Affordable, yet effective SaaS public relations ideas. But does your company need a PR strategy at all? First, you do it for your team. Not only for those you are already employed but for recruiting as well. Good PR makes potential candidates want to join your company and be part of your success. Second, media coverage will inspire trust your potential investors. An investor will hardly be interested in funding an unknown company that no one is interested in. But the ones that are talked about are likely to draw the investor’s attention as well. Last but not least, PR is a social proof for your future customers. And even for those who won’t become customers. You probably won’t generate many quality leads or sales from your PR campaign. But it will definitely help you build your company reputation. A degree and experience in media communication would definitely be an advantage at this point. If you need SaaS public relations for at least these three purposes – you’ve come to the right place. We have handpicked five low-cost and effective PR tactics to promote your SaaS startup:
Let’s get started.
According to stats, journalists are ignoring 97% of pitches they receive. Instead, they prefer to find story ideas on Google, browsing company websites, and checking out their online newrooms/press pages. Here’s an example from WeTransfer:
Creating original research is a good tactic for SaaS public relations because of two reasons. First– people love original studies because they help discover customer insights and trends. If your SaaS startup makes a survey about customer service preferences, many marketers, and researchers will be interested in knowing the results. Second– Google loves original studies just as much. Linking to scholarly studies and surveys is a common way to get higher in SERPs because Google considers it as a sign of credibility. That’s why try making an original study. A SaaS selling custom chatbot solutions, for example, can make a study about:
Get some inspiration for original studies by visiting known publications like Juniper Research, PwC, and Accenture (or reputable sources of research in your industry). This PwC research on customer experience is a good example. After surveying thousands of customers, the researchers have found numerous insights into their buying behavior and brand loyalty indicators.
Not only journalists but people generally don’t like receiving long emails. Conciseness is key. However, as a company you want to look professional and credible from the first email and want to save your and the journalist’s time. A perfect answer is to add a media kit to your email in a pdf version. It should contain all the essential info about your company, team, past media appearances, etc. Download 9-Point Checklist To Make a Killer SAAS Media Kit for free not to miss an important section and increase your chances of getting covered.
Building relations with industry experts, other company founders, executives, and marketers is the ideal way to get in front of new audiences. You can launch a podcast and invite niche experts as guests. They will be more than happy to get a similar invitation and will help you promote the episode they are featured in. Other ways of partnership include co-creating content with other companies. From webinars to eBooks, you should create something that interests both your and your partner company’s audience.
HARO, or Help a Reporter Out, is an online service that connects experts with knowledge sharers. You can get some publicity by sharing your expertise–others will publish it on their websites for free. HARO works like this. You visit HARO website, sign up to receive email inquiries as a source. Next, the platform will give you a selection of topics: “ecommerce,” “marketing,” etc. – choose the ones where you have the most expertise. After signing up, HARO will send you emails with topics for you to cover. For example, this one contains a bunch of media coverage opportunities, including one SaaS topic.
Backlinks are the holy grail of digital marketing and PR. If a website gets links from others, Google will treat that website as reputable and trustworthy. This means higher search results and more marketing exposure. Guest posting–writing guest articles for other websites–is the best way to get backlinks and build a reputation. It’s a perfect PR strategy for your S aaS startup because it doesn’t require a huge marketing strategy. Here’s how you can do guest posting. The first step–Find guest posting opportunities Search Google for “Write for + SaaS.” This request will return a list of websites that accept guest posts. It might look like something like this. Each website is a potential source of media coverage.
And one last thing: choose a nice photo of yourself for the author bio. The leader of a rising star company should look the part.
A blog on your website is a PR tool. Blog content can:
All of this–at minimum cost for your startup. “You can have someone from your team writing blog posts–they’re the best people to share your company’s expertise,” says Bridgette Hernandez, a digital marketing writer from TopEssayWriting. ”But make sure to use an external editor to polish every post.” Let’s take a look at Slack’s blog. The company isn’t exactly a startup (by the way, Salesforce just bought it for $27.7 billion), but it shows how SaaS blogging should be done. Besides posts establishing thought leadership of the company, the blog also has a “Talk to Sales” button to contact the sales department directly.
Even though blogging has a different style from PR press releases, that doesn’t mean that you can’t turn articles into media pitches. If you end up writing industry news or expert roundups, for example, journalists might be interested in reading them. Try pitching this content to a journalist who covers industry news–they might give you a mention. Pro tip: Create a newsletter and invite people to sign up for your blog. Add a subscription form to the blog page and use a free autoresponder to send thank-you emails for signing up. Sharing the best blog posts later is an excellent opportunity for lead nurturing and extra PR.
Promotional videos are an effective way to attract media attention and promote your company. Videos are the most popular type of content, so it can help to get more exposure. SaaS companies often showcase their products and achievements with short videos, especially on social media like LinkedIn. Headspace, for example, promotes its app with this relatable video. They start by empathizing with the viewers about the amount of daily stress they need to experience. Next, the Headspace app is promoted as a solution to reduce a lot of that stress with guided meditation and other resources.
Make sure you plan your videos as a part of your content marketing strategy. Blog posts and videos should support each other by expanding on each other’s topics. For example, a blog post about a specific customer benefit can support a product promo video with a quick mention of that benefit.
You don’t need a multi-million budget to do some serious PR as a SaaS startup. With these five tactics, you can get mentioned in the media, build links to your websites, and develop a reputation as a thought leader in your niche. Make sure to share your content on all channels available to you: social media, content sharing websites, PR outlets, news websites, etc. Each can score potential clients for you.
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