B2B SaaS Growth Hacking Strategies To Scale Up Quickly

Growing a B2B SaaS business is not as rosy as it looks from the outside. The path to success is filled with an overgrown, thorny landscape, a la Sleeping Beauty. There are many challenges, one of which is generating enough leads to ensure sustainable growth and a healthy annual recurring revenue (ARR).

While the future is bright for the SaaS industry, your success is not automatic. You need to leverage B2B SaaS growth marketing strategies to help you scale quickly. Failure to do that will result in your product being one of the many in the graveyard of failed startups.

(BTW – if you’re a founder/CEO looking to work through your fear of failing, we’ve got you covered).

What Is Growth Hacking?

Growth hacking is a term bandied around a lot when discussing growing a B2B SaaS business.  

But what exactly is it? (Are hackers involved!? Answer — no.)

Growth hacking is a term that digital marketing guru Sean Ellis coined. It means using resource-light yet cost-effective digital marketing strategies to help a B2B business raise brand awareness, acquire customers, and sell its products. (Check out who we think the top growth marketing agencies are.)

Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown define growth hacking in their book “Hacking Growth” as “a rigorous approach to fueling rapid market growth through high-speed, cross-functional experimentation.”

Here are the core elements of growth hacking they talk about: 

• Growth parameters focused on a very short period of time for quick results 
• Combining marketing and technical teams (such as analytics) to develop high-speed growth strategies
• Aggressive metric goals and rigorous testing 

Popular belief says that these hacks can only help startups acquire customers and not retain them; however, Ellis and Brown highlight in their book that they’ve used growth hacking for not only customer acquisition but also retention and monetization. 

So, are there any specific growth hacks one can follow? Not really. While there aren’t any specific methods that fall under growth hacking, any “one” tactic that leads to hitting aggressive revenue growth is considered to belong to the category of marketing. In short, as Ellis says, “A growth hacker is a person whose true north is growth.” And they achieve this by focusing only on one metric and putting full-force efforts into that ONE direction. 

First used in 2010, “growth hacking” got its start as little more than a buzzword, talked about in hushed tones around agency water coolers. Not many understood what it was, and fewer knew how to implement it, but it sounded pretty slick when incorporated into a pitch deck. 

Today, growth hacking is a tested and proven methodology that, when executed correctly, results in rapid growth at minimal cost. The core tenants of growth hacking include experimentation, analysis, and repetition, with the end goal of finding tactics that are quick to implement, easily replicable, cost-effective, and scalable. Growth hacking is a perfect fit for SaaS brands that want to quickly grow acquisitions, activate customers, and retain them throughout their lifecycle.

It’s a pretty simple equation:

Looks good on paper, right? But is it attainable? Look, we’re not math whizzes, but we’ve seen the impact growth hacking can have on brands that implement the techniques and strategies we’ve outlined here. And you don’t need a scientific calculator to tell you that spending less to earn more is just good sense.

However, to harness the power of growth marketing and make it work for your SaaS brand, you might have to change your mindset. The way you’ve approached the marketing funnel and your buyer personas isn’t always compatible with the highest-performing hacks.

In a survey of blog posts on growth, the data shows that marketers focus a vast majority of their efforts on customer acquisition. But see that tiny little 10 percent sliver on monetization? That’s where growth happens, and that’s where you’ll find the results you’re looking for. To successfully use growth hacking for your SaaS brand, you need to focus more on the outcome and less on casting the widest net. Why? Because retention and monetization, as indicated in the survey, can double, triple, or quadruple your results.

The main purpose of growth hacking is to help businesses scale fast while maintaining lean marketing budgets. After all, most SaaS startups are bootstrapped and while marketing is an integral part of business growth, most resources are spent on product development and ensuring a satisfactory product is shipped to the customers.

Does Growth Hacking Work for SaaS Companies?

The short answer is, yes. 

The long answer is, yes, but…

You have to shift your way of thinking about traditional marketing. 

You have to be willing to innovate, experiment, and sometimes, fail.

You have to be ready to experience the kind of growth that will propel your brand to the top of the pack.

Sound good? If so, you’re ready to enter the world of growth hacking. Buckle up, because it’s a wild ride. 

Growth hacking works well for SaaS companies, because you already know you have a limited audience who need, want, and can benefit from your product. Acquisition is important, but you can’t force consumers outside your audience parameters to buy a service they don’t need. What you can do is shift your focus to retaining and monetizing the buyers who do fit the mold. 

SaaS companies are well-positioned to embrace the key phases of growth hacking, including:

• Limited Acquisition: Narrow your focus to one to two buyer personas, and stop wasting time and money on those who fall outside the parameters you set.
• Heightened Activation: Use freemiums and trials to get those users to try (and fall in love with) your product.
• Aggressive Retention: Build relationships with your users to increase loyalty and keep them coming back for more.
• Scalable Monetization: Varying service level packages, upgrades, and add-ons ensure your users can grow…and so can your bottom line.
• Rewarding Referrals: You don’t want your customers to tell one person about your product; you want them to tell three or four. They tell three or four others, and the cycle continues. This is how you make growth hacking sustainable and turn your revenue stream into a surging river. 

Parallels Between Growth Hacking and Growth Marketing 

There are some similarities between the two and we can’t deny that to a great extent both strategies work; it’s just about which piece of the pie suits your brand better. We’ll draw some parallels to help you understand the similarities:

1. Product: Whichever strategy you choose, both need to have great product backing. People don’t buy from people they don’t know. So, the better the product, the easier the acquisition. 
2. Revenue: Whether it’s the immediate goal or the end goal, revenue has quite a bit of a share in any kind of marketing strategy, and for good reason. 
3. Data-driven Strategy: Both follow a data-driven approach where they use data and analytics to derive insights and draw consistent, useful conclusions. 

 

Growth Marketing vs. Growth Hacking 

Now the distinction!

Ever thought of Steve Jobs and said, “Hmm, what a great growth hacker?” Probably not! He is known for many things, but being a growth hacker isn’t one of them. 

