To sign up for our daily email newsletter, CLICK HERE
SaaS has changed the entire landscape of how businesses operate. In 2017, about 38% of companies were running entirely on SaaS. Imagine the percentage of SaaS users now when everything from creating, selling, earning profits, etc., is being carried out digitally through social media platforms.
It might have made the operations smooth and easy, but managing reputation and building a brand is still a challenge among many SaaS founders and enterprises.
It is the reputation that makes or breaks a brand. This is obvious to say; however, important to mention that SaaS tools with a good image in the market are more likely to attract customers. To help all SaaS enterprises manage their brand reputation, we have brought some smart strategies in this blog. Before getting into the strategies, let us understand the meaning of brand reputation.
Brand reputation is the perception of your brand, and services by the buyers, customers, partners, and competitors. Brand reputation becomes a necessity when the expectations of SaaS users fail to meet the promised requirements.
So, when the reputation of a brand seems to go for a toss, here’s what you can do;
- Monitor the sentiments of internet users
- Immediate response to reputation-based messages
- Managing damages, if any
- Grabbing every small opportunity to boost the brand’s online reputation
The above pointers are some of the few quick ways by which SaaS enterprises can influence or change buyers’ perceptions. Let’s see other ways that can work wonders for SaaS businesses.
-
Focus On Increasing Credibility
In a world where social media users look into reviews and feedback before purchasing, bringing more credibility to your brand becomes essential.
Let the users speak for your brand!
Video testimonials are a great way to validate the credibility of your brand. Because SaaS is all about software service, what could be better than a video wherein users demonstrate the features of the tool and are happy about using them? Let us prove it with the figures. As per the survey by Global Buyer Trends, about 78% of buyers look at reviews before they buy anything online.
Another way to build a brand and reputation is to add customer review badges, verified quality seals, awards, and recognitions received. Apart from these, you can also take advantage of the SaaS review sites such as Capterra, G2Crowd, and FinancesOnline. All these will make your brand look appealing. It will also generate trust among current as well as potential customers. Reviews and ratings on websites build a positive reputation, so avail yourself of the benefits by using them in the best possible way.
2. Stick To Consistent Content Marketing Strategies
Words create a huge impact on the psychology of a human. Good and accurate words can get you to the right target audience, whereas the wrong placement of words can upset the entire situation. To avoid trouble, stick to professional use of the words. Also, when it comes to online reputation solutions and building brands, it becomes even more crucial for SaaS enterprises to focus on content marketing strategies by doing the following;
- Resorting to email marketing
- Sending direct messages to current customers
- Re-working the brand messaging
Building a social media profile that resonates directly with the target audience becomes the need of the hour. So, stick to rigorous content and social media marketing to enhance the brand’s visibility. To stay consistent on all social media platforms concerning uploading posts and content in any form, videos, images, infographics, etc., you can use SMM tools. Reach out to the most effective social media management tools like Sprout Social, Hootsuite, Buffer, Later for managing reputation and building brand. To know more about such tools, read about sprout social alternatives.
3. Deliver What Your Audience Wants
If the reputation and brand-building strategies are centered around current customers, look into their demands. To make things easy, categorize your customers, create groups and provide the solution they were looking forward to. While reaching out to the customers, make sure you do it professionally and humbly. The idea is to bring back comfort in the life of your customers with your SaaS tool. It is normal for customers to forget your brand if you fail to tap them repeatedly. To keep reminding your customers of your presence, you must conduct a re-targeting approach by running ad campaigns on social media channels.
4. Instant Replies to Comments
When customers dislike any service, they either move to the comments section or give feedback in the reviews column, or some may send direct messages. Negative feedback or comments can ruin the image of the brand. So, it becomes imperative for SaaS enterprises to reply actively to those comments. You can use effective online reputation management tools to carry out such functions. Social media management tools greatly help you manage more than one social profile for your business. Also, these tools allow you to stay spot-on with notifications from your customers; therefore, you can take care of updates promptly. Giving instant replies to the comments of your customers will create a positive impact on prospective customers.
5. Effective SEO is Must!
We have now discussed creating content in different ways to improve the reputation through different brand strategies. After the content is planned and scheduled, the next step should be to work on search engine optimization (SEO). Content and SEO go hand in hand. It means if you have created customer-specific content, then make sure it ranks at the top of Google search; else, it will not reach the potential audience and will hardly make any impact. Focus on the following components of SEO;
- On-page SEO- It involves blogs, landing pages, or other content on your website.
- Off-page SEO- Guest posting and listings are a part of off-page SEO.
- Technical SEO- It involves the setup of the website and its functioning.
6. Go For Paid Advertising
Advertisements create a great impact if they are designed keeping the audience and content in mind. Do not restrict paid ads for tangible products. You can leverage the most for SaaS as well. Gone are the days when hard selling was prominent. Now, with everything getting digitalized, engagement-focused selling is carried out. Advertisements are a good source of information for SaaS users. There are higher chances of attracting leads and inviting subscribers interested in downloading the deliverables, such as brochures, pamphlets, e-books, whitepapers, etc. To get better results, you can go for paid advertising for brand building and reputation management for SaaS enterprises.
7. Target a Wider Audience
With the speed by which SaaS is covering the entire globe, there should be no harm in running a reputation management or brand-building strategy that targets a wider audience. Try to go global and enhance the workforce. The more people you have in different parts of the world, the more you can spread your wings.
8. Deliver Excellent Customer Service
Apart from giving your customers what they want, as we have described in point number 3, make sure you offer excellent customer service. Exceptional and personalized customer service will give you positive feedback, whereas delayed customer service can move your clients and customers to your immediate competitors. So, be available 24/7, and manage the queries of your customers in the smoothest possible way. You can give them individual customer service as well.
9. Use Performance Reports
What could be better than using your company’s performance report? Show your growth rate in the form of graphs, charts, the impressions you made, the number of people you were able to reach, and so on. All this information is available on business social media accounts. So, reach out to your Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn and download the reports. Present them in a simplified way to your audience. Be creative, be different and see how it makes a difference for your brand.
10. Dare To Be Different!
People trust what they see with their eyes, whether it be images, videos, or any other form of visual content. So, as a brand, it is your responsibility to put extra effort into showing people what your SaaS tool is all about. You can do this by any means. Stretch your creative muscles, and think out of the box because it is different that attracts the eyeballs. Try to find a purple cow and then present it to the audience online.
The online world is unpredictable as well as fascinating. Sometimes it takes quite a few milliseconds for the content to go viral, and other times it might take years to create a stable brand presence. However, whatever the case, all you as SaaS organizations need is an aligned and systematic approach to enterprise social media management software. Try creating more responsive content. Also, stick to thoughtful online reputation and brand-building strategies as described above.