How To Choose A SaaS Marketing Agency: 9 Questions To Ask

What Do SaaS Marketing Agencies Do?

The moment a SaaS startup hires marketing professionals to help them with online promotions, the latter conduct research to identify your target audience and where they are present in the digital world. If you’re wondering how to choose the best SaaS marketing agencies, you should know that they typically enforce the power of SEO, content marketing, social media marketing, and PPC advertising. They will help you craft an efficient strategic marketing plan and include tactics and strategies that will be successful with your audience. They will also recommend budget cuts or increases in areas they think will be more effective. For example, if the vast majority of your target buyers are on LinkedIn and Google, they may increase PPC ads and cut back on Facebook and Instagram ads.

Remember that agencies leverage the best tools and have access to the latest trends that can help your business grow significantly over a short period of time. But making your final choice is hard, and there are many factors you should account for. Keep reading as we delve deeper into the matter and help you make an informed decision about hiring a specialized B2B digital agency.

7 Criteria To Choose The Best SaaS Marketing Agency

1. Industry Expertise

Before collaborating with any B2B digital marketing agency, you must analyze their industry expertise. They should have a track record of successful campaigns and strategies in your niche and the marketing results to prove them. You need a partner who understands your SaaS company’s needs and challenges and your target audience’s pain points and requirements. So, examine an agency’s portfolio, including case studies, testimonials, and official reviews. Maybe they have worked with similar businesses in the past and managed to reach their target goals. Additionally, check their team of professionals. Do they employ people with social media marketing expertise and SEO knowledge? How do they gather their data and insights? Fully equipped teams are more likely to help you achieve your goals and boost growth.

2. Data Research

It’s not only you who cares about numbers and data. The best digital marketing agencies also ask their potential clients to provide them with relevant data regarding their current performance. Therefore, they can assess the situation, set new goals, and decide on their marketing strategies. Then, top marketing companies will revise your existing goals, see whether they need updating, and enforce a new course of action. For example, they may check ways to generate qualified leads for your business within a period and calculate how many of these leads will convert from marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) to sales-qualified leads (SQLs). A great trick to attract more leads is to use gated content, like eBooks, to grab their attention and extract their contact information. Remember that eBooks can be evergreen, meaning that they may generate interest for years to come.

3. Goals

Before you even start thinking about how to choose a SaaS startup marketing agency, you must understand your own goals. What do you want to achieve? Do you need to boost brand awareness, implement lead generation techniques, or increase sales? Your goals will help you examine your potential collaborators and analyze their performance in the desired area. Next, B2B SaaS marketing agencies should present you with their strategy’s set of SMART goals that will help you reach your goal.

For example, if you want to increase qualified leads, an agency must present you with a specific plan to do that. Simply saying, “We’ll help you generate more leads,” isn’t enough. They should say something like, “We’ll enforce PPC ads and gated content to generate at least 50 new qualified ads within the next 3 months.” Digital marketing isn’t a one-size-fits-all, and your business marketing firm must showcase how they can use your resources to achieve your unique objectives and accelerate business growth.

4. Strategies

Now that you know your business goals, how do you choose a SaaS marketing agency? You need to check the strategies and marketing tactics they claim to follow. How is their data collection system, and which tools do they use to extract accurate data? Do they personalize their strategy based on each client, or is their approach generic? However, simply trusting their word isn’t the way to go. You must ask them for proof, including case study articles, client testimonials, and references. Don’t be afraid to contact their existing clients and ask them about their experience with the B2B ad agency. They will be honest with you, indicating both the positive aspects and the negatives, if any. Moreover, the proof an agency offers should show whether they are successful at implementing technology and other industry trends to stay updated and curate effective SaaS growth strategies.

5. Communication

A SaaS sales strategy is a demanding process that requires a lot of time and dedication to succeed. This means that you should be in close contact with the B2B marketing company to share insights and make modifications whenever necessary. How do you achieve this? Before choosing an agency, ask everyone on your list how they communicate marketing results and how often they organize client meetings. Ideally, you want to have weekly meetings to discuss the progress of promotional campaigns, share feedback, and ensure all your moves align with your business objectives. This is the only way you can ensure all sides are on the same page and work tirelessly toward reaching the same goal.

6. Pricing

This is one of the final steps before you decide which SaaS agency you’ll collaborate with. Take a look at your business and marketing budgets and decide how much money you can spend on your collaboration. Evaluate each B2B digital marketing agency’s pricing and how it fits your needs. For example, someone may offer a highly inclusive marketing package with a variety of services at a higher price point. On the other hand, someone else may offer only specific services at a much lower price point. Which one do you need? It’s not only about the money but also about the services you’ll leverage. Also, check how they bill their clients. SaaS marketing agencies may change monthly, hourly, or performance-based. When you find your perfect match, ask them to offer you a detailed breakdown of their fees so you can see how much each service costs.

Keep in mind that it’s not only the agency’s payment you should account for but also the marketing initiatives they’ll take. For instance, they may create RoS and popup banner ads to boost brand awareness and increase online sales. Or they may create listings in PPC directories and place ads to propel your brand ahead of competing businesses.

7. Signing The Contract

You’ve examined a list of potential growth marketing agencies for startups and have decided to collaborate with the one that ticks all the boxes. Your communication styles mesh, they have the perfect team of professionals, and they can personalize their growth hacking strategies according to your needs. Before you sign the official contract, read the document carefully to understand the deliverables and their timelines, the KPIs your agency will track along the way, and their full list of services. If they haven’t added a communication section, make sure to request one. It’s important to make excellent communication their contractual obligation so you can receive timely updates and share your feedback.