Ever heard of Instagram? (We’d be worried if you hadn’t!) Previously known as “Burbn,” Instagram’s founders incorporated growth hacking to tweak their product, which was previously focused on too many editing options. They converted it to a simple app for sharing photos with easy editing, commenting, and liking options and had 25K downloads within a day! 

While both have their own wins and losses, growth marketing and growth hacking are distinct in many ways. 

1. Rapid Growth vs. Sustainable Growth

Growth marketing quite easily promotes sustainable growth with the usage of long-term growth strategy, clear metrics that you usually say godspeed to, and revenue and customer retention as end goals. 

With growth hacking, even though the end goal is revenue, it’s all about rapid customer acquisition. If we look at the growth strategy adopted by Dropbox initially, it’s more aligned with growth hacking than growth marketing — with a mix of scarcity and referral. The essence of the messaging behind their hack was basically: “Come hang out, but only if you get invited” and also, “We won’t be hanging out tomorrow.” This resulted in a sign-up growth of over 600 percent and their beta launch waiting list had around 75K sign-ups.

Source

2. Approaching Data

If there’s anything growth hackers get right, it’s the usage of customer data. Starting from building/buying intelligent tools that give them more than a sneak peek into user data to deploying data insights into customer acquisition, a growth hacker’s mindset is quite analytical. Growth marketing, on the other hand, fosters long-lasting relationships with their customers over a period of time while gradually understanding their customers’ needs and wants. That’s where most legacy brands who have built a reputation in the market for their products and services will come into play. 

A growth hacker might be considered the data master, but it’s the growth marketer who knows how to drive long-term growth using these insights. 

3. Approaching Technology and People 

We learned that growth hacking leans more towards making use of every bit of new technology to extract large-scale but quick outcomes. This might put growth hackers into a very versatile and dynamic bucket of those who constantly want to test out the tools and technology that could benefit them.

Growth marketers, on the other hand, think people are their most valuable assets and are the main drivers behind their brand’s growth. They’re looking for the next target audience to explore, the next industry vertical to expand into, and the next customer testimonial to gain insights from to better understand how they can position themselves in the emerging markets. 

How Is Growth Hacking Different From Other Forms of B2B Marketing?

When trying to grow your SaaS business, you’ll come across two types of marketing to help you — growth hacking and traditional B2B marketing.

Is there even any difference?

Growth hacking is very different from traditional marketing methods in several ways. Here are a few prominent ones:

Channels

Traditional marketing heavily relies on traditional marketing channels, while growth hacking always looks for innovative ways of reaching the right target audience.

Budgets

Most traditional marketing strategies are allocated a healthy portion of the brand’s budget. However, with growth hacking, it’s all about achieving marketing goals on a lean budget.

Tradition vs. Innovation

Growth hacking and traditional marketing are as polar as tradition and innovation. That’s because traditional marketing follows a rigid structure of how to get results. Growth hacking focuses more on new, innovative methods of driving business growth. Growth hacking is about breaking out of the box and exploring new ways of effectively and efficiently achieving results.

What To Do Before You Start

Like all marketing tactics, growth hacking also requires that you approach it strategically. You must lay a foundation for success. Here are a few foundational factors you must have in place for successful B2B SaaS growth hacking:

Know Who Your Ideal Customer Is

The first step to effective growth hacking is knowing who your ideal customer is. (Really, the first step to doing anything in business is knowing who your buyer is.) This is a crucial step as growth hacking is all about making the most of limited resources. Knowing your ideal customer will help you focus all your resources only on a target audience that is more likely to convert.

So, before you launch your growth hacking campaign, make sure to conduct in-depth research of your ideal customer. A few factors to consider here include: 

• Demographic data.
• Psychographic data.
• Firmographic data.

Once you have this data, use it to build a profile of your ideal customer. This will help you better understand who you are targeting. It also helps you know how to reach them and how to craft the perfect messaging.

Top five growth hacking benefits for SaaS companies

More money and more time — what’s not to love? And while those are the primary benefits of growth hacking for SaaS companies, there are certainly others. Here, we’ve listed the top five benefits your SaaS company can expect to see when you invest in growth hacking.

1. A healthy business. Revenue is a key indicator of business health, and when you’re able to quickly and sustainably build your bottom line, your company will thrive.
2. The gift of time. While you will be investing time on the front end to test and experiment with growth hacks to find what works best for you, the key to successful growth hacking is repetition. Growth hacks aren’t one-trick ponies; the right hacks can be used over and over again, giving you time back in your day to focus on other aspects of your business.
3. Better allocation of resources. With more money coming in and more time freed up, you’ll be able to channel hours and dollars to other areas of the business.
4. Custom hacks tailored to you. Growth hacking isn’t one-size-fits-all. And while that may mean more testing and experimenting on the front end, it will also result in a strategy that’s designed to meet your brand’s specific needs.

Stronger data. The best use of growth hacking will not only increase your sales, it will also give you valuable data insights on your customers that you can leverage to improve the quality of your products, grow retention, and reach a wider audience.

Does the 80/20 Rule apply to saas growth? Let’s discuss.

Okay, we know we said we weren’t mathematicians, but bear with us because we’re about to bust out some ratios. You’ve probably heard of the 80/20 Rule, otherwise known as the Pareto Principle, in which 20 percent of your effort leads to 80 percent of your results. So, let’s say you spend 80 percent of your day in meetings or managing administrative tasks. That’s not moving the needle on your SaaS brand. What is moving it is the 20 percent of your day you spend implementing and testing new growth hacks. So what if you could cut down on all the clutter that doesn’t drive results, and move up the ratio of time you spend focused on generating revenue? Your 80 percent results just increased to 90 percent. Or 100 percent. Or more. 

Salesforce does a great job of detailing the intricacies of the 80/20 Rule and how you can shift the ratio to increase productivity and maximize return. 

The way to improve your ratios, and subsequently, your revenue, is to bust out the (metaphorical) machete and start hacking away at the 80 percent of effort you’re putting into just 20 percent of results. Our tip: be ruthless. Those meetings that could have been an email? They’re the first to go. That obsession with clearing your inbox? Let an assistant or an intern take care of it. 

