generation strategies. Generating leads for SaaS businesses can be slightly tricky. But, the strategies discussed in this blog will definitely make the process of lead generation smoother and easier. And for maximum results, use different tools to implement lead generation strategies.

To make your lead generation process easier, create interactive content with Outgrow! Sign up now for a 7-day free trial here. Let Outgrow do the magic for you!

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