SaaS Marketing: The Complete Guide for Beginners

The TL;DR (SaaS Digital Marketing in 7 Lines)

• SaaS marketing is built around subscriptions, long cycles, and retention, not one-off sales.
• Map the full journey (awareness → interest → desire → action → loyalty) and create content tailored to each stage of the journey.
• Pricing drives growth: test free trials, freemium, and concise demos; keep plans simple and comparable.
• Inbound first (SEO, content, email, social) with smart outbound (PPC, paid social, outreach, influencers) to accelerate demand.
• Convert with strong landing pages, clear value propositions, and a sales process that picks up where marketing ends.
• Track what matters: traffic, conversions, CAC, churn, activation and LTV, and act on the insights.
• Start now: define ICPs and pain points, firm up your value prop, ship a content plan, and optimise relentlessly.

Competition among SaaS companies is fiercer than ever. The million (or billion?) dollar question is: how can your SaaS business stand out and attract customers?

The key is a well-crafted SaaS marketing strategy. Unlike general digital marketing, SaaS marketing focuses on subscription models, customer retention, and long-term growth. Implementing the right strategies ensures sustained success in a highly competitive market.

As a full-service SaaS SEO agency, we have helped many SaaS companies build their marketing strategies. In this complete beginner’s guide, we’ll walk you through all the basics to help you create a SaaS marketing strategy for your SaaS business.

What We'll Cover:

What is SaaS Marketing? 

SaaS marketing refers to the process of promoting and selling software as a service (SaaS) products to customers. It includes the unique marketing strategies, campaigns and tactics used to sell subscription-based products to new customers and retain existing ones.

The end goal of these strategies is to increase traffic, build awareness, generate leads, and acquire and retain customers for your SaaS product/service.

With the number of SaaS apps used per organization growing by over 1,275% since 2015, it’s a hyper-competitive sector that requires various marketing strategies, including content marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), email marketing, social media marketing, PPC and ads.

Key SaaS Marketing Terminology

We'll talk a lot more about these terms later, but to avoid getting lost in the jargon in the meantime, here are some quick definitions.

What Makes SaaS Marketing Unique?

Unlike traditional marketing methods, SaaS marketing focuses on subscription-based products that require ongoing customer engagement and retention. SaaS marketing aims to create long-term relationships with customers. 

This field involves various activities, including building brand awareness, lead generation, and converting those leads into paying customers. Given the unique nature of SaaS products, marketers need a deep understanding of the software industry and potential customers' specific needs and pain points.

Though SaaS marketing overlaps with a lot of other industries, here are the factors that make it unique:

Unique Product Lines 

The biggest difference with marketing SaaS products is that they are digital software and, therefore, intangible. They don’t have a physical presence or shelf life. In addition, SaaS products are generally more complex and feature-intensive, which changes how they are marketed. 

For example, you wouldn’t market a project management tool in the same way you would a physical product. You might lead with the PM tool's features, but for the physical product, you could focus on how the product feels and looks. 

SaaS marketing needs to be both engaging and informative.

The SaaS Customer Journey is Longer and Complex

It takes anywhere between 6 and 18 months to close an enterprise deal in SaaS. One reason behind this is that the SaaS sales cycle is more complex, and the product itself will offer multiple features and use cases that can be tailored to different needs.

Let’s say you’re selling a financial management tool. First, you need to create awareness of what financial management is. But you also might have customers who know what financial management is. They are in the latter stages of the buyer's journey, comparing different financial management tools. 

This is what we call the SaaS Customer Journey.

It’s a funnel that aims to take customers through the following stages: 

• Awareness: The potential customer first becomes aware of your product or service
• Interest: Your content strategy will hook this potential customer with guides, webinars and targeted ad campaigns. 
• Desire: The potential customer has ventured to your landing pages and is keen to try the product. Here, you offer a demo, trial or freemium version.
• Action: The potential customer is now a customer and wants to use your product. Onboarding and customer support are key to ensuring a smooth transition. 
• Loyalty: The customer becomes an advocate for your brand, and, through referral marketing, this loyalty can result in word-of-mouth and free promotion.

Part of your SaaS marketing strategy is to develop and create different content and marketing materials that will appeal to customers in the various stages.

Unique Pricing Structure 

Another reason SaaS marketing can be more complex is that SaaS companies generally offer a tiered pricing structure or plans. 

You must understand consumer psychology, research competitor pricing plans, and develop a pricing structure to get this right. Making your pricing structure clear and providing clear information on the customer's needs in each tier can lead to more conversions.