Take a look at this graph and ask yourself: what quadrant are you living in?

You start in the top left corner, where you’re spending a lot of time with very little to show for it. That’s where you start slashing the debris and clearing a path. You move into the lower left quadrant, devoting your time to experimenting with growth hacks that fit your SaaS brand. No major results yet, but you can move through the testing process quickly. Next up is the upper right corner. You’ve found the hacks that work, and you’re developing systems to put them in place. You’re starting to see results, but it still takes time. The lower right corner is your ultimate goal: repetition. Low time investment and high results — peak growth hacking.

If you aren’t there yet, don’t stress it. We’ve got 25 growth hacks you can start experimenting with now to work toward your ultimate goal: Lower Costs + Less Time = Exponential Growth.

The 20 Percent You Need to Focus On: 25 SaaS Growth Hacks That Will Help You Scale Quickly

Do a quick search for “growth hacks.” Go on, we’ll wait. What did you find? Probably a bunch of shouty headlines along the lines of “100+ Growth Hacks That Will Make You Rich, Shame Your Enemies, and Cure Sick Puppies!” We’ve read them, too, and while there are countless quirky, unique, and interesting growth hacks you can test out, these mega-lists aren’t tailored to SaaS companies and their specific needs. That’s why we’ve put together a pared-down but even more impactful list of the hacks you can get started with right away.

#1: Improve Your Reach By Embracing Digital PR

Traditional press releases are tired. Even worse, they don’t get the kind of return you need in relation to the time and effort you spend crafting them and distributing them to media outlets. 

If you haven’t digitized your PR strategy, now is the time to start. Digital PR gets you more — more coverage, more backlinks, more leads, and yes, more revenue.

Ultimately, digital PR helps you build your SaaS brand. And if you aren’t doing it already, it’s a great growth hack to start with. 

#2: Partner with Influencers to Spread the Word

One key element of growth hacking for SaaS companies is reaching a shared audience. You know you aren’t the only one talking to your target, so start finding out who else has their ear. Who do they look to for advice for insight on the type of services you provide? Whose opinions matter the most? Those are your influencers.

However, reaching influencers can be tough, depending on your industry. A form letter isn’t going to cut it. Don’t sweat it, though, because there are two quick, easy ways to win over influencers:

• Follow, follow, follow. Every influencer loves a good follow. And when you jump on their social bandwagon, you’ll get authentic insights into the topics that matter to them…and to your audience.
• Engage, engage, engage. What do influencers like more than a follow? A like. Better yet, a comment. It’s free and it’s fast, and it’s the best way to build relationships with influencers you can leverage down the road.
  

#3: Hire an Email Marketing Expert to Grow Your Email List

We’ve got a lot of DIY tips on this list, but there are times you just have to ask for help. Putting together an email list is one of those times. As we’ve mentioned, while acquisition is important to growth hacking, it’s not about casting the widest net. The longest email list does not equal the best.

Instead, you need an email expert who can check your list for duplication, weed out worthless addresses, and rebuild a list based on your narrow, targeted buyer persona. These are the ones you want to target, so you’ll see increased open rates, click-throughs, and eventually, conversions.

#4: Leverage Quora and Reddit to Drive Targeted Traffic

Your audience likes to talk. You just have to find out where they’re having the conversation, and make sure what you contribute has value. On Quora, that means answering questions that are relevant to the services you offer. Search Quora using your top keywords to find conversations and opportunities to provide the answers your audience needs (while subtly directing them to the solutions you can offer).

On Reddit, you’ll also want to search your top keywords to find relevant Subreddits you can join. Remember to abide by all the rules and get cozy with the moderators (it helps, trust us). If you’ve got some killer content you can share, post it (make sure there’s a backlink to your site in it). Just remember not to ghost others in the Subreddit. Come back and check the comments so you can offer a swift answer to their questions.

#5: Get Your Brand Listed on Startup Directories

Consumers are savvy these days, and while many are eager to support startups and SaaS companies like yours, they aren’t too keen on doing so without validating the company’s legitimacy, reading reviews, and making an informed decision. Listing your company on one (or many) of these startup directories is a great way to get your brand out there and bring your audience to you. Just remember that it’s a best practice to make your reviews visible so potential customers know they’re getting a credible, vetted, and quality service.

#6: Stay Active on Product Hunt

Product Hunt is, to some marketers and founders, a graveyard of failed tech and struggling startups. But if you use it correctly, it can be a goldmine of acquisitions and engaged users. The fatal error many brands face is just after the initial launch. They collect subscriber information, build a list, send a generic thank you…and then disappear.

To improve your Product Hunt rankings, you have to build a community. Some of that happens on Product Hunt, but much of it happens elsewhere. Your Product Hunt strategy needs to tie into your social strategy, your content strategy, your email strategy, and…well, you get the idea.

You can’t expect users to upvote a product they’ve never used before, so you’ll need a team of beta testers willing to share their experience to maximize impact. You’ll also need a plan to continue engaging with new subscribers, whether that’s an email nurture campaign, instant messages, or interacting on social groups. The key is sticking around and maintaining your presence after launch.

#7: Use FAQs to Answer the Questions Your Customers are Asking

There’s been some debate recently on the efficacy of FAQs. Do people really read them? Do they have an impact? Is anybody even listening??

The answer is, yes. FAQs are vital to improving search rankings, and most of the time, they lead visitors deeper into your web content, coaxing them through the funnel organically. 

Think FAQs can’t be sexy? Think again. Big brands are revamping their FAQs with user intent and experience in mind, with big results. Besides, who among us hasn’t had to ask for the umpteenth time when McDonald’s stops serving breakfast?

#8: Create High-Quality, Long-Form Content to Attract Backlinks and Build Authority

Wondering if less is more when it comes to your content? It can be, if we’re talking a lot less (think Tweets). But these days, long-form content is where it’s at. Generally speaking, long-form content is anything over 800 words, but it may vary by industry. For some SaaS brands, long-form content may be 1,800+ words. What we do know is that content length exists on a curve (called the Quartz Curve), with the bottom performers falling into what used to be thought of as the “ideal” blog length: 500–800 words.

