The SaaS industry relies strongly on automation.
Whether it’s sales or marketing, automation plays a huge role in growing the business and getting the word out. Many SaaS companies opt for marketing automation integration to bring their tools, processes, and data together, making their workflows more efficient.
Some SaaS owners may even be using automation without referring to it as such. Others may have implemented marketing automation for SaaS knowingly but cannot exploit its full potential.
So, we decided to create a detailed guide for those who are still considering moving to marketing automation or want to explore more marketing automation tools.
In this guide, we will cover how companies can use marketing automation SaaS to streamline their operations, fulfill customer demands, and gain a competitive edge in this fast-moving business landscape.
What is marketing automation for SaaS?
Marketing automation for SaaS involves utilizing different cloud-based applications to automate and simplify a range of marketing activities in a SaaS company through comprehensive marketing automation integration.
This encompasses activities like email marketing, managing social media postings, generating leads, segmenting customers, and nurturing prospects throughout the marketing funnel.
It removes tedious tasks with improved systems and tools, enabling you to concentrate on other pressing issues.
Marketing automation SaaS platforms enable companies to handle various marketing tasks from one, centralized platform, offering analytics-driven insights, facilitating customized customer engagement, and enhancing the complete marketing process. These instruments frequently encompass automated email campaigns, CRM automation, mapping customer journeys, managing ad campaigns, automating lead management, and additional features.
Why Do You Need SaaS Marketing Automation?
Marketing automation for SaaS provides a scalable approach that not only simplifies repetitive activities but also boosts customer interaction and supports business expansion. Here’s the importance of implementing SaaS marketing automation:
Enhanced productivity
SaaS marketing automation removes monotonous tasks that take up your team’s time and energy. For example, in email marketing, the manual tasks involved in creating content, distributing it, and analyzing results can be excessive.
Utilizing email marketing automation tools allows you to automate activities such as scheduling campaigns, customizing content, conducting A/B tests, and monitoring performance.
These tools not only decrease human errors and improve operational efficiency but also allow you to onboard more clients and scale your business by facilitating quicker, more precise marketing initiatives.
Enhanced customer connections
Clients require accurate, relevant, and timely content that builds their trust and loyalty. With SaaS automation tools, you can design and automate customized targeted campaigns that help to foster and sustain continuous customer relationships.
You can utilize tools to divide your audience and provide tailored content according to different customer behaviors, preferences, and interactions which will enhance customer engagement and satisfaction. This method allows companies to create better relationships with their clients, resulting in improved retention rates and sustainable expansion.
Create additional high-quality leads
SaaS marketing automation tools can simplify the entire lead generation and nurturing workflow. For example, you can utilize drip campaigns to engage with your customers over a prolonged period. Now the question arises, How is marketing automation tools used? 58% of marketers use automation for task management, 42% of marketers use automation for content automation and 31% of marketers use automation for chatbots.
Source: Hubspot
These tools facilitate the efficient capturing, scoring, and nurturing of leads, steering prospective clients through the marketing funnel with limited manual involvement, leading to increased conversion rates. You can utilize the value of your product to motivate them to make a purchase, allowing you to create more qualified leads for your business.
Improved data for wiser choices
Tools for marketing automation also make data gathering easier and offer essential insights on your customers, and business. By utilizing one platform featuring a unified dashboard and analytics, you can obtain essential insights into market trends, rivals, and consumer behavior.
For example, several SaaS marketing automation platforms provide behavioral tracking to observe your leads' progress on your website. These in-depth insights help you adjust your marketing strategies and campaigns to meet their requirements.
Is SaaS Marketing Automation right For your startup?
The smaller your ACV (average customer value), the greater the amount of “automation” you will need to implement in your SaaS startup. On the other hand, if you have a low-volume/high-value product, you might manage by selling primarily over the phone with minimal automation.
Let’s try to understand this concept using two extreme cases.
