Let’s face it…Finding new customers for your SaaS isn’t the easiest job in the world. There are always better ways to find customers. So stop doing it the hard way!

But don’t sweat it.

The rewards of succeeding at it will be worth the chase.

On this post I’ll share several marketing strategies that will help your SaaS find a steady stream of new customers from LinkedIn of all places.

Let me ask you this first though:

How many of your current SaaS customers have come in from your company’s efforts on LinkedIn?

If you’re like most SaaS companies we provide payment gateways to the answer is minimal at best.

There are a number of reasons your SaaS business should be firmly rooted on LinkedIn and I’m going to share them all with you.

But wouldn’t you like to:

• Attract new business clients/create a consistent flow of inbound leads
• Accelerate market opportunities
• Develop longer client life cycles
• Create a targeted tribe of online communities
• Maintain awareness about your brand
• Establish top-of-the line social media strategies

Here are a few facts that will backup why LinkedIn can be the ultimate SaaS proving ground:

1. LinkedIn has over 364 million users.
2. Every second, two users join.
3. LinkedIn is visited, each month, by over 42 million mobile users. This number is increasing yearly.
4. LinkedIn has a personal marketing goal to attract three billion users. They’re continually upgrading services to attract the business-minded people.
5. LinkedIn connections, for the typical user, average 930.
6. Male users comprise 56 percent of the total LinkedIn population.
7. Forty-one percent of known millionaires use LinkedIn.

Find Business Partners, Clients and Service Providers

LinkedIn provides the perfect platform to build your client network.

A simple search, using the right keywords, can help you find thousands of service providers, industry experts, and potential clients.

If you’re not on a potential client’s contact list, you can request an introduction through a mutual contact. Or, you can choose to send them an introductory email.

LinkedIn is constantly evolving and making it easier for professionals to find each other.

You can attract new clients by fielding questions to your network and the larger LinkedIn community.

If you include a blog and write authoritative articles, you’re sure to eventually stand out as being the expert in the field of SaaS.

Attracting the Right Audience for Your SaaS Business

A major thrust for SaaS companies is to provide the software solutions that companies need and will value.

However, it’s a moot attempt if an SaaS company has problems getting their software in front of the right pair of eyes.

Luckily for SaaS companies, there are a number of proven ways to help potential clients discover their products and services quickly and effectively.

LinkedIn has the audience you’re interested in.

Back to the Basics

If you’re an SaaS solutions provider, performing the right research is your key to success.

LinkedIn is an excellent customer-recruiting tool, but you’ll need to have a stellar understanding of what will make LinkedIn work for your company.

Performing keyword research is essential if potential customers who are searching the Internet will find you.

Keyword research is still one of the most important elements of search engine optimization (SEO). Google estimates there are over 100 billion search queries every month, and this figure doesn’t include other search engines like Yahoo and Bing.

With respect to unlimited competition, your website’s pages must be optimized and organized for the actual “keywords” that people will use to find your type of service or product.

If you can’t be found, you could be losing a ton of business.

Then, those pages should be linked to your LinkedIn profile and pages.

The same keyword research that applies to your website applies to LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a huge database of information. The right keywords are relevant for LinkedIn prospects to find your articles and your business profile.

Persona Centric Content Gives Your Company Leverage

Reiterating the fact that you’ll be up against a world of competition, even on LinkedIn, you’ll need to do everything possible to keep your customers engaged through the entire sales funnel process.

Persona-centric content can be created for blogs, e-books, whitepapers, webinars, and news releases etc.

It’s all about lead-nurturing and retaining those clients once they’ve made a commitment to try your service. You might also think of it as content that will help retain your clients during the first 90 days of their trial service.

Social Media Is an Effective Tool for SaaS Marketing

Social media is here to stay, and while the topic is about leveraging LinkedIn, it will help your SaaS company if you can link all of your social media venues across every channel.

Make an excellent effort to target and reach your customers on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and even Pinterest. Your goal is to continually boost customer acquisition at every opportunity throughout the year.

Pay Closer Attention to the Customer Acquisition Process

The process you’ve put in place to find and retain your customers is supposed to work. SaaS customers are known for expecting free trial offers without having to commit to a contract.

In the SaaS universe, new clients are everything.

In reality, those clients should be initially groomed to make them loyal candidates. So, setting the right expectations for clients, up front, will more easily separate the loyal clients from those who are simply shopping from one SaaS provider to the next.