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Some may opt for a feature-based pricing plan, whereas some may set usage limits for different pricing plans.

Why Does Retention Matter in SaaS Marketing?

Unlike traditional models, you’re not selling a one-time subscription product. 

Depending on the product cycle, your customer will rethink subscribing to your tool every month or six months. In the SaaS industry, customer churn is inevitable. Reducing this churn rate is the key to retaining your customers and growing your business. Tracking monthly recurring revenue (MRR) is essential for assessing financial health and evaluating customer acquisition and retention success.

That’s why we keep talking about long-term relationships. To develop retention and loyalty, you need to continue your marketing efforts once someone subscribes to your tool or watches your demo. 

How to Develop a SaaS Marketing Strategy?

We’ve discussed the differences between SaaS and traditional marketing and the many challenges. 

Now, we’re going to get into the good stuff. Creating a successful SaaS marketing strategy involves several key steps that help you understand your market and reach your target audience.

Here’s a breakdown of the essential steps:

1. Identify your target audience: Determine your ideal customers and understand their needs and pain points. This will help you tailor your marketing efforts to resonate with them.
2. Conduct market research: Analyze industry trends and challenges to position your product effectively. Understanding the competitive landscape allows you to highlight your unique advantages.
3. Define your unique value proposition: Clearly articulate what sets your product apart. Communicate this value to potential customers to make your product more appealing.
4. Develop a content marketing strategy: Create and distribute valuable content that attracts and engages your target audience. This includes blog posts, whitepapers, videos, and more.
5. Build a sales funnel: Design a process to convert leads into paying customers. Identify the key steps in this journey and optimize each stage to improve conversion rates.

A note on pricing: Pricing is a huge lever for SaaS growth, but it belongs in its own playbook. You can read our SaaS pricing strategy guide for more details.

By following these steps, you can develop a comprehensive SaaS marketing strategy that drives growth and customer retention.

What Are the Best Marketing Strategies for SaaS?

Now that you’re done with the essential preparation, we’re going to explore the list of SaaS marketing strategies you can implement into your SaaS marketing plan. We’ll also share the hacks we leverage for our clients and some real-life examples to inspire you. 

To make this logical, we've broken this down into two categories: Inbound marketing and outbound marketing.

SaaS Inbound Marketing Strategies 

SaaS inbound marketing is a marketing approach that attracts customers through the creation of valuable content and other marketing experiences. It brings customers to you instead of the other way around (that’s called Outbound Marketing, which we’ll get to soon).

Here are 6 high-level strategies you can adopt:

1. SEO for SaaS: How to Rank Higher & Get More Traffic

Search Engine Optimisation has been a game-changer for many SaaS businesses. At its core, it’s the process of optimizing your website structure and content to help search engines rank your website in search results. When you are visible in search results, this helps users find your product or service. 

A successful SEO strategy can put businesses in a growth loop:

Great SEO strategies > Higher rankings > More traffic > More leads > More conversions

A tried-and-tested SEO framework we use with our clients that we recommend you implement is; 

1. Do keyword research to find out what your target audience (i.e., potential customers) is searching for (pain points).
2. With your audience’s pain points understood, you can develop a web structure tailored to capture this audience's attention. 
3. Next, build a content strategy to complement your SaaS product and develop a process for producing and promoting this content to reach potential customers and bring them into the funnel. 
4. Spend time on outreach and link-building with sites with good authority and similar audiences. 

Look how HubSpot has capitalized on SEO techniques like keyword research, metadata, and on-site SEO to become one of the fastest-growing tech companies in the world. 

2. Content Marketing for SaaS: Engaging & Converting Users

Content marketing is one of the most effective SaaS marketing techniques.

If there’s one SaaS business that has made it big with content marketing, it’s Zapier. Zapier is an “automation platform.” This category and phrase don’t have much demand – it gets about 200 monthly searches in the U.S. and 1100 globally. 

Yet Zapier’s blog receives 1.6 million organic visits every month, which is 67.5% of its overall organic traffic and is worth about $3.7 million. 

They do this with the help of a single SaaS marketing strategy – content marketing backed by SEO.  