Palantir
Palantir is a company specializing in "big data analytics" that employs over 2,000 individuals. As one of the most discreet companies in Silicon Valley, it's difficult to determine exactly how many clients Palantir serves, but one can confidently wager it’s under 100 or possibly even 50.
Possessing only a limited number of clients does not prevent them from being worth billions.
With clients such as Ferrari, Airbus, and the FBI, one might picture that the majority of Palantir's agreements are concluded in person over meals and sipping (costly) wine; rather than via an automated email.
At the opposite end of the spectrum is WhatsApp – yet another firm valued in the billions. WhatsApp generates $1 per iOS download and $1 per year from users on other platforms, but not for every user.
Simply answering the phone for one customer would be more expensive for WhatsApp than the overall lifetime value of that customer. WhatsApp cannot convert and keep customers without fully automating every process.
Given that you aren't Palantir or WhatsApp, you'll likely have to use both Marketing Automation tools and hands-on manual strategies in your marketing and sales efforts.
The most effective marketing automation initiatives harmoniously combine scalability with a personal touch.
Create the first Marketing Automation strategy for your startup
In the upcoming chapters, we will discuss how to create a comprehensive marketing automation and lifecycle journey strategy for your SaaS startup.
Take a look at the plan of action:
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Choose a Lifecycle Funnel.
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Identify the metrics you must monitor at every phase of the Funnel.
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Chart your Customer Lifecycle Journey.
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Create your automation workflows.
Let’s dive in!
Decide on a Lifecycle Funnel
Lifecycle Funnel represents the journey an individual undergoes to become your customer.
It’s a system that aids you in comprehending how your business operates at various phases of your customer journey. From the initial customer interaction with your product to the point they develop loyalty.
There are several lifecycle funnels (or frameworks) available in the market. Here are a few you should consider:
- AARRR – Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, Revenue – a framework by Dave McClure from 500 Startups.
- AIDA – Attention, Engagement, Aspiration, Response
- AICA – Attention, Curiosity, Evaluation, Response
- AIDAS – Attention, Curiosity, Want, Response, Contentment
- AIDASlove – Attention, Curiosity, Exploration, Action, Appreciate, Share, Adore
- TIREA – Thinking, Curiosity, Assessment, Involvement, Activity
- REAN – Reach, Engage, Activate, Nurture
- NAITDATSE – Necessity, Focus, Curiosity, Confidence, Want, Initiative, Contentment, Assessment.
You might have to develop various funnels for the distinct personas that utilize your product. Begin with your primary persona or the one you know best, and outline the customer journey stages specifically for that persona.
After you complete that, populate the stages in your worksheet.
Define the metrics you need to track at each stage of the Funnel
Without measuring metrics, you cannot determine the effectiveness of your Marketing Automation. Every stage of the funnel warrants its own metric or group of metrics. Here’s a list of suggestions for metrics or KPIs (key performance indicators) to monitor at each stage of the funnel.
- Awareness Phase:
- Visitors – number of website visitors.
- Email subscribers – The number of individuals who sign up for your newsletter through lead magnets or educational resources such as webinars, articles, and more.
- Visitor-to-Subscriber Transition Rate.
- Top referral channels – monitor your traffic using UTMs and examine which ones deliver the most and the highest quality visitors (i.e., visitors with the best visitor-to-subscriber conversion rate).
- Social media interaction – the number of individuals who see and click on your social media content.
- Interest
- Average Email Open Rate – or to be more precise, email open rates for your onboarding campaigns.
- Leads generated – the count of marketing-qualified and sales-qualified leads (MQL and SQL). A Lead Scoring System can be utilized to evaluate your leads.
- Demo calls scheduled – the count of demo or discovery calls arranged.
- Visitor-to-Trial Conversion Rate.
- Desire
- New User Product interaction – User activation during the onboarding/trial stage – the level of activity the trial user has with the product and/or the number of features the user has utilized.
- NPS – NPS during the onboarding/trial stage.
- Questions for support during the onboarding/trial period.
