How SaaS Founders Can Crush Marketing
Hey, it’s KP 👋
A common theme I keep noticing across my indie hacker and bootstrapped founder circles is the relentless struggle in figuring out marketing.
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“ Marketing is and will always be my most pressing issue. I’m constantly trying to get better at that” -Marc from PitchGhost
I’ve recently finished reading Rob Walling’s incredibly actionable book “The SaaS Playbook” and learned a ton about various marketing approaches. I figured I’ll summarize his insights in a simple guide which I can pass around to some founder friends. This is just a tip of the iceberg, and I highly recommend grabbing a copy of the book. It’s brilliant!
Here are the wide range of MARKETING APPROACHES (per Rob Walling) along with some of my own commentary and notes:
THE BIG 5 SAAS MARKETING APPROACHES:
These are the most reliable tactics that work for B2B SaaS companies
| S NO | MARKETING TACTIC/ APPROACH | EXAMPLES |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | SEO | Rank highly on Google and Youtube etc. Pat Walls (Starterstory) is a great example |
| 2 | PPC (pay per click) | Buy traffic through keywords on Google (AdWords) or on IG, X, Youtube etc |
| 3 | Cold Outreach | Email, DMs on Linkedin/ X etc |
| 4 | Integration Marketing | Cross promote with your integration partners |
| 5 | Content Marketing | Social posts (X, Linkedin etc), blog posts, videos for Youtubet/TikTok etc |
Apart from the above 5, here are some other ways Rob recommends founders can expand their marketing reach:
| S NO | MARKETING TACTIC/ APPROACH | EXAMPLES |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Affiliate Marketing | 30% MRR as commission (Ex: Senja) https://senja.io/affiliates |
| 2 | In-person events and Trade Shows | SaaStr or SaaStock etc (make sure it’s relevant to your ICP) |
| 3 | Free Tools (Engineering as Marketing) | Hubspot’s Website Grader and many others: https://www.hubspot.com/resources/tool |
| 4 | Hangouts | Private Slack groups, online forums, subreddits like r/SaaS or r/startups |
| 5 | Q/A Sites | Quora, Stack Overflow etc |
| 6 | Virality | Calendly, DropBox etc |
| 7 | Other People’s Audiences | Guest blog posts, podcast tours etc |
| 8 | Daily Deal Sites | Appsumo, PitchGround etc |
| 9 | Launch Sites | Product Hunt, BetaList, Show HN,etc |
| 10 | Building an audience/ community/ movement | Pieter Levels, Daniel Vassalo (“Small Bets”), KP (build in public podcast and newsletter etc) |
| 11 | Display Ads | Pay per impressive (view) vs clicks |
| 12 | Viral/ Stunt Marketing | Red Bull and other big brands |
| 13 | Speaking Engagements | Rob Walling and Rand Fishkin etc |
| 14 | PR | TechCrunch, Verge etc |
| 15 | Offline Ads | Billboards, radio ads, bus stop benches etc |