We have two messages for potential buyers of your imaginary software named Olymp Video.
You are the author: “Our startup team has launched a tool for recording and editing high-quality videos. We entered the market only recently but we have inserted all of our enthusiasm and market knowledge while creating this product. Give it a try for free”.
You are the author: “Our startup team has launched a tool for recording and editing high-quality videos. We entered the market only recently but we have inserted all of our enthusiasm and market knowledge while creating this product. Give it a try for free”.
Do you feel the difference? B2B decision-makers would rather put their trust in other consumers than what you are talking about your own product. They don’t know you, they haven’t tried your software (not ready to go a step forward) and you’re not a renowned name.
Then do you notice how an influencer will probably address his followers? His tone is conversational, full of proof and motivation.
This influencer’s message is kind of a testimonial but his audience is specific, his tone and words are natural and lively. We are writing this guide is to show you what SaaS influencer marketing is in general and how it can help you grow your SaaS business.
Before jumping to the bottom line, let’s see what this guide has in stock for you, what are the SaaS influencer marketing aspects we are going to cover:
Introduce the basics of B2B SaaS influencer marketing in general,
Give vivid and practical examples for you to follow from B2B SaaS influencer marketing efforts
Guide you to consider the most relevant platforms and offer the most rewarding tactics.
2. Influencer Marketing For B2B SaaS: Does It Really Work?
He introduces your brand to his audience who is likely to be interested in your brand, and in return gets compensation for his service (fixed fee, commission or full free access to your software).
“Cloudinary The truth: consumers will always want to hear recommendations from people they trust and idolize – their influencers. Meaning that the trend of influencer marketing is unlikely to slow down any time soon. WordPress “
82% of respondents believe that influencer marketing campaigns attract more quality customers than other forms of marketing but are B2B and B2C trends the same? What is that works for B2C influencer marketing but is it unacceptable for B2B?
“People buy emotions, not things”. This statement will hardly function in the reality of the B2B buying process. What works in that case? Rationalism. “Will the software we pay for truly helps us work more efficiently or stand out from competitors and generate more revenue?” Maybe this is the biggest difference between B2B and B2C companies that have to be taken into account.
But not the only one. The B2B buying process is more complex, requires due diligence, the fees are higher and the period of working with software providers is usually longer (months or maybe a year).
What any B2B decision-maker ponders over before reaching a conclusion? “Will software subscription help us improve our service quality and grow faster?” The cost-benefit relationship must be in favor of the benefit. It’s not the same as buying a beauty product and using it for a couple of days just for fun.
Influencer marketing channels in case of B2B SaaS business aren’t the same either.
You might have heard of Instagram is a top platform for influencer marketing campaigns. It’s true if we are talking about B2C companies, particularly in food, fashion or beauty industries (physical products).
Even though we don’t offer you totally refuse to engage on this channel, we suggest spending resources on Instagram influencer marketing when your B2B SaaS company’s budget is more flexible or your end goal is not direct sales.
Through B2B and B2C influencer marketing features differ and B2C influential marketing history is richer, the idea of collaborating with influencers is a strong mechanism for any type of business (if done in a professional way).
Let’s consider another example. Snapchat is mainly visited by users aged between 18 and 24, so it’s so far been known as a social media for advertising to young people and definitely not the right place for B2B lead generation and sales.
As influencer marketing is growing and deserves to be a part of your B2B SaaS marketing strategy, let’s look at the key reasons why you should think about collaborating with niche influencers for your B2B SaaS startup growth.
Your startup has a small audience, theirs is large and targeted
The influencer has the same audience you’d like to have
The influencer knows how to speak to his audience
The influencer enjoys trust and popularity
B2B decision-makers greatly rely on reviews
While your ads tell people “I have this for you, it’s great. Try and pay for it”, in an influencer campaign a reputable person tells people he knows “Hey, I’ve tried this and I’d recommend it because it’s like this, maybe you will enjoy it as well”.
If we go deeper, we will see that both brands and influencers reap benefits from influencer campaigns.
