How To Generate Leads For SaaS Businesses

Do you want to generate leads on autopilot? Here are 7 simple ways to fuel your SaaS funnel with more high-quality inbound leads.
Reading time: 7 minutes

Imagine investing thousands of dollars into driving traffic to your SaaS website. After a month of your campaigns running, you realize that only a tiny percentage of all users convert into new accounts, and a smaller number end up becoming qualified leads

Well, this won’t be a surprise as marketers and salespeople alike both struggle with lead generation. Studies have shown that 68% of businesses struggle with generating leads.

If you’re one of those businesses, fret not! In this article, we’ll share a few actionable tips you can implement right now to bring in more leads without increasing your budget. Let’s dive right in!

Contents

1. Offer callbacks

Customer satisfaction should be one of the priorities of every business. After all, more happy customers = more revenue.

However, studies done by Harvard Business Review showed that there are over 500 companies that are taking more than 24 hours to respond to their customers. 

This is unacceptable!

Over 500 respondents take more than 24 hours to reply to customers.
Over 500 respondents take more than 24 hours to reply to customers.

As 78% of customers would buy from a business that responds to their inquiry first,  this means you have to be faster than your competitors and no calls should go unanswered. 

If you’re one of the businesses that are taking too long to respond to your customers, then reducing lead response time should be your priority. 

Using click-to-call software, you offer your web visitors the chance to schedule a callback with your reps. This can encourage them to speak with your reps and ask questions instead of dropping off your page and going to your competitor. 

Novocall’s click-to-call widget allows information collection and scheduling of calls.
Novocall’s click-to-call widget allows information collection and scheduling of calls.

Your customers get product answers right away and are a step closer to buying your SaaS subscription. Callback tools can even become a part of remote team communication strategies helping increase the efficiency of helpdesk and sales agents using VoIP technology.

2. Use smart pop-ups

As a consumer, you can often find pop-ups annoying. That’s because some companies are using popups in the wrong way, even though they don’t realize they simply annoy people and put them off. 

On some websites, you may come across multiple popups opening up one after another, while some would pop up at the same time.

However, smart popups can help to convert website traffic if used correctly. To implement pop-ups the right way, think of what user actions should trigger them, the content they should contain, and what actions you want users to take