Hacks for Brainstorming Your Best SaaS marketing Ideas

It is becoming increasingly difficult to come up with innovative SaaS marketing strategies. It’s easy for you to feel completely exhausted when there are so many things on your mind and so many demands placed upon your time. We know how this feels. When you feel stagnant or uninterested with the content you create, you may need to get a quick boost of inspiration in order to rekindle your enthusiasm. Where can you turn to for inspiration when you feel drained? Here.

Find SaaS Marketing Ideas

We’re going to share some of our favourite hacks for getting inspiration fast. Some of these techniques are old-fashioned, while others may be brand new. We hope that this will help you to come up with new campaign ideas and get results worth bragging about.

Consider the brands that you like.

Nike and Apple are the two titans in branding and marketing. They should not be the guiding light unless they’re direct competitors. Look at brands who are also serving your audience, and do something interesting, unique or simply exceedingly effective.

Devin Zimmerman is the VP of Brand for Greenlight. She joined us in our Best Story Wins Podcast and said that Pixar was a big inspiration to her team. Greenlight, a platform that promotes financial literacy for children (not an entertainment studio), has a similar audience to Pixar.

Pixar is a studio that has perfected the art of visual storytelling for kids (and their parents). Greenlight wants to follow in the footsteps of the studio. They do this by using playful visuals to tell emotional stories and connect with the audience.

We love everything Mailchimp is doing. We are a digital marketing agency, and Mailchimp is a platform for marketing. However, we can take inspiration from them as a proxy brand.

You can get some inspiration from these SaaS campaigns if you don’t have any proxy brands in mind. Listen to the full episode of our interview with Zimmerman for more information on how the Greenlight Team gets inspiration from proxy brands.

Consider brands that push boundaries.

Two myths plague SaaS Marketing.

1. 
   It’s not emotional.
   
2. 
   It must be boring.
   

These things are far from the truth. These widely held beliefs can be a great opportunity for SaaS marketing to stand out.

We love those rogue brands who take huge risks and reap the rewards. During our podcast, Zimmerman mentioned that Greenlight was inspired by the voice and visual presence of Billie (the women’s shaver company) and Tushy (the bidet company) for their innovative marketing. Tushy has one of the most innovative social media accounts. Don’t blame us if you take a peek, but be careful.

How can you create SaaS marketing strategies that will “stop the scrolling”? Consider brands who have made you laugh with a funny video, taken a stand on a controversial topic, or launched a shocking marketing campaign. It’s not necessary to copy their style. Think critically about their unique selling points. How can you achieve the same results?

Tip: You can add a lot of sass and wit to your SaaS Marketing ideas. (See what we did?). Try our tips for brainstorming ideas that are out of the box. And try these ideas to produce B2B content without boring your audience.

Think about your inspirations.

We remind marketers all the time that marketing isn’t about them, it’s about your audience. When you’re searching for new SaaS marketing strategies, it can be helpful to consider what you enjoy and find interesting.

What content makes you stop scrolling? What type of entertainment do you enjoy? What publications or influencers are you drawn to, and why do you like them? Take a step back, and consider why you enjoy the content. You may like home improvement programs because of the powerful before-and-after photos. You may enjoy the tantalizing visuals of food influencers.

Drew Hoffman, of SentinelOne, told us that he does not look for marketing inspiration on Pinterest or from other marketers, because he believes it is too self-referential. This is why many brands look the same. He finds inspiration in film directors. B2B marketing can learn from film directors. Think about what you find interesting, exciting, and grabbing. What can you do to create something similar?

Tip: We are always impressed by companies that have great marketing but sell tame or boring products. This roundup of clever examples will show you how much you can achieve, even if your brand isn’t very exciting.

Look at the audience.

Marketers can sometimes have tunnel vision and focus only on their own activities (or those of their competitors). Remember that you are serving the needs of your audience, so it’s important to know what type of content is most appealing to them.

Greenlight, for example, studied Pew research to understand their audience of teens and tweens. This included youth fashion trends, media consumption patterns, preferred communication methods, self-expression forms, etc. To understand what their audience is interested in. The insights gained from the research led Greenlight to change their content to make it more mature (since teens believe they are older ).

This type of research can help SaaS marketers to get inside their audience’s head and customize messages accordingly.

• What kind of content do they enjoy?
• What brands are they most likely to interact with?
• What are their favorite content formats (e.g. video)?

Analyzing their consumption is a good way to find new inspiration, as it forces you to look at content not just from brands in your area.

Tip: In today’s marketing, there are more audience data than ever. Look at research that relates to consumer behavior and where they spend time. If you don’t know where to look, here is 100+ sources of free data. After you’ve done this, you can create marketing personas as well as ideal customer profiles in order to segment your audience.

5) Creep up on the winners.

We often turn to award-winning and nominated examples in our fields when we are looking for inspiration. It could be the Shorty Awards or The Webbys. Or it could be the Content Marketing Institute Awards. There are probably marketing awards for every industry.

Everyone looks forward to the Cannes Lions Awards each year, which honor top-tier Advertising creativity. The Cannes Lions Awards are always exciting to watch, especially if you want to be inspired to create something new. You shouldn’t try to copy their work, but you can use the reasoning behind a piece of creative marketing.

Find more SaaS marketing ideas

One of the best things you can do to stay motivated is to follow what the top SaaS marketing professionals are doing. Here are some easy ways to achieve that.

• Subscribe to the Best Story Wins Podcast. Each episode features interviews with marketing professionals to learn how they are building brands and engaging their audiences.
• Research is important. The Content Marketing Institute reports are a great way to gain insight into the trends across industries.
• Find out more about SaaS Marketing. Learn more about SaaS marketing.

If your results are stagnant and you struggle to move forward with your content strategy then an outside perspective will always be helpful. You can find out more about how to choose a SaaS company with the right expertise by looking at our FAQs or contacting us. Our team has the expertise and ideas that you need.

The article 5 Hacks for Brainstorming Your Best SaaS Marketing Idea first appeared on column five.

Author: Katy French