Instapage
Create, personalize, and optimize landing pages at scale to turn clicks into customers. Boost your conversions today!
Canva
A user-friendly, web-based graphic design tool that empowers you to create stunning visual brand content with ease.
Unbounce
Optimize marketing campaigns using landing pages, pop-ups, and other conversion-generating features.
SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) companies market services a little differently than other industries. It’s necessary. An app housed in the cloud isn’t the same as a physical product you can go to the store and review. So, the process of getting clients to use your SaaS product regularly is complex. Plus, in a dynamically evolving tech environment, you have to consistently introduce updates, let clients know about new updates, and market the service and all its features to potential clients.
What does that look like?
What Is Branding in the SaaS Space?
All SaaS companies bring something to the table — a table of eager diners waiting for the next great cloud service.
But what if you’re a brand-new SaaS business? How do you set that table?
New software and app product brands are often inspired to turn to the veterans seated at the table — HubSpot, Vidyard, and others — as inspiration. Emulating these brands should result in the same success, right?
Not really.
These big companies were once in your seat, and they didn’t become the household names they are today overnight. Successful SaaS companies put in the work behind the scenes before building their buffet of strategies, and that applies to their SEO practices, content deliverables, and public relations.
You can eventually move to their side of the table — but not without the same careful planning. You need a recipe with specific ingredients that can create the meal your potential clients are hungry for. Those ingredients include the right stack of brand marketing tools.
But having the ingredients and making a five-star meal aren’t the same thing. In such an evolving niche, is becoming a success and staying competitive enough?
It really isn’t. Being competitive is great — but what’s the prize? What is the goal your SaaS company has set out to achieve? You can cook up the best four-course meal ever made and sell out the dining room, but is there a Michelin-star status in it for you?
More than likely, you’ll get a nice review. But “nice” isn’t competitive, and it isn’t success.
This guide to brand marketing in SaaS is that recipe. Here, you’ll learn what you need to include in your brand-building strategies so you can scale on par with the SaaS giants. And it begins with leads. Getting leads begins where? Right — with brand marketing tools.
Building a Lead Gen Engine with Content
Gated content, that is. Having premium content behind a newsletter sign-up form or even a paywall is one of the best ways a SaaS brand can generate interested, quality leads.
Some of the best types of gated content you can produce to help build a qualified pipeline include:
- eBooks
- White papers
- Online courses/video lessons
- Structured webinars
- Valuable tools or templates
- Free trial of your product
Large SaaS brands use these types of content to develop a well-rounded stable of potential clients. Creating this expert content to generate the leads you seek — the types of customers looking to stick with you long term — requires tools. To market your SaaS brand, be competitive with others in your niche, and get ahead of the pack, you need brand marketing tools for:
- Graphic design
- Website building
- Brand building
- And more…
Let’s get to know these tools, what they do, and how they’ll up your SaaS brand marketing game.
Graphic Design Tools for SaaS Brand Marketing
Adobe CreativeCloud
What it is: Adobe CreativeCloud helps SaaS companies create graphics, edit videos and images, manage PDFs, and even collaborate with others on the design team.
- Content library
- Brand overlay
- 3D asset manipulation
- Slack
- Dropbox
- Asana
- 7-day free trial
- Individual starts at $52.99/mo
- Business starts at $79.99/mo
- Special pricing available for students, teachers, and teams
Canva
What it is: Sleek, easy-to-use graphic design tool with intuitive features for creating brand deliverables, logos, and more.
- Content management
- Custom fonts
- Huge public image library
- Google Drive
- Slack
- MS PowerPoint
- Canva Free: No-cost solution, fewer features
- Canva Pro: $12.99/mo (individual), free for 30-days
- Teams: $12.99/mo (first user)
- $6.99/mo (all additional users)
- Canva Enterprise: Starts at $30.99/mo
Clip Studio Pain
What it is: Vector graphics program for users to create original creative imagery. Massive image library for those not so creatively inclined.