Benefits For Your B2B SaaS Startup
Reach the right audience
Avoid intrusive direct ads
Reach your marketing/sales goals
Be recommended by a public figure
Receive valuable content for your campaign
Benefits For An Influencer
Communicate with their audience
Distribute content of their interest
Offer something valuable
Increase engagement
Share experience
We know that a number of questions (How to find an influencer? How to communicate with them? or How to understand whether my campaign resulted in high ROI?) pop up in your head.
Read on to get the answers one by one.
Reinforce Your Content Marketing Positions
Owning a SaaS startup and disregarding content marketing is like providing customer support on Facebook and not using Messenger.
Do you suppose that your content only consists of your social media posts, your website content or email texts? Absolutely not. Once you publish your first (or next) guest post or the influencer mentions your software name “on his territory” all these pieces of content support your own content production efforts.
This actually means you diversify your content distribution platforms and eventually expand your presence and reach. You achieve two things at the same time. We are sure you know how essential content marketing is for your SaaS startup growth.
3. Where To Find Influencers? Your B2B SaaS Influencer Is Closer Than You Think
There’s no single truth that exists for all SaaS companies. Consumers of different SaaS products are different from their needs and goals. And each SaaS product tries to solve separate industry-specific problems.
One software helps facilitate communication and management processes within the team (internal needs), another software helps in the analytics process (functional needs) and the third software is designed for direct promotional actions (sending mass emails, messages). That’s why you should imagine not only your ideal customer but an ideal influencer as well.
The ideal influencer for your SaaS startup should meet 4 basic criteria.
The influencer is followed by at least 1.000-1.500 users. We call them micro-influencers. They are not celebrities, world-famous figures but they have managed to gather a certain amount of loyal users around them.
The influencer shares your “dream” audience. He is not only familiar with your niche but enjoys trust as an expert or a thought leader in that particular sub-industry
The influencer is active on the platform you are going to work together. He posts regularly, cares about that account and pays appropriate attention to it. An account owner who hasn’t shared anything since 2017, is definitely not a good candidate for partnership.
The influencer gains engagements from his audience. Posting is great but what if no one takes a step? High engagement is a sign that the influencer is the right person who can trigger action among the audience.
We offer 3 main sources which can lead you to potential SaaS influencers:
1. Social Media
Groups or tools… Both are worth bearing in mind.
Group admins and moderators are usually active and influential people with a specific audience outside (and inside) the group.
Say your software is a translation tool. One of the most established Facebook groups in the translation market is Successful Freelance Translators, the founder of which is Simon Akhrameev, a certified English-Russian translator. Nowadays more and more translation agencies and private businesses prefer to buy software as it guarantees quality, speed, and accuracy. So a figure like Akhrameev who also runs his own blog on translation tips may be a perfect match for you.
Influencer marketing tools are your next options to consider for finding your coveted SaaS influencers, though this kind of tool usually provides their full database in case of paid subscriptions. Izea, Tapinfluence, and Onalytica are among the top influencer marketing platforms (take into account that paying Izea or Onalytica will increase your expenses but will make you more confident).
HYPR is not a top tool but it can also help you find influencers on social media. It’s an influencer marketing platform with both free and paid versions. The free version allows you to conduct your search only among 5.000 influencers on Facebook. Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, and Pinterest. In this example we entered “social media marketing” and here are some of the suggested influencers. In this case, we assume your software is a social media planning tool.
It’s never too late to change your decision. If you feel that you can’t move forward with free resources and tools, then find out which influencer platform offers the best pricing.planning tool.
2. Blogs
Blog owners can also be an ideal choice for you because their active and permanent readers can be ideal customers for your software. Buzzsumo will give you a helping hand.
Let’s type “video editing” in the search bar. Do you see that the article written on The Verge has received the most engagements on Facebook and the most shares on Twitter? It’s a sign that their audience expects this kind of topic from this website and actively engages with it. You can consider other blogs as well with high engagement.
