My profession as an executive coach in the Philippines requires me to be updated with innovative strategies that arise in the business world. My background in IT has proved to be beneficial in this light. You see, when we talk of business, we not only refer to the traditional mode of buying and selling in physical spaces because in this digital age, online is the new market. In line with my long-term goal as a business coach to grow the country’s software industry into a major contributor for nation-building, allow me to discuss an important aspect of business marketing that could just save your company, especially if it focuses on SaaS.

At present, we are witness to how the SaaS, or Software as a Service, industry is becoming bigger, which also means that the competition becomes tougher. For those who have no idea on what this is, SaaS is different from traditional business because the former does not sell physical products unlike the latter. Instead, SaaS hinges on encouraging the users to subscribe to its software tool. You have probably seen this when you go online, such as on your most followed YouTube influencers and vloggers who convince you to subscribe to their channels or a mobile application which has an option to subscribe and download the app. When you are part of this rapidly rising industry, you are left with no choice but to step up the game and think ahead of thousands of your competitors.

In this article, I will disclose four digital marketing lifehacks you ought to know. Before everything else, let us establish that the SaaS industry utilizes digital marketing techniques so as to produce leads and sales. After all, an outstanding content pulls the target market in and pushes them to avail of any product or service offering.

1. Use Interactive Content

Failed digital marketing strategy, most often than not, takes for granted the quality of content they put forward for their audience. The psychology of people we want to subscribe to our offer says that they want personalized content. You wouldn’t open an email addressed to 50 other people, would you? Those marketing emails would just be considered spam. So, what you need to do is provide tailored content that caters to what your market needs (which you’d know from thoroughly researched audience demographics and statistics). Creating personalized emails is just one way to do this. Another strategy would be to use interactive content, such as a quiz, survey, free trial, or a poll, which is solution-oriented and therefore encourages your target market to take action. What do I mean with this? Interactive content implicitly gathers information from your target audience, i.e. their email addresses, contact details, and most especially, their needs. With this, you have access to what goes on in their minds; therefore, you have the edge to know the right time to introduce your product or service and the right approach in a way that it would be difficult for them to say no. Statistics show that approximately 88% of marketers prove that interactive content is effective in attracting new users and engaging them to build a relationship with their business. Perhaps this number is enough to convince you to try using interactive content on your website’s landing page.

2. Maximize “Passive” Content

Passive content in digital marketing is not at all vestigial. In fact, if used brilliantly and appropriately, passive content could generate leads and sales, too. Even though it is considered passive marketing, blog content functions to establish your business credibility within the industry. Of course, blog contents should not look like a default update list. An effective blog has high-quality and personalized content. This means that content should be able to touch on the demand, need, and motivation of the target market in such a way that they will decide to subscribe to your tool. You can do this by using marketing automation to reduce effort in sending out custom-made content, adjusting your content according to your sales funnel, using SEO tools, and most importantly, doing follow-ups.

3. Develop White Papers and Case Studies

Since I’ve mentioned passive content, let us turn our attention to white papers and case studies, which are often overlooked by digital marketers. Although they could be tasking to create because of their rather lengthy and laborious research work, these contents are most efficient in creating one’s credibility and authority. In writing these reports, it is important to remember that white papers are aimed to educate customers about certain issues and offer solutions for them, in an effort to help them decide in your favor. Meanwhile, case studies collect essential information from your existing clients in an effort to lead customers to trust your business.

4. Go Back to Traditional Selling

As we age, we retain part of ourselves which we think still plays an essential role in our well-being. The same applies to digital marketing. Even though we’d like to think that the old ways of marketing have died down, we could still use them for our benefit. Think about it as the final step in getting your target market to subscribe. You have already established your credibility with them, given updates about your product, and provided them with a convincing reason to try your software. All there is to do is to reach out to those customers who have expressed their willingness to build a relationship with you. In other words, this is the time when you would list down your prospects and, in traditional marketing language, close that deal.

There are no correct or incorrect ways to market, especially in today’s digital age. However, there are efficient and non-efficient means to do this important task. I leave it to your gut.

This is Joey Gurango, your Business Technology Coach!