As you can see, most brands need to start thinking outside the curve. Micro-content can be effective, but so too can long-form content. In fact, articles around 2,500 words get more organic traffic, backlinks, and shares. Convinced? You should be. After all, you’re literally reading long-form content as we speak.

#9: Ensure Your SaaS Product Integrates with the Most Popular Apps

Integration is a pretty hot topic among SaaS and tech companies these days. That’s because users want products that simplify their lives, not add hassle and headaches to it. Integration happens through APIs that link your service or app to other cloud-based apps or on-premise software systems. Why are so many users looking for integration capability?

• It saves time. When they can interact with your service through an app or software system they’re already familiar with, they’re more likely to use it.
• It improves user experience. Happy users are repeat users, and integration is a happy-maker. It creates ease of use and contributes to overall positive feelings about their interaction with your service.
• It makes data sharing easy. Toggling from one app to another to find the info you need is tedious, and users will quickly find another way to track down their data through another integrated option. 
  

#10: Embrace Referral Marketing

Word-of-mouth marketing is older than the hills, but it’s still one of the most effective ways for SaaS brands to achieve accelerated growth. However, the way referrals are encouraged and managed has changed over the years, with two-way referrals now becoming the preferred method. 

Referral marketing tackles all three goals of growth hacking: acquisition, retention, and monetization, but remember that your referral methods should always include:

• Exclusive value the user can’t get anywhere else or by taking any other action
• Incentives to continue sharing past a 1:1 ratio
• Reciprocal benefits for the referrer and the referee
• Pre-packaged invitations that are easy to share across social media platforms
  

#11: Create a Competitor Comparison Page to Rank for Alternative Keywords

A competitor comparison page is a great way to show what sets your SaaS brand apart from the crowd, but it has other benefits, too. Not only does it differentiate your brand, but it can also help improve search rankings and improve rankings for alternative keywords that have to do with your competitors’ services. 

This is just one example of a robust competitor comparison page, but the possibilities are endless. You could opt for an all-in-one landing page, like this, or create separate landing pages for each competitor to reap the SEO rewards. Ultimately, you want your comparison page to be easy to read, with accurate information that highlights the ways your brand shines.

#12: Optimize Your Abandoned Cart Email Sequence to Increase Sales

For many online businesses, the abandoned cart rate hovers close to 70 percent. Your aim should be to keep your rate below this, by nurturing skittish customers to bring them back into the fold. But why do so many shoppers abandon their cart?

The numbers all boil down to a few key issues: lack of transparency, lack of trust, and demand for too much up-front information. Most of these problems can be remedied proactively, but if you still find customers jumping ship at the 11th hour, you need a strategy in place to woo them back. 

Studies show that abandoned cart emails have a much higher open rate and click-thru rate than other marketing emails. Here are the key elements you need to have to ensure your abandoned cart emails convert to sales:

• Appealing design: Animation, GIFs, and engaging visuals invite clicks.
• Personalization: Go beyond “Hello, First Name!” Make sure personalization includes the products they were looking at, reviews and ratings, and other products or services they might be interested in.
• Strong CTAs: Get those puppies above the fold! Higher CTAs get more clicks. Be sure to repeat them throughout the email.
  

#13: Offer a Smooth and Frictionless Onboarding Process

Customer onboarding is crucial to SaaS companies. No matter how steep your product’s learning curve, you want the onboarding process to be as painless as possible so your customers (especially those coming in on a free trial) will want to stick around.

Some of the best practices for SaaS customer onboarding include:

• Offer live chat to answer questions in the moment.
• Provide video tutorials and detailed product walk-throughs.
• Send personalized messages and updates that coincide with each stage of onboarding.
• Design simple data collection forms to gather information that can be integrated seamlessly in the onboarding experience.

#14: Use Live Chat to Strike Up a Conversation with Customers

Live chat is useful for more than just customer onboarding. It should be available to users at any point in their interaction with your brand. Why is it so important? Because it increases customer satisfaction far beyond that of email or other forms of communication.

The key to leveraging the power of live chat is to ensure a speedy response time. The average live chat response time to maintain satisfaction is 2 minutes and 40 seconds…but faster is better. 

Surprisingly, only 14 percent of B2B SaaS companies make use of live chat. But that means there’s a major opportunity for your brand to step up.

#15: Hire an Expert to Manage Your Cold Outreach

We get it — no one likes going in cold. Results are often mediocre, and for the time invested in building a cold email campaign, the juice really isn’t worth the squeeze.

Outsourcing to an expert might change your perspective. An email expert understands how to build lists and design campaigns that can warm even the coldest leads. Plus, overall, cold outreach is a low investment tactic that’s easily scalable, making it a natural fit for growth hacking. However, if you want to see actual ROI, you’re better off entrusting it to the experts.

#16: Connect and Build 

It’s been a while, but the event circuit is back and better than ever. If you put your networking plans on hold (or online) through the last year or so, it’s time to get back in the game. Industry conferences are a great place to learn and connect with colleagues in your industry, but if you look a little harder, you’ll find even more opportunities, like:

• A non-creepy way to scope out the competition
• Connecting with leaders and mentors who have reached the goals you hope to achieve 
• Getting your product in front of the most motivated, engaged, and interested audience you’re likely to find 
• Answering questions in person and act as a resource to potential customers
  

#17: Offer Free Trials or Freemiums 

It’s the cornerstone of the SaaS industry, and there’s a good reason for that. The “try it before you buy it” methodology was designed with SaaS in mind. If the product or service you offer is largely self-serve once a customer gets onboarded, the costs of maintaining a “free” customer is relatively low. Just remember that freemium users expect to be treated like paying customers and that includes functionality, reliability, and service. If you win them over at the free stage, they’re far more likely to want to dig out their credit card to access exclusive paid features and add-ons.