3. Curated Lists
Google is always ready to support you, so what it offers is searching for something like “influencers in web design” if, of course, your software is a web design software. This list from American Webmasters Association may be truly useful for you, give directions and save time.
Alternatively, if your software is an SEO tool you can benefit from this list which will lead you to the top influencers on SEO and provide details about their activity on Twitter (+ number of followers).
Be careful not to try to collaborate with an influencer who offers software that solves the same problem as yours. Your SaaS influencer can’t be your direct competitor.
As we already discussed how to search for and identify your SaaS influencer, it’s the best time to get acquainted with the most worthwhile and meaningful methods you need to know: guest posts on leading relevant blogs, influencer campaigns on social media channels and co(published) e-books.
4. How To Leverage Guest Blogging For B2B SaaS Influencer Marketing?
Publishing posts on the blogs of influential company websites is highly recommended as it helps you use relevant keywords and eventually get found by searchers.
Another convincing reason is that it becomes part of your content strategy and it’s not a secret that content plays a crucial role in B2B SaaS growth. So considering it will be one of your smartest decisions.
Finally, don’t you want your posts to be noticed on social media channels? Many websites share it on their social media pages, making it available for their readers on all fronts.
An increase in brand awareness comes next in the list of guest blogging benefits. Several requirements that are general for almost all influencer authors are the followings:
Original content: Submit an article that hasn’t been published before. Do thorough research and try putting forward a novel idea or discussing a problem from a new perspective.
Readable structure: Your sentences (1-1.5 lines) and paragraphs (3-4 lines) should be short. Divide your content into several parts, add appropriate subtitles and highlight the words where necessary.
Check your work: Make sure your text is free from typing, spelling or grammatical errors (and plagiarism!). Though they don’t affect the meaning of your content, being detail-oriented is a great skill.
Include keywords: A guest post can be found by an interested visitor even months and years after the article is published. So use Google Keyword Planner or other keyword research tools to find both short and long-tail keywords.
Your bio: At the end of your article add a personal photo, tell about your position and experience in a few sentences.
At least 1.500 words: Long articles perform better on Google as you cover more subtopics, use more keywords and possibly add more links which encourage your visitors to stay longer on the website and learn more.
No one will accept and publish your article if you keep praising your software. You don’t share knowledge, they don’t share your content. Your product name can be mentioned when it’s a relevant time.
Are you waiting for an example? Let’s explore this one together.
When Buffer, a social media management platform was entering the market, its co-founder Leo Widrich was diligently writing hundreds of guest posts to get signups (and, of course, traffic). His articles have been published on websites like Traffic Generation Cafe or prominent author Michael Hyatt’s blog. As a result, Buffer’s customer base grew from 0 to 100K users in 9 months.
It’s time to discuss how social media channels can serve your SaaS business purposes. Let’s continue.
5. How To Leverage Social Media Channels For B2B SaaS Influencer Marketing?
“Working With An Influencer Is Like Fishing In Someone’s Stocked Pond. It’s Not Hard, You Just Need To Make Sure You Know What You’re Doing, You Bring The Right Gear And You’ll Need To Share May Be Up To Half Of The Fish With The Pond Owner. That’s Fair”.
Josh Elledge, founder of UpMyInfluence, an influencer agency platform.
Today we’re going to zero in on 3 social media channels: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Youtube. The reason is that B2B decision-makers will take these platforms more seriously for SaaS purchase, than, for example, Snapchat or Pinterest.
We will provide working tips and practical examples from real life to turn your B2B SaaS influencer marketing campaign into a profitable experience.
Facebook
89% of B2B marketers say Facebook is the most suitable social media channel for influencer marketing.
Branded Content
“A Trusted Referral Influences People More Than The Best Broadcast Message. It Is The Holy Grail Of Advertising.WordPress ”.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Co-founder, and CEO
When Zuckerberg team members were creating Branded content option and Brand Collabs Manager, they were definitely bearing this idea in their mind. While Brand Collabs Manager is a Facebook tool to search and find the most acceptable influencers for your B2B SaaS influencer marketing campaign, Branded content is a photo, video, live, text, slideshow or even a 360 video posted by an influencer.
