Learn B2B SaaS Marketing

What Are The Best B2B SaaS Marketing Channels?

by 

Lauren O'Bryan

Last updated: September 13th, 2024

Determining the best marketing channel for your B2B SaaS depends on your specific business needs and target audience. That said, some marketing channels are better for B2B SaaS than others, yielding the best results for SaaS businesses when it comes to attracting, engaging, and retaining customers.

In this article, we’ll detail the most effective B2B SaaS marketing channels and how to find the best one for your needs, so you can allocate your resources wisely and maximize your return on investment.

Popular B2B SaaS Marketing Channels

In the world of digital marketing, all marketing activities can be broadly categorized as either inbound or outbound, with inbound marketing being especially popular for B2B SaaS companies.

Inbound marketing is designed to attract qualified leads – those who require your product as a solution or already have some awareness about it. This approach includes various channels such as PPC advertising, blogging, and social media content, all of which are cost-effective and excellent for fostering engagement and building brand awareness.

Here are the most popular B2B SaaS marketing channels:

• Paid media marketing: PPC marketing includes both Google Ads and social media platforms. Ad targeting settings enable businesses to enhance lead-generation efforts and engage in retargeting campaigns.
• SEO & content marketing: Using SEO-optimized content like newsletters, blogs, and website content helps businesses establish authority and attract their target audience.
• Email marketing: Email marketing has been around for a while, and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. It’s simple but effective and allows businesses to personalize and target communication to get better customer engagement and conversions.
• Social media marketing: Platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram are crucial for building brand awareness and developing B2B business connections.

Which is the Best Channel?

As we said, what works well for one SaaS may not be the best solution for your SaaS. Finding the best channel for marketing your product requires a comprehensive understanding of your target audience and your competition.

Do Your Research

Develop detailed buyer personas to uncover purchasing motivations and pain points. This will also help you identify the platforms your target audience prefers.

Sales feedback and user surveys are another great way to get information on your customer preferences.

You should also research your competitors to identify the marketing channels that work well for them. This can help you decide whether to compete on the same channels or explore alternatives.

Test and Analyze

Once you’ve identified potential channels, create an ad campaign and use A/B split testing to experiment and test the performance of each channel. The tests will show you which channels yield the best results in terms of lead generation, engagement, and conversion rates.

In addition, analytics tools like Google Analytics or HubSpot will crunch the figures and display valuable metrics on each campaign’s overall cost and conversion potential. Some key metrics to track include cost per lead, customer acquisition cost, conversion rates, and customer lifetime value.

Other Things to Consider Before You Settle on a Channel

Before you decide to invest in a marketing channel, there are a few more things to consider.

• The cost of the channel: During the A/B testing process, you will gather data on the costs of running marketing campaigns on this channel. Even if the channel proves to be very effective, it needs to fit within your budget to be a viable option.
• What audience reach can be achieved with this channel: Testing may indicate this channel is ideal for one segment of your target audience, but not for other segments. Evaluate whether you need multiple channels to reach all segments of your target audience effectively.
• What are the risks: Identify any risks associated with the shortlisted channel and develop proactive strategies to manage those risks. For example, if a significant timeframe is needed to see results, ensure that you accurately forecast and factor this into your budget.
• Will this channel be effective over the long haul: Assess whether this channel will be effective for your product over the long term and whether it will provide good customer lifetime value. Establish a system for regularly revising this so you can reassess and potentially adopt new channels as business requirements change.

Our Recommended PPC Marketing Channels

From our experience with demand generation, there are three front runners for the best PPC marketing channels that provide the best results and ROI – paid ad campaigns on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google Ads.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn Ads is generally the more expensive option, but we find it is also very effective at building connections with your ICP. As a professional networking platform, users are there to connect with companies and individuals of interest, making it excellent for lead magnet downloads and raising awareness. While LinkedIn may not drive direct purchases or product demos, it’s ideal for account-based marketing strategies.

Facebook (Meta)

Facebook Ads is also not the best platform for driving direct purchases, but it’s great for keeping your product in users’ minds, making it ideal for retargeting campaigns. Additionally, Facebook is more cost-effective than LinkedIn for this purpose, offering a good balance between reach and budget.

Google Ads

Google Ads is highly effective for targeting high purchase-intent users and allows for precise ad targeting. However, if you haven’t identified your customer channel fit perfectly, Google Ads can end up being a very expensive option. Therefore, properly identifying your audience is crucial to maximizing the return on investment with Google Ads.