The initial three-month stage, and well and focused communications on social media venues like LinkedIn, can influence customer decisions to remain with your program beyond the trial period.

So, there are a number of things you should pay close attention to:

1.  Monitor your LinkedIn presence. Your website should be engaging, and this hold true for wherever you can be found on the Internet. On LinkedIn, your profile and Page should reflect the face of your company. The longer you can engage a prospect, the better your chances of funneling their interest into an SaaS business opportunity. LinkedIn analytics can provide the metrics for tracking trends, engagement, and overall visitor traffic. Make it a point to know everything you can about visitor demographics, such as title, industry, and company size, etc.
2. Engage your customers or someone else will. Invite your LinkedIn prospects to chats and webinars. The more you engage potential customers, the greater their chances of become active customers.
3. Become the authority and let people get to know you. Linkedin provides the perfect opportunity for you to write authoritative articles. It’s all about providing relevant and useful content. Ask other authorities to join in on the conversation. By all means, respond to those who post on your article, even if it doesn’t appear to be as positive as you would like. Responding is a common courtesy, and you’ll be respected as a result. Your articles can make a compelling case as to why you’re the SaaS provider that can solve their problems. You should also consider the power of LinkedIn recommendations. People listen to what others have to say about companies and individuals.  A recommendation is like free word-of-mouth advertising.
   Satisfied and happy customers can make an extremely convincing case why others should try your service.
4. Spend time getting to know your customers. Your prospects are going to do research on you, and you should return the favor. It’s recommended that you spend quality time and planning in this area. Get to know everything you can through their website/s, customer communities online, and case studies that apply. Naturally, the more familiar you are with their business, the better your chances of matching your company’s SaaS solutions with their company’s needs. You’ll even have a better understanding of who they’re competitors are and what they’re all about. Solid research allows you to get professionally close to your customers.Researching your customers on LinkedIn can also reveal who they’re connect to.
5. Help your customers make the purchasing decision. LinkedIn gives you the platform to properly qualify SaaS customers. Essentially, LinkedIn gives you everything you need to help them set the right expectations of what your SaaS solutions will provide, and what they will cost.
   You can supplement your LinkedIn content with videos, demos, and infographics. Experiment with sales cycles and trial offers.

   Get you customer to open up about what’s working for them.

6. Continually sell to your customers. A big mistake that a number of SaaS providers make is not following up after the initial sale. LinkedIn is the perfect solution for providing tutorials and additional information that customers need to fully utilize their solution. There’s always the possibility too, that questions posted on LinkedIn will be answered by happy customers who’ll enjoy the dialogue.
7. Make it a point to define intermediate milestones while continuing to demonstrate the value of your product. SaaS take a while to turn a profit on any given customer. This is why it’s so important to keep them engaged to retain their business for the long haul.
   It goes without saying that angry and abandoned customers are not customers that you can upsell.
8. Stress your SaaS product’s value, over its cost. There are a number of marketing and sales mistakes that can lead to high SaaS churn. They include selling the product that shouldn’t be sold to them in the first place. Review the paragraphs on qualifying your prospects. Selling to the wrong customer is poison for your business. When you do advance the cost, make sure your customer has a thorough understanding of all the elements involved. Over promising is another area where there’s a quicksand sign posted. The worst thing you can do is promise something today, and continue to sell the same promise three months later. Yes, you’re constantly improving your product as you should be. Just don’t sell a future version of your product and hope your customer will stick around long enough to experience and realize its value.
   
   
   Damage your customer’s trust and they’ll never trust you again. Your product can be the most perfect solution in the world, but there will be nothing you can do to regain their trust.  Kiss their business goodbye and hope their story doesn’t go viral.
9. Don’t let customers cancel without a follow up. You’re not going to be able to retain the business of everyone. People move on for various reasons, and not all of them are negative ones. The natural assumption is that people have moved on because they’ve realized the product isn’t a good fit. There could be other reasons, like the product is a great fit and they’re not using it properly. They could also be wanting to cancel because your products don’t have a feature that they need. On the other hand, you could be working on it, but they’re just not aware a new product is on the way. It could be an internal problem with your company. Maybe a new VP would rather sell a product he or she is more familiar with.

Marketing with LinkedIn provides an economy of opportunities to grow your SaaS business. It’s the hub of choice for business professionals. If you’re not presently using LinkedIn, there’s no shortage of material that can quickly bring you up to speed.