If you have a software as a service (SaaS) product, you probably already know that marketing needs your attention.
Online marketing is ever-changing, and it can be difficult to stand out in your customers’ and potential customers’ minds.
It can be an especially big challenge if you aren’t marketing a particular product.
People Buy from People
It’s no secret that the most important marketing campaigns and strategies involve people talking to, connecting with, and building relationships with others.
This, however, is the root of the problem for SaaS brands. It can be hard work to try to humanize a brand without a physical product.
Learning from the Experts
We want to introduce you today to a handful of brands who are doing just this.
They have employed a number of strategies and implemented many different tactics that have helped them build their following and improve the perception of their brand and product.
Read on for tactical tips that you can take and use to impact your brand.
1. Provide Educational Value
One of the best ways that you can begin to humanize your brand is to, well, add humans to it.
The more often you can add a personal touch, put a face to a name, or otherwise involve your people in your online marketing, the better.
Blog About It
If you don’t already have a blog, it’s time to start one.
Blogs help you provide immense (free) value to your audience, helping to build their trust and relationship with you.
Blogs also allow you to add author names and bios so your readers can begin to get to know the people behind the words.
You’ll be able to establish your brand as a forward-thinking leader in your industry, ready to serve your audience well.
Case Studies and Examples
Whether you use individual customer examples or overall use cases the way Gist does, you’ll want to make sure you provide plenty of education on how your service can help your potential customers.
Gist lists out seven different industries or ways that their service can be used.
For example, on their website you can find different tabs depending on what your business is.
Gist shows how business services, consumer services E-commerce, home services, marketing agencies, publishers, and SaaS companies can benefit from using their product.
This helps prospects evaluate the product and make an informed decision.
2. Expert Testimonials
This is one of the best ways to establish trustworthiness with your potential customers.
If you’re able to include testimonials (with names and photos!), you’re more likely to make your SaaS seem more reliable.
For example, Kicksta uses testimonials and case studies to highlight stories of happy customers who have saved time or increased their Instagram engagement using the service.
You can also include quotes from expert and satisfied clients on your home page.
This way, it’s easy for visitors to see that people get results from your product.
They’re also very easy to share on social media and help establish credibility immediately.
3. Custom Graphics
Having custom graphics for your social pages are a great way to create brand clarity and a cohesive feel on your pages.
It helps your brand come across as more authentic and personalized.
While you can certainly hire a graphic designer or outsource the work to an independent contractor, you can also create these graphics for yourself.
Platforms like Canva offer easy-to-use tools that help even non-graphic designers make custom graphics to create a cohesive online presence.
Brands that Do this Well
Asana and Planoly are two SaaS providers who use custom graphics to make their social pages feel more relatable.
They also combine this with point two and use custom graphics to showcase testimonials.
They stay true to their brand values and image – you can see the difference between the two, but neither feels inauthentic.
4. Show Behind the Curtain
This is a great way to humanize your brand.
People love to see the behind-the-scenes of a business, from the inner day-to-day workings, to who’s behind the computer.
If you haven’t already, this is a great time to introduce your audience to your employees.
Whether you want to do employee takeovers, spotlights, or even just Q&A’s and fun facts about the company, letting your audience get to know your people can help your brand become more relatable.
Like we said earlier, people buy from people.
By bringing your employees into the forefront of your social media, you can begin to form human-to-human connections with your audience.
HeyDrift loves to use this strategy on Instagram to connect with their audience.
Whether they’re introducing their employees’ new babies, showing their team bonding pictures, or sharing funny office shenanigans, Drift loves to bring their audience into their business.
They even use the hashtag #InsideDrift to set these posts apart.
5. User-Generated Content and Client Work
User-generated content helps your brand gain traction, visibility, and trustworthiness.
Because your audience is the one creating and sharing posts, this automatically helps you look more reliable.
UGC is one of the most authentic types of content, and people are more likely to believe word of mouth from customers than company-crafted marketing messages.
A great way to create a UGC campaign is to start a branded hashtag.
This way your audience can see who’s participating and you can easily keep track of the content.
You can even link the hashtag to some sort of contest – anyone who tags a picture with a particular hashtag is eligible to win a prize.
Either way, you can capture stellar testimonials and UGC that you can use to promote your brand. Plus, you’ll probably also gain some new followers after your brand and message are spread by your followers.
A Color Story is a great example of this, as many of their Instagram posts are UGC.
Their followers edit their photos using A Color Story’s tools, and then the brand re-shares them on their feed.
They’ve been using #AColorStorySummer to track these posts and find their favorites to re-share.
Have you ever considered using any of these tactics to help your SaaS brand seem more relatable on social, or in online engagement marketing in general?
It can be a challenge, but we know that you are up for it! Which strategy will you use first?