Right now Brand Collabs Manager’s availability is limited but you can add your email to the waiting list. Yet Branded content doesn’t cause difficulties. The most impressive part of this option? Your tagged brand can see reach and engagement statistics and other analytical data on the branded content post from the Facebook page.
In a nutshell, you can use Facebook not only for running an influencer marketing campaign but for looking up an influencer who is a perfect fit for your niche and business. Consequently, your influencer campaign may be conducted on another platform.
Well, you want to ask how branded content is produced and what it’s all about. We will shed light on the process and give a fresh example from a B2B SaaS company. Just stay with us and try visualizing your influencer campaign on this channel.
You can see Mari Smith, a social media thought leader and speaker, on the screenshot below. Pay attention to the blue checkmark that shows her page is verified. This is the first prerequisite for an influencer to post branded content.
When a public figure like Ms. Smith collaborates with a brand, you can see Paid partnership and a tagged brand on the post. Does AgoraPulse sound familiar to you? It’s software, a management tool for social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
Let’s discover what makes this campaign interesting for us.
Mari Smith was broadcasting a live video on Facebook Video Ranking Updates but at the beginning of her speech, she mentioned AgoraPulse, emphasizing the advantages of this tool. She offers a 14-day free trial and a 20% discount to those who would like to use AgoraPulse services. Though life is over, the video can be found on her Facebook page and watched anytime.
This public figure with more than 235K followers is widely recognized as a social media marketing expert. And what AgoraPulse needs? An influencer who will recommend their software to a large number of people who expect social media-related advice from Mari.
All your B2B SaaS company needs to do is finding appropriate influencers (make sure the account is verified) and believe, he/she will know how to tag your brand on the post and engage the audience.
If you don’t mind, we have one more example from Mari Smith. This time her life was about Facebook F8 updates and her sponsor was Wave.video, a tool for creating professional videos.
She offers a 30-day free trial for any paid Wave.video plan and provides a special coupon code. Mari Smith and Wave.video have also launched a public group (3000+ members) to run a 7-day video challenge campaign.
She offers a 30-day free trial for any paid Wave.video plan and provides a special coupon code. Mari Smith and Wave.video have also launched a public group (3000+ members) to run a 7-day video challenge campaign.
LinkedIn
“LinkedIn Is No Longer An Online Resume. It’s Your Digital Reputation.WordPress”.
Enriching your LinkedIn profile with connections and showing B2B professionals your software is actually worth trying… Not a piece of cake. When you keep saying you are unique, it has less impact and is more annoying than when a reputable person helps you enter the LinkedIn market.
Jill Rowley, Growth Specialist
LinkedIn Help has a separate section on LinkedIn Influencers. It doesn’t regulate the relationship between creators and brands regarding the sponsored partnership. According to the source, LinkedIn influencers are selected and they discuss topics connected with education, economy, politics.
LinkedIn offers to cooperate in the framework of LinkedIn Marketing Partner Program but those partners are agencies, not individuals. So it’s more like advertising on LinkedIn through an agency.
Let’s Understand With An Example Where The Field Is Data Science.
Kirk Borne is a worldwide influencer in Data Science and Big Data. If you scroll down his LinkedIn history, you will see posts about Lentiq, a multi-cloud Data Lake as a Service that provides analytics and data science tools to businesses of every size.
The post above invites the audience to attend a free webinar where Kirk Borne was going to deliver speech too.
This is an invitation to a webinar on data lakes and current trends.
Informative and promotional posts in Lentiq have been published throughout months and include an invitation to webinars, sharing Lentiq’s LinkedIn posts, informing and educating about its activity.
LinkedIn Publishing
Did you know that LinkedIn Publishing is an online publishing platform where articles may be posted? It’s like LinkedIn’s own space for blogging. Keep in mind that this feature is available only for personal profiles.
Your B2B SaaS influencer may publish your article on LinkedIn Publishing, mentioning your software or company name in the headline, throughout the article or on the article image.