- Design management
- Animation
- Image library
- No integrations at this time, but offers web and iOS versions
- Free trial available
- Pro version: $49 one-time charge
- EX version: $249 one-time charge
Website Builder Tools for Brand Marketing
Weebly
What it is: A website builder, hosting, and online store platform that doesn’t require users to know or write any code.
- CRM
- Content management
- Online payment acceptance
- PayPal
- Mailchimp
- Stripe
- All plans, free for 14 days
- Free: No cost ever for free plan
- Paid plans offer monthly or annual subscriptions
- Personal: $9/mo or $72/yr
- Professional: $16/mo or $192/yr
- Performance: $29/mo or $348/yr
Wix
What it is: A platform to design professional websites and write, publish, and manage content.
- Appointment management
- Billing and invoicing
- Marketing campaign management
- Google Drive
- MS Excel
- PayPal
- Personal Website Plans
- Free plan: $0
- Combo plan: $16/mo
- Unlimited plan: $22/mo
- VIP plan: $45/mo
- Business-level Plans
- Basic plan: $27/mo
- Unlimited plan: $32/mo
- VIP plan: $59/mo
- No free trial, however users can choose the Free Plan with limited features
Elementor
What it is: A cloud-based WordPress plugin, this real-time, template or user-designed drag-n-drop page-builder. Perfect for businesses and individuals with WordPress websites.
- CRM
- Content management
- Customizable branding
- Slack
- Mailchimp
- HubSpot Marketing Hub (also a WordPress plugin)
- Free plan: No-cost plan with limited features
- Essentials plan: $49/yr (one website)
- Advanced plan: $99/yr (three websites)
- Expert plan: $199/yr (25 websites)
- Agency plan: $999/yr (1,000 websites)
- All Pro plans free for 7-days
Brand-Building Bonus Tools for Marketing
Instapage: Specializing in the design and optimization of landing pages, SaaS companies can establish and refine landing pages at scale.
- Create plan: $79/mo
- Optimize plan: $159/mo
- Custom plan: You’ll need to get a demo
Landbot: No-code AI Chatbot Generator, empowering businesses to build frictionless conversational experiences from end-to-end.
- Sandbox plan: $0/mo forever
- Starter plan: $45/mo
- Pro plan: $110/mo
- Business plan: $450/mo
Unbounce: AI-powered landing page builder with features allowing you to create beautiful, high-performing marketing campaigns in just a few clicks.
- Build plan: $74/mo
- Experiment plan: $112/mo
- Optimize plan: $187/mo
- Conceirge plan: $649/mo
ZeBrand: An all-in-one brand-building platform for design and creative brand story-telling.
- Standard plan: $38/mo
- Premium plan: $600/mo
Elegant Themes: Premium design team behind some of the best WordPress website themes.
- Monthly access pricing: $89/mo
- Lifetime access pricing: $249
PDFpen: An all-purpose editor for PDF documents and creations
- Essentials 13: $129 one-time charge
- Pro 13: $179 one-time charge
Skylum: Luminar Neo is an all-in-one photo design and editing app brought to you by the software team behind Aurora HDR.
- Explore: $9.95/mo
- Pro: $14.95/mo
- Lifetime access: $300
Mediamodifier: An online-based design tool for creating brand imagery.
- Starter: Free
- Professional: $15.83/mo
- Team: $37.50/mo (Team plan billed annually)
Turbologo: An all-in-one creative software program for designing captive brand logos.
- Lite: $24/yr (one logo file)
- Standard: $48/yr (multiple logo files, added functionality)
- Business: $84/yr (all functionality of Standard plan with extended BrandKit and Platform access)
Transform Your Brand Marketing Game
The SaaS landscape is fiercely competitive, making effective brand marketing crucial for success. Our ultimate guide to brand marketing in SaaS equips you with the tools and strategies needed to rise above the competition and secure a prominent position in the industry.
Don’t miss this opportunity to elevate your brand – sign up for one of the recommended products mentioned above and start leveraging their power today. By embracing these insights and tools, your SaaS business will be poised for long-term growth and continued success. Take the first step now and unlock your company’s full potential in the world of SaaS brand marketing.