A great example of a freemium done right is Zoom. The video communications platform became part of our daily lexicon in 2020, in part because of their “forever free” model. However, users quickly learned that if a meeting went unexpectedly over the 40-minute limit (and did so with regularity), their smartest choice was to upgrade to a premium plan.

#18: Personalize Demos to the Potential Customer

The popularity of personalization seems to come and go in waves. Most of the time, it depends on how you utilize it. A friendly, personal “hello” can be appealing to many consumers, while spitting out their birthdate, Social Security numbers, and eye color is generally seen as off-putting.

The key is walking a fine line between being familiar…and being a creep. When it comes to demos, however, this is a great opportunity to use personalization to build a stronger relationship with your customer. 

Live demos give customers an authentic experience with your product and work to create a genuine relationship. If live demos aren’t feasible, you can still personalize how-to videos and walk-throughs for your user to make them feel you’ve gone above and beyond to win – and keep – their business.

#19: Create More Intuitive Landing Pages

Landing page visitors are not (generally) Sherlock Holmes. They shouldn’t have to look for clues to find the information they need or solve the mystery of what the heck you want them to do. Landing pages should be intuitive, focused, and very narrow in intent. Here’s how to lay out a landing page that works:

• Remove navigation. Extensive menus with multi-level dropdowns are unnecessary and confusing if the goal of your landing page is to get visitors to take a single action. Take away the navigation and give them a simple, single-click route to get what they want.
• But not the back button. Taking out menus is a good idea, but trapping visitors on a landing page with no option to go back? Not good. If they can’t get back where they were, they’ll just exit the browser altogether, and you’ll have a harder time getting them back.
• Minimize distractions. You’ve created a lot of great content, but cluttering a single-purpose landing page with videos, infographics, links to listen to your podcast, etc., is a big no-no. Take out the fluff, and only leave content that drives the user toward taking the action you want them to take.
  

#20: Implement a Retargeting Pixel

A retargeting pixel is a code that is built into your website that delivers metrics on visitors from a particular platform; in this case, Facebook. It works automatically and is easy to implement if you’re already a Facebook advertiser, so adoption is quick and painless. With the retargeting pixel, you’ll be able to:

• Build custom audiences with clear targeting parameters
• Create lookalike audiences to reach new leads
• Track metrics on how your targeted audience is responding to your ads
• Quickly adapt ads that aren’t performing well to increase conversions

While Facebook is one of the leaders in retargeting pixels, other platforms, like Google, offer them to advertisers as well.

#21: Use Video Testimonials as Social Proof

What’s better than customer referrals, influencer marketing, and video content? How about all of them in one? Video testimonials make your satisfied customers the star and turn them into a micro-influencer with a built-in audience. Plus, you’ll be leveraging the power of video, which is shown to increase sales by 64 percent.

#22: Use Customer Analytics to Optimize Your Sales Funnel

Big data is a big deal for growth hackers, and when you know how to use it to move your audience through the funnel, it can lead to a swift increase in conversions. But first, you have to understand the difference between the traditional sales and marketing funnel and the growth hacking funnel. 

If you need help remembering the stages of the growth hacking funnel, just pretend every day is “Talk Like a Pirate Day.” AAARRR! Awareness, acquisition, and activation are all stages in the traditional funnel, but growth hacking takes it three steps further, or rather, three “Rs” further, with retention, revenue, and referral.

It’s crucial to keep an eye on your KPIs and metrics at every stage of the funnel so you understand when and where there are major drop-offs in traffic and adjust your approach accordingly. Set up goals in Google Analytics so you can clearly see where your audience is jumping ship, and remember it takes a lot of trial and error to nail your funnel.

#23: Leverage AI to Attract and Maintain Customers

Artificial intelligence sounds futuristic, but the future of marketing automation and machine learning is already here, and you can use it to grow leads, revenue, and referrals. AI software spans a range of services and functions, and when paired with your CRM, it can help you manage and nurture leads throughout the growth hacking funnel. Chatbots, email automation, and product recommendations powered by AI help you build relationships with your leads quickly and easily, leaving you more time to focus on growing your brand.

#24: Use Facebook Groups to Build a Loyal Community

Facebook groups have the potential to be a goldmine for your SaaS product by giving you direct access to potential customers, competitors, and leaders in your industry. There are two ways to leverage Facebook groups for growth hacking: build your own or join already existing groups.

• Build Your Facebook GroupsFacebook groups are quick and easy to set up, they’re totally free, and they’re basically limitless in the opportunities offered to grow your brand. Just keep in mind, building a following for your Facebook group takes time, which is not always a friend to growth hacking.
• Join SaaS Facebook GroupsIf you don’t have time to create, build, and manage your own Facebook group, look for established groups you can join to learn best practices, engage with an audience similar to your target, and see how your competition operates. Also join industry groups focused on growth hacking, like SaaS Growth Hacks, to see how other companies have experimented growth hacking strategies and learn what worked and what didn’t.
  

#25: Keep an Eye on the Right Metrics

Analytics are key to successful growth hacking, especially for SaaS brands, but is your company looking at the right metrics? See below our outline of the nine growth hacking metrics your SaaS brand should be keeping tabs on.

9 Growth Hacking Metrics B2B SaaS Companies Should Watch Out For

To be sure you’re leveraging growth hacks to their full potential (and dropping hacks that don’t work like a hot potato), track these metrics carefully and regularly. Measure your current state at the start of each new growth hack campaign, then plan for a mid-point check, and analysis once the experiment is complete. 

Average Lead Close

On average, close rates for the software industry are around 22 percent. Keep in mind, there are many variables that contribute to close rates. You need to understand how many leads you have to introduce to the funnel to reach your desired close rate.

CTA Click-Through Rate

Ninety percent of visitors who read your headline also read your CTA.CTA placement matters to CTR

1. Sidebar: 0.5–1.5%
2. Generic, end-of-post: 0.5 –1.5%
3. Pop-ups: 1–8%
4. Sliders and bars: 1–5%
5. Welcome gates: 10–25%
6. Feature box: 3–9%
7. Navigation bar: varies
   

User Activation Rate

Activation rate is a success metric that marks an action taken by a user that indicates their perceived value of the product or service. SaaS leads among similar industries for the highest user activation rate.