You have to remember that your articles shouldn’t be published before. Because if you have the same article on LinkedIn and on your website, Google may penalize you for duplicate content.
You can apply changes to your existing article and publish a recycled version on LinkedIn or just write a totally new one for your influencer’s audience.
What is surprising about this feature? Once your article is published on LinkedIn Publishing, your SaaS influencer’s connections will get notification about it. Yes, this is how it works. Isn’t it a great opportunity for a productive conversation?
Twitter
Don’t forget that your articles shouldn’t be too promotional or sales and it will not be nice if you publish too often. Tell, for example, your B2B SaaS startup’s story to share lessons you learned. Your next steps or article topics will depend on how the audience reacts and whether it’s worth publishing new content.
“On Twitter, 61% of users follow a creator which is more than on any other platform”. Maybe you haven’t heard about Niche but it’s a must-know if you are planning to run your influencer marketing campaign on Twitter. Well, it’s a must-know because it belongs to Twitter. It’s been developed to serve as a connecting platform between creators and brands. And the outcome is… branded content (you remember this collocation from Facebook).
General principles that are valid for Facebook or LinkedIn, mainly work for Twitter as well (content types, tools to find influencers…), though don’t forget about a 280-character limit. You and your influencer should follow the KISS formula that is “Keep it short and simple”.
Another factor that deserves your attention? Twitter is extra rich in posts like no other social media network with 5700+ Tweets every second! It means your influencer should post here more frequently than on any other social media channel.
One more tip to be effective on Twitter? Use hashtags. For example, you want to promote your email automation tool. Put #emailautomation hashtag on the Twitter search and find out which individuals tweet with this hashtag, how many engagements they receive and whether they meet influencer’s requirements as a whole or not.
In a nutshell, short tweets with higher frequency! Twitter is different in this way.
Youtube
“If You’re Looking To Get Into Video Marketing, There’s No Better Channel Than Youtube. It’s The Second Most Visited Website On The Entire Internet And The Most Popular Search Engine.WordPress”.
Neil Patel, a top marketer
According to the recent research by Grin, Instagram and Youtube are top platforms for influencer marketing, especially when the campaign is based on visual elements. Youtube is best suited for tech (regarding niche) and product reviews, tutorials, unboxings (regarding format).
Youtube plays a unique role in a SaaS company’s influencer marketing strategy. It’s just because videos are the ideal type of content to demonstrate how your software works and with which features it is equipped.
Another advantage is inserting links to your signup, free trial or download pages in the Youtube video description (anything better for lead generation?)
We introduce a real-life example from Youtube. We have the 3 “characters” of the story – a Youtube channel, subscribers and software.
Another example? Let’s see.
For FreeCodeCamp Youtube is the platform with the largest number of followers and their main audience follows them on Youtube.
Ronald Van Loon is a public speaker and a global influencer in AI, IoT and Machine Learning. Here is a scene from a Youtube video where he interviews Senior Sales Director of HPE, an information technology company, on IT trends.
Did you notice the hashtag #HPEpartner? If you click on it, you will find all his Youtube videos shot in partnership with HPE. It is also a way to disclose the existing partnership with a brand.
You can find Ronald Van Loon’s videos with HPE on his LinkedIn profile as well. So focusing merely on Youtube, in this case, is incomplete because Youtube is not Van Loon’s main platform.
Your influencer should redirect his audience to Youtube (webinar, training or Q&A session) if this channel is not the only platform where his audience is used to engage with them.
Don’t forget that brand-influencer partnership may not be and usually is not uni-channel. Sometimes it can be extra useful to deliver various types of content to the same targeted audience.
6. How To Leverage (Co)Publishing An E-Book For B2B SaaS Influencer Marketing?
Your SaaS company may consider 2 different principles regarding an e-book.
You produce content with an influential company
You produce content with an influential company The final result is an e-book with two authors who care about sharing and promoting it. You reach your partner's audience (he reaches yours) but remember that you are not competitors. So this “exchange” of audiences is not only OK but beneficial for both of you.
