4 Unique Ways for Marketing SaaS Companies That You Didn’t Think About

Product Hunt is a great resource for people looking to get their product out to a new audience. Product Hunt is a directory that showcases new software and brings people all kinds of new options that they have never heard of. Getting listed in a directory is a great way to get introduced to people who may never come across your product otherwise. 

People can search for specific types of software that they need, or you can scroll through and just see what new software is coming out. 

The great part about Product Hunt is that it features big companies that have well known software as well as new startups that are looking to grow. Wherever you are at in launching your product, this directory meets you exactly where you are and can bring greater exposure. 

One of the challenges of Product Hunt is ranking high enough so that your Saas product is seen. Luckily, there are ways to land higher on the list. Liz Cohen from Hetz Ventures lays out 3 criteria from getting ranked higher:

For a great example of a well known company that launched through Product Hunt, check out their article on Notion.

Another great way of marketing your SaaS company is by creating niche YouTube content. You can leverage this totally free platform to get eyes on your product, even if you don’t have a single subscriber!

The key to succeeding with this marketing strategy is picking your niche. There is already a ton of content on youtube. Unless you are a famous YouTuber already, or really good at making cat videos, it is hard to stand out. This is where a niche becomes super important.

A niche creates an opportunity for you to speak directly to the people who are searching for what you are selling. You may not be reaching everyone, but the people you are reaching are the ones that are looking for the product you are selling. You are delivering value to people who are specifically looking for it. 

There are all kinds of options and opportunities here.

I launched my SaaS company Semflow a little under a year ago and with $0 in paid marketing, It has grown to $12,000 MRR. I did this by producing ultra-niche YouTube videos that speak directly to my target audience. You can check out a few of these videos here:

If you want a quick and easy way to search for niche video titles, you can use a tool like TubeBuddy. This allows you to research video ideas and see how much search volume and competition there is for each one.

So a video titled “How to be productive” is not going to be easy to get views to.

But a video titled “how to double your productivity as a dental assistant” will be much easier to rank for.

So choose your niche topic wisely and create videos speaking directly to that audience.

Affiliate commissions are an easy way of marketing your SaaS company. They are an easy way to get other people to promote your product to their audience. 

Affiliate programs work by offering an incentive to people for recommending your product and getting people to sign up. Someone will promote your product through a link and then you are able to compensate them for doing so. This works great because even though you are giving a percentage of your profit to the affiliate partner, they are bringing in new customers to make up for it. 

Affiliate programs usually work one of two ways:

‍One time fee - The affiliate will get a one time fee when someone signs up through their link. 
‍Ongoing subscription - The affiliate partner gets a percentage of the monthly subscription rate.

One of the challenges with affiliate programs is that there are a ton of them out there on the market. Standing out can be a challenge. That is why one of the most creative ways to get people’s attention is by offering some sort of absurd affiliate commission. 

‍Go High Level is a great example of a company who does this. They have created a genius affiliate program that gets people to share their product. 

One of the ways they do this is by giving a large commission. They give 40% of the subscription cost to their affiliate partners. This is huge for the affiliate space. When people are looking for affiliate programs, they are definitely going to choose the ones with the highest rewards. The second way they do this is by giving away huge prizes. If you rank high enough in their program, they will put money towards getting you an electric vehicle.

It is fun and it catches your attention. Go High Level knows how to stand out. Any SaaS company can do the same thing. Deciding how to use an affiliate program like this takes creativity but it can bring huge results.

Choosing a vertical SaaS strategy can make marketing a ton easier when it is time. This strategy takes place when you are still deciding on what type of SaaS product to build. 

A vertical strategy to building a SaaS product means that you are deciding on one key element of an existing product or service and trying to build upon it. 

For example, there are a number of DIY web design platforms. Creating your own web design platform could definitely be successful. However, you are going to spend a ton of time building it. Instead, you could focus on building a plugin or extension for an existing platform that already has a large user base.

One of the huge benefits to this strategy is that you are not creating a brand new product without an audience. You are creating a resource for people who are already using another product. It can make marketing your SaaS product way easier.

Vertical SaaS Strategy ideas:

It also gets much easier to find affiliates for your product because there are most likely already influencers that focus on that niche or industry.