If you want your company to gain market share and drive more leads (who doesn’t?), it’s wise to have an effective marketing strategy in place—and hiring a SaaS market agency well-versed in these strategies is a great way to do just that.
As a SaaS company, there are some core areas where your selected marketing agency should shine, including:
In the rest of the article, we’ll dive into the details and talk through how to look at and evaluate these considerations.
There are general rules you should be familiar with when deciding whether you’re ready to outsource your marketing. For SaaS, an essential item to add to that list is ensuring you have a product that’s ready to be marketed. Don’t get ahead of your software; great marketing can get people in the door, but if your product isn’t ready for them, you’ll lose potential growth (along with your marketing investment).
If you’re in the right place to consider outsourcing, start with some reflection on what you actually need your marketing to address. You’ll be in a much better position to evaluate what a potential partner can offer you if you have a clear understanding of where you need help.
Some common SaaS challenges and how marketing agencies address them include:
At this early stage, your priority is finding suitable options for your needs. Keep in mind that these are just suggestions to help you look in the right direction — you’ll want to dig deeper into all of these areas when you actually communicate with your potential partners.
You don’t have to limit your search to agencies that deal exclusively with SaaS, but you should focus on finding a team that has experience marketing SaaS solutions. Check their case studies, customer testimonials, and any other social proof they offer to see how other SaaS companies have done with them. You may even be able to reach out to previous clients for feedback.
Nearly every agency these days says they offer a data-driven approach, so don’t just take their word for it. You can tell if this is actually an important part of their strategy by checking case studies and service pages and looking at how they measure success. Hard metrics like visits, year-over-year growth, and so on suggest more competence with data than soft “metrics” that can’t be measured.
If you have very few in-house marketing resources, you may need to choose an agency that has a broader range of services (but still has deep experience in those services). Just make sure that the agencies you consider can handle what you need; think about what type of SaaS marketing growth you’re looking for and what strategies are likely to address those needs.
A lot of agencies have content on their sites about the tools they use. It’s a good idea to check out what they’re proficient in and get a sense of their comfort level with technology (and talking about it). This is especially important if you’re already working with certain platforms that you need your marketing team to be comfortable with. Just bear in mind that this may be something worth asking directly about; not all agencies list every platform they work with.
Once you have some potential candidates narrowed down, you’ll likely be ready to start talking to your potential SaaS marketing agencies. Often, you can learn fairly early whether an agency is right for you; the answer lies in the questions that the agency asks during your initial exploratory discussions with them.
A good agency knows that a completely touchless, self-served sales process will require a much different strategy than one that requires significant interaction with a salesperson. The way you sell your product influences every step of the marketing process: the people you’ll want to attract, the way you’ll nurture them, and how you’ll engage them.
Your initial call with your SaaS marketing agency should include a discussion that gets into this level of detail. If it doesn’t, ask how they approach marketing different SaaS models. You want to learn whether you’re dealing with people who really know your area and audience. How they answer questions about specific tactics in different contexts will clue you into their actual SaaS experience.
You want your buyer to know about all of the shiny new features of your software; however, an experienced marketing agency should point out a big piece buyers need to know before anything else: why should they buy your product in the first place?
A good SaaS marketing agency will try to get a detailed picture of the buyer’s journey and help you balance what you believe is great about your product with what your audience really wants: clarity about how your software will make their lives easier. This includes:
Your agency should also be aware that your buyers may be different from your users. During your call, see if they ask you questions to clarify who uses the software vs. who communicates with your salespeople and makes final purchase decisions.
Your agency should demonstrate knowledge about key SaaS metrics and typical SaaS KPIs, especially those related to customer retention.
SaaS companies tend to have a higher-than-average customer acquisition cost, so your agency needs to emphasize retaining subscribers and taking a long-term perspective on your ROI. Too much focus on short-term goals leads to churn despite a majority of annual subscription revenue coming from existing customers.
Here are a few areas your agency should ask about:
Once you've evaluated multiple agencies and narrowed down your options, the final step is making the right choice. Here are a few final considerations to make before deciding who the best partner is for you.
One of the biggest decisions when hiring a SaaS marketing agency is whether to work on a project basis or a retainer model. Each approach has pros and cons, so you’ll need to decide what makes the most sense for you. (In general, projects are for short-term tactical needs and retainers are for long-term sustained growth and conversion optimization).
When evaluating specific agencies, ask them to help you explore what a project-based vs. retainer-based engagement looks like with them. Some agencies may offer the option of starting with a small project (like a paid media test or content sprint) before you commit to a long-term partnership.
Marketing agency costs can vary significantly based on expertise, services offered, and engagement length. What’s essential to consider is the ROI. Does the agency clearly outline how you’ll see ROI, or do they stick to implications and vague suggestions?
Ask about their strategies for ROI-driving tactics, including lowering customer acquisition costs and improving monthly recurring revenue.
As with any relationship, looking out for red flags is key. There are a few warning signs you can pick up on before signing a marketing agency that you should look out for:
As you begin your search, remember to keep your needs and goals in mind and take a critical approach to evaluating your potential partners’ SaaS expertise and data tracking.
If you’re ready to start evaluating your options now, start with us! Visit our SaaS industry page to get an overview of our approach, or dive into a case study on our work with a medical management SaaS platform that resulted in a 286% increase in contact-to-customer conversion rate, 931% increase in lead-to-MQL conversion rate and a 61% increase in organic website sessions: view our SaaS case study.