Our Recommended Organic Marketing Channels

Organic marketing channels allow companies to attract and engage their target audience without relying heavily on paid advertising, resulting in more cost-effective and authentic customer relationships. Our recommended channels, which are intrinsically linked and mutually reinforcing, are content marketing and SEO.

Content Marketing

Content marketing covers a broad range of media types, each serving distinct purposes. In the B2B SaaS niche, blog posts, lead magnets, and case studies are particularly effective.

Blog Posts

Blog posts serve as a powerful tool for enhancing online visibility and improving Search Engine Results Page (SERP) rankings. By strategically targeting keywords that potential customers frequently search for, companies can attract high-quality leads with a strong likelihood of conversion. The key lies in focusing on keywords that indicate high buying intent and addressing topics of genuine interest to your target audience.

Moreover, blog posts excel at educating your audience and building brand awareness – two critical factors in fostering long-term customer loyalty. By consistently delivering valuable, informative content, you position your brand as an authority in your field, encouraging trust and repeat engagement from your audience.

Lead Magnets

Building awareness is great, but lead generation and developing a contact list is essential for any effective email marketing strategy. Lead magnets are valuable pieces of content that are attractive to leads but restricted unless contact details are submitted. These can include whitepapers, ebooks, checklists, and assessments. To maximize the effectiveness of lead magnets, they must be coupled with compelling CTAs.

Case Studies

In B2B SaaS, customers heavily rely on evidence of proven success before committing to a product. Case studies offer real-world examples of how your SaaS solution has helped other businesses overcome challenges and achieve tangible results. They are most effective when targeting prospects in the middle and bottom of the sales funnel and can be tailored to different buyer personas. Case studies play a crucial role in building trust, a vital component of the B2B SaaS sales process.

SEO

SEO helps your content get noticed online. Even exceptional content may struggle to rank without proper SEO implementation. We recommend focusing on three key SEO tactics: keyword and topic research, backlink building, and technical optimizations.

Keyword and Topic Research

Keyword and topic research form the foundation of effective content marketing efforts. This process ensures that your keywords align with your audience’s search intent and that your content topics are both useful and in demand. In highly competitive niches, it’s crucial to identify content and keyword gaps – areas where competitors have overlooked opportunities that you can capitalize on.

Backlink Building

Backlinks are crucial for building domain authority and signaling to search engines that your website is a valuable resource worth displaying in top search results. Quality backlinks from reputable, relevant websites not only improve your search rankings but also drive valuable referral traffic to your site. It’s important to focus on the quality of backlinks rather than quantity, as search engines prioritize links from authoritative and relevant sources.

Technical SEO and User Experience

Technical SEO encompasses various tactics, all aimed at improving user experience and making your site more accessible to search engines. Search engines consider factors such as page loading speed, mobile-friendliness, and site structure when determining rankings. By ensuring a low bounce rate and optimizing all technical SEO elements, you’ll significantly increase the chances of your pages ranking highly in search results.

Email Marketing for Lead Nurturing

Email marketing is such a valuable tool for nurturing leads through the sales funnel that it deserves its own section. Email marketing allows you to deliver tailored content to leads at different stages of the funnel. This personalization increases engagement and improves the customer experience.

Email marketing is a versatile tool and can be used for a variety of purposes, including:

• Gradually warming up prospects who are undecided
• Strengthening customer relationships
• Providing personalized content and training materials
• Promoting new features
• Upselling or cross-selling products
• Collecting customer feedback

This tactic also comes jam-packed with functionality like workflow automations, customer segmentation, and data analytics. Analyzing the progress and results of marketing efforts is crucial to overcoming roadblocks and optimizing for success.

Common Challenges Marketers Face with PPC

These are the most common challenges B2B SaaS marketers face when using PPC channels.

Google Ads

There are several mistakes marketers frequently make with Google Ads. A frequent issue is budget overruns due to high competition in the B2B SaaS space, leading to unexpectedly high keyword bidding costs. Because of this, marketers may become frustrated and switch channels prematurely without fully exploring optimization strategies.

A good solution to this problem is to implement in-market and custom segments so your ads target audiences with higher purchasing intent. This refined targeting can reduce Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC) and ROI.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn Ads are notoriously expensive, which can deter marketers despite their proven value for B2B SaaS advertising. When marketers do decide to jump in, they do so very hesitantly, don’t invest enough, and, as a result, don’t get the full potential out of the channel.

Similarly to Google Ads, a key problem lies in poor audience targeting, which is often too narrow or not aligned with the correct stage of the funnel. The solution here is to develop detailed buyer personas and combine this with a clear advertising goal.

