In the SaaS industry, your most lucrative opportunities will be within your existing client base. The reason for this is that it takes a lot of time and effort to develop trust and brand loyalty. Once a client is familiar with your company and products, they will be more likely to purchase products and services from you again. 

Unfortunately, many SaaS organizations put too much focus and attention on gaining new clients.

Expanding your existing book of business could be a massive missed opportunity. In this article, we’ll focus on how to market your brand towards your existing customers, as well as cover a few benefits of customer marketing. 

And of course, we won’t let you leave without some strategies you can take home to try yourself. 

What Is Customer Marketing?

Customer marketing is a strategy that companies use to target their existing customers instead of spending a lot of energy trying to secure new customers who aren’t familiar with your product or service. Not only does winning new clients take a lot of extra work, it can be very expensive. Research shows that it costs five times more to acquire a new customer than it does to market to an existing customer. 

Firms engaging in customer marketing look to find ways to provide additional value, promote customer interaction and engagement, and encourage them to act as spokesperson for your company to their peers and colleagues. 

What Are The Benefits Of Targeting Existing Customers?   

There’s four primary benefits of targeting your existing clientele base with customer marketing. Each helps inform the other with more insights while also increasing the value of your existing customer base. 

1. Customer Retention

It’s a lot easier to keep selling to the same customer over and over. By retaining customers, your sales team won’t have to work as hard to secure revenue for the company. A study by Bain & Company found that improving customer retention by just 5 percent can increase profits by 25 to 95 percent.

2. Long Term Profitability

It’s critical that you get a return on your investment when securing clients. The longer they do business with your company, the better the return over the length of the relationship.

3. Brand Ambassadorship

The more interaction a customer has with your company, the more likely they are to recommend you to others. Prospective customers who come with a referral are much easier to sell products to.

4. Customer Feedback

Long-term customers have a desire to see their favorite company or brand be successful. For this reason, they are more likely to share ideas and feedback to improve the service or product. This feedback is important as you grow and evolve your product offerings.

10 Effective Strategies For SaaS Customer Marketing

Launching a successful customer marketing campaign is easy if you understand the basic principles to make it successful. There are several key things that companies need to focus on to get the most out of their customer marketing strategy. Here are some of the most effective ways to build strong relationships with your existing customers and expand the value that you both bring to the relationship. 

Show Customer Appreciation Through Engagement 

The relationship with your customers doesn’t end when you complete the initial sale. Customers expect to be regularly engaged and shown that they are appreciated. If a customer comments on your social media platforms, use that opportunity to engage with them. Thank them for using your product or ask them to share what they like about your services. This will helps show them that you value your relationship. 

Reward Your Existing Customers

Show your existing customers that you appreciate them by bringing them unexpected freebies and value. You can do this through coupons or promo codes that are not available to new customers. You can also reward them with free products or services for providing something in return, such as participating in a product focus group or survey.  

We know more than most when it comes to focusing in on the right customers and existing them for brand loyalty. By pivoting our own strategy away from dumping money into platform driven campaigns and focusing on paying our prospects instead, we saw some dramatic increases in performance and – what’s more important – actual growth. 

Keep Up the Enthusiasm and Service

Getting a new customer is exciting. Companies go out of their way to make them feel special. Make sure that this enthusiasm isn’t just reserved for new customers. Existing customers should get the same level of service and passion through every phase of the relationship. This will let them know that you care even when you have completed the sale. 

Promote Customer Success Stories

Highlighting the value that you have brought to your customers is a great way to show off your company’s value. Encourage your existing customers to write reviews, participate in case studies, or agree to be interviewed. This not only helps keep them engaged, but it generates relatively inexpensive marketing material that can be used across your website and social media platforms. 

Focus on Providing Value

Customers do business with a company because they get more value out of the product or service than they pay for it. Always think of new ways that you can continue to bring them value beyond the initial purchase. For example, you could create a mailing list that delivers important industry and product information right to their inbox. Simply creating new offers or deals can keep them buying from your company. 

If your’e interested in learning more about how to provide value to the prospects instead of the customers, you may want to check out Customer Generation as well.

Free Trials on New SaaS Products

If you are in the process of developing a new product, you might give existing customers access for free for a limited time. By treating them as a VIP and giving them special, early access, it shows that you value the relationship. It can also be a great way to gather early feedback from customers who are already familiar with your company. 

Streamline the Sign-Up and Renewal Process

Customers shouldn’t have to do a lot of work to do business with you. If the process to sign-up or renew their existing service is cumbersome, they might walk away and find a competitor that is easier to work with. 

Eliminate Confusing Calls-to-Action (CTA)

A call to action (CTA) is your way of instructing the customer what you expect them to do such as signing up for a newsletter, participating in a survey, or buying a product. Don’t assume that they know what the next step should be. By making it crystal clear, they will be more likely to follow through and continue to the next step of the sales process. 

Leverage Strong SEO

SaaS marketing relies heavily on getting a steady flow of organic traffic to your website. Having a strong SEO strategy and using the right keywords can have significant impacts on the type and quality of potential customers you attract. Too many brands use ineffective practices like “keyword stuffing”. Instead, focus on having high-quality keywords and high-authority links to help your site rank better. 

It’s time to move beyond keyword driven SEO strategies towards a more customer-led approach to organic search optimization. 

Sponsored Social Media Campaigns

Social media platforms are masters at gathering data from their users to improve their algorithms. By running sponsored campaigns, you can leverage this algorithm to help target the right audience for your product. In addition to driving high-quality traffic to your social media pages, these campaigns are relatively inexpensive. 

Final Thoughts

SaaS companies that put more focus on growing their existing customer base will have a significant advantage over their competitors. With a little bit of concentrated effort, you can start realizing the benefits of this approach almost immediately. You don’t have to deploy all of these strategies at once. In the beginning, you might choose to focus on just a few at a time. Also, each company may have a unique group of customers. Feel free to adjust any of these strategies to tailor them to your specific needs.