- Action
- New clients – count of new paying clients for the month.
- Trial-to-Customer Transition Rate
- New Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) generated
- Gross Revenue increase – total income added for the month.
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) – is marketing automation truly assisting you in lowering your CAC?
Other metrics to track:
- CLTV – Value of Customer Over Time.
- ARPU – Average Income Per User.
- ARPPU – Average Earnings Per Paying User.
- Daily, weekly, or monthly User Retention – the number of individuals who access your product on a daily, weekly, or monthly schedule (depending on the product type).
- CAC Payback Period – the duration in months required to recoup the funds spent on customer acquisition. It indicates your break-even level.
Be aware of the difference between causal and correlated metrics, and focus solely on the elements that significantly impact your SaaS.
Map your Lifecycle Customer Journey
To grasp your customer journey, you need to see things from your customer's perspective.
What particular steps and series of activities (or situations) must an individual undertake to become a customer of your product?
Attempt to outline these activities on a different file/board.
You might also wish to incorporate their: aims, emotions, and interactions.
For the marketing automation strategy, you simply need to outline the actions or experiences that the individual engages in at every stage of the funnel. Such as:
- Visiting the homepage of the marketing website.
- Scheduling a demonstration call
- Signing up for a trial
- Introductory onboarding email
- Utilizing attribute Y
- Omitting feature X
- Advancing trial account to paid option A
- Enhancing trial account to paid plan B, and so forth.
Build your automation Workflows
The most thrilling part of developing your SaaS marketing automation is constructing the real workflows. This is the moment you apply the theory we just discussed and perform like an expert marketer!
This is also the phase that demands the greatest effort. Here’s what you need to do:
- Combine and link tools to automate marketing activities by focusing on robust marketing automation integration.
- Collaborate with your developer to integrate events from your product into your marketing automation platform.
- Evaluate various complex processes to ensure everything operates seamlessly.
Initially, you should identify and select the workflow automation you want to create. Once more, the medium isn't particularly important. You can use a pen and paper or a basic sketching tool for this purpose.
You may need the actual copies of messages (emails, in-app messages, push notifications, etc.) prepared before you can begin creating the workflows. As you may be aware, anything you undertake in marketing begins with the writing.
Automation flows can be utilized for all sorts of tasks. Here are some examples:
Onboarding: Turn your prospects into customers through targeted onboarding activities. Segment the leads or prospects into various segments based on demographics, psychographics, lifecycle stage, or usage data, and provide them with the content that is most relevant to them.
Conversion: Connect with your leads across all platforms. – Email, in-app messages, push notifications, and advertisements. Leads with larger plans and customers exhibiting higher CLTV deserve greater focus. Identify high-value leads using billing information and direct more marketing and sales efforts toward them.
Nurture: Boost newsletter open rate – Resend an unread newsletter with a different subject line “Reminder: Initial Subject”. Be sure to wait a few days after the original has been dispatched.
Retention: Decrease churn through automated interactions – Anticipate which customers are at risk of churning by utilizing in-app events and various usage data from your data warehouse, and deliver timely responses.
Top 10 Marketing Automation SaaS workflow examples for startups
This chapter serves as a comprehensive guide featuring 10 examples of marketing automation workflows. Each workflow consists of a Trigger and an Action, with definitions provided in the Glossary section for clarity.
Additionally, some workflows incorporate a Filter, which assesses whether an individual meets certain criteria, such as "Has responded to Typeform form" or "Is on plan Premium."
Select the workflows that align with your product and assign them to the relevant stages of your lifecycle funnel in the Marketing Automation Worksheet.
1. Capture Leads With a Lead Magnet and Send a Nurture Sequence
Description: When an individual downloads an eBook, cheatsheet, or another lead magnet via a form on your website:
- Tag the individual
- Initiate a nurturing email sequence
Goal: Convert a lead into a trial.
Metrics: Lead to trial conversion rate.
Tools: OptinMonster, Email.