How The Best SaaS Marketing Agencies Can Help You Grow

1. Strategic Leadership

Early-stage SaaS businesses don’t always have a CMO, and they can’t afford to hire one right away. Partnering up with the best digital marketing agency gives you access to expert guidance and viewpoints regarding your business operations and marketing strategies. Typically, seasoned SaaS marketing agencies have deep knowledge of your niche and can guide you through common challenges. They are aware of new trends you can capitalize on to boost sales enablement. Therefore, they ensure your actions align with marketing and business objectives. Initially, this tactic may be more cost-efficient as you get all the knowledge and guidance without employing someone full-time.

2. Scalable Marketing Teams

Building an in-house team for your B2B SaaS marketing needs can be costly if you are a startup business. This is why teaming up with an experienced B2B SaaS agency can help you reach your goals while spending less. You simply rely on their team of seasoned professionals to take care of SEO practices, content creation and promotion, social media promotion, paid ad creation, and anything else you may require. Not only that, but as you start growing, you may need to scale your marketing efforts to fit your needs. A team of experts knows how to do that, and as a result, you won’t have to hire many people.

3. Scalable Demand Generation

SaaS startups want to grow consistently and predictably. To achieve this feat, you must know how to choose the best SaaS marketing agency. One criterion is the performance of their demand generation campaigns. They must incorporate various tactics, including paid ads, inbound marketing, and link building initiatives. Without proper website content and SEO, you can’t boost brand awareness and establish yourself as a thought leader. When everything lines up, you can expect a growth pipeline and steady customer acquisition. Basically, your sales funnel operates efficiently, trying to cut down on the sales cycle.

4. Efficiency

You’re often told that trial and error is crucial in growing your business and learning from your mistakes. However, what if you could skip this part in your marketing efforts? A seasoned B2B content marketing agency steps in with a proven playbook in place. A marketing playbook acts as a reference point for marketing teams. It includes a detailed breakdown of all activities, including marketing tactics, content creation and distribution, communication, and KPIs. Not only can all teams communicate perfectly and align their tactics but you can also fine-tune all your marketing initiatives and generate new leads easily.

9 Questions To Ask Your Potential Marketing Agencies

• Describe Your B2B SaaS Sales Process

Your SaaS business has unique needs that any top marketing agency in the world should be able to meet. After you’ve talked in depth about your niche and your end goals, ask your potential collaborators how they would market your product. What would their customer acquisition strategy be to attract leads and push them down the sales funnel until they convert?

• What Problems Does Your Software Solve?

Many SaaS companies are so excited about their software’s groundbreaking features that they forget the main benefit of marketing: it’s not to show what each feature does but how it helps people. Consumers care deeply about their issues and finding solutions. They simply want to make their lives easier by purchasing your services. The biggest marketing firms know how to utilize content marketing to inform clients instead of having salespeople do the talking.

• How Do You Reduce Customer Churn?

The increased cost per acquisition (CAC) for SaaS businesses means that customer loyalty and retention are crucial aspects of your entire existence. People pay a lot of money to subscribe to your service, and they won’t renew if they feel that you are not a good fit. For example, many companies don’t communicate with clients during onboarding. To choose a SaaS marketing agency, you must ensure they know how to use analytics to detect engagement drops, which should prompt you to take action and re-engage them.

• How Do You Increase Customer Acquisition?

A software marketing agency must conduct research to understand which acquisition tactics work best for your ideal buyer persona. Is it free trials and demos or one-on-one meetings with salespeople? They should showcase their solutions using data and analytics, not hypothetical projections. Therefore, you don’t waste your resources and improve your marketing ROI.

• What’s Your Buyer Journey?

How do you identify our target audience’s pain points and locate potential buyers? What types of problems do our buyers have? How can we reach them online and prove to them that we have a solution? These are questions you should ask your SaaS lead generation agency. You may also ask them whether they perform an SEO competitive analysis to highlight keywords your competitors use to rank highly in search engines.

• What’s Your Lead Scoring System?

Full-service SaaS marketing companies have their ways to score leads and identify which ones qualify for both marketing and sales criteria. When their system is effective, they know the right time to call potential buyers and what type of package to offer. For example, it would be a mistake to offer a basic subscription to an enterprise or a more expensive package to small businesses.

eLearning and HR tech marketing success depends on clear communication. Make sure your chosen SaaS agency uses your preferred channels and frequency of communication. You must receive timely updates and know who to contact when you want to ask questions and fix issues. So, you need to know their work schedules and be informed when they are out of the office.

• What’s Your Customer Feedback System Like?

How will your SaaS growth agency know your customers’ perception of you and your product? Review sites, net promoter score (NPS) surveys, in-app chats, and social listening are tools they must have in their arsenal. Once they gather feedback, they must communicate it to you and act swiftly to address it. Create a hypothetical scenario and ask them how they would act to get a sense of their methods.

• What Is Your Approach To A “Rush” Project?

Business growth strategies often run into “rush” projects, which are additional requests that require urgent resolution. This means that your agency will have to shift its priorities to fit you in the schedule. It is quite common, and many business-to-business advertising agencies charge extra fees for these occasions, so you should ask them before hiring them to know what types of fees to expect.

Key Takeaway

Now that you have a better idea of how to choose a SaaS marketing agency, are you ready to start searching? The best content marketing agencies can prove their claims by showcasing exceptional past results, including case studies and testimonials. They can also use their industry expertise to craft ideal, personalized marketing strategies that align with your business and marketing goals. Additionally, they understand clearly how to generate leads for your business. Pricing is the last step for you before you decide which B2B brand marketing agency is your perfect match. But that’s not all. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and put them under the microscope. Just because they have a perfect track record doesn’t mean that they are a match for you.

So, their strategic leadership, scalable services, and efficient tactics will help you with SaaS lead generation. Their expert guidance and marketing techniques will propel you ahead of your competition and prepare you for scaling your business efficiently.

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