Customer Satisfaction Rate

CSAT is highly variable feedback based on actual customer response to your service. Customer surveys are the best way to measure CSAT. To compile the data, use this equation based on survey results:

Customer Retention Rate

The recommended retention rate for SaaS is 35 percent or higher. Be sure you’re calculating user churn based on the customer lifecycle stage for the most accurate retention rates.

Lifetime Value

LTV is based on the number you predict your customers will spend on your product throughout their relationship with your brand. LTV is calculated based on user activation, revenue generated during the lifetime, and churn rate.

Time and Spend Per Acquisition

The average customer acquisition cost (CAC) for B2B SaaS is $205. SaaS acquisition costs are lower than many other industries. 

Monthly Recurring Revenue

Monthly recurring revenue (MRR) is based on averages from current subscribers. Committed monthly recurring revenue (CMRR) is a long-term projected metric based on new subscriptions, new upgrades, new downgrades, and user churn. CMRR is a more valuable metric as it projects future growth.

Referral Invitation Rate

The average referral rate across industries is around 2.3 percent.

Which One Is for You? Growth Marketing or Growth Hacking?

First things first, growth hacking might be the new sexy, but it might or might not work for a particular niche. It could be safe to say that if you’re a startup with a limited budget looking to gain speedy attraction and following of your brand, then growth hacking might be for you. It is indeed one of the cheapest yet effective ways to venture into the market when executed correctly. 

On the other hand, if you’re a startup or an established brand more focused on long-term growth, even if it’s slow and steady at the beginning, then growth marketing is for you. As a growth marketer, you’ll first be spending a significant amount of time understanding your audience, charting a long-term marketing strategy, and then a well-thought-out distribution plan. 

Although today’s startups, such as tech, fintech, edtech, etc., are coming up with great solutions one after the other, they’re also at the disadvantage of learning traditional marketing tactics or those that take longer to show results than what they would prefer.

 

A Quick Growth Marketing Compatibility Checklist 

If you’re wondering whether growth marketing is for you or not, then here’s a quick checklist for your reference: 

1. Insightful Customer Data: If you’re looking to form long-term relationships with your customers and understand how customer data enriches their experience with your business further, then enter growth marketing. 
2. Long-term Growth: You could have short-term or long-term goals or both and tie it all together with the broader strategy. This is where you’re looking to go deeper into your buyer persona by understanding their nonlinear buyer journey and retain your existing customers. 
3. Organic Keyword Revenue: If you’re expecting to acquire and grow organic traffic and revenue through your keyword strategy across the length of your broader marketing strategy, then growth marketing is for you. 

Our expert team of growth marketers is ready to take the challenge head-on, even if you still aren’t sure whether you’re leaning towards growth hacking or growth marketing. We’d love to help you steer in the right direction that’s aligned with your business goals.

Don’t Take on More Than You Can Chew: High-Growth SaaS Companies Achieve Results By Partnering with Experts

Feeling overwhelmed? We get it. Growth hacking is still pretty new on the marketing landscape, and while it promises quick and sustainable growth, it comes with a lot of research, planning, experimenting, and repetition. 

The good news? You don’t have to go it alone. A growth marketing agency made up of growth-focused experts across marketing channels can help you sort through the growth hacks listed above, and find the ones most suited to driving growth for your SaaS brand. Best of all, by outsourcing your growth hacking strategies, you’ll have more time to focus your energy where it counts: turning your SaaS brand into a long-lasting success. 

Define Target KPIs and Set Up Tracking

Growth hackers are data-driven. Running lean campaigns that produce phenomenal results requires laser-focused targeting. And that, in turn, hinges on you leveraging data.

That’s why, before you start implementing your B2B SaaS growth hacking strategies, you must define your target KPIs. These are data points and metrics that will help you track the performance of your strategy. The best way to do this is to align your strategy with the B2B growth hacking pirate (AAARRR) funnel:

• Awareness. Involves getting people to know your product. KPIs to track at this stage include traffic, time on page, social media interaction, and brand/product mentions.
• Acquisition: Signing up new users. Important KPIs here include signups and product downloads.
• Activation: This stage involves convincing people to use your product. Your success depends on providing them with a great first experience. Track how many users are using your product in a month, the number of features used, e.t.c.
• Retention: The growth of your SaaS business relies on your ability to keep your customers using your product. Metrics you can track here include multiple site visits, number of active users in a month.
• Revenue: This is why you’re in business — to make money. KPIs to track here include the number of paying users, monthly churn rate, the ratio of free to paid users, the number of initial transactions.
• Referral: An essential element of growth hacking is driving referrals through word of mouth. KPIs to help you track the likelihood of this happening include customer satisfaction rates, social shares, and your net promoter score (NPS).

Study Competitor Tactics and What Has Worked for Others

Successful growth hacking is about implementing marketing tactics that are (almost) guaranteed to produce results. 

One way of ensuring that the strategies you’re implementing work is to study your competitors.  Yes, you’re competing for the same customers, but your competitors can be your biggest help when looking for ways to growth hack your B2B SaaS business to success. A few factors to hone in on as you study your competitors include:

Customers

Use platforms like Product Hunt to gain insight into who your competitors’ customers are.  You can also use source code search engines like PublicWWW to search for customers who have installed your competitor’s source on their websites. 

Content

With platforms like BuzzSumo, it’s easy to check out your competitor’s content and note:

• Top performing content This will help you focus your content creation on content formats and types that are more likely to generate leads. 
• The top sharers These can be potential customers as they seem vested in the solution your competitors offer. 

Replicate the top-performing content in terms of quality and SaaS SEO strategy and reach out to the top sharers.

Culture Design

Culture is one of the most overlooked growth hacks. But with so much competition in a crowded SaaS space, customers single out vendors by checking to see if they align in terms of vision, values, and vibe. All three, particularly vibe, play an essential role in how you design your brand culture.

