Marketing tactics for your SaaS: how to get the word out

We received some product marketing questions from Nirav
Mehta: 


How to get the word out about your SaaS?

Should you pursue partnerships?

How can you get distribution for your software product?

What marketing channels work best?



Build anticipation before you launch


One big opportunity many folks miss is building up anticipation
before they launch. Examples:


Adam Wathan and Steve Schoger shared design tips on Twitter
and on their blog for 6 months before they released their book,
Refactoring UI.

Derick Reimer allowed people to “Claim their username” for
Level.App before he launched. So far 5,787 people have
registered.

Ben Orenstein talked about Tuple.app, his new product, on
podcasts for months before they launched. 



Build a reputation for being helpful


Adam, Steve, Derrick, and Ben also have something else in
common: they were consistently helpful to their respective
audiences for years before they launched anything.

Being helpful now, in forums, on Twitter, in podcasts, on
your blog, in your mailing list, at conferences, at meetups, in
email, is an investment in your future.

It’s an advantage that can’t be easily copied or replicated.



Bake SEO into everything you do


The most underrated, and often under-pursued, grow strategy
is investing in Search Engine Optimization.

“SEO is the biggest growth lever that you have and it's
something that you should prioritize." - Ryan Hoover, Product
Hunt”

Think about it, when people have a desire to solve a problem,
what do they do? They Google it! If your product
is the answer to people’s question, you want to make sure they
can find it on Google. 



Quick SEO tips: 
Explore what questions are asking on: Answerthepublic.com.Use a
tools like Ahrefs.com on your competitors’ sites! See what keywords
people are using to find their site, and what their most popular
pages are.Make sure you have Google Search Console set up for your
website. They have a new “Performance Report” that will show you
what keywords people are using to find your site, and where you
could rank better.Focus on what matters on each page:Main title -
should feature the focus keywords, preferably at the beginning of
the title.Subheader or first paragraph – expanded description,
should also feature the focus keywords.Alt text in images – alt
text was designed to show text when an image is not loading
properly, or if someone has to use a screen reader. This text is
read by Google as any other content.Meta description – a short,
concise (usually 300 characters or less) description of a webpage,
shown in search results.Keep a document on “blog post title ideas.”
For example, I can see, through all my research, that “podcast
distribution” is a good keyword combination to pursue. So I could
write a blog post with the title: “Podcast distribution made easy -
5 steps.”Write these authoritative guide on a topic. Ben Orenstein
noticed that there weren’t any good pair programming guides, so he
wrote one! http://learntopair.com. These guides typically get
shared a lot, which means you’ll get high quality backlinks to your
site (which is important for SEO).People will also search for
“[competitor name] alternatives.” Those are great keywords to
target.

The big list of marketing channels:



Ads: Facebook Ads, Adwords, LinkedIn ads,
etc. 


Partnerships: finding influencers that have a
similar audience to you, and cross-promoting


SEO: getting backlinks to your landing page
from other sites, and ranking for certain keywords


Content marketing: blogging, infographics,
viral videos


Platform marketing: engaging in Facebook
Groups, on forums, in comments threads


Direct mail: sending your prospects stickers,
postcards, or letters by post


Events: attending tradeshows, conferences, and
meetups and handing out business cards (or other swag) with
your website address



Things to remember:


Marketing doesn't work like a jackpot. You're not going to
hit that "one thing" that works and creates an avalanche of
sales. Instead of "putting it all on black," it'd be better for
you to diversify your marketing investments: you'll get customers
from a variety of channels and tactics

Marketing is a lot like physical fitness. Small gains every
week give you biggest gains in the long term. It's like hitting
the gym once on January 1st and expecting to look like Arnold
Schwartnegger. You've got to do something every week to get good
results overall.

Last: for many of you, marketing is a big, hairy, ugly
problem. And what's the best way to deal with a big overwhelming
problem? Break it into smaller pieces.



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Show notes:


SEO for Hackers – my course on search engine optimization.
join.megamaker.co/seo

SEO for the Rest of Us – a new course by Brendan Hufford

Mastering SEO – a course by Matt G.

Free Keyword Content Planner – Google Sheets

Yoast – if you’re doing SEO on WordPress, you need this
plugin.



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