Here are six simple steps to create a content marketing strategy: 

• Research and know your audience: Who is your audience, what problem do they have, and what solution are they searching for? 
• Create an ideal customer profile: Who are you targeting? Casual computer users, entire organizations or leadership figures? What industries do they work in? What does their day-to-day operation look like? 
• Set SMART goals: Get detailed with your goals using the SMART framework—specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. For example, "Increase website traffic by 20% in 3 months" is a SMART objective.
• Create a content plan: Now that you know who your audience is and what they need, you can develop a content plan to capture their attention and pull them into your sales funnel. 
• Promote and distribute your content: There’s no point in creating this content if your audience won’t see it. Where are they? What platforms do they use? Are you going to focus on SEO efforts, or will you supplement that with digital marketing, paid advertising, or social media marketing? ‍
• Analyse and measure results: You need to study the data with your site looking slick and your content out in the world. Is the content converting? Are you getting traffic to key landing pages? Use this data to tweak your SaaS marketing plan.

3. Email Marketing: Nurturing & Retaining SaaS Customers

Email is one of the most preferred communication channels between brands and customers. 

SaaS companies can use email marketing to engage both prospects and active customers. As retention is equally important in the SaaS industry, many companies regularly send product update emails, newsletters, and product how-tos. Other types of email campaigns commonly run include welcome, reengagement, onboarding, and promotional campaigns. 

Launching a newsletter is a great way to build trust with future customers and nurture existing customers.

It can be a slow burn, but there are plenty of platforms, including Beehiiv and ConvertKit, designed to help you grow and scale a newsletter audience. 

What your newsletter focuses on depends on what you think would best capture the attention of your target audience. It could be;

• A behind-the-scenes look at your business and its operations 
• In-depth case studies that show your strategies in action 
• Breakdowns of news and events in your industry 
• Hot takes on subjects that are meaningful to your audience 

Whatever avenue you choose, it’s important that it engages your audience and funnels them to a landing page or includes a CTA that offers a demo or free trial of your product. 

4. Social Media Marketing: Driving SaaS Engagement & Leads

Social media marketing is a great SaaS marketing strategy for SaaS companies.

For example, with the popularity of short-form video content growing in the form of Instagram reels and TikToks, many companies have used this format to educate users and engage them.

Take Canva, for example. 

It capitalizes on recent trends and important events to bring unique social media content to its audience, making them want to subscribe to Canva and start designing.

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5. Optimizing SaaS Landing Pages for Conversions

A lot of your strategy will direct potential users to specific landing pages, where you hope to gain an email address, or better yet, a sign-up. 

There are a few types of landing pages you can create, including:

• Feature pages: These pages show your prospect what your product does
• Use case pages: These pages show who your product is for with real-world applications
• Comparison pages: These pages highlight how your product compares to alternatives in your industry

A great example is WeTransfer, a SaaS product that helps users send large files via email.  The landing page uses catchy copy and an easily readable font to immediately hook site visitors in.

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The black ‘See Plans’ CTA button takes a prospect straight to the pricing page so they can find the right plan for them. It’s simple and effective. 

6. Homepage / Website Design 

You’ve done the hard work of developing SEO, marketing and content strategies – i.e., your SaaS marketing funnel – and you’ve started to get traffic to your site. Great! Now, your site has to make a strong first impression. Put another way, there is no point in bringing your audience to your site if it fails to convert them to a free or premium user. 

Your homepage and website design, in general, must prove to potential customers that people use and rely on your products and that no other product on the market can meet these needs as well as yours does. 

It’s all about showing your product’s greatest strength and driving home the pain points it solves through the language and visual identity you use.

A great example is Webflow. It immediately grabs attention with its minimal layout, and the tagline calls out two important points: it’s designed for the user (you) and removes all the hassle of coding and development (the pain point).

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Bonus: GEO (Showing up in AI search)

The boom in generative AI has changed the search experience, and it’s also impacting SaaS marketing. 

AI-driven search platforms such as Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude don’t show traditional blue links. They generate a conversational answer, often citing a handful of trusted sources.

For SaaS brands, this changes the marketing playbook. Instead of only competing for search engine rankings, you also need to optimize for how AI models interpret, select, and attribute information.

Why GEO matters for SaaS

Like much of marketing, it’s about finding your target audience where they are. In the case of GEO, it’s about being the brand these LLMs cite and source when they answer user queries like “what is the best SaaS product for time management.” 

• Decision makers research with AI search: People are using AI platforms before they ever reach your website. Early evidence suggests that while click-throughs may be down, the quality of leads is rising. 
• Fewer citations mean higher stakes: If your competitors are the only ones cited in an AI overview, they capture the demand.
• Trusted sources become brand assets: Being mentioned consistently increases brand authority across search channels.