Discuss 3 main questions with your partner: the topic, the structure and on which parts each of you is going to work.
E-books are usually published as gated content, so it’s a nice way not only to inform the audience about your company and its expertise and attract the users to your website but to generate leads as well.
E-books are usually published as gated content, so it’s a nice way not only to inform the audience about your company and its expertise and attract the users to your website but to generate leads as well.
Influencers produce content, and you turn them into an e-book
The content you expect maybe in the form of interviews, survey answers or expert opinions provided by influential authors, founders, and specialists who will find time to express their thoughts on subjects you choose.
You may focus on several people, gather the results in one place and make a truly valuable and unique source. The influencers will be ready to share your content as their thoughts will draw some part of the whole work. And everybody loves when he is treated as a smart and knowledgeable person.
Every theory is better understood with a practical example. So here is ours.
Marketo who offers marketing automation software published an e-book on Content Marketing for Lead Generation with separate expert sections.
The first of them was called “What is the biggest mistake marketers make in their content marketing strategy?” and the second one was “What does the future of content marketing hold?”
In these Ask the expert sections Joe Pulizzi and Ann Handley shared their special tips.
So it depends on how much time you are willing to spend on the e-book. You can follow 50-50 rule. The half from your content writing efforts and the rest from experts’ efforts. Or if 10-15 specialists have responded to you with 1-2 page content, then your e-book can solely be “dedicated” to them.
ATTENTION! Udemy Also Can Be A SaaS Influencer Marketing Platform…
You probably are familiar with Udemy, an e-learning platform where tutors offer online courses on diverse topics to millions of students (not literally university students).
Udemy’s approach to businesses is unique and companies choose this platform to train their employees. If a company needs software for its team, let’s say for business analytics, it will try to find appropriate training and automatically specific tool on Udemy.
For example, SuperDataScience team is a group of instructors with 700K+ students (a B2B decision maker is also a “student”). On Udemy they recommend using Tableau for business analytics and have created about 10 courses on how to use this software for analyzing data. The large and targeted audience is present as it was supposed to be. What is this if not influencer marketing?
So if your software is an analytics tool and you are eager to target data scientist professionals, then maybe you should find an enthusiastic tutor with tens of thousands of students or create your own courses.
7. How To Address Your Potential Influencer
If there’s only one tip for this question, then the answer is “Be personal”.
Your focus should be on potential influencers and the utility of your software, not you or your business.
Create a new message or an email from scratch to cover all the important points: Your SaaS brand is about… He is a relevant influencer for your SaaS brand because… You’re looking forward to his response and suggestions.
Before taking personal steps, start following your potential influencers, engage with their content, let them notice and recognize you.
Let Your Influencer Be Clearly Aware Of Your Campaign Goal
Before launching your SaaS influential marketing campaign, always answer this question firstly: What’s my end goal? Is It brand visibility, lead generation, direct sales?
For a startup who is a newcomer in the market, yet not a newbie, informing your audience about your existence is maybe the highest priority.
As you already understand, the influencer marketing campaign is not a 1 or 2-week activity that will bring you quick and stable results (the rational period is at least 3-4 months)
During the first weeks, your main goal may be brand awareness, quality traffic or engagements. During the second and third months, you can zero in on generating leads and asking your prospects to download a free trial, attend your webinar or sign up for your newsletter.
In the final stage, but special or one-time offers in front of the audience, offer different subscription plans and payment methods.
8. How To Measure The ROI Of Your SaaS Influencer Marketing Campaign
Providing a discount/coupon code to an influencer is a way to identify the purchase source. It doesn’t matter on which social media channel your SaaS influencer marketing campaign is.
You generate the code for that particular influencer. When you analyze how many times that code was applied, you understand how effective was your campaign on the influencer’s page.
Generating a specific link is another simple way. When you generate one single link to your landing page, it’s difficult to understand how many of the users clicked on it from the influencer’s post.
That’s why you can use Campaign URL Builder to create a unique link. It will make your traffic analysis process much more productive.
