4 Strong Ways to Boost Exposure for Your Software Business
We can all agree that the inbound marketing way is the strategy to promoting your Software business online. From social media to SEO, visuals, email, and PPC, these are the best channels to attracting qualified prospects and customers to your brand. However, with so many pieces to the digital marketing puzzle, trying to “do it all” can prove to be an overwhelming, daunting task. Especially as a startup or one that is rebranding with a new product, the challenge of knowing which techniques to focus on to create fast results can be frustrating.
We have compiled four simple, yet highly effective, inbound ways to generate more exposure to your software business
By focusing on these tactics, you will increase awareness, traffic to your website, leads, and better your thought-leadership.
#1 Bolster Your Blogging Strategy
Developing a well-thought-out blogging strategy not only positions you as an expert in your software niche, but it draws needed exposure to your brand. You see, 71% of business bloggers say their blog increased visibility in their industries. Also, companies who blog regularly have 434% more indexed pages than companies who do not (Source: Search Engine Land). They also generate more leads and sales.
Use your blog to educate your audience on the problems you solve as a SaaS business. Consider the common issues and questions your market has and address them via your blog. Additionally, publish blog content that highlights the features, benefits, and usability of your software.
The key to generating results from your blogging is consistency and ensuring that your topics resonate with your target audience. Use an editorial calendar tool to help you plan, organize, and schedule your content. The calendar will help you maintain a regular blogging cadence to boost brand awareness.
#2 Tell Your List
According to Forbes, email subscribers are three times more likely to share your content via social media than visitors from other sources. Your email list is your biggest fan, and they are waiting to hear from you to engage with your brand. Even if you have a small list or you are just starting out, keep your subscribers in the know when it comes to the development and promotion of your SaaS. Share your blog content and ask them to share it with their social networks.
One way to get your list involved is to extend a 2-week free trial offer of your software, so prospects get a real-life experience with your product. Send them a survey at the end of their trial to get feedback and reviews. This information can help you tweak and modify, so it aligns with your audience’s interest.
Also, continue to grow your list. Building your leads list is the safety boat of your business. With proper nurturing tactics, it is where the bulk of your sales will generate from. With 59% of B2B marketers saying that email is the most effective channel for generating revenue, it is important that you leverage assets like your landing pages, web forms, and blog posts to keep growing your sales funnel.
#3 Facebook Retargeting
Follow your website visitors everywhere with retargeting. Also called remarketing, this paid strategy allows you to place a tracking code on your site which will set a tracking snippet (or cookie) on the browser of those who visit your site. This tactic will position your ad content to “follow” recent visitors everywhere they go online. Retargeting is extremely useful in keeping your software brand “top of mind” long after people leave your website.
The same concept applies to Facebook retargeting. You will create custom audiences and tailor marketing content unique to them for better engagement. It is highly cost-efficient for your brand and is one tactic that should constantly be running to maximize traffic to your site and produce fresh leads.
#4 Host Live Webinars
Webinars are solid platforms to share a wealth of knowledge in a presentation-style broadcast. You significantly improve your thought-leadership as you delve deeper into topics for more depth and understanding. In regards to marketing your product, webinars provide an opportunity to demonstrate, share the features and advantages, and allow participants to see your new software firsthand. Answer questions live to boost engagement and give the chance for viewers to purchase at the end with the benefits they will gain from acting now.
Finally, a webinar is a great method to growing your leads as each participant must register with the name and email info to join your broadcast. Simply promoting your upcoming webinar to your social channels and list can foster new leads every time.
Following the suggested inbound marketing tactics will increase brand awareness and exposure for your software business. Focus on getting good at implementing two of the tips, test your results, then ramp up from there. The key is to stay consistent in your efforts to measure what's working and resonating with your audience accurately.
Ready to leverage a professional team to help bolster your inbound marketing strategy for 2017? Use the form below to reach out to us. We are equipped to help you step up your marketing game!
A Brief Guide Using Facebook for Business
Facebook is the ubiquitous king of social networking, universally accepted into nearly all of our lives. Scanning a user’s timeline reveals stories of relationships, birthdays, wins and losses and connects us in a way never thought possible prior to its invention. As such, Facebook is often used as a Social Media home base for many businesses because of the profound marketing insights the networks provides.
Facebook is used for a congregation, conversation, and publication with users engaging with brands that they feel a social connection to rather than those that simply sell toa them. The Facebook newsfeed algorithm gives preferential treatment to brands that receive significant interaction with their posts, which makes it hard for new businesses to gain any impressions or interaction when their fan base is small.
In order to solve this issue, Facebook introduced several tools for business to utilize in order to increase their exposure on the platform:
Facebook for Business is an excellent resource to how to advertise on Facebook and grow your sales with Facebook Advertising. For example, A boosted post is a post from your business page that can reach a larger audience for a fee based on the amount of exposure needed to reach your target.
Facebook Page Insights provides comprehensive analytics of your business page. By analyzing this data you are able to hone your content based on your audience demographics, the content they engage with most, and the optimal times to share. Ignoring these analytics is most certainly to your detriment. For instance, we noticed that our clients that utilize video were receiving 80% higher engagement.
Facebook Studio is a tool that exhibits the most successful marketing campaigns on Facebook. Each year, the most successful campaigns get recognized by Facebook and this resource can be used for marketing inspiration for your campaigns. See what works and how you can adapt such ideas to your unique marketing goals.
That leads us to Facebook advertising tools:
Facebook Ads are advertising that can be targeted to users based on location, demographics, behavior, and interests. The purpose of these ads can be to grow your fan base, drive traffic to your website, increase a specific conversion (which can even be tracked with a piece of code) or download your app. Whatever your call to action might be, Facebook offers template-based campaigns that marketers will certainly find useful.
With that in mind, social is one aspect of a successful campaign that must be part of a larger marketing effort in order to generate any measurable results. HARNESS works with our clients to develop an overall marketing strategy based on their unique goals by identifying value propositions, designing a campaign catered to their audience, and drawing on a variety of tools including those mentioned above.
