The Software as a Service (SaaS) is a fast-growing market in the UK, but it’s also becoming more and more competitive every day, making it increasingly difficult for businesses to stand out.
As the SaaS industry continues to evolve, business leads will need to stay ahead of the curve to get the word out about what’s unique about their company and what they can offer clients. Not only that but, as a subscription based service, customer retention is vital. Businesses must consider how to nurture existing clients to avoid losing them to competitors.
Here are some of the top SaaS marketing trends for 2023 in the UK that marketers should watch out for.
1. Embracing Native Advertising
Recent research suggests that up to 42% of web users have an ad blocker tool or plugin, which can sound like bad news if you’ve historically relied on paid ads. However, many companies are turning to native ads as a solution.
These are a type of paid ad which aim to be informative or otherwise valuable to visitors, and look like a true part of the website they are hosted on rather than an interruption. This can encourage more notice and interaction from users and avoid ad fatigue. They also have the additional benefit of often being unaffected by ad blockers.
2. AI-Powered Personalisation
It’s predicted that Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven personalisation will become increasingly important for SaaS marketers in 2023 to ensure that their messaging is tailored to their target audience.
AI tools can help marketers segment customers, track user behaviour, and generate personalised messages to get the best possible result.
From chat bots to provide effort-free customer service, to content curation to educate prospects on what’s important to them, it’s set to be a big year for AI and ML. As these tools become more sophisticated and able to echo real human interaction more and more, it can free up your staff to focus their attention on other ways to grow and nurture your business.
3. GPT Tools
Everyone’s been talking about Chat GPT and GPT-3, but are they more than a passing novelty?
GPT-3 in particular has been generating excitement amongst marketers for its ability to create engaging content, ad copy, and meta descriptions which sound human. Theoretically, everyone now has the ability to produce content in seconds. You can even feed in existing writing from your site to give the AI a crash course in the voice of your brand.
There are still questions about how Google may process or filter ai-written content, as well as restrictions around recent news stories or very niche information. Since the AI uses internet content which may not be completely reliable, for now there’s also a need to fact check content produced this way, and it often requires some optimisation for SEO.
However, the possibilities of this kind of tool are dizzying and we feel sure they will continue to be explored by marketers over the coming year.
4. Getting a 360° view of your target Market
Audience personas are nothing new, but what is new are the developments over the last few years which can help businesses to understand their market better. The more you can understand about your target market - from what makes them tic, to their budget, to their preferred way of consuming new information- the better you will be able to market and sell to them.
When set up correctly, Google analytics can help you to understand which parts of your website are currently resonating with your audience. Through adding value to goals, you can easily see which pages are helping you get the types of lead and customer you really want. You can also view user’s journey through the site to find out what information they seek out before converting. This can help you to optimise your site for your ideal group of prospects and informs future content planning.
When it comes to optimising individual important pages, for example, home pages and landing pages, tools such as HotJar can help you to track where users are spending the most time and what’s pushing them to either exit or convert.
Read our blog on Digital Marketing Strategies for SAAS businesses
5. Automation
Automation is quickly becoming a necessity for SaaS marketers as they look to streamline processes and reduce costs. Automation can help marketers to automate everyday tasks like lead generation, customer service, emails, and onboarding new clients.
By automating the processes which largely require one of several broad solutions, businesses will be able to focus manpower on processes which really benefit from the human touch, such as sales, unusual customer service issues, and marketing innovation.
This in turn can help with customer retention rates, as those with simple problems get quick, efficient answers and others can benefit from a personal service to help them through any frustrations.
6. Integrating Video
Video marketing has been getting more popular by the year for SAAS companies. In the age of TikTok, more internet users than ever are primarily spending time watching video content so providing this option on your site can have a big impact.
Where you’re providing a “how to use” welcome video for those starting out with your software, video testimonials from your brand cheerleaders, or informative video content which helps to define your experts as a true authority, it’s difficult to go wrong.
Even many mid-range smart phones now include excellent quality cameras and simple editing software, making this form of marketing more accessible than ever. Tools such as Canva have also been developing their video editing capability over the last year, giving you the option to create more dynamic transitions, layer videos, and incorporate footage from their library of royalty free clips.
7. Unbundling Strategies
You’ve probably heard or feature marketing, a marketing strategy where businesses continuously introducing new features for their software, but have you ever considered using your existing features in a different way? Welcome to unbundling.
Feature marketing works on the supposition that users will want more and more from the software in order to stay loyal to it, and new users will be excited by a promised ever-expanding array of choice.
While many SAAS businesses use this strategy effectively, unbundling leans into a different truth - that many users just want software to meet one or several needs well, and not to pay for extraneous features they have no intention of using.
With unbundling, clients will pay for one or several chosen functionalities instead of the entire bundle. This has several advantages: clients who don’t wish to feel that they’re paying for more than their using are more likely to feel satisfied, you will be able to offer options at a lower price point without devaluing your whole package, and it opens the option of cross-marketing other tools or options to these clients later. If they’ve already had a good experience with your product, they’re likely to be more receptive to this than new prospects.
Unbundling can even be used in marketing efforts alongside feature marketing to give users even more options for how they pay for and use your product.
In Summary…
By staying ahead of the curve and embracing these SaaS marketing trends for 2023, UK marketers can ensure their SaaS products stay competitive and relevant.
If your business is considering some new marketing strategies for the coming year, consider working with SpiderGroup. Our digital marketing experts can’t wait to help your enterprise grow and our close ties with business technology put us in a unique space to work with SAAS brands. Learn more here.