Bonus tip! This will apply or not depends on how active you are on social media networks. For example, if your SaaS company doesn’t have a Facebook page and your influencer campaign runs on this platform, you can be sure that all the traffic coming from Facebook is a result of that campaign.
It’s up to you to decide whether you will prefer this form or choose a more precise way of measuring your performance.
Yes, you can’t take your likes, comments, and shares to any bank and ask for cash but sometimes traffic and engagement also need to be analyzed. If you want to measure the impact of guest blogging on your website traffic, look at what Google Analytics tells about your referral traffic. Or if you’re going to measure the audience’s engagement, see what page statistics on each social media network show. Learn more how to optimize and maximize your ROI on influencer marketing.”
9. Ask The Expert! Exceptional Ideas For YOU…
Anna Grimes
Position: PR Strategist
Company: Golden Spiral Marketing
Before you begin any SaaS marketing campaign, hit the “pause” button and assess. What are the data telling you about your marketing efforts? Have your target audience and buyer persona changed?
Review all the data from Google Analytics, email marketing, and social media reports and find out which sources are driving the most revenue. How do the majority of new customers find you? Where did you fall short in your marketing efforts?If all arrows point to an influencer campaign, then you’re ready to go. Only after you’ve thoroughly reviewed where you are today can you begin to shape an influencer campaign for tomorrow”
Rob Boirun
Position: CEO
Company: Reviewster Network
“One of the best tips I can provide for SaaS influencer marketing is simply searching on YouTube for those that are talking about your industry. Having a decent amount of followers and posting on a regular basis (at least once a week) are also factors of primary importance. If their audience is active by giving likes and leaving comments, then this is an ideal influencer to reach out to.
I have done this numerous times and always get good results when the influencer either does a review or talks about how it helped them in a particular way. Just offer the influencer a decent commission and if your SaaS product is actually good, then it will be a win-win collaboration”.
Quincy Smith
Position: SEO and Content marketer
Company: :Ampjar
“My advice is to go niche whenever possible. Everyone wants to get in front of a Kardashian-level audience but when you’ve got a recurring monthly revenue model it’s better to get in front of your ideal customers. Find an influencer that only operates in your space and reach out to them.
You’ll almost always get a cheaper price than you would from a major league influencer and you’re guaranteed to get in front of potential customers (think of it as hunting with a rifle vs. shotgun). For example, our target users are technically all small business owners, but we’d never pitch people like Gary Vee – he’s too broad.Instead, we want people like Tyler McCall who we know to work with our target users. If you go niche, you’ll save money and have a higher chance of success”.
Yaniv Masjedi
Position: CMO
Company: Nextiva
“One of the best tips I can provide for SaaS influencer marketing is simply searching on YouTube for those that are talking about your industry. Having a decent amount of followers and posting on a regular basis (at least once a week) are also factors of primary importance. If their audience is active by giving likes and leaving comments, then this is an ideal influencer to reach out to.
I have done this numerous times and always get good results when the influencer either does a review or talks about how it helped them in a particular way. Just offer the influencer a decent commission and if your SaaS product is actually good, then it will be a win-win collaboration”.
Robert Katai
Position: Content Marketing Manager
Company:: Bannersnack
We worked with a B2B influencer who wrote a compelling article about our product. They made a really comprehensive article on how to use Bannersnack, how to create visuals with our tool.They also promoted our article within their community as a result of which we gained a lot of traction and increased brand awareness.Tips to work with B2B influencers
I used Buzzsumo to find the top influencers in social media and online advertising industry.
Followed the ones with big community and reached out to them.
Talked and asked how we could work together.
Gave them everything they wanted about our tool and let them do their work.
treat your influencer in the way you treat your customers”
Ideas
let the influencer work with their own content
give them the space they want to create the content
give them everything they want about your product
show them the tool in a dedicated demo conference
Nicholas Farmen
Position: Marketing Coordinator
Company: Spire Digital
The most successful growth hacking tips I have deployed is link building. It’s when you get well-respected domains to link to your website, to boost the credibility of your website and increase referral traffic.
