The New Year brings fresh energy, refreshed budgets, and an “I MUST solve that [problem] in 2025!” mindset from buyers. That’s why January can be the #1 month for SaaS lead generation—but only if you plan ahead.

Here are 5 quick campaign ideas to help you hit the ground running in January 2025:

1. Create a New Year landing page & ads

Leverage the “I MUST solve that [problem] in 2025!” mindset by tweaking one of your best-performing landing pages. Update the hero banner with messaging like:

“Looking to solve [insert key problem] in 2025?
Make [your solution] your New Year’s resolution.”

Drive traffic to the page with LinkedIn and/or Meta ads that align with this refreshed mindset.

Successful marketing is all about emotionally connecting with your target audience. If they are thinking, “I MUST solve that [problem] in 2025”, then they see an ad on LinkedIn with the same message, you’ve got their attention.

Here an ad that we ran at the start of 2024 which resulted in 3 qualified sales calls and 2 sales:

2. Run a LinkedIn poll

Ask a question like: “What’s your #1 priority for [industry] in 2025?” Give a few options. They must be problems your solution helps solve.

Why it works:

• Polls get far more engagement than standard posts.
• You can see exactly who voted. You can then send each person a DM saying, “Thanks for voting on my poll! I see you are prioritising X this year. Our [solution] does exactly that…”

Once the poll ends, you can turn the results into a follow-up post or content piece.

For example: “80% of HR leaders said reducing churn is their top 2025 goal. Here’s how we’re helping companies like yours tackle it head-on.” This extends the campaign’s life while driving value for voters and your audience.

Here’s an example of a poll I ran at the start of 2024:

3. Announce what’s coming in 2025

Build excitement and buzz by sharing what’s ahead for your business next year:

• New features, integrations, or product updates
• Roadmap teasers via social media or newsletters
• Consider a waitlist campaign to capture leads early for new product launches.

This approach creates anticipation and positions your brand as forward-thinking. A waitlist campaign, for instance, works exceptionally well if the new feature solves a widely known problem in your industry. Promote it heavily on social channels and consider running ads to maximise visibility.

4. Publish a 2025 predictions guide

Position your brand as a thought leader with an insightful resource like:

• “5 Trends That Will Define [Industry] in 2025.”
• “How AI Will Transform [Industry] Next Year.”

Why it works: Everyone wants to stay ahead of the curve—whether it excites them or keeps them competitive. By focusing on major industry shifts, like new technologies, legislation, or trends, you’re helping your audience feel prepared for the year ahead.

Bonus tip: Involve industry experts outside of your company for quotes or predictions to add credibility. Then encourage them to promote it on their marketing channels (LinkedIn, email etc) which will broaden your reach, introducing your brand to new prospects.

5. Offer a New Year discount or extended trial

Sometimes, a little urgency is all you need to get prospects moving. Create a limited-time New Year offer:

• A small discount for sign-ups in January
• An extended free trial to let users experience your product

This works particularly well for leads who paused in December due to budget freezes or holiday distractions. Adding a deadline, such as “This offer expires January 31st”, introduces scarcity and prompts faster decision-making.

The takeaway?

Plan now to hit the ground running in January. These campaigns are quick to set up, align with your audience’s mindset, and can generate a strong start to 2025.

Before I get into that, on behalf of myself and the Rocket SaaS team, we wish you a Merry Christmas!

I can’t believe no one else wore a Christmas jumper!

SaaS Christmas ads. Yay or nay?

If you run ads on Google, LinkedIn, Meta, Bing, etc., you’re probably wondering whether you should pause your ads, lower the budget, or continue to run them over the Christmas/New Year period.

The ad companies will find a way to spend your budget

You may think, “It’s cost per click. If people don’t click my ads during the holidays, then my budget won’t get spent”. This is not always true in my experience. The ad companies will find a way to spend your cash! If you’re using max conversion bidding, then be careful. With fewer impressions, your CPC is going to climb dramatically.

Let’s break down the pros and cons…

Keep them on if…

You’re B2C

Each case is unique, but generally speaking, it makes sense for most B2C brands to keep ads running during holidays. Customers don’t run on “business hours”. People spend more time on Facebook and Instagram during the holidays.

You can get a bargain

For B2B businesses, at least some of your competitors will likely pause their ads. It could lead to cheaper Cost Per Click and Cost Per Conversion while there’s less competition.

You’re worried about going back into the Learning Phase

If you pause your ads, when you restart them, they could go back into the “learning phase”, which is a few days or weeks of Google automatically experiments and optimises your campaigns to learn what works best for you. Campaigns often perform badly during this phase. Ad rank could also be negatively impacted.

If you want to avoid campaigns going back into the learning phase and slowing you down once the new year begins, you can instead just lower your budgets. Don’t go lower than 20%, though. A bigger change could result in entering the learning phase.

Pause them if…

You’ll have no staff

If you don’t have the staff available to fulfil requests, then it’s best to pause the ads. If a visitor tries to book a demo and the next available slot is 2 weeks away, they will likely do a U-turn or no-show.

Likewise, with free trials, if manual onboarding or support is needed and nobody is available from your side, the customer will be very unlikely to upgrade.

You want extra budget for Jan

January is often a great month for B2B brands due to new budgets and the New Year’s resolution attitude of “I must solve X problem this year!“. So pausing ads in December and moving the saved budget to January makes sense for a lot of brands.

You want to focus on other areas of growth

Some people will find this hard to believe, but business is not all about sales and leads! If you’re a small business, it may be wise to embrace the slowdown in sales during the holiday season to focus on other areas of your business, such as mapping out your 2025 marketing strategy (hiring Rocket SaaS should be top of your list 😉 ).

My conclusion

Every account is different. Hopefully, the above points will provide you with some guidance. In short:

B2C account? Keep your Ads running and take advantage of potential reduced competition and increased demand.

B2B account? If users are unable to get in touch with your team, consider turning your ads off to avoid wasting ad spend. Push the saved budget into January. But watch out for the impact of sinking back into the campaign learning phases. Hopefully the extra budget in Jan will make it worth it.

You can focus ads higher up the funnel

For most SaaS brands, bottom-of-funnel intent will drop during the holiday season (booking demos, free trials, etc). However, the top/middle-of-funnel searches often continue to be strong. So, a change of strategy to push your thought-leader content harder during this period should be considered.

Whatever you decide to do, be sure to document your decision and the results so you can know exactly what to do next year.

I’ve scaled Rocket SaaS from $0 to $1,900,000 in annual recurring revenue in 3 years. How did I do it? Demand generation marketing.

In this week’s email, I’ll explain what it is and how you can implement it into your brand.

Demand generation isn’t some fancy new concept—it’s been around forever. At its heart, it’s about building awareness and creating interest long before a buyer is ready to purchase.

Most of your audience doesn’t know they need you yet. Around 95% of potential customers aren’t actively looking to buy. They’re not researching solutions or exploring options because they don’t even realise there’s a problem to solve.

That’s where demand generation comes in: educating your audience, sparking curiosity, and helping them identify challenges they didn’t know they had—all without hard-selling or relying on outdated tactics.

Let’s break it down.

What is demand generation?

Demand generation is about positioning yourself as the go-to authority in your space by giving your audience what they actually want:

• Educational content that’s truly helpful. Think webinars, tutorials, blogs, podcasts, newsletters, and videos that teach your audience something valuable about their industry, pain point or goal.
• Transparency. Make pricing and key product information easily accessible—no gated PDFs, no forms, no annoying hoops to jump through.
• A buyer-led approach. Instead of aggressively pushing your solution with aggressive cold calling or spammy cold emails, focus on nurturing trust through great content. Let buyers come to you when they’re ready.

How do you implement demand generation in your SaaS business?

Demand generation isn’t something you can delegate to one hire and hope for the best. While a Head of Demand Generation can provide leadership, the founders or subject-matter experts need to shape the strategy and bring credibility to the brand.

Here are some key things to consider:

Create a demand generation strategy

Your demand generation strategy should laser-focus on understanding your audience and delivering the right value to them—long before they consider buying your product.

Define your target audience.

Create an ideal customer profile made up of detailed attributes such as industry, company size, pain points, goals, decision-making roles, and purchasing behaviour.

Do proper market research

Use surveys like Pollfish, interview your existing customers and run internal workshops to figure out your target audience’s main goals or pain points.

Decide on your content topic/s

Based on your research, decide what content your audience is going to engage with. The problem or goal should align directly with what your solution addresses or helps accomplish. For example, at Rocket SaaS, our main topic for demand gen is How to get SaaS leads. We create a ton of content around this topic.

Decide your channels

Where does your audience hang out? For B2B SaaS, it’s most likely LinkedIn, but it could also be YouTube, Facebook, Instagram etc.

Build a content calendar

Consistency is key. Plan out a mix of formats—videos, blogs, social posts, newsletters, webinars and podcasts.

Here’s a suggested frequency for a B2B SaaS content calendar:

• Daily: Share actionable LinkedIn posts, like “3 ways to identify inefficiencies in your [industry] team’s workflow“.
• Weekly: Publish a blog post such as “The hidden cost of inefficient processes in [industry] businesses“
• Bi-Weekly: Release a video tutorial or podcast episode on topics like “How to streamline [industry] onboarding without overhauling your entire system.“
• Monthly: Host a webinar or Q&A session focused on deep-dive educational topics, e.g., “The future of automation in [industry]: What you need to know.“
• Quarterly: Publish a free, in-depth resource like an industry benchmark report or playbook, e.g., “The [industry] Leader’s Guide to Optimising Team Productivity in 2025.“

How long should you wait to see demand generation working?

Demand generation is a long-term strategy. While it can take 6-12 months to see significant results, you may notice early indicators of success within the first few months. These could include increased brand awareness, higher engagement on your content, and growing website traffic.

Remember, demand generation isn’t about quick wins. It’s about building trust and staying top-of-mind so your audience turns to you when they’re ready to buy. Patience is key.

Metrics to look out for

Although demand generation doesn’t always produce immediate, attributable ROI, there are several metrics that signal progress:

Awareness metrics

• Website traffic: Growth in unique visitors and repeat visits indicates that more people are discovering your brand.
• Brand searches: An increase in searches for your company name or products shows your visibility is improving.

Engagement metric

• Content engagement: Track views, likes, shares, and comments on your blogs, videos, and social posts.
• Webinar attendance: Monitor sign-ups and attendance rates for your educational events.
• Time spent on page: Longer sessions mean your audience finds your content valuable.

Lead nurturing metrics

• Newsletter sign-ups: A growing subscriber base shows interest in your ongoing value.
• Download rates for ungated content: Indicates that your resources resonate with your audience.

Pipeline indicators

• Demo requests: A slow but steady increase shows that your demand gen efforts are driving interest over time.
• Sales conversations: Track the number of inbound leads, mentioning they discovered you through content or events.

By focusing on these metrics and allowing time for your strategy to take root, you’ll see how demand generation builds sustainable growth for your SaaS business.