GEO tactics to implement

While we’ve put together a complete guide on ranking in AI search, let’s cover the fundamentals here. 

1. Structure your content for answers: Use clear H2/H3 headings, FAQs, and schema markup so AI engines can easily extract and attribute your content.
2. Create “AI-friendly” formats: FAQs, glossaries, comparisons, and how-to guides tend to be pulled into generative answers more often than narrative-only content.
3. Build brand authority: Consistently link your SaaS brand with key product categories, pain points, and buyer terms. This helps AI models connect your company to your solution space.
4. Use citations to your advantage: Publish research, statistics, and definitions that other sites and AI models will reference, increasing the chances of being sourced.
5. Leverage video and visuals: AI search is starting to embed multimedia like short demo videos, feature explainers, and product tutorials, which can boost your chances of citation.

If you put a lot of emphasis on ranking in Google results (and well done, you should be!), It’s also time to widen your scope and start targeting AI platforms. Your users are there, and that means you need to be, too. 

SaaS Outbound Marketing Strategies 

SaaS outbound marketing is the opposite of inbound; it’s when you aim to meet the audience where they are. They allow you to target only the audience you select, making it quite an effective way of marketing.

Here are 5 strategies you can adopt: 

1. Search engine PPC 

Pay-per-click advertising allows you to get visibility for your business and appear on top for relevant yet difficult keywords. 

The main advantage of PPC is that you don’t have to play the waiting game; you can start getting results immediately. The downside is that it can be expensive, especially if you’re targeting competitive, high-traffic keywords. The search results exposure also stops as soon as you stop paying. 

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The best way to get success with these ads is to test them repeatedly. You can research different keywords, create various options for ad copies, and analyze the metrics to get the best ROI. 

2. Print advertising  

There’s no denying that digital is the best method for SaaS marketing. But print advertising can give you an edge if you want to reach an audience that doesn’t actively engage with campaigns on the internet. 

For example, if you can get featured in leading industry publications or partner with notable influencers, this can build brand credibility and expand your reach. You can also run print ads in newspapers, magazines, and even journals.

Here’s how Mailchimp grabbed attention with an advertisement in a well-known magazine:

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They created curiosity with the first headline and referenced a prominent company that uses Mailchimp to create trust in its brand. 

3. Social media ads 

Did you know that 67% make a purchase through social media platforms at least once a month?

More and more people are discovering brands on social media and using these platforms to engage with their communities. Running social media ads on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter can boost your content or create brand awareness.

Unlike organic, social media ads let you target specific locations or demographics, so you can devise personalised ads and hit the nail right on target. 

Here’s how Slack created a social ad that grabbed users’ attention with its eye-catching visual and simple yet effective copy. 

Image Source: Facebook ads 

4. Influencer Marketing 

Partnering with influencers in your industry can help to reach a broader audience. The bond an influencer and their audience share is powerful, and tapping into this can do wonders for getting your SaaS product in front of new eyes. 

Whether it’s a coordinated marketing campaign, sponsored social post or guest content, influencers can help build credibility and trust for your product. It’s important to choose who you work with carefully; if you work with someone who has an audience that overlaps with yours, there will be great synergy and an increased chance your product or service will resonate. If you choose poorly, you can turn your own audience away, and the effectiveness of the marketing campaign will be lower.

5. Manual Outreach 

It might be old school, but a well-crafted cold outreach campaign can still deliver leads. It all comes down to your message, your value proposition, targeting the right person and understanding what method of outreach is most effective for each campaign. 

Spend time honing your message – think of it like an elevator pitch, you don’t have long to grab attention! – and driving home how your product or service can solve their pain points. Do some research to see who in the company or organization you are targeting has the power to make decisions, and then work out where is best to find them (email, LinkedIn etc). 

Just remember to avoid spamming anyone. Take your shot, follow up once or twice, and if that is unsuccessful, it could be time to move on.

How to Build a SaaS Sales Strategy

We’ve covered in detail the strategies involved in SaaS marketing. But it’s also important that you develop an effective SaaS sales strategy. If you don’t, you’re going to waste your SaaS marketing campaigns and let a lot of quality leads go to waste as you fail to convert them into customers. 