Two good ideas for quick, effective link building are:
establishing a relationship with a large, respected referral website like Clutch, or GoodFirms,
submitting article pitches to domains that your target audience is likely to come across on their Google search for your SaaS offering.
I have seen my agency’s strong relationship with Clutch bring in many qualified leads that have converted. And our articles on Adobe, Techcrunch, and UsabilityGeek have resulted in steady streams of referral traffic. Big links also improve your domain’s authority and search rankings. For my SaaS clients, big referrals from Verizon, Fortune, Forbes, MotleyFool, and more, have resulted in sizeable MQLs and SQLs
Mark Grasmayer
Position: Product Evangelist
Company: Workspace365
The best way to highlight the challenges and benefits of influencer marketing is to tell our company’s experience. Our potential customers are IT and Communication managers. We have to teach them about how Workspace365 makes IT solutions easier.
That’s why we reach out to both tech bloggers who write about the technical implementation, and communication bloggers who write about the benefits of the workspace. Each persona has its own influencer.
Finding tech bloggers was very difficult, but extremely rewarding at the same time. Tech blogs, which were published years ago, helped us improve our SEO and still provide valuable leads each month!
Here is my trick for finding B2B influencers in any segment. On LinkedIn, you are able to see which posts your customers comment on. Contact all these writers and ask why they write about the subject. You will learn if they are open to writing a review or a sponsored post.
Keep one thing in mind: What’s in it for them? You already know your goal, try to understand how you can help them achieve their goals.
Ideas
let the influencer work with their own content
give them the space they want to create the content
give them everything they want about your product
show them the tool in a dedicated demo conference
Tasmin Lockwood
Position: Tech writer and researcher
Company: Radial Path
We recently worked with a Sony group startup that produced a battery optimization tool and ran an influencer marketing campaign for them. I lead this campaign and have since produced several blogs and an e-book on influencer marketing. My tips are as follows: ensure you’re on the right platform and you’ve identified the right ‘type’ of an influencer.
Two good ideas for quick, effective link building are:
We often use Twitter as the first point of call when sourcing influencers due to the open nature of Twitter and the ability to search and monitor hashtags. We are opting for ‘micro’ influencers with more engaged audiences rather than a large following.
Another tool we use is Buzzsumo where you can understand how many engagements a potential influencer receives on a particular social media platform. One size does not fit all. Depending on who you’re targeting and why the how will change significantly.
Always make sure you’re adding value to your targeted influencer or their audience. Everyone reacts differently and values different things, so do a bit of social listening but don’t over-kill.
Michael Pecanek
Position: Head of Marketing
Company: CDN77
I have solid experience with influencers and prefer to call them experts. All influencers have Twitter accounts. The easiest way to find them is to use FollowerWonk which allows you to export a list of Twitter accounts based on keywords in the bio. We use this to also find journalists writing about our topics of interest. For SEO purposes, we like using Ahrefs’ Content Explorer where you see the author next to each post with all the metrics you need. BuzzSumo also seems great.
Don’t work with influencers if they’re not excited about your product! Make them sign up for your trial, give them a sponsored account, make them use it regularly. Only then the content they publish can sound authentic.
A great tactic with a solid viral potential is to create roundup posts. Come up with an up-to-date topic, ask great questions and prepare a social and link building campaign.
It helps a lot if the experts are already aware of your brand and ideally about the roundup post author. These kinds of posts get the most links and social engagement in our experience”.
Liked this section? Let’s move to the final part.
As we already arrive at a conclusion, it’s time to summarize our main ideas and thank you for staying with us. Your hardest piece of work is probably to single out your future partner.
Platform and content parts aren’t facile either but as a rule, they depend on your business needs and goals. Once you cherry-pick your SaaS influencer, your joint endeavors will become the foundation of a momentous SaaS influencer campaign from which other SaaS startups can take an example and be inspired.
Final thoughts
Time to check your knowledge on SaaS influencer marketing!
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