Why you can’t measure every dollar spent

Demand generation doesn’t follow a tidy, linear path. People rarely see an ad, click, and immediately buy. Instead, they interact with your brand across multiple touchpoints—watching a video, reading a blog, seeing a LinkedIn post—before making a decision months later.

This means you won’t always be able to trace every dollar spent back to a direct sale. And that’s okay. The goal of demand generation is to build trust and visibility over time, creating a foundation that influences buyers when they’re ready—not just when you’re tracking.

Who’s nailing demand generation?

HubSpot

HubSpot has mastered ungated, valuable content. Their free resources, like their videos, guides, templates, and detailed blogs, are all designed to help businesses without asking for anything in return. This approach positions them as a trusted authority while building long-term goodwill.

Cognism

Cognism leans heavily on thought leadership and makes its founders and team highly visible. They publish ungated guides and run educational webinars that share actionable advice for sales and marketing teams.

Rocket SaaS

We practice what we preach. Instead of spamming inboxes or hiding behind gated content, we focus on creating demand through high-value insights and free resources, teaching our target audience how to get SaaS leads using mediums such as this newsletter, regular webinars, LinkedIn posts and the SaaS Marketing Weekly podcast.

Demand generation works when you shift from “How can we sell to them?” to “How can we help them?” It’s about education, transparency, and trust—showing up for your audience now so they think of you when they’re ready to buy.

Want help implementing demand generation into your business?

My agency, Rocket SaaS, creates demand generation strategies and implementation for B2B SaaS brands. Jump on a strategy call with me, and I’ll explain how we can support your growth.

Setting a goal to add $100,000 in monthly recurring revenue (MRR) is ambitious, but without knowing the input required, it’s just a wish.

Most SaaS founders or marketers focus on their revenue targets but don’t bother to break them down into actionable input targets.

If you’re not clear on how many MQLs, SQLs, cold emails, ad spend, campaigns etc you need, you’re flying blind.

Let’s work through an example…

Start with the end goal

To reach your additional $100K MRR target, reverse-engineer the process. Here’s how to break it down:

Revenue target: Adding $100,000 MRR by the end of 2025 (12 month target)

If your average revenue per customer is $3,000 per month, you’ll need 34 new customers to hit your goal.

Sales: 34 new customers

If your close rate is 40%, you’ll need 85 sales calls, demos, or free trials to land those 34 deals.

Qualified leads (SQLs): 170 SQLs

If 50% of SQLs convert to a sales call, you’ll need 170 SQLs to generate enough calls to close 34 deals.

Split the funnel: inbound vs. outbound

To hit your target, let’s assume 50% of revenue comes from inbound marketing and 50% from outbound sales efforts. That means you’ll need to generate 85 SQLs from inbound marketing and 85 SQLs from outbound sales.

Now, let’s break down how to achieve these SQL numbers.

Outbound sales efforts

Outbound sales is about direct, targeted outreach to prospects. Here’s what it looks like:

• Cold calls and emails: If your cold outreach has a 2.5% conversion rate, you’ll need to send 3,400 outreach messages or calls to generate 85 SQLs.
• Follow-ups: Leads rarely convert on the first try. Use a consistent follow-up strategy to nurture colder prospects into SQLs.

Inbound marketing

Inbound marketing drives leads through engaging content and well-optimised campaigns. Here’s what it takes to hit 85 SQLs via inbound:

Ad spend: With a cost per SQL of $500, you’ll need $3,500 in monthly ad spend to generate 85 SQLs to hit your annual target.

Content creation: High-quality content is critical for nurturing leads into SQLs. I’d recommend:

1–2 lead magnets (eBooks, webinars, scorecards etc) per month

• 4–8 blog posts per month
• 1 – 2 case studies per month
• 10+ social posts per month
• 1–2 email campaigns per month

Inbound efforts should complement outbound sales, creating a balanced, scalable funnel.

Diagnose your funnel’s weak points

With your numbers in place, you can begin identifying where your funnel might be underperforming. Here’s how to pinpoint and address issues:

Struggling to generate SQLs?

• Outbound efforts: If outreach isn’t converting, refine your messaging or improve your prospecting to better target decision-makers.
• Inbound marketing: Revisit your ads, content, or landing pages to improve engagement and conversions.

Low conversion from SQL to sales call?

• Lead qualification: Tighten your qualification criteria to ensure only high-quality leads move to sales.
• Sales enablement: Provide your sales team with better resources like tailored case studies or ROI calculators.

Sales calls not converting?

• Demo quality: Ensure your demos solve specific pain points and highlight clear benefits.
• Sales process: Analyse whether the issue lies in handling objections, follow-ups, or closing techniques.

Bottlenecks in the funnel?

If one stage of the funnel is consistently underperforming, it will drag down your entire process. Use analytics to monitor performance and focus resources on the weak link.

By continuously evaluating each stage, you can fix inefficiencies and ensure every part of the funnel contributes to your revenue target.

Ready to add $100K MRR?

If your inbound marketing efforts aren’t delivering, me and my agency, Rocket SaaS, can help.

Whether you are a founder with no in-house marketing resources or if you’re a marketer and desperately need support, Rocket SaaS can slot into your team and empower you with marketing strategy, content, LinkedIn/Google Ads, lead magnets and website updates.

Book a marketing strategy call with me to discuss.

Your pricing model isn’t just a number—it’s a strategy. How you price your SaaS product could make all the difference in attracting the right customers and boosting your revenue. So why settle for “good enough” when there’s room to experiment and grow?

There are also many different ways you can set your pricing. Let’s break it down with examples from some of the biggest names in SaaS.

1. Freemium: Give a little, sell a lot

Slack keeps its entry-level tier free but limited. It’s perfect for small teams to get hooked, with features like 90-day message history and integrations locked behind a paywall. That’s how Slack turns casual users into paying users.

2. Flat rate: Keep it simple

Basecamp goes all-in on simplicity: one price, $299/month, for unlimited users and all features. No tiers, no confusion. It’s a dream for overwhelmed decision-makers.

3. Per-user pricing: Scale with growth

Zoom charges based on the number of users, making it affordable for small teams while staying scalable for larger organisations. It’s a model that grows as your customers do.

4. Tiered pricing: Something for everyone

HubSpot divides its pricing into Starter, Professional, and Enterprise tiers. Each level adds more tools and features, meaning they’re equally useful to a solo founder and a Fortune 500 giant.

5. Usage-based: Pay-as-you-go flexibility

AWS doesn’t mess around—customers only pay for what they use. This makes it perfect for businesses with unpredictable needs, like startups testing the waters or enterprises scaling quickly.

6. Price anchoring: Frame the choice

Adobe Creative Cloud makes price anchoring work like magic. They position their most expensive plan as the ultimate bundle (all apps for $59.99/month). For comparison, a single app costs around $20/month. That makes the full bundle look like a bargain, even if most users don’t need every app. The result? More upsells to the pricier plan.

At Rocket SaaS, we’ve chosen the tiered pricing approach

How to apply these strategies

• Think about your customers’ needs. Are they looking for simplicity, flexibility, or scalability?
• Determine how your customers interact with your product—are they power users or occasional explorers?
• AB test. Test and tweak until you find a model that feels like a win-win.

Picking the right pricing could have a dramatic impact on revenue. So don’t just stick with your current pricing model because it’s always been that way. If you’re struggling with sales, try something different.

Is your website getting traffic but struggling to generate leads? It’s a common problem! You can explore many areas to fix this problem, but today, we’re going to look at moving the call to action (CTA) higher up the funnel.

Before I get into that, have you listened to this week’s SaaS Marketing Weekly podcast?

I’m shocked how many SaaS businesses are terrible at showcasing their product on their website. In this week’s pod, I give 4 examples of how you can get your product in front of your ICP earlier in the sales process, which will result in more demos booked.

Listen on:

Spotify | Apple Podcasts

Don’t call it a “Sales call”. Call it a free strategy call

At Rocket SaaS, switching from sales pitching to consultative selling was a game changer. We may be an agency, but this hack works for B2B SaaS, too.

We changed all the CTA’s on our website from “Request a Quote” to “FREE strategy call”. Sales increased by 42% that quarter. We structure the 60-min call to be 45-mins of consulting, hearing their problems and offering advice, followed by 15-mins of sales, explaining our services and how we can help them solve the aforementioned problems.

We’re a marketing agency, but it can work for B2B SaaS businesses too, particularly enterprise or complex solutions. Not everyone is ready for a demo or trial, but they are ready for a no-obligation consultation call.

This may require the sales team to be trained in consulting or having one of the product team or founders join the call, but it will be worth it.

⚠️ Warning: Strategy/consulting calls will attract time wasters. So make sure you qualify them on the contact form. Ask questions such as revenue, company headcount, etc. Confirm this by investigating on LinkedIn and/or Companies House before accepting the call.

By the way, if you want a no-obligation marketing strategy call with me, apply here.

Low price point? Don’t push for ‘Book a demo’

A common mistake that I see with low-ticket SaaS companies is trying to get prospects on a sales call or demo.

With low-ticket items, the prospect’s mindset is “I’m not spending 60 mins of my time talking to an annoying salesperson for the sake of a $20 product that I may not buy”.

If your product is below $100 per month, you need to focus on developing a free trial.

If a free trial is not possible due to onboarding complications, then you should offer a demo video recording on your website.

Handle the “How long?” objection

One of the main reasons prospects don’t want to book a call with you is that their time is precious. The default meeting length in most people’s minds is 60-mins.

Handle this objection by offering a 15 min intro call as one of your CTAs. Below is a screenshot from Hireful’s homepage, one of our clients.

You may be thinking, “15 mins is not long enough!”. They will stay on the call longer if they are interested, or you can book a follow-up.

They might not be ready. So, offer an alternate CTA

No matter how good your website is, not everyone will be at the right stage of their buying journey to engage with your main CTA. This is especially common if you have a long sales cycle. So make sure you offer an alternate CTA.

Some options:

• Download eBook
• Register for webinar
• Join our newsletter – make sure you give it an attractive title!
• Use our ROI calculator

CTAs in blog articles

When I speak to SaaS marketers, I often hear, “My website gets a lot of traffic, but it’s mainly to the blog”. It seems obvious that you should be putting CTA’s within your blog articles. I don’t mean a button in your header navigation. I’m talking about a massive banner in the middle of your articles.

Take this example from Workio, a Rocket SaaS client. It’s a webinar CTA in the middle of a blog article on a similar topic.

A/B test

I’ve offered you some solid suggestions in this newsletter. But you won’t know what works best until you A/B test the ideas. Thankfully, your CTAs should be pretty simple to A/B test via your CMS.

Is your SaaS marketing department under resourced or non-existent?

I will personally develop your marketing strategy, while my team of designers, developers, content creators and Ads experts create your
bespoke lead generation and marketing campaigns.

Want to 10x your SaaS leads?

Let’s start with a marketing strategy call 👇

Apply for your SaaS marketing strategy call

If you’ve worked in SaaS marketing for a few years, I bet you’ve created a few gated eBooks in your time. I’ll presume that you got a few downloads but soon realised that they didn’t result in any pipeline, so you sacked them off.