Make Sure Your Website, Brand Accounts, and Sales Collateral Are Ready for Growth

Before you plan on growing your SaaS business, you need to make sure that when new customers start flowing in, you’re ready for them. You must make sure core assets like your website, brand accounts, and sales collateral (like product data sheets, sales presentations/decks, e.t.c.) are primed for growth. A few ways to do this include:

• Make sure you have enough bandwidth to accommodate an increase in traffic and transactions.
• Optimize your brand accounts and sales collateral for engagement and conversion. This includes optimized profiles (on social media platforms), copy, CTAs, and more.

Top B2B Growth Hacks

Now that we’ve laid the foundation on how you can growth hack your B2B SaaS business to success, let’s get to the growth hacks that will help you do just that.

List Your Product(s) on ProductHunt and Other SaaS Directories

One of your first go-to hacks for business growth should be listing your product(s) on platforms and directories that curate SaaS products. One great example is Product Hunt.

Product Hunt is a website that allows users to share, discover, and vote for new products. Upvoted products climb higher on the website’s curated list of products, thereby gaining more visibility.

Create a Free Version of Your Product or Helpful Tool

The freemium model has been a staple of SaaS growth strategies since the early stages of SaaS. 

The reason for that is simple — it’s a great user acquisition strategy. Particularly for new products, gaining the trust of your target audience is key to success. Offering a free version of your product helps you break that barrier as your customers can take your product for a spin without the fear of commitment causing friction.

Build an Insanely Valuable Referral Program

One of the best ways to market your product without breaking the bank is through referral marketing. This is because a person who uses your product probably knows many more people like them who would also find your product useful. 

And that’s why you must build a valuable referral platform that incentivizes users to promote your product to their network. 

Need data to back that up?

Consider the fact that leads that come through referral marketing:

• Convert 30% better.
• Have a 37% higher retention rate.
• Are 4X more likely to refer other customers.

Building a referral program is an excellent way to raise brand awareness, drive sales, and ultimately grow your business. And all that without the need for a big budget or large marketing or sales teams. 

Hyper Target Your Ideal Customer With LinkedIn Ads

To successfully growth hack your B2B SaaS business, optimal targeting is key. That’s where platforms like LinkedIn come in handy.  Not only is LinkedIn a goldmine of B2B leads, but the platform allows you to create hyper-targeted ads to attract and convert them. Some targeting options available include:

• Location
• Company
• Job experience
• Demographics
• Education
• Interests and traits
• Group membership

With a combination of personalized ads and LinkedIn’s hyper-targeting capabilities, chances of your growth hacking strategy will be pretty high.

Make Friends With Influential Bloggers or Influencers in Your Space

Another super-easy way to growth hack your SaaS business is by building relationships with influencers. These can be bloggers or other influencers in your space. These are instrumental in:

• Helping you spread the word about your product.
• Building trust with your customers.  

Make sure the influencers you partner with are relevant to your product. They should also have followership predominantly made up of your ideal customers.

Once you’ve developed these strategic partnerships, incentivize your influencers to spread the word about your product. One way you can do that is by offering them free use of your product or branded gifts. You could also partner with them in growing their followership by helping them run a contest with your product as the prize.

Speak On As Many Podcasts As Possible.

Podcasting has grown to be a powerful client attraction tool. That’s why you must leverage it as one of your growth hacking strategies.  A few reasons podcasting is excellent for growth hacking include:

• Helps build authority and establish you as an expert.
• Helps you tap into a niche audience.
• An excellent way to add a human touch to your brand.
• A great way of building your network.
• Can be used to build backlinks.

So how do you get featured on relevant podcasts?

One way to do that is the traditional way — pitch podcasts you want to be featured on. An easier alternative would be signing up for podcast guest matching apps like matchmaker.fm.  

Create Your Own Guest Posting Program and Let Others Build Your Content Library for You

Guest posting is another excellent way to speed up brand awareness, ramp up customer acquisition, and drive sales. That’s because it helps you tap into audiences you’d otherwise not be able to build or tap into yourself.

Besides publishing content on other sites, you can also create a guest posting program on your website. This has the advantages of:

• Building your content library fast and at no cost.
• Getting you free content promotion as the guest posters will probably share the content they publish with their network.
• Establishing you as a trusted vendor due to your ever-growing network.

With word spreading about you due to your guest posting program, you’ll soon fill your pipeline with qualified leads. 

Integrate Your Product With Other More Well-Established Platforms (Especially Those Who Have Partner Directories)

With businesses relying more and more on technology, app adoption is on the rise. Of course, that’s good news as it also means the growth of SaaS. 

But more importantly, you can capitalize on this “ app explosion” to skyrocket your growth.

How?

By integrating your product with other well-established platforms. 

Integrating with well-established platforms allows users to activate certain features of your product. Sure, this may mean using some of your product features for free, but it’s a great way to piggyback on the success of the platform you’re integrating with. 

The best part about integrating your product with other well-established platforms is that it enables you to attract your integrated partner’s audience. It also shortens the sales cycle as they can easily install or enable your product without going through the entire user funnel. 

Another factor to look for when looking for integration partners is a partner directory. This is a great way of building backlinks. It’s also a great opportunity to tap into your integration partner’s audience. Most people who browse the partner directory will be actively looking for a solution, making the sales qualified leads (SQL).

Lastly, you can leverage other tools to augment these integrations or dramatically improve your existing campaigns.

Target Competitors With Google Ads

If you’re trying to make headway into a crowded market with some well-established competitors, you’ll have to be crafty in how you drive leads and generate sales. One such tactic you can use is to target your competitors with Google ads.

Targeting competitors with Google ads involves bidding for your competitors’ branded keywords. The whole point of doing so would be to steal your competitors’ traffic, clicks, and leads. 

To pull this off, you’ll have to be strategic about your ad type and copy. An excellent way would be to create a comparison post and use paid ads to bid on your competitor’s branded keywords. While this is a powerful strategy, you’ll have to be careful otherwise it may backfire. A couple of landmines to watch out for include:

• Using trademarked branded words in your ad text, especially mentioning your product as better than your competitor’s.
• Using trademarked branded words in your ad URL.