Facebook (Meta)

B2B SaaS marketers also run into problems when using Facebook Ads, despite them being more user-friendly than LinkedIn Ads. Typically, they end up relying too heavily on them, spending too much money without reaching the right audience and securing the desired conversions.

Facebook is particularly effective for remarketing, but the main problem comes from underutilizing features like custom audiences, “lookalike audiences”, and audiences based on existing account lists. Leveraging these tools can extend the reach of your budget and improve ROI.

Understanding your customer profile is a big part of developing content that will attract their attention, but you should also know where exactly to target them.

Common Challenges with Organic Marketing

Organic marketing has its own set of challenges that marketers need to navigate. Obstacles exist around the difficulty in connecting revenue with marketing efforts and consistently maintaining high rankings with ever-changing algorithms and content saturation.

Slow Results and Difficulty Measuring Results

One of the most significant challenges in organic marketing is the time it takes to show tangible results (but this doesn’t always have to be the case). Unlike paid advertising, which can generate immediate traffic and leads, organic marketing is a long-term investment that requires patience and persistence. This slow-burn approach can make it difficult to measure results and justify ongoing funding and resources, especially in organizations that prioritize quick wins and immediate returns.

The solution lies in setting clear, long-term goals and utilizing analytics tools to track metrics like organic traffic, lead generation, and conversions.

High Competition and Algorithm Changes

The B2B SaaS sector has become increasingly competitive in the digital space, making it more challenging to dominate organic rankings for high-value keywords or to stand out in content-saturated markets. This intense competition requires continuous optimization and innovation in content creation and SEO strategies.

Furthermore, search engines frequently update their algorithms, which can have significant impacts on hard-won SERP rankings. The solution to this problem is to search for the low-hanging fruit and stay updated on algorithm changes. Diversifying traffic sources and developing a wide network of backlinks will also help to mitigate these risks.

To overcome these challenges with organic marketing, it’s crucial to develop a well-thought-out content strategy. This strategy should be rooted in a deep understanding of your target audience and their needs at different stages of the buyer’s journey.

How We Identify Customer-Channel Fit?

Customer-Channel Fit is like the glue in your marketing strategy. If it doesn’t work, the entire strategy can fail. Over the years, we’ve seen our clients consistently making the same mistakes, such as:

1. Not testing a wide variety of channels
2. Failing to understand the customer journey from interest to conversion
3. Neglecting remarketing efforts
4. Not updating ads periodically

When we work with clients, we focus on aligning journey-offer fit, customer-content fit, and customer-channel fit.

For paid ads channels, we find that Google, LinkedIn, and Facebook are the top choices. That said, each company’s objectives, processes for testing channel fit, and end results are different.

Making Your Marketing Strategy Work

SaaS marketing is a highly competitive area, making it tough to rise to the top and gain visibility. The rising cost of PPC advertising only adds to this difficulty.

Our solution to this is the demand generation flywheel. Incorporating good content marketing is essential to build your demand generation flywheel. Perform a content audit, reviewing all the content you have, and then create an action plan to optimize or remove various pieces.

Some similar pieces of content can be consolidated, while irrelevant content can be removed entirely. More is not always better when it comes to content marketing – quality is key! Then, you can optimize the content you want to keep. When optimizing content, we have some content ground rules to follow:

• Target keywords should be focused on intent, not search volume
• Keep customer pain points at the forefront of all your messaging
• Write from the customer’s perspective and detail how your product will benefit them
• Develop the right content for the right marketing channels
• Ensure all your content provides value and answers the readers’ questions
• Organize your content – consider using the Hub & Spoke Method

The buyer awareness matrix is a great reference to utilize when crafting content for customers at different stages in the marketing funnel and through different channels. This will point you towards suitable types of content that you can test.

What’s Next for Your Marketing Strategy?

If you want more advice on marketing strategy development, we have a ton of marketing strategy tactics and information to guide and support you. Our predictable growth methodology, for example, is specifically designed to increase recurring revenue for demo-based SaaS companies.

This marketing methodology helps avoid the issue of hitting growth ceilings by coordinating various tactics to get the best results. Regardless of the growth stage of your SaaS business, this methodology will help you identify problems and uncover growth opportunities.

Wrapping Up

In summary, selecting the right marketing channel mainly depends on your business growth goals and your target audience. Testing the effectiveness of ad campaigns on different channels is crucial for finding the right fit. You’ll know you’re successful when your marketing efforts are cost-effective and contribute to the growth of your SaaS business.

If you want to understand the current growth potential of your business, try our SaaS scalability score self-assessment. This tool evaluates how well your business attracts, engages, and converts customers. It highlights any gaps or opportunities for improvement and paves the way forward to sustainable growth.