But your eBooks should not be ignored and forgotten about.

You are sitting on a goldmine of great content

You can repurpose your eBooks to turn a failed gated campaign into a demand generation masterstroke.

Give this a go:

1. Extract 3 blogs from your eBook. Upload them to your website with the CTA, “If you liked this blog, you will LOVE our eBook…”
2. Create LinkedIn carousels for each of the three blogs, with the CTA, “If you enjoyed these snippets, read to full blog here…”
3. Ungate your eBook on your website
4. Boost your carousels with LinkedIn Thought Leader ads
5. Retarget blog traffic to your eBook
6. Retarget eBook traffic to your Book a Demo page

This is a simple way to turn your old eBooks into repurposed content to get your organic and ads funnel flowing again.

This week, I’m going to be teaching you how to get prospects to understand your product in seconds, which will result in more demos and trials.

I often write about the importance of SaaS messaging because it’s the #1 factor in improving sales, marketing, and growth.

You know that most SaaS products are complex, and the temptation is to over-explain. But clear messaging is your biggest lever for generating leads.

And one of the best ways to create clear messaging? April Dunford calls it the frame of reference in her book Obviously Awesome. Let me give you an example:

Imagine me trying to explain what a bus is if buses didn’t already exist. I could say:

“It’s made of metal, has several wheels, rows of seats inside, big windows to see outside, and people pay a fare to hop on. It picks up passengers along the way, taking them to different stops around the city.”

That sounds complicated and difficult to understand quickly, right?

But if I say, “It’s like a car, but bigger,” you get it in seconds. That’s the power of a frame of reference—a relatable context that communicates your product’s purpose immediately.

Using frame of reference to describe SaaS products

Most SaaS companies struggle to communicate exactly what they do without rambling on (we’ve all been there!). But with a simple frame of reference, you can cut to the core. Here are some examples:

🚀 Project management tool

❌ Instead of: “A tool that manages timelines, resources, and tasks in one place.”

✅ Try: “It’s like Trello for complex teams—keeping every detail organised for big projects.”

🚀 CRM for small businesses

❌ Instead of: “A CRM that streamlines sales, collects data, and tracks touchpoints.”

✅ Try: “It’s like Salesforce, but made simple for small teams.”

🚀 Learning management system (LMS)

❌ Instead of: “A video platform that offers training and educational content for employees.”

✅ Try: “It’s like Netflix, but for corporate learning—tailored courses and resources for employee growth.”

🚀 Social media management tool

❌ Instead of: “A tool that schedules posts, tracks analytics, and manages engagement.”

✅ Try: “It’s like Hootsuite, but designed for marketers who want deeper engagement insights.”

How to find your frame of reference

To find the perfect reference, ask:

1. What’s a similar product people already know?
2. How is our version different in a way that’s simple to explain?

With the right frame of reference, your product becomes easy to understand, approachable, and memorable. People “get it” in seconds, which means lower bounce rates and more qualified leads.

If you’re not seeing the SaaS sales results you want, you’re not alone.

Many SaaS companies are struggling to get responses from cold emails, LinkedIn DMs, and other outreach. But the solution might be simpler than you think: sales and marketing alignment.

If you’d rather listen to my explanation and take a deeper dive instead of reading this email, you can check out my podcast episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

Here’s how aligning sales and marketing can unlock serious SaaS growth:

🚀 The power of content-driven sales

Sales teams often focus on bottom-of-the-funnel messaging, pushing demos and trials. But people are bombarded with these types of offers. Instead, try equipping your sales team with content that speaks to prospects at every stage of their journey. Whether it’s case studies, infographics, or blogs, giving value upfront builds trust.

Sales teams can integrate this content directly into their outreach by sending tailored case studies or infographics through cold email or LinkedIn DMs, or offering valuable eBooks instead of going straight for a demo request.

As a secondary option, they could also include a P.S. line in cold emails, pointing prospects to other helpful resources like a recent blog post.

By shifting the focus from a hard sell to providing useful, insightful content, the sales team can engage prospects earlier in the funnel, build rapport, and move them toward a purchase decision more naturally.

🚀 Create tailored case studies

Case studies remain one of the most powerful tools in a sales team’s arsenal.

PDFs as attachments generally get more engagement than sending a link to a case study web page.

A PDF case study that closely matches a prospect’s industry, location, or company size can make a huge difference in closing a deal or not.

One of Rocket SaaS’ most successful ever clients grew rapidly. A big part of the sales team’s success was because their sales team had case studies tailored to every type of prospect.

🚀 Infographics and visual content

B2B SaaS can be tough to explain in just a few lines of an email. Infographics help visually display your product’s value. Think of it like this: problem on the left, solution in the middle, result on the right. These visuals make complex SaaS solutions easier to understand—and sell.

🚀 Webinars

Promoting webinars is another great way to bring people into the funnel. Sales can mention them as part of their main outreach message or include them in retargeting ads. While they may not drive immediate demo requests, webinars are an effective tool for nurturing prospects and building brand awareness over time.

Need help creating these assets?

If you don’t have a marketing department to create these assets, book a call with me. At Rocket SaaS, we create the kind of content that bridges the gap between sales and marketing—helping SaaS brands hit their growth targets.

I’ve received a lot of positive feedback from you on last week’s blog and podcast about The Buyer Journey Pyramid and what content you must create for each stage of the buyer journey. If you missed it, you can re-read last week’s blog here and listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

I received a request from Lucy at Forth: “I would love to hear your thoughts on how to plan the promotion of this content and segment your audience into each bucket?”.

I love receiving requests from my followers, so let’s stuck in…

As a reminder, below is the Buyer Journey Pyramid:

Now let me outline how to segment your audience into each of the above 4 sections and how to promote your content to them.

🔝 Top of the pyramid (3%) – Ready to buy now

Audience segmentation:

These are your high-intent prospects who are ready to make a purchase. These people are easy to identify, as they would have previously booked a demo or started a free trial.

Therefore, it is mainly the sales team’s job to convert these people into customers; however, marketing still plays a crucial role.

Promotion strategies:

Your focus here is to make the final push and close the sale:

• Retargeting ads: Use retargeting ads that focus on conversion-driven content like case studies, testimonials, or limited-time offers. Set up retargeting ads on LinkedIn and Meta, targeting users who have visited high-intent pages such as the pricing, free trial or book a demo.
• Email nurture campaigns: If people have signed up for demos, trials or high-intent webinars, you can send highly personalised emails with subject lines like “[first name], here’s your limited-time offer for [product]” or “Here’s how [Product Name] can solve [problem] today.” Include CTAs for scheduling a call or signing up.
• Google ads: Target keywords specific to high-intent buyers, such as “[Product Name] pricing” or “best [solution category] for [problem].” This will capture users actively searching to make a purchase.
• Landing pages: Make sure your landing pages are optimised for conversions. Create different landing pages for each of your target industries and job titles so that you are sending your audience highly targeted content.

📊 Second row (17%) – Information gathering

Audience segmentation:

These prospects are researching their options, gathering information, and comparing solutions. You can identify them by:

• Engagement with product-focused content: Consider anyone who has signed up for a group product webinar or downloaded a product guide. These people can be nurtured via emails. Also, users who have visited your competitor comparison pages should go in their own retargeting campaign.
• Lead scoring: Assign points to leads based on behaviours like downloading resources, attending webinars, or viewing your solution pages, and segment them as “information gatherers” once they reach a certain score.

Promotion strategies:

To win over this group, you need to provide the right information at the right time:

• Competitor-focused ads: Run Google and social media ads that target competitor keywords like “alternative to [competitor]” or simply the competitor name. Your ad should lead to a comparison page, where you outline the benefits of your product over the competition.
• Email campaigns from a group demo webinar: Create a group demo webinar where you outline the latest features and benefits of your product. Then, for everyone who signs up, put them through an email drip campaign that walks them through your product’s value proposition over several emails. For example, the first email could cover a detailed competitor comparison, the second could showcase a customer success story, and the third might offer a time-sensitive trial.
• Webinar retargeting: If someone has attended one of your webinars or watched product demos, follow up with retargeting ads that highlight further educational resources, competitor comparisons, case studies or a special trial offer. These ads can appear on LinkedIn, Meta or Google retargeting display ads.

🤔 Third row (20%) – Problem aware

Audience segmentation:

These leads know they have a problem but haven’t started searching for a solution. Here’s how to identify them:

• Content consumption: Track visits to problem-focused blog posts, videos, webinars or guides, like “5 Signs Your [industry] Process Is Inefficient.” They are engaging with content that speaks to their challenges but haven’t moved to solution-based pages yet.
• LinkedIn polls: Engage users with LinkedIn polls from personal LinkedIn accounts, asking questions about their pain points. Responses indicating they recognise an issue (but haven’t searched for a solution). Add all the voters to your “Problem aware” list.

Promotion strategies:

This group needs to be nudged towards urgency, so your promotion should focus on educating them about the consequences of not addressing their problem:

• Problem-oriented blog, videos, webinars and guides: Promote content like “How Inefficient Processes in [industry] Are Costing You Time and Money” through paid ads on Google or LinkedIn. Focus on problem keywords (e.g., “how to fix [problem]”) and industry-specific pain points to attract clicks.
• Retargeting ads based on engagement: After they’ve visited your blog, watched a video, registered for a webinar or downloaded a guide, retarget them with ads featuring related content that subtly introduces your solution, like a guide titled “5 Ways to Improve [problem] without [objection]”. Your solution will be one of the 5 recommendations.
• Webinar series: Host a series of webinars around the topic of their pain points (e.g., “Common [industry] Pitfalls and how to avoid them”). The first 80% of the webinar will be educational. Then final 20% will be focused on how your solution will help them overcome the problem. Promote these via social ads and email invitations. Webinars offer an excellent opportunity to move this group from problem awareness to exploring your solution.

🔍 Bottom of the pyramid (60%) – Problem unaware

Audience segmentation:

This group doesn’t even know they have a problem. To identify them, focus on broad, top-of-funnel activities:

• Website engagement with general content: Track visitors engaging with broad industry-related content, such as blog posts or guides that don’t specifically address a problem but focus on industry trends or challenges. Here, you are simply trying to identify people in your target audience, which will be somewhat broad.

Promotion strategies:

Your goal here is to raise awareness and educate them on their hidden problems. Focus on creating curiosity and gently introducing the idea that they could benefit from your solution:

• Broad awareness campaigns: Use display ads, YouTube ads, and LinkedIn Ads to reach a large audience with high-level, awareness-building content. Examples include videos titled “The Hidden Costs of Manual Processes in [industry]” or “Why Excel Is Failing Your Business.”
• Partner with industry influencers: Collaborate with influencers or industry publications to promote educational content. This will extend your reach to a broad, relevant audience who may not be directly searching for your solution yet. By piggybacking off their audience, this is a fantastic way to generate more followers and brand awareness.
• Content distribution via syndication: Promote top-of-funnel content on platforms like Medium or industry-specific sites. Write articles that raise general awareness about inefficiencies or problems that most companies in their industry face, leading back to your product as the solution.