Developing a SaaS sales strategy involves several key steps:

1. Identify your target audience: Understand your ideal customers and their needs and pain points. This helps you tailor your sales approach to resonate with them.
2. Develop a sales funnel: Design a process to convert leads into paying customers. Identify the key stages in this journey and optimize each stage to improve conversion rates.
3. Create a sales process: Outline the key steps in the sales process, ensuring that leads are properly qualified and nurtured. This includes initial contact, product demonstrations, and closing the deal.
4. Build a sales team: Assemble a team responsible for selling your product. Ensure they have the necessary skills and qualifications to succeed.
5. Develop a sales enablement strategy: Provide your sales team with the tools and resources they need to succeed. This includes training, sales collateral, and access to customer data.

By following these steps, you can create a robust SaaS sales strategy that drives customer acquisition and retention.

Your SaaS Lifecycle Growth Strategy

Winning new customers is only the start. In SaaS, growth comes from guiding users through the full lifecycle — from activation to renewal — and optimising each stage for adoption, retention, and expansion.

1. Activation

The goal here is to help new users reach the “aha moment,” offering the first clear instance of value.

Tactics:

• Simplify sign-up and onboarding flows.
• Provide in-app guides, tooltips, and “getting started” checklists.
• Trigger early-win emails within the first 7–14 days.

Metric to track: Activation rate (% of new users who complete a key action).

2. Onboarding

The goal here is to ensure customers know how to use your product effectively.

Tactics:

• Create onboarding email cadences tailored by persona.
• Offer live or recorded product walkthroughs.
• Assign customer success managers for higher-value accounts.

Metric to track: Time-to-value (TTV), the time it takes for customers to experience meaningful results.

3. Expansion

The goal in expansion is to increase account value through upsells, cross-sells, and wider adoption.

Tactics:

• Identify product-qualified leads (PQLs) within existing accounts.
• Run campaigns around advanced features or additional seats.
• Use in-app prompts and personalised outreach to drive adoption.

Metric to track: Net Revenue Retention (NRR).

4. Renewal

The goal at this stage is to secure long-term retention and reduce churn.

Tactics:

• Proactive renewal campaigns before contract end.
• Regular QBRs (Quarterly Business Reviews) for enterprise accounts.
• Customer feedback loops (NPS, feature request surveys).

Metric to track: Churn and renewal rate.

By expanding sales into a lifecycle growth strategy, you ensure marketing does more than just fill the funnel. It supports revenue at every stage of the customer journey.

What SaaS Marketing Metrics Should You Track?

What you can’t track, you can’t optimize. 

What you don’t measure, you can’t improve. Tracking the right SaaS marketing metrics helps you see what’s working, calculate ROI, and adjust campaigns before wasted spend piles up.

Below are some important marketing metrics you should track regularly. 

Traffic

Measure overall traffic and break it down by source (organic, paid, referral, social). If most of your visits come from one channel, shift resources accordingly.

Conversions

Track the percentage of visitors who take key actions — not just trial sign-ups, but also demos, downloads, or newsletter subscriptions. A strong conversion rate shows your site and campaigns are aligned with user intent.

Customer acquisition cost (CAC)

Calculate CAC by dividing total marketing and sales spend by new customers acquired. It’s your benchmark for efficiency; if CAC is rising faster than revenue, you’ll need to rebalance budgets.

Churn rate

Monitor the percentage of customers lost each month or year. Healthy SaaS businesses keep annual churn around 5–7%. A high churn rate is an early warning sign of retention issues.

Activation rate

Track how many new users reach a key milestone that proves product value (the “aha moment”). If your activation rate is low, revisit onboarding flows or offer in-app guidance to shorten time-to-value.

Brand search volume

Rising branded searches show your awareness campaigns are working, and demand is building beyond paid channels. (It's also a great sign your GEO strategy is paying off).

Product-page entrances

Measure how many sessions start directly on product or feature pages. High numbers here mean your SEO and campaigns are pulling in high-intent visitors.

Cost per lead (CPL)

Divide marketing spend by total leads generated. Cost per lead is a simple way to compare campaign efficiency and ensure you’re not overspending relative to LTV.

Lead quality

Not all leads are equal. Use lead scoring or qualification rates to track whether your campaigns are attracting ICP-aligned prospects who are likely to convert.

Lifetime value (LTV)

LTV shows the revenue an average customer brings over their relationship with you. Analysing lifetime value alongside CAC reveals whether growth is sustainable.

Ready to Start Marketing Your SaaS?

With this SaaS marketing playbook, you now have all you need to enjoy SaaS marketing success.

If you’re just starting out or still unsure how to proceed, MADX is here for you. With years of experience and some feel-good client success stories, we’d love to hear from you and provide exclusive insights into marketing possibilities.

Get in touch with us today.