2. Remind a Person to Download a Lead Magnet
Description: If a person provides their email for a lead magnet on your website but does not click the Download link in the confirmation email, send a follow-up email as a reminder.
Goal: Encourage the individual to download your lead magnet.
Metrics: Email click-through rate.
Tools: OptinMonster, Email.
3. Double the Open Rate of a Newsletter Broadcast
Description: Dispatch a follow-up email with an alternative subject line to recipients who did not open your initial broadcast. This approach significantly enhances the open rate of the broadcast with minimal additional effort.
Goal: Boost the open rate for an email broadcast.
Metrics: Email open rate.
Tools: Email.
4. Send Targeted Messages to Different Segments Across All Channels
Description: Dispatch pertinent emails, SMS messages, push notifications, and in-app communications to the appropriate segment.
Goal: Enhance the precision of message targeting across various channels.
Metrics: Email open rate/click-through rate/response rate
Tools: Email, Twilio, PushCrew, Intercom.
5. Capture Leads From a Form, and Segment Based on Value
Description: Collect lead information via a form and categorize leads based on their budget input. Automate an email sequence for low-value leads, while assigning high-value leads to a sales representative for demo booking.
Goal: Transform a lead into a trial or paying customer.
Metrics: Lead to trial conversion rate / Lead to demo call conversion rate
Tools: Typeform, Email, HubSpot, Calendly.
6. Send Profiling Emails to Understand and Segment Your Audience
Description: Acquire a deeper understanding of your audience. When a user clicks on a specific link within an email, indicating interest in a topic, assign a relevant tag. This enriched data can later be utilized to provide personalized content and experiences.
Goal: Enhance the data quality of your users.
Metrics: Email open rate / Email click rate
Tools: Email.
7. Serve Customized Landing Pages Based On Data from Your Marketing Automation Platform
Description: Utilize a tool such as RightMessage to modify elements on your website using the information already available in your marketing automation system. Integrate your ESP/CRM/marketing automation tool to retrieve data into RightMessage.
Goal: Convert a lead into a trial or paying customer.
Metrics: Lead to trial conversion rate / Lead to demo call conversion rate
Tools: One of the supported RightMessage integrations, RightMessage.
8. Follow Up On Pricing Page Visit
Description: When a user accesses your pricing page, display an immediate in-app message and dispatch an email to them.
Goal: Transform the visitor into a trial or paying customer.
Metrics: Conversion rate of visitors to trials.
Tools: Intercom, Email.
9. Identify a Hot Lead and Act Proactively
Description: If an individual revisits your pricing page, verify whether their email is recorded. If it is then ask a sales representative to follow up with an email. If no email is available, initiate an in-app message to schedule a demo.
Goal: Convert visitors into trial or paying customers.
Metrics: Conversion rate of visitors to trials.
Tools: Segment.com, Intercom, Slack, Email.
10. Identify Sales Opportunities In Pre-sales Live Chat Conversations
Description: Empower your service team to generate leads effectively. During live chat interactions, representatives can identify potential hot leads. By tagging these individuals in Zendesk, the leads are automatically added to a Facebook audience and included in your Pipedrive pipeline for subsequent sales follow-up.
Goal: Convert leads into trial or paying customers.
Metrics: Conversion rate from leads to trials/customers.
Tools: Zendesk, Pipedrive, Facebook.
Conclusion
If your existing marketing automation SaaS approach includes numerous repetitive and time-consuming tasks, you require a more effective solution that enhances productivity, generates demand, and improves customer experience.
That's what MarkeStac does. Our specialists design and execute tailored strategies to ensure the success of your SaaS marketing efforts. Get in touch with us to avail top-notch marketing automation services.
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Whether you're looking to manage your contacts with a free CRM, create professional email campaigns, design landing pages, or track analytics, MarkeStac has it all. These tools are not only easy to use but also seamlessly integrate with your SaaS workflows, helping you attract, engage, and delight customers without any upfront investment. Why wait?
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