By segmenting your audience and aligning your content promotion strategies with their stage in the Buyer Journey Pyramid, you’ll engage each group effectively—ultimately driving more leads and unlocking the full potential of your target market.

Marketing is complicated. There are a million different tools, hacks and trends to put your head in a spin. When I’m struggling with inspiration or don’t know where to start, I always return to my favourite fundamental philosophy of marketing… The Buyer Journey Pyramid.

The Buyer Journey Pyramid represents 100% of your target market, i.e. everyone who could buy from you. The Pyramid breaks down your market into four segments: those ready to buy now (2%), those gathering information (17%), those aware of their problem but not searching for a solution (20%), and those unaware they even have a problem (60%).

The majority of SaaS companies that I meet are only targeting the top two rows, totalling 20% of their target market. So they are overlooking 80%!

Imagine if you could expand your reach by creating content that speaks to the entire pyramid, not just the top 20%. You’d tap into a massive chunk of your target audience that’s currently being ignored. In this email, I’ll teach you how to build content for 100% of your potential customers, from those ready to buy to those who don’t even know they need your product yet.

Let’s break down the four layers of the pyramid and how you can use this strategy to unlock that hidden 80%.

🔝 Top of the pyramid (3%) – ready to buy now

This small group is ready to make a purchase. They’ve done the research, got the budget, and are looking for the final push to choose your product. To target these leads:

• Case studies: Showcase the real-world success of your clients to prove your value.
• Testimonials: Nothing builds trust like hearing from satisfied customers.
• Landing pages: Make your demo and free trial offers irresistible with clear, concise calls to action.

Why focus here? This group is already at the decision stage—give them the final nudge they need, and you’ll see conversions quickly.

📊 Second row (17%) – information gathering

This group is in research mode. They’re aware of their problem, but they’re still weighing their options and comparing different solutions. To capture their attention:

• Competitor comparison pages: Show why you’re the best option with clear, honest comparisons.
• Product webinars and videos: Demonstrate your expertise and educate them on your solution.
• Interactive demos: Let them test-drive your product virtually to see how it fits their needs.

Why focus here? They haven’t made a decision yet, but they’re close. With the right content, you can convince them to choose you over the competition.

🤔 Third row (20%) – problem aware

This group represents 20% of your audience who know they have a problem but aren’t actively looking for a solution yet. They may be struggling with inefficiencies, time management issues, or outdated processes, but for various reasons—like lack of time, budget constraints, or other priorities—they haven’t started searching for a fix. Your goal with this audience is to create urgency and educate them on why their problem needs addressing sooner rather than later.

Example:

Let’s say your SaaS product is a project management tool. Many businesses in this row may be aware that their current project management process is inefficient—they’re constantly juggling emails, spreadsheets, and manual task tracking—but they haven’t actively searched for software to solve it yet because they think they can “get by.”

Content to create:

• A blog post titled “How Inefficient Project Management is Costing You Time and Money” that explains how manual tracking is holding them back.
• A free guide called “5 Ways to Improve Project Workflow Without Adding More Work” that subtly highlights the pain points of manual management, while introducing how your software can simplify the process.
• A webinar called “Common Project Management Pitfalls and How to Overcome Them”, featuring an industry expert, that educates on common challenges while subtly introducing how your solution can make a difference.

Why focus here? This group is ripe for engagement. They know there’s a problem, but they need a push to realise it’s urgent—and you can provide that nudge through educational and solution-oriented content. By making their problem top-of-mind, you’ll move them closer to being sales-ready.

🔍 Bottom of the pyramid (60%) – problem unaware

This group represents 60% of your audience who don’t realise they have a problem. They’re using outdated or inefficient methods (like spreadsheets or manual processes) and believe everything is working fine because “it’s the way things have always been done.” Your goal is to educate them and make them aware of the hidden inefficiencies or risks they haven’t yet identified.

Example:

Let’s say your SaaS product is a time-tracking tool. Many businesses in this group might still be using Excel spreadsheets or manual timesheets, assuming it’s efficient enough. They’re unaware of the time wasted, human errors, and compliance risks that come with these outdated methods.

Content to create:

• A video titled “Why Your Excel Timesheets Are Costing You More Than You Think”, explaining how manual entry leads to errors, delays billing, and wastes time.
• A case study showcasing a business that moved from spreadsheets to your software, with clear improvements in time savings, accuracy, and financial outcomes.
• A guide called “The Hidden Costs of Manual Time Tracking”, educating them on inefficiencies, compliance risks, and why automation is crucial for future growth.

Why focus here? This group offers the greatest growth potential. By educating this audience on the limitations of their current processes, you can raise awareness and move them towards considering your solution, unlocking a huge part of the market.

Marketing doesn’t have to be a gamble. By aligning your strategy with the Buyer Journey Pyramid, you can transform your approach from chasing the same 20% of buyers as everyone else to unlocking the hidden 80% of your audience.

This isn’t about casting a wider net for the sake of it—it’s about creating smarter, more intentional content that meets people exactly where they are in their decision-making process. Whether they’re ready to buy today, researching solutions, vaguely aware of their pain points, or completely oblivious to them, your marketing can plant seeds that grow into lasting customer relationships.

Remember: great marketing isn’t just about selling—it’s about educating, inspiring, and building trust. When you focus on the whole pyramid, you’re not just creating content; you’re creating engagement that leads to opportunities.

So, take a step back, look at your content strategy, and ask yourself: are you targeting 100% of your market? If not, now’s the perfect time to start. The potential waiting at the bottom of that pyramid might just surprise you.

Rocket SaaS just hit £100k MRR 🚀 🥳

This is an incredibly proud moment for me personally. I bootstrapped this growth, starting the business from my flatshare in London when I was unemployed and had only £900 in the bank.

We’re now one of the leading SaaS marketing agencies in the world.

If I had to highlight 5 key growth areas, they would be…

🚀 Demand generation content marketing

Creating frequent high-quality content that educates our target audience on how to solve their problem of ‘how to get more SaaS leads’. This positions us as experts. Therefore, people navigate towards us when they’d rather pay money to solve it.

We’ve distributed this content via blogs, videos, LinkedIn posts (company pages and personal brands), email, podcasts, and webinars. The more places you are, the more your brand awareness will spread.

🚀 Retargeting ads

When we make a sale, they often say, “I see you guys everywhere!”.

We advertise on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Google Ads. When people visit our site, we have dedicated ads to retarget that specific audience to push them to the bottom of the funnel.

Despite many people saying Facebook and Instagram are not B2B platforms, we have had great success on these channels from a low-cost brand awareness perspective.

🚀 This newsletter

73% of our sales have previously subscribed to this newsletter, SaaS Marketing Weekly. It’s an amazing tool to get people into the funnel, share our content and keep us top of mind.

It also acts as a brilliant starting point for repurposing content. I personally write the newsletters, so they’re packed with thought leadership (if I do say so myself!).. Then, my team can easily repurpose content into social media posts, eBooks, scorecards, etc.

🚀 Customer service

We’ve listened to customers and worked hard to improve comms, reporting, and transparency. This has built friendships and trust with clients, resulting in long relationships.

🚀 Hiring an amazing team

Most importantly, I’ve hired an incredible team and would never have been able to achieve this without them. It’s time for us to celebrate! 🥳

This week’s marketing tip concerns case studies and testimonials. I recently encountered three businesses that really impressed me with their presentation and use of these. I wanted to share these with you so that you can implement them in your business.

Digital Genius’ unwavering use of stats

Digital Genius (a Rocket SaaS client) have 14 case studies on their website. Each one has a short header containing a statistic of how the client has grown since working with them, such as 600% ROI, 93% reduced customer wait time, and $91k in shipping savings.

Stats like this in case studies are incredibly powerful as they make the reader imagine how these exact same statistics would impact their business.

Stop using broad or vague headers on your case studies. Extract a stat at all costs. If you can’t get an exact stat, try to get an estimated stat.

Blaze’s carousel of testimonial videos

Blaze have added a scrolling carousel of customer testimonial snippets. Each video is around 10 seconds long. When you finish one video, the net one auto-plays.

This serves as powerful social proof by visually demonstrating customer satisfaction and creating a sense of trust for new visitors.

BigChange’s customer photography

BigChange have invested in professional photography of their happy customers using the software. They are holding the hardware with their company logo in the background.

Photos of customers using the product is an excellent way to build trust and authenticity in your marketing.

If you don’t have the budget to send a professional photographer to your client’s sites or if your product is not a physical on-site product, you would still benefit from asking your customers to take a selfie of themselves using it. Case studies without photos or videos lack authenticity and can feel less engaging to potential customers.

🚀 Rocket SaaS are looking for a Marketing Manager. £60,000 + bonuses salary. Could it be you?

We’re looking for a marketing manager to join our London team. The role is to create and manage the implementation of a full-funnel strategy for numerous of our SaaS clients, managing our internal and external resources.

The role is remote, although we’d like you to be accessible to London.

View the job description and apply here!

There are plenty of well-known marketing sayings and philosophies that get banded around. Some come, some go. One that’s stuck around is the 7-11-4 rule. It’s a powerful philosophy to live by in sales and marketing because it’s simple to follow and is proven to be highly effective by pretty much all leading SaaS brands.

In this week’s blog, I’ll explain what it is (if you don’t already know) and how you can easily achieve each of the numbers.

What is Google’s 7-11-4 rule?

Google’s research has revealed that before someone buys from you, they need:

7 hours of engagement with your brand
from…
11 touch points
at…
4 separate locations

Why does it work?

Another famous marketing slogan is, “People need to know you, like you, and trust you before they are willing to buy”. Using the 7-11-4 rule is the output strategy you need to achieve this goal.

Many marketers/founders make the mistake of creating linear marketing campaigns using one channel with one asset in one funnel. This will get you 1 hour of engagement across 1 touchpoint in 1 location. This is not enough. You need to create more familiarity with your brand.

Let’s break down each step…

7 hours of engagement with your brand

Before a person buys from you, they need to interact with your brand or you for an average of 7 hours. This may seem like a lot. But when you break down your content types, it suddenly becomes more achievable.

• Reading an article, case study or eBook
• Attending a webinar or workshop
• Reading an email newsletter
• Completing an assessment
• Browsing your website
• Listening to a podcast
• Attending a meeting
• Watching a video

You need to create a wide range of content types. Don’t put all of your marketing eggs into one basket, as your prospect is unlikely to consume 7 hours of 1 content type.

…from 11 touch points

11 touch points mean 11 separate instances where your buyer comes into contact with your brand.

For example (these can be repeated to reach 11):

• Newsletters
• Video call
• Brochures
• Facebook
• YouTube
• Website
• Podcast
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Reddit
• Events

…at 4 separate locations

4 separate locations mean they should come across your content through 4 different physical or digital spaces.

For example:

• Watching a video on YouTube
• Seeing an ad on social media
• Attend your physical event
• Attend your webinar
• Reading an email

There may be some confusion around a touchpoint and a location. A touchpoint is any interaction a customer has with your brand, while a location is the platform or environment where that interaction occurs. Touchpoints are about the “what” of customer engagement, and locations are about the “where.”

Let them binge

7-11-4 can take a long time if prospects wait for you to release new content. Make sure you are letting people binge! Create a resources hub on your website where you upload all your eBooks, podcasts, videos, past webinars, blogs, email newsletters etc. Ungate the lot.

Podcasts and YouTube channels are very binge-worthy and, therefore, highly recommended for the 7-11-4 strategy.

Be familiar

The human brain responds well to familiarity. When we sign a new client at Rocket SaaS, they often say, “I see you guys everywhere” and “I’ve been following you for a while”. That’s because we focus on the 7-11-4 rule. You should too.

If you don’t have the time and resources to create this much content and distribution channels in-house, you should consider partnering with me and my agency, Rocket SaaS. Check out our How It Works page to learn how the partnership works and how much it costs.

🏎️The Rocket SaaS London team swaps rocketships for go-karts

The London team celebrated a record-breaking Q2 with a spot of GoKarting.

If you’re UK based an looking for a fun team day out, I highly recommend Team Sport Indoor GoKarting.

Question: What’s the most important element of your marketing funnel?

Answer: Content.

Without great content, you’ll sound like everyone else, your target audience won’t be drawn to working with you, and your ads won’t convert.

Most B2B SaaS companies are terrible at creating content. Why?

❌The senior people are too busy to create it
❌They use AI content, which is horribly generic
❌They outsource it to an agency who are not subject matter experts
❌They use a junior in-house person who is not a subject matter expert

I’ll admit that my agency used to suffer from point 3. We would occasionally get complaints that our content was too generic. So, I made it my mission to fix this issue. I came up with a brilliant solution that not only creates awesome content but also spawns multiple different content types and dramatically reduces client revisions.

I will share my 6 steps with you today so you can implement them into your business to create faster and better content in-house.

This will benefit you if you are an in-house marketer struggling to create high-quality content or a founder spending far too much time creating content.

Step 1 – Create a content calendar

All great content starts with a strategy, specifically a content calendar. I suggest focusing on one particular topic for a specific target audience for a period of 1 – 3 months.

You can build a content calendar with Google Sheets. Use these columns:

• Publish date
• Theme
• Topic
• Type
• Status
• Notes (further description of topic)

Here’s an example from one of our clients at Rocket SaaS:

Step 2 – Write interview questions

Most companies or agencies will take the content calendar and start writing the content or get AI to write it. This route leads to generic, crap content. Instead, you’re going to interview one of the senior thought leaders in the company.

You may think, “The senior team is too busy to be constantly interviewed for each piece of content.” But you only need one 30-minute interview per month to extract insights for four different topics. That’s one piece of thought leader content per week.

The average person speaks 130 words per minute. So from a 30-minute interview, you will extract around 4,000 words from your thought leader.

If the goal is to get insights for 4 different topics, write 3 questions for each topic. So 12 questions in total.

Send the questions to the thought leader beforehand, allowing them to edit the questions and prepare for the interview.

Step 3 – Run the interview with the right tech

I recommend using Riverside to record the interviews because you get…

• HD video recording (not low-quality Zoom ones)
• Transcript
• AI summary

Reassure the interviewee that this is not a “one-take recording”. If they mess up an answer, you can run it again, as the content will be edited.

Run through the questions, and feel free to go off-script like a podcast episode. But always return to the questions list.

Step 4 – Give ChatGPT the transcript to create blogs

I previously mentioned that I don’t like AI-written content. But I do really like it when AI restructures and tweaks existing content.

Copy each topic answer from the interview transcript and paste it into ChatGPT after the following prompt:

I’m writing a blog article about [theme], specifically [topic]. Here is the transcript from an interview. Please improve the flow and structure for a blog article, adding headers where appropriate.

See what ChatGPT comes back with. You may need to enter a few more prompts and make some edits yourself before you are happy with it.

Step 5 – Edit clips into video snippets

Download your video recording and create short snippets for LinkedIn. I recommend using Opus Clip, which automatically creates snippets with subtitles and crops them perfectly for LinkedIn.

They will look like snippets from a podcast, which typically perform well on LinkedIn and will enhance your authority.

Step 6 – Repurpose and publish content

The blogs can be uploaded to your website. The best-performing ones can be expanded into eBooks and repurposed into email newsletters.

Each article can be repurposed into 5 individual LinkedIn posts and a carousel.

The videos can be published on your LinkedIn company page and the thought leader’s personal brand page. They can also be used in LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads to boost personal brand engagement.

The whole video interview could be shared, similar to a webinar recording.

So from one 30-minute interview, you could easily create…

✅ 1x long-form webinar-style video
✅ 4x blogs
✅ 1x ebook
✅ 12x LinkedIn video snippets
✅ 4x LinkedIn carousels
✅ 4x email newsletters

And the beauty of it? Your thought leader will not need to go through a painful review and editing process, as the words literally came out of their mouth!

We’ve been running this formula for our newest clients at Rocket SaaS to great effect. It’s a win-win-win situation. We’ve experienced…

✅ Higher quality content
✅ 65% reduction in content creation time
✅ 80% reduction in client revision time

So if you’re part of the marketing team, struggling to create high-quality content for your company, or you’re the founder spending too much time creating content, I highly recommend throwing monthly interviews into the content creation mix.

You know Xero, the accounting software? I’ve just noticed they’re offering a 90% discount for the first 6 months! The standard package was £30 p/m, and now it’s £3 p/m. That’s a crazy discount.

By the way, this blog isn’t an advert to buy Xero (although I do love it). I’m going to analyse this marketing strategy and perhaps inspire you to try it.

But why are Xero offering such a crazy discount? You may think, “They’ve got loads of money. They can do what they want.” Yes… but no. The reason is that they know their product is incredibly sticky.

According to saastr.com, Xero’s average customer stays almost 7 years! So offering a crazy discount for 6 months hardly touches the side, financially speaking. But it will massively increase sales.

If your product becomes embedded in your client’s tech stack to the point where they think, “We couldn’t operate without this!” why not offer a crazily enticing discount?

If you’re great at keeping customers for a long time but struggling to make sales, this could be your solution.

Let’s do some math….

I’ll move away from Xero and look at a more ‘down to earth’ startup example.

First, you need to be clear on your customer lifetime value (LTV), which is the average total revenue you make per client from onboarding to churn.

• Avg client subscription = $400 per month
• Avg lifetime of client = 24 months
• LTV = $9,600 ($400 x 24)

Now, let’s say you make 50 sales per year. That’s a predicted annual revenue of $480,000 (50 clients x $9,600).

But what if you were to offer a crazy discount? If you offered 70% off for the first 6 months, this is how it would look:

• Avg client subscription = $330 per month (6 months at $120 and 18 months at $400)
• Avg lifetime of client = 24 months
• LTV = $7,920

Let’s suppose that because of your crazy discount, you increase sales by 40%, equalling 20 additional sales per year (70 in total). That’s a predicted annual revenue of $554,400 (70 x $7,920).

Your crazy discount has just made you an extra $74,400 in annual revenue. Nice.

Beware, if you offer a crazy discount, your ‘average lifetime of client’ may be reduced, as some customers may jump ship when the price jumps. Focus on countering this by reducing your overall churn with better customer service and product development.

Most SaaS brands wouldn’t dream of offering such crazy discounts. Are you crazy enough?!

For B2B SaaS brands, testimonials are critical for your marketing success. But so many brands get them wrong. Here are the mistakes I commonly see with testimonials:

❌ Not marketed correctly
❌ Not having enough of them
❌ Too long, so no one reads them
❌ Too broad/vague, making them sound generic or fake

Here’s how to acquire and make testimonials incredible marketing assets…

Don’t just ask for testimonials

Request clients to write them in this structure

1. How the customer struggled before finding you
2. The solution you offered
3. How their business has improved since working with you

Use your testimonial to tell a story. Prospects will see themselves in that vision and think “Wow, I want that too”.

Create a long and short version

The original version should be one or two paragraphs. These are perfect for adding to case study articles or PDFs.

You should also create a short version using the best single sentence. You may need to custom-write the sentence as a summary (get permission if you edit it).

Single-sentence testimonials are perfect for social posts, ads, website homepages or landing pages.

Match each of your features with a testimonial

This will take a little work, but try to get a testimonial for each of your specific features. This way, when someone reviews a feature on your website, there will be a testimonial from someone saying how awesome it is.

You can do the same with industries and use cases.

Check out how, Hireful does it (they’re a Rocket SaaS client):

Write it for them

Some clients are too busy/rude to write a testimonial for you. Offer to write it for them, and they can sign it off. This way, you can craft it exactly how you want it. Remember to use my formula from above.

Use testimonials in ads

Some of our top performing ads for our SaaS clients are testimonial ads. They only tend to work within the retargeting ads funnel.

Below is an example from one of Rocket SaaS’ clients, Little Vista:

“When people see our product, they love it.” I hear this a lot from SaaS founders, marketers and salespeople.

But the problem is, your prospect doesn’t get a good look at the product until they jump on a demo or start a free trial, which is a HUGE hurdle for any buyer, especially these days when time is more precious than ever. People dislike being sold to or having to onboard a product trial when they’re in the exploratory phase of the buying cycle.

The solution is simple…

Get people to see your product earlier in the funnel

If you have a great product, don’t be afraid to showcase it in the buying journey before the demo or trial.

Yes, you may get an initial decline in booked demos 😱 but if you have a fantastic product with a good-looking UI, and it solves a burning problem for your prospects, you will generate demand and start to see not just an increase in demos/trials, but an increase in demo/trial conversions. Why?

• More people will see the product. This means more word-of-mouth
• They will be “sold” before they start the live demo or trial
• People not yet ready to buy (due to budget, for example) can still have a good look at the product and then come back when they are ready

4 ways to get prospects to see your product earlier in the funnel

Try adding these to your website:

1) Animated GIFs

I love these.

Many SaaS businesses make the mistake of copy/pasting screenshots of their software on their website. These look awful, as the visitor can’t understand it. Instead, get a designer to redraw some of your main software pages. Tell them to strip out the unwanted detail, pump up the font size and add a little flair. Then, hire an animator to create a looping GIF.

Here is an example from the Slack website. If you use Slack, you will understand the difference that has been made. It’s subtle, but super effective.

2) Interactive demo

An interactive demo is similar to a slideshow, but it has hotspots that seamlessly move you to the next slide when you press on them. Each hotspot has a caption explaining what the button or feature does.

It’s an excellent way for visitors to quickly demo your product on their terms.

Another benefit is that they are interactive. Getting your visitors to interact on your website makes them more engaged and more likely to convert. You can also finish the slideshow with a call to action form to book a full demo. Nice!

