B2B SaaS: Ultimate Guide
As technology and the business world become intertwined, you’ll start to hear more strange and exotic terms thrown around. Some you’ve probably heard a lot of in the past couple of years — NFTs, metaverse, distributed cloud. Unless you’re willing to dig into them a bit, they can fly right over your head without another thought.
While some of these new terms may be fleeting, others are here to stay. Some, such as the B2B SaaS market, are projected to be worth around 883 billion in the next decade. With the right focus and a little bit of information, you can get to know this market, take advantage of it and use it to grow your business.
Whether you’re an owner of a B2B SaaS company, a business looking to get a leg up on the competition or just someone interested in what’s going to be big going forward, this article will help you understand this market and also show you how to sell it.
What Is B2B Saas?
B2B SaaS stands for business-to-business software-as-a-service. Business-to-business simply refers to any company that’s selling a service directly to another business.
Software-as-a-service is an innovative technology that all of us have used at one point or another. These are applications like Google Docs and Slack, which let you operate the application without actually having to download it.
SaaS is cloud-based, meaning users can easily access it without having to go through any painstaking installation. In most cases, customers will pay a subscription fee per month to use the service.
Types of B2B SaaS
Every year more B2B SaaS companies hit the market, offering new and effective ways to drive a business forward. B2B SaaS products span a variety of functions, so it’s important to break these down into separate categories to understand them:
Productivity: Businesses are always looking for ways to become more productive to gain an edge over the competition. B2B SaaS is perfect for this. Think of software like Grammarly, which guides you through the editing process and helps you edit quickly.
Collaboration: Probably the most well-known collaborative B2B SaaS tool is Slack, which allows businesses to communicate quickly and efficiently on one application. This helps move projects forward and eliminates the need for constant meetings.
Payroll: There are also a variety of B2B SaaS payroll tools to help companies manage their payments and organize information. Paylocity is a popular software that many companies use to their advantage.
Logistics: Many E-commerce brands have adopted logistics software, which allows them to track and optimize shipping routes. Another market that takes advantage of logistics software is the trucking industry, which has started adopting this software to help figure out the best routes and avoid unnecessary stops.
CRM: CRM (customer relationship tools) helps businesses forge connections with customers to promote brand loyalty and increase conversions. HubSpot is one of the biggest names in the game right now for CRM.
CMS: Content management systems (CMS) will help businesses organize content in one convenient platform, allowing them to write, edit and publish efficiently. WordPress is the gold standard for CMS platforms.
As you can see, there are many different B2B SaaS companies, each one offering its own unique benefits and uses. Many companies today use a variety of these services to help their employees perform.
Top B2B SaaS Companies
Most of us B2B SaaS on a daily basis. We may not know what those strange lower and uppercase letters are in the terminology, but we definitely know how to use the services. In some cases, it may even be a part of our daily routine. Take a certain software away and entire businesses could crumble or dramatically decrease in productivity.
Here are some of the most popular and well-known B2B SaaS companies in the industry.
1. Google
When it comes to B2B SaaS, Google is king. With hundreds of cloud-based applications, you can essentially start an entire business with one Google account and use it to build a thriving operation.
Not to mention you can access all these applications for free. All you have to do is make a Gmail account. From productivity to scheduling to content creation, Google covers a lot of bases with its software solutions. Here are some that you probably use frequently:
Google Docs
Google Sheets
Google Calendar
Gmail
Google Drive
Google Meet
Google Analytics
These are just some of the core software offerings from Google. There are plenty more that businesses can take advantage of to reach their goals.
2. HubSpot
Over the last decade, HubSpot has become a major player in the B2B SaaS world. While they focus primarily on customer relationship tools, they also offer marketing tools and content management solutions.
Like Google, they have a variety of software tools for businesses to choose from. HubSpot has five different “hubs” including marketing, sales, service, CMS and operations. The more comprehensive a B2B SaaS is, the more popular it usually is, since businesses can easily subscribe and learn how to manage everything in one convenient location.
3. MailChimp
Email has had a strange journey since its inception. What started as a fun new invention evolved into a spam factory and then into a legitimate way to grow and propel businesses forward. Email has become the best way to stay in touch with customers and produce new leads. Once people discovered this, the email marketing boom started.
Mailchimp rose up as the premiere player in the game, offering software that lets you automate email campaigns so that you can create leads and convert customers in your sleep. Aside from email marketing, Mailchimp also offers services for building websites and crafting content.
4. Slack
“Slack is your digital HQ,” announces the title tag in Google results for one of the biggest software players in the game. Slack is a major player in the software world and for good reason: it offers an efficient and easy way for businesses to work and collaborate together. NASA, Uber, Target and The New York Times all use it, according to Slack’s website.
With many workplaces going fully remote in recent years, it’s integral to have a strong, clean workstation to onboard employees and keep things rolling smoothly across the country and even the world. Software tools such as Slack help businesses stay on the same page.
5. Adobe
Adobe is another B2B SaaS that offers a huge amount of services on its cloud-based platform. It even has a separate section called “b2b marketing,” which allows companies to sort through a variety of tools to find what they need.
How to Sell B2B SaaS (Challenges and Solutions)
Many traditional marketing techniques fly out the window when it comes to B2B SaaS. How do you sell something that you can’t physically touch? It’s somewhere floating in the cloud, out of reach, and yet you have to be able to accurately describe it, get it in front of people’s eyes and sell them on what you’ve built.
In many ways, it’s much easier to sell something like a computer or a piece of fruit. Someone sees it, they know what it does or how it tastes, and they buy it. Simple as that. The digital world has ushered in something completely different.
Many marketers have had to reevaluate everything to figure out ways to sell B2B SaaS. Here are some ways to help you market your B2B SaaS.
Make a Website and Outline Your Services
The first thing you’ll want to do is make a website and clearly outline your services. What are you offering? How can you help businesses, specifically? One of the best ways to attract customers is to give them a very clear reason to use your software. The clearer and more compelling you can be, the more willing they’ll be to try out your services.
Making the website is the easy part. It may be a bit harder to break down everything your software does into a few bite-sized phrases. If you can, try to narrow down your offerings into one sentence. This will give anyone landing on your website an immediate answer to what you can offer them.
Offer Free Trials
If you’ve looked around the B2B SaaS landscape, you’ve probably noticed that a lot of them offer free trials. Many will have a tiered subscription service that allows you to upgrade as you go. Free trials are great ways to attract customers. Once they sign up, you have a much better chance of upgrading them to further tiers and keeping them engaged with your software.
Build Email Campaigns
Building an email list also opens up an entire avenue of possibilities for your business. Now that you have a direct line of communication with your customers, you can start building email campaigns to drive conversions. Aside from helping you gain more customers, building email campaigns can also help you build trust and loyalty with your audience.
Dive into SEO
B2B SaaS is a digital product. The only way you’re going to find it is in the digital world, online. So how do you drive traffic to your businesses?
Search engine optimization is a modern marketing method that uses various strategies such as keyword research, content creation and technical site optics to make your business more apparent on the internet.
Creating a reliable SEO strategy is one of the best ways to attract people to your website and build a loyal following online.
Invest in Quality B2B SaaS Copywriters
One of the biggest challenges facing B2B SaaS businesses is communicating what they do and how they can help other businesses. In order to convey this message clearly and effectively, it’s important to find a quality copywriter. Copywriters will help you craft the narrative of your business, build a messaging strategy for your customers and create content that attracts users to your site.
B2B SaaS: In Closing
B2B SaaS is already essential to businesses all over the world. Going forward, they’re likely going to become even more important. Marketing teams will have to find unique and effective ways to build strategies that separate their software from the p