You should also make sure to prime your landing page for the traffic that comes through this type of ad. For best effect, include a comparison table that leads with your best features. This will paint you in a good light and help you win your customers’ trust.

Create a Random and Wacky Product Onboarding Easter Egg or Surprise for a Handful of Users

One mistake many B2B marketers make is thinking everything has to be formal. But remember, B2B buyers are people too, and they do appreciate a light moment once in a while, even during business transactions.

That’s why one of the growth hacking strategies you must employ is a playful one. For example, you can create a random wand wacky product onboarding easter egg for a handful of users. You can also consider sneaking in a valuable surprise during the onboarding process. Gamifying your onboarding process will reduce tension for your new customers and help create a buzz around your product.

One thing that most unicorn B2B SaaS brands have in common is that they create memorable experiences for their customers. And pulling pleasant surprises during onboarding is an excellent way of doing that. Bonus points if you can make the moment capturable and shareable. Doing so will make it easier for your new customers to share the amazing experience with their network.

5 Effective Growth Hacking Campaigns for your inspiration

Growth hacking is all about thinking out of the box. It’s all about being innovative in your customer acquisition, activation, and retention strategies — particularly on a lean budget. Here are some inspiring examples from brands that went from $0 to millions and beyond, thanks to leveraging growth hacking.

1. Slack

One of the best examples of B2B SaaS growth hacking success is that of Slack. 

The growth hack that catapulted Slack to unicorn status?

Creating a market where there was none (improving internal communications). Granted, for this to work, you need to be sure the product you’re creating will fill a need. 

Besides creating a new market, Slack also leveraged the freemium model and word-of-mouth marketing to catapult the company to success — 12 million daily active users (DAUs) and over $900 million in yearly revenue. 

2. Dropbox

One of the best examples of a SaaS brand that used referral marketing to growth hack their way to success is Dropbox. When the company launched, they incentivized users to spread the word by offering 250MB of extra storage space for every user referred. It was a win-win situation that eventually led to Dropbox having 15.8 million paying users and annual revenue close to $2 billion. 

3. Hubspot

Hubspot is a name that has become synonymous with marketing automation. And to get to that status, they leveraged one of the most effective growth hacking strategies ever — offering a free version of their product.  Apart from offering free use of their powerful tools, Hubspot also gave away valuable information for free via their blog. These two growth hacks contributed to the company surpassing 100,000 paying users and generating over $1 billion ARR. 

4. Unbounce

Unbounce is one of the most popular landing page builders on the market. And one of the reasons it has achieved that status is because it leveraged the power of integrations early on in the product’s journey. Because most users rely heavily on multiple tools to create optimized landing pages, it only made sense for Unbounce to integrate with popular tools their customers use. The result is greater visibility and growth which, in the case of Unbounce, means over 15,000 customers and counting.

5. Groove

Growing from $100,000 monthly revenue to over $5 million per year is the story that dreams are made of. And customer service platform, Groove did just that through content marketing. On the brink of collapse and with no marketing budget, the founders decided to give the brand one last shot by going all-in with content marketing. 

By creating valuable content tailored to their target audience’s needs, Groove’s content marketing engine has helped the brand generate over 250,000 daily visitors and $500,000 MRR.

How to Choose Between Growth Marketing and Growth Hacking

MYTH: Growth hacking and growth marketing mean basically the same thing.

REALITY: Growth marketing is not the same as growth hacking. They share a similar goal (growth, obviously), but the approach is often very different, and the outcomes aren’t always the same.

MYTH: Growth hacking will deliver long-term success for my brand.

REALITY: Growth hacking is more focused on short-term goals. Growth hacks are tactics you use to make quick wins, but they aren’t as strategic and the results don’t usually last.

MYTH: Growth marketing is just a buzzword.

REALITY: Not at all. Growth marketing is a strategic approach to creating long-term, sustainable growth. Growth hacking tactics can be used as a part of an overarching growth marketing strategy.

You might already see where we’re going with this, but just in case, let’s break it down. Who’s ready for a quiz?

Growth Marketing vs. Growth Hacking: Which Is Best?

Bottom line: There’s plenty of room in the sandbox for both growth marketing and growth hacking. In fact, we say that they’re always better together. You can make growth hacking a part of your growth marketing strategy, so you reap the rewards of quick results from successful growth hacks while you’re implementing your larger growth marketing strategy. Whether you’re a startup, a thriving tech company, or a B2B brand, you can benefit from both growth hacking and growth marketing.

Growth Hacking Strategies FAQS

• How do I get 1000 SaaS customers? To get your first 1000 SaaS customers, you have to roll up your sleeves, design your SaaS growth hacking strategy, and put it to work.
• How do I market my B2B SaaS product? Marketing your B2B SaaS product involves a number of factors. Examples include proper positioning in the market, finding your ideal customers, and designing innovative and efficient ways to reach them.
• What are the best early-stage growth hacks for a B2B SaaS? This is largely dependent on your product. However, some of the best early-stage growth hacks include referral programs, hyper-targeted LinkedIn ads, and targeting your competitors through paid ads.
• What are some growth hacks for user retention for SaaS? Retaining users is a matter of getting them hooked on your product. A couple of ways to do this include designing exceptional onboarding experiences and customer loyalty programs.
• What should a B2B SaaS startup hire first, a content marketer or a growth hacker? One of the biggest advantages of growth hackers is that they can wear many hats, including that of a content marketer. Therefore, hiring a growth hacker first would be your best bet.

B2B Growth Hacking Strategies — Key to Winning in a Tough Market

Particularly if you’re new on the market, taking on established brands head-on is an impossible task. To make headway and succeed, you must deviate from traditional marketing methods and employ growth hacking strategies.

So go ahead and use the strategies outlined above to scale your B2B SaaS brand. Need guidance? RevenueZen is a proven SaaS SEO agency, so contact us for a free growth consultation.