Check out Storylane. They are a decent low-cost provider.

3) Loom video demo

Create a 5-minute whistlestop demo of your product with you talking over the top of it. This is free and, therefore, thousands of dollars cheaper than an explainer video.

Add this to your website’s navigation bar as a “5-minute tour” and see how it performs. Remember to promote the full demo or trial at the end of the video.

4) Explainer video + voiceover

If you have the budget, invest in an explainer video with a professional voiceover artist. Check out this one that we at Rocket SaaS made for Trickle.

Give one or some of these a try. Don’t make any knee-jerk decisions if live demos and free trials drop. If you have confidence in your product, this should result in net-positive sales.

What you’ll learn in this blog:

✅ Why company pages SUCK on LinkedIn
✅ The role and importance of a Brand Champion
✅ Identifying and supporting your Brand Champion

I’ve been working with SaaS startups for over a decade. The ones that succeed to grow and become successful often have one particular thing in common… A Brand Champion

As a startup, you don’t have marketing budgets to compete with the big boys in the space, so you need to stand out and show uniqueness on a small budget. This is not easy to do from purely a company marketing level, as you can appear like “just another platform”.

Company pages SUCK on LinkedIn

Most B2B SaaS startups will naturally use LinkedIn as their main social channel. One of the challenges with LinkedIn is that people buy from people, not companies.

Company pages for startups perform terribly when compared to personal brands.

As you may have experienced already, LinkedIn Ads from company pages are extremely expensive and often do not bring an ROI.

What is a brand champion?

A brand champion is someone who is going to be the face of the company. They need 2 things:

• Deep subject matter expertise
• Character

They need to be willing to create content, particularly video content. If the thought of making video content makes you cringe, fear not. I used to feel like this! Take training, practice and throw yourself in the deep. After a couple of months and embarrassing outtakes, you’ll be a natural.

Why brand champions are critical for growth

Personal brands enjoy higher engagement rates compared to company pages because people buy from people.

A Brand Champion makes your company more personal and memorable, driving organic growth and trust.

Personal brand content is also cheaper than running expensive LinkedIn ads, providing a cost-effective marketing strategy.

By having a well-known brand champion in your space, leads will naturally flow towards them. Additionally, they’ll be invited to partnerships, webinars, and podcasts, creating a growth flywheel effect.

Who makes a good brand champion?

A brand champion in a startup is usually the founder as they have the expertise and passion for the industry. But I’ve also seen effective brand champions in sales, product or marketing roles. Although founders are the best choice they are not going to leave the business anytime soon.

What does a brand champion need to do?

Here is a list of content types that your brand champion can create:

• Webinar series
• Podcast
• Short video tips
• YouTube channel
• Email newsletter (like this one!)
• Active LinkedIn account (posting, commenting and forming relationships)
• Being active in communities

It is critical that you create this content frequently and consistently.

How to support your brand champion

Whether you are going to be the brand champion or someone else in the business, you’re going to need to create a lot of content.

The biggest challenge or objection will be “I don’t have the time”. Thankfully, there are ways to reduce the content burden.

Start by creating a content plan and schedule. Outline what types of content need to be created and when they should be published. Break down the process into manageable steps.

Interview the subject matter expert and create the content brief from that. This can save a lot of the expert’s time and ensure that the content is high quality. Use tools and resources to automate and streamline content creation, such as scheduling posts in advance and repurposing existing content into different formats. For example, write a blog, then repurpose that into a webinar, video or podcast.

Examples of brand champions

Me!

Rocket SaaS has grown from £0 to £1,200,000 ARR in 3 years. The main factor of this growth has been my personal brand, specifically daily LinkedIn content, regular videos and a webinar series.

Gavin from Stora

Stora, a Rocket SaaS client, are one of the fastest-growing storage company SaaS products in the world. Gavin’s frequency of blogging, Loom videos, event attending, podcasts and webinars are key factors of this success.

Tom from Salesloft

Tom from Salesloft started in sales and then transitioned into a brand awareness role. He creates regular (and often hilarious) videos on social media.

Rand Fishkin from SparkToro

Rand is a legend in the SaaS space, being the founder of Moz, and more recently Sparktorro. Most people in the space know who Rand is, due to his frequency of personal brand-building.

In conclusion, becoming a Brand Champion is not just beneficial but essential for the growth of your SaaS startup. By investing time in building a personal brand, you can significantly increase your company’s visibility, credibility, and growth potential.

Start small, be consistent, and leverage your unique voice to stand out in the crowded SaaS market.

Remember, the key is authenticity and consistency. You’ve got this!

P.S. If you need help developing a content strategy or have any questions about becoming a Brand Champion, feel free to reach out. I’m here to help!

What you’ll learn in this blog:

✅ What is Account Based Marketing (ABM)
✅ 8 steps to implement an ABM campaign

If you’re selling a high-ticket SaaS product (over $20,000 customer lifetime value), you may struggle with the traditional “spray and pray” sales tactic of cold calling, running ads or emailing a large list with the same message.

You should consider an Account-Based Marketing (ABM) approach. Done correctly, it will result in a higher ROI, shorter sales cycles, and stronger customer relationships, ultimately driving significant revenue growth.

What is ABM?

Account-based marketing (ABM) is a strategic approach in which a company focuses its marketing and sales efforts on a specific set of high-value accounts, typically fewer than 100, creating tailored and personalised content to build relationships and win deals.

8 steps to implement an ABM campaign

1. Build an account list with intent data

The first step in an ABM campaign is building a targeted account list based on your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). Focus on quality over quantity by identifying companies and decision-makers that match your criteria, such as industry, company size, location, and common pain points your product addresses.

Use tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator to find suitable accounts and supplement with intent data to identify those actively researching solutions in your category. For instance:

• Bombora: Tracks web activity to uncover companies showing buying signals.
• G2 crowd: Highlights businesses exploring products in your sector.
• Crunchbase: Shows companies raising funding or expanding.
• Rocks and golds: Provides data on hiring trends relevant to your product.

Once you’ve identified 50-100 accounts, segment them by intent signals, strategic importance, and existing connections to prioritise your outreach. Tools like Clearbit or ZoomInfo can enrich your list with key details to tailor your approach further.

A well-researched account list ensures your campaign begins with focus and precision, setting the stage for success.

2. Send personalised LinkedIn connection requests

Send personalised connection requests on LinkedIn, including insightful comments about their website or profile to show genuine interest.

3. Engage with key decision makers

Find key decision-makers or door openers, like and comment on their LinkedIn posts, and then migrate the conversation to DMs. Don’t pitch them too early. Start by building a friendship.

For example:

• If they share a post about an industry trend, add a thoughtful comment, such as:
  “Interesting take on [topic]. Have you considered [relevant insight or alternative perspective]?”
• If their company announces a milestone, congratulate them with a personal touch.

4. Leverage mutual connections

Mutual connections can be a powerful tool to establish credibility and open doors within your target accounts. Start by identifying shared connections on LinkedIn—whether they’re colleagues, industry peers, or past clients.

If you have a mutual contact who knows the decision-maker well, politely ask for an introduction. A simple message might look like this:
“Hi [Name], I noticed you’re connected to [Target’s Name]. I’d love to learn more about their work at [Company]. Would you feel comfortable introducing us?”

This approach instantly makes your outreach more trustworthy and increases the likelihood of a response. A warm introduction or reference can help you bypass the usual barriers and start building a productive relationship with your target.

5. Run targeted ads

Targeted ads are a great way to stay visible and reinforce your messaging with your selected accounts. By creating ads tailored specifically to their pain points and industry challenges, you can capture attention and build brand awareness.

LinkedIn Ads allows you to run highly specific campaigns. Use the LinkedIn Matched Audiences to upload your account list and serve ads directly to decision-makers within those companies. Focus on ads that address their unique challenges and position your solution as the answer.

Examples of effective ad content:

• Thought leadership: Share insights or reports closely related to your target’s pain points that demonstrate your expertise in their industry.
• Case studies: Highlight success stories from similar companies.
• Product benefits: Showcase how your solution solves their specific pain points.

6. Invite to podcasts, webinars or for an article quote

Instead of pitching, invite them to collaborate on content that positions them as thought leaders while subtly aligning your brand with their success.

Podcasts or webinars

Reach out to decision-makers with an invitation to join a podcast episode or webinar panel. Frame the invitation as an opportunity to share their insights with a wider audience. For example: “Hi [Name], we’re hosting a webinar on [industry topic], and I’d love for you to share your perspective as a leader in [their field]. Would you be open to joining us?”

This creates a win-win situation: they gain exposure, and you build rapport while showcasing your expertise to your audience.

Article quotes or interviews

Ask for their input on an upcoming article or industry report. For instance: “Hi [Name], I’m working on a piece about [topic] and would love to include your thoughts. Could I quote you in the article?”

By involving them in your content, you demonstrate respect for their expertise, foster collaboration, and open the door for future conversations.

Why this works

These invitations position you as a partner, not just a seller, making your outreach more valuable and less transactional. As the relationship develops, these collaborations often lead to deeper engagement and sales opportunities.

7. Send a personalised video

Personalised videos are a highly effective way to stand out and create a memorable connection with your target accounts. Unlike standard messages, a video shows you’ve taken the time to craft something unique, which builds trust and engagement.

How to create a personalised video

1. Start with their name: Begin the video by addressing the recipient directly. For example:
   “Hi [Name], I noticed [specific insight about their role, company, or recent activity].”
2. Reference intent data: Use your research to make the video relevant. Mention their industry challenges, company milestones, or behaviours indicating interest in your solution.
   “I saw your company is [e.g., expanding or exploring solutions in X area], and I thought it might be helpful to share how we’ve supported similar businesses.”
3. Keep it short and friendly: Aim for 60–90 seconds. Share one key value proposition or insight, and invite them to continue the conversation.

Tools to use

Platforms like Vidyard, Loom, or even LinkedIn’s video messaging feature make it easy to create and send videos.

Why it works

Personalised videos feel genuine and are harder to ignore than text-based messages. They show effort and provide an opportunity to clearly explain how you can address their challenges, creating a stronger connection and increasing the likelihood of a positive response.

8. Send thoughtful gifts

Sending personalised gifts is a creative and memorable way to stand out from the competition and leave a lasting impression on key decision-makers. When done thoughtfully, it can strengthen your connection and demonstrate genuine interest in their business.

Choosing the right gift

1. Make it relevant: Choose something tailored to the recipient’s preferences or interests. For example:
   • Branded items that add value: Such as a quality notebook or tech gadget.
   • Customised cupcakes or treats: A universally loved option that’s fun and hard to ignore.
   • Local or niche items: A regional delicacy or something unique that resonates with their location or interests.
2. Add a personal touch: Include a handwritten note or a custom message. Mention something specific about their company or recent achievements to show you’ve done your homework.

How to send

Many platforms, like Sendoso or Postal.io, specialise in corporate gifting and can make the process seamless.

