With so many SaaS brands getting launched every day, standing out from the crowd can seem almost impossible which is why building brand awareness is important.
Everyone with a few development skills and enough money to buy a domain is launching their own SaaS application – but very few of those apps become widely known beyond the first couple of users.
Even the best apps can get lost in the crowd of useless software without proper brand recognition. However, in order to buy your brand, visitors first need to trust you enough to give you their hard-earned money.
Here are a few ways that your SaaS company can build genuine brand awareness and trust, whether you’ve just launched your MVP or you’ve been in the SaaS game for years.
USE SOCIAL PROOF
If your potential customers have a hard time believing you that you’re the real deal, you may need some external help.
As multiple studies have shown, people are more likely to trust complete strangers over other marketing efforts, and you can use this to your advantage by implementing social proof on your website.
Start with reviews. If you have some happy customers who are willing to share their love for your product, ask them for a review that you can put on your website.
Similarly, you can ask for testimonials, which are essentially long-form reviews. Both of these can do wonders for your conversion rate if you put them in the right place on your website.
Recently, another popular option are notifications which show on your website. These can be notifications about recent conversions, signups for your demo or something different which people may find useful.
For example, a visitor browsing your website gets a notification that someone close by purchased a product in the same category which they were browsing.
Ratings are another excellent way to increase consumer trust. Especially if you sell through Shopify or Amazon.
When you get that desirable five-star rating, not only will it improve conversions, but it will also have an additional effect.
Star ratings show up in Google search results, so when visitors see your link, they are more likely to click-through.
Reviews for SaaS companies hold a lot of weight. Particularly from reputable platforms like Capterra or G2Crowd.
It is worth asking your users to leave a positive review on these websites, but only after they’ve used your app enough to have full insight into its best features.
You can do this by sending out an automated email to your users or power users (especially if you have them segmented by level of activity on your app).
MAKE THE MOST OUT OF MEDIA COVERAGE
Getting your brand mentioned in media is always something to be celebrated.
However, you can get much more out of it than just a link and a few more visitors to your site.
When you score a mention from a well-known publication such as Forbes, Entrepreneur or Hubspot, make it be known.
Display it across your website and social media channels, either through quotes or icons with the logo of the media outlet.
DROP SOME NAMES
Do you have a client that is well known and respected in your industry? Even better, are they well known to the general public?
One of the ways that major SaaS companies make their voice heard is by showcasing the companies they work with. If you’ve done work with Sony or Tesla, for example, you should point this out in a prominent way on your website.
By connecting your brand with well-known and trusted popular brands, you will be able to piggyback off their reputation and earn some for yourself.
LAUNCH A CLOSED BETA PROGRAM
When we started out with crowdy.ai, we didn’t have any customers, any media coverage, no marketing strategy, and no online presence. We had a blank slate and decided to take a risky move – opening up a free beta program for the first 100 users of our app.
Also advertised through paid ads and within our network because many of our partners had some use for a social proof app.
The benefits of the beta program were numerous.
First, the word about our app spread fairly quickly and we soon got lots of visitors and sign-ups to our website.
Second, we got users who quickly benefited from the app and wanted to move on to a paid version.
Third and most importantly, our free beta users had great comments about the app’s functionality.
We learned what was great and what needed improvements.
Simply put, the free beta was one of the best investments made in our product. If you can afford this kind of marketing program, you should give it a go before having a proper launch.
DOING LOTS OF GUEST POSTING
This is one of the oldest tricks in the marketing book but it works flawlessly to this day. By writing guest posts, you are doing two things:
- You’re getting a link back to your site from authoritative websites in your industry
- You are showing your expertise on a specific matter
And the best part is, you can get great results with very little investment.
For example, Buffer was able to grow from 0 to over 100,000 users in a short time, using guest posting as one of their main marketing strategies.
SaaS companies, big or small, are using guest posting to increase their brand awareness and boost their SEO results.
The trick is in knowing whom to pitch and what kind of content to write. Once you know that, the rest is easy.
CONCLUSION
Raising brand awareness is all about your marketing skills, rarely about the quality of your SaaS application.
However, if you have a great app and enough time to pick up on some basic marketing skills, you can take your brand awareness and trust to the next level.
With myself as the CEO and the help of one marketer, we were able to get 100 beta users, more than 50 paid users and over 50 guest posts published in just a few months. It’s that easy – and you can do it too.
About The Author
Carsten Schaefer is the founder and CEO of crowdy.ai, the first Clients-Convert-Clients marketing platform. Inspired by principles and mechanisms of social proof, Carsten is currently on his way to help businesses become trustworthy and thrive in the digital landscape. Feel free to connect him on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.
