SaaS Marketing Plan: How To Put It Together

Summary

The video discusses key differences between sales and marketing to help SaaS founders grow their businesses. It explains how marketing educates many potential buyers to streamline later sales conversations. The video outlines a 4-part marketing strategy to define target customers, product value proposition, differentiation, and urgency. It then covers marketing execution using organic outreach and ads to generate leads over brand awareness. The video concludes by offering a coaching program to help create an ideal customer profile, messaging, and ongoing sales and marketing processes to drive growth.

Takeaways

• 😀 Marketing educates many buyers while sales talks to individual buyers
• 👥 Marketing creates leads, sales converts leads to revenue
• 💡 Good marketing makes sales easier by educating buyers beforehand
• 🎯 In early stages, focus marketing on generating leads over brand awareness
• ✏️ Define your marketing strategy by answering 4 key questions before executing
• 📝 Build a marketing plan that clearly states who your product is for and what value it provides
• 🔎 Understand why customers should choose you over competitors
• ⏰ Craft messaging that convinces customers to take action now
• 📈 Use organic marketing to test what resonates then scale with ads
• ❌ Don't mistake outbound and events as marketing when they are actually sales

Q & A

What are the core differences between sales and marketing?

The core difference is that sales is a one-to-one activity focused on closing deals, while marketing is a one-to-many activity focused on educating potential customers.

Why is marketing important for early stage SaaS companies?

Good marketing educates potential customers and makes the sales process easier by bringing qualified leads further down the buying journey before sales engages.

What are the 4 key components of a marketing strategy?

The 4 key components are: 1) Who is this for (ideal customer profile), 2) What is the result you deliver, 3) Why choose you over competitors, 4) Why act now.

What are the main marketing execution channels?

The main marketing execution channels are organic (unpaid) activities and paid ads. Outbound and events are more sales-focused.

How can events be used for marketing?

If you present on stage at an event educating the audience and directing them to learn more, that classifies as marketing. Engaging one-on-one at a booth is sales.

Why focus on leads over likes in marketing?

Likes may increase brand awareness, but leads actively show interest and can turn into sales pipeline. Leads are a stronger signal for revenue growth.

What is the Broadway Show concept?

It refers to a consistent set of synchronized sales and marketing activities run weekly to engage ideal customers and convert them into pipeline and revenue.

What 3 pillars are covered in the SaaS Go-To-Market coaching program?

1) Ideal customer profile, 2) Manifesto (positioning and messaging), 3) Execution framework for sales and marketing.

What mistakes can be avoided through the coaching program?

By learning core go-to-market principles and strategy before execution, founders can avoid common pitfalls in misallocating resources to the wrong activities.

Who can this video be useful for?

This video provides an introductory overview useful for any early-stage SaaS founder looking to better understand marketing and articulate their go-to-market strategy.