—

Once you’ve established a connection and built a friendly, authentic engagement with your target accounts, transitioning to a sales call or demo becomes a natural next step. By focusing on genuine value, personalised interactions, and meaningful connections, you’re not just selling a product—you’re building a partnership.

When implemented effectively, this Account-Based Marketing approach can transform your sales process, driving higher ROI, shortening sales cycles, and closing those high-value deals that truly make a difference to your bottom line. It’s about quality over quantity—working smarter, not harder, to achieve results that matter.

So, why not give it a go? Start small, refine your strategy, and watch the results speak for themselves. Remember, success in ABM is a journey, not a sprint. Let me know how it works for you—I’d love to hear about your wins and insights along the way!

I’ve grown to over 10,000 LinkedIn followers. I’ve achieved this by sharing quick, easily digestible and actionable SaaS marketing tips. In this blog, I’ll share some of my most popular tips that you can implement into your SaaS marketing…

Oh, and if you’re not following me yet, click here!!

1. Market your benefits. Not features

2. How to test your marketing in 30 seconds using ChatGPT

Enter this prompt:

“Tell me what this business does in simple terms: [past your homepage URL]”

If ChatGPT does not accurately describe your business, then there is a big problem.

It’s not AI’s problem; it’s yours. If AI cannot understand your business, then your prospects have no chance.

Get to work on your messaging. Remember, clear beats clever, every time.

3. Don’t want to call out your competitors? Let your customers do it for you

If you don’t want to directly call out your competitors, encourage your customers to do it for you.

Your target audience is shopping around. It’s critical to showcase why you’re better than your competitors.

Here’s an example of a LinkedIn Ad from ActiveCampaign:

4. Remove vague words from your copy

❌ Create contracts quickly

✅ Create contracts in 2 minutes

Being vague sounds generic. Being specific is intriguing. Intrigued prospects turn into leads

5. Leverage competitor negative reviews

Take a look at your competitor’s negative reviews. Then, use these negative reviews to identify your prospects’ problems and what they value.

Use this objection handling in your marketing.

Update your copywriting & campaigns to connect with your audience’s values and generate more leads 🚀

6. How to reengage dying leads

When the marketing team create an asset, like an eBook or case study, get the sales team to send it to everyone in the pipeline personally.

It’s 10x better than “Hey, just circling back!”

7. No tagline in B2B can beat:

We help X achieve Y with Z

3 examples:

✅ We help HR managers reduce employee churn with our cloud feedback platform

✅ We help education businesses protect their data with daily backups

✅ We help sales teams close deals faster with instant lead routing

Notice there are no buzzwords or clever wordplays. Short, simple and to the point.

Update your homepage or landing page headers to use this format and watch your conversions 📈

At Rocket SaaS, we recently created a lead magnet for a client that generated 80 downloads in the first month. The magnet played a key role in the marketing funnel, which generated 15 demo requests in the same period.

In this blog, I’m excited to share this successful lead magnet strategy with you. By implementing a similar approach, you could potentially see a significant boost in your business’s lead generation.

Use Excel or Google Sheets to create a basic version of your product

Think about what problem your SaaS product solves for your clients. Most SaaS products help with admin, organisation and logging data.

You can create a free tool using Excel or Google Sheets that helps your target audience partially solve the same problem that your main product addresses.

Many of your target audience will already use Excel to solve this problem, but it’s likely quite basic and cumbersome. You could create a tool that visually looks beautiful and has an impressive array of filters and macros.

Why this works

1. Higher engagement: Free tools receive more attention and downloads compared to direct advertisements for a paid product.
2. Product awareness: Users who find the free tool useful will likely be interested in your product’s full version.
3. Lead generation: By gating the resource, you can collect email addresses and follow up with leads. “If you like our free tool, you’re going to LOVE our product”

This free tool can be shared via social media, ads, email newsletters, and even used by your sales team. You’ll need to create a landing page with a form for people to download the tool. I’ll share an example at the bottom of this blog.

Here are some examples from different industries

HR SaaS

• Free Tool: Employee Time Off Tracker
• Description: A Google Sheets template to track employee holidays, sick days, and other time off.
• Value: Helps HR departments stay organised, highlighting the benefits of a full-featured HR management system.

Accounting SaaS

• Free Tool: Expense Tracking Template
• Description: An Excel template for tracking business expenses and income.
• Value: It provides a basic tool for financial tracking, enticing users to upgrade to more robust accounting software.

Cybersecurity SaaS

• Free Tool: Security Checklist
• Description: A comprehensive checklist for assessing a company’s cybersecurity measures.
• Value: Provides businesses with actionable steps to improve their security, leading them to consider more robust cybersecurity solutions.

Customer feedback SaaS

• Free Tool: Survey Questionnaire Template
• Description: A ready-to-use template for creating customer feedback surveys.
• Value: Allows businesses to gather customer insights easily, highlighting the advantages of a dedicated feedback platform.

Recruitment SaaS

• Free Tool: Job Application Tracker
• Description: A spreadsheet template for tracking job applications and candidate progress.
• Value: Helps HR teams manage recruitment processes, highlighting the benefits of a dedicated recruitment platform.

A real-world example

At Rocket SaaS, we recently implemented this strategy for our client, SiSo, which offers an M&A platform to track diligence and risk.

We created a free Excel sheet that serves as a simplified version of their platform.

You can check out the free tool here: SISO Diligence Tracker.

Here’s one of the LinkedIn ads we created:

Need help creating a lead magnet like this?

Whether you need strategic ideas, lead magnet creation or overall marketing support for scaling your SaaS brand, you can send an email. I’d love to hear from you.

Question: What’s the easiest way to get prospects onto sales calls?

Answer: By building a friendly, personal relationship with them.

What’s the quickest and easiest way to do this? LinkedIn DMs. But hold on! Before you close this blog, I’m not suggesting you start using those impersonal LinkedIn bot messages that you despise. Instead, imagine the benefits of having genuine, one-on-one conversations with your target prospects in your LinkedIn DMs.

Here are 3 super-simple tactics to start engaging conversations with your target prospects.

Drop a meme – attract likes – slide into DMs

Find or create a meme that comically speaks to your target audience.

Take this one that I found, for example. One of the key target audiences at Rocket SaaS is one-person marketing teams who are frustrated to the point of tears with their overwhelming and unsupported roles.

It generated 21 likes. I messaged all 21 people and booked 2 sales calls off the back of it.

Create a poll – follow up with voters

Polls are great for engagement. They perform much better than normal posts.

Take a look at this simple poll that I created, asking our target audience a quick question about their goals.

I got my VA to qualify all 116 voters. We then messaged 33 people and booked 3 calls.

Create decent content – move conversations to DMs

Making memes and polls are quick wins. But to create a consistent stream of high-quality engagement from your target audience, allowing you to pop into their DMs with messages they are VERY likely to respond to, you need to create a personal brand on LinkedIn that regularly pumps out educational and insightful content and regularly engages with other people’s posts in your industry (prospects and influencers).

If you can master your personal LinkedIn brand, you will receive DAILY likes and comments from your target prospects.

Once you receive a comment on your post, try to start up a conversation by asking follow-up questions. Once you’ve got a short thread going, migrate the conversation into their DMs, offering more value. Then, do a quick pitch for a call.

The same can be done with likes, not just comments.

Here’s a challenge for you…

Challenge yourself and your team to create 10 posts over the next 10 working days, using memes, polls, images, videos, etc. Follow up with all the likes and comments by sending DMs. It might well result in a sales call or two. If not, keep working on your LinkedIn personal brand.

It will pay dividends, I promise you that.

If you’re running cold email campaigns that are underperforming or if you’re not converting enough deals in the pipeline, I have some suggestions in this week’s blog newsletter that will help turn that around.

Last week, I read a couple of interesting stats in a Harvard Business Review article.

90% of B2B decision-makers never respond to cold outreach.

62% of B2B customers respond to salespeople who connect by sharing content and insights relevant to the buyer.

This highlights the need for a more integrated approach between sales and marketing.

The marketing team should be creating assets for the sales team to utilise in their outreach.

Your sales team will perform better with support from marketing

Sales teams must have the right tools and content to succeed in this challenging environment.

Here’s how marketing can support sales to increase their conversions:

Webinar invites

Rather than asking a prospect to “jump on a call”, inviting them to a free value-packed webinar will yield higher conversions. With the right nurturing, it will result in more sales calls.

Case studies

This is a classic sales tool. Marketing should be arming the sales team with as many case studies as possible. I recommend using well-designed PDFs rather than web pages, as these get more engagement.

Infographics

Infographics outlining how your solution solves their problem is attention-grabbing cold email content or will help prospects in the pipeline get to that “a-ha!” moment.

eBooks

Doesn’t this sound so much better than the average cold outreach email:

Hey [name], as [job title], I know you’re interested in solving [problem]. We’ve just released an eBook: [title]. I wanted to give it to you for free…

Videos

Explainer videos and video messages from the founder can support sales in building brand connection.

Blogs

Marketing should share blog articles with sales, and sales should send them to prospects to hammer home their expertise on the subject matter.

When sales teams approach potential clients with valuable insights and relevant content rather than traditional cold pitches, the chances of conversion increase significantly.

This approach builds trust and positions your sales team as knowledgeable advisors rather than just vendors.

The result? Higher conversion rates

By arming your sales team with valuable content and insights, you can transform your outreach strategy and see a notable improvement in your conversion rates.

It’s about shifting from a hard-sell approach to prioritising the buyer’s needs and interests.

Schedule a meeting with sales and marketing. Then write down a list of assets that you want your marketing team to create for your sales team.

Don’t have the resources to create these assets?

If you lack the resources to create these assets, book a call with me, and we’ll discuss how Rocket SaaS can become your marketing support team.

The number 1 issue I see with SaaS marketing is messaging.

Why are SaaS companies SO BAD at describing what they do?

In this blog, I’m going to give you one of my best tips to help you nail your messaging, which will have a positive impact on your whole marketing, and also the sales team.

Create a messaging matrix

When we take on a client at Rocket SaaS, often the first thing we do is create a Messaging Matrix. This is a table with three columns and multiple rows. Each row has the structure:

Pain point → Solution → Description

Pain point

Write down all the pain points that your target customer suffers from.

Solution

Write the matching solution to each pain point.

Description

Now write one sentence (no more!) on how you describe the solution and pain point together.

If you’re struggling, ChatGPT can help. But I suggest you give it a go yourself first.

Example

Here’s an example that we made for one of our clients, BackupVault.

Once you have completed this exercise, you have created a glossary for your whole company to use. Next time you create content for your website, landing pages, ads, socials, emails, etc., you’ll know exactly how to describe your solution.

It should also be shared and collaborated on with the sales team, as they are constantly trying out new messaging to see which resonates.

Test and improve

This matrix should be ever-evolving to make sure you are hitting your audience with the right messaging. A great way to test your messaging is to use it within ads.

Take each of your descriptions and create a LinkedIn or Meta ad for each one. Now monitor the ad’s Click-Through Rates (CTR).

If an ad gets a high CTR, you know your messaging is resonating with your audience. If your CTR is low, then this message needs rethinking.

Update your Matrix accordingly, and remember to inform your sales team of the results. And vice-versa, your sales team should be telling you which messaging is yielding positive engagement.

If you can nail your messaging, you can transform your business growth. This matrix can help you along this journey. Try it and let me know how you get on.

In the past three years, I’ve worked with over 160 B2B SaaS brands, mostly startups. As a SaaS marketing agency owner, I can see trends in which companies are likely to scale and which are destined to fail.

I want to share some of my thoughts in this blog.

Don’t rely on marketing alone

In the dynamic world of SaaS startups, simply hiring a marketing agency and expecting a flood of inbound leads can often lead to disappointment. While marketing efforts are crucial, they are just one piece of the puzzle.

You need sales and marketing to align

Marketing alone can generate leads, but integrating a dedicated salesperson or team aligned with your marketing strategies will significantly boost your closure rates.

It’s not just about creating awareness; it’s about converting that awareness into action.

Even with awesome marketing, a vast majority of your target audience (over 99%) will recognise your brand but not take any action. That’s where a proactive sales team comes into play. They bridge the gap between passive awareness and active engagement.

The psychological edge for sales outreach

There’s a profound psychological difference in the reception of a sales pitch from an unknown versus recognition.

When your sales team reaches out, the difference between “Who is this?” and “Oh yes, I’ve seen your company on LinkedIn, attended one of your webinars, and enjoyed your content.” is HUGE.

This familiarity not only warms them up to your pitch but also lays a foundation of trust and recognition.

Integrating sales and marketing efforts

To truly harness the potential of your marketing efforts, ensure that sales and marketing have alignment:

• Target the same people. Sales and marketing should use the same lists of contacts to target. Marketing should reach them first via ads, social media, newsletters, etc., and then sales should build on that awareness.
• Consistent brand messaging: Marketing will learn what messaging gets the most clicks and conversions. Sales will know what messaging resonates on calls. Be sure to communicate this between your teams.
• Marketing should create assets for sales: The marketing team should be arming sales with case studies, eBooks and infographics. Anything that can be emailed to a prospect as an attachment.

Generating demand from within

The other key factor that I see with our successful clients are the ones who have a demand generation strategy supported by internal resources, typically the founder/s. Examples include:

• Webinar series
• Podcast
• Active LinkedIn personal branding
• Talking head videos
• YouTube channel
• Attending events/exhibitions

All of the above activities are fantastic lead-generating opportunities. However, there is only so much your marketing team or agency can do for you, as they require a face of the brand. Non-founders won’t have the industry experience or expertise to create deep-dive, compelling content. In my experience, that must come from one of the founders.

Marketing as a cog in the lead generation machine

The SaaS startups that succeed with growth are the ones that consider their marketing team/agency a cog in the lead generation machine rather than the whole machine itself. The lead generation machine consists of marketing, sales outreach, and founder-led demand generation.

In essence, while marketing draws the crowd, it is the harmonious interaction with sales and founder-led initiatives that engages and converts them into lasting customers.

Exciting news!

You are getting first dibs on my new SaaS marketing guide… for free!

At Rocket SaaS, we’ve generated over 200,000 leads for our SaaS clients. In this free guide, I share our top 5 lead generation campaigns that have driven those results, which you can implement into your business.

For each campaign, I’ll show you:

• What you need to create it
• Examples of the campaign in action
• A flow diagram on how to promote it

For each campaign, see a flow diagram on how to market it to drive traffic and leads.

This guide contains the blueprint for you to conceptualise, create and promote your campaigns to start driving middle-of-funnel leads.

What are you waiting for?

Download my SaaS marketing guide here

My email newsletter has become my number-one driving force for new business. 80% of new Rocket SaaS clients we took on in the past 12 months were subscribers and would often mention it on sales calls.

In this blog, I’m excited to share with you my top newsletter 3 tips. These are not just any tips, but powerful strategies that can transform your newsletter and help you turn contacts into customers.

1. Having your own brand newsletter

You’ll notice that this newsletter is not branded “The Rocket SaaS newsletter”. No. It’s SaaS Marketing Weekly.

Why is this important?

Most B2B SaaS businesses struggle to get newsletter sign-ups. This is mainly because people have the attitude of “If I sign up for their newsletter, they’re going to send me company updates that I don’t care about and try to sell to me”.

However, if you create a separate brand for your newsletter, it can appear educational, entertaining, and fun, making it much more enticing to sign up.

Use an individual, not the company

People are naturally defensive to companies marketing to them as it feels salesy. Rebrand your newsletter to be sent from an individual, usually the founder, and watch your conversion rocket.

What you’ll need

You’ll need to give it a brand name, logo and domain name, along with a landing page to acquire sign-ups and an email platform to send your newsletter.

2. Marketing is like dating. If you constantly talk about yourself, it’s going to go badly

Most company newsletters are all “we, we, we”.

“We won X award”
“We hired a new employee”
“We had a staff party”

What do your contacts think?… WE DON’T CARE.

Focus on writing educational, valuable content for your contacts. What is the main problem that you solve for your clients? For me, it’s growing a SaaS business through effective marketing. Aim to create a series of email newsletters that teach your contacts how to overcome this problem on their own (not constantly pitching your services).

I find starting with tips works really well. Start by writing 50 short tips on how your contacts can solve the big problem. Now, expand on each of these tips to create newsletter content.

3. Follow the 80/20 rule

Let’s not forget that we’re trying to generate new business from our newsletter. So don’t forget to promote yourself. If you have a separate brand newsletter that constantly pumps out free advice, your contacts may not realise that you offer a service they can buy!

At the end of your newsletter, include a footer where you offer a call to action. A natural call to action is “I hope you like the advice in this newsletter. If you don’t have the time/resources to implement this yourself, we can do it for you…”.

I also recommend the 80/20 rule, which states that 80% of your content should be free and educational, and 20% should promote your services. For every five newsletters you send, four emails should be educational and one promotional.

Last week, I ran a copywriting training session for my marketing team, all about how to write hooks to get more clicks and drive more conversions, along with one of my favourite ChatGPT prompts. Today, I will share it with you. Feel free to share it with your team.

Implementing these hooks will dramatically improve your ads, landing pages and overall marketing content, resulting in more website traffic and higher conversions.

What are hooks?

Hooks are the first thing people see on a piece of content. They are called Hooks, as their job is to hook people in. Written effectively, they spark the reader’s interest or attention. Hooks are critical in marketing.

Examples of Hooks:

• The text on an ad creative or social post
• The header on the hero banner of a landing page
• The title of an article
• The intro line of an email newsletter
• The header of a Google Ad

Examples of hooks that suck and hooks that rock

Here are some screenshots that I’ve taken from ads and websites. The good, the bad and the ugly!

These ads suck

Read the hooks on these ads. Do you understand what the company does or how it will benefit you? Nope!

These ads rock

These examples are much better. Using stats and clear messaging.

These website hooks suck

I literally have no idea what these websites are talking about.

These website hooks rock

These are much better. Clear, concise and benefit driven.

Don’t use broad or vague terms

Broad/vague terms are overused and do not entice the reader.

Examples of words to avoid:

• Accelerate
• Supercharge
• Grow
• Streamline
• Skyrocket

Example formats to use

Here are 4 categories of Hook formats and 15 example templates for you to implement into your copywriting.

Benefit driven

Be straightforward and tell prospects exactly what they’ll get after they try your offer.

Examples:

• How to get [BENEFIT] without [OBJECTION]
• This is the easiest way to [BENEFIT]
• X ways to get [Benefit]
• [BENEFIT] has never been easier
• What most [target audience] don’t know about getting [benefit]
• The fastest way to get [benefit]

Ask a question

Questions make your content more engaging. If the user has the same question floating around their head, they’ll be drawn to your content.

Examples:

• How do you finally get rid of [PAIN POINT]?
• Struggling with [PAIN POINT]?
• How did [COMPANY] achieve [RESULT]?

Statistics

Numbers are eye-catching and specific. They also stand out visually.

Examples:

• Did You Know? [STATISTIC/FACT].
• 1 out of 10 people…
• 30% of people with [PAIN POINT] experience…

Use social proof

Let your prospects know that there are people just like them experiencing the same thing.

Show them how those people overcame their problems, pain points, challenges, etc., through your offer.

Examples:

• [COMPANY] doubled their revenue in 6 months using [SOLUTION]
• [JOHN] used to get 5 leads per month. He now gets 25 with [SOLUTION]

Using ChatGPT

Here’s a ChatGPT prompt that I use to help me generate ideas for great Hooks. They are rarely perfect, so I often tweak them, but ChatGPT is great for initial ideas.

Please can you write me a hook for a LinkedIn Ad. It needs to be a strong hook. No longer than 10 words.
Use this format:

How to get [BENEFIT] without [OBJECTION]

Please give me 10 examples
Here is more info about the company.
Copy/paste the homepage text.

Implement your learnings

For all future ads, email newsletters, landing pages, social posts etc, be sure to use one of the formats outlined in this training.

Have a strong focus and careful consideration of the Hooks of your content.

Avoid vague/broad terms.

If you want new clients, all you have to do is ask.

I’m not talking about asking prospects to work with you. That takes time and can be complex. Instead, I’m emphasising the importance of seeking referrals from your current clients.

In this blog, I’ll provide you with a process and a template for consistently gaining more referral clients.

Chances are, you’ve acquired some clients through referrals in the past. The sales process in these cases is typically seamless! There’s no need for marketing funnels, nurturing, retargeting, or even an advertising budget. Moreover, these clients often aren’t considering any of your competitors. They’re already convinced, as they feel reassured that someone they trust is already working with you. Your existing clients have likely handled most of the selling for you.

Most companies forget to ask for referrals because they lack a process.

Here’s an easy process to follow and a template to use

Set a reminder in your CRM a few weeks after you start working with a client. You could create a Zap to make this reminder happen each time a new client is added.

A few weeks after the client starts working with you is peak referral time, as clients are most happy and excited around this stage.

Use this template:

Hey [name],

I’m checking in to see if you are still happy with [our solution].

If so, do you know anyone else in the industry who may be interested in working with us?

You might not be aware, but we also offer a [insert referral offer]! I’d be happy to knock the fee off your next invoice or we can pay it into your personal bank account.

Feel free to forward this to your colleagues.

I’d be really grateful for a referral, as it helps our business grow.

All the best,
[your name]

—

Set another reminder to follow up on the next call that you have with them.

Set another repeating reminder every 2 or 3 months, as they might know someone new.

Rocket SaaS has generated over £500k in business from referrals over the past 3 years. We’ve also paid out over £50k in referral fees to our partners (we pay 10%).

You don’t ask, you don’t get.

Send those emails today.

Is your SaaS marketing department under resourced?

I will personally develop your marketing strategy, while my team of designers, developers, content creators and Ads experts create your bespoke lead generation and marketing campaigns.

Want to 10x your SaaS leads?

Let’s start with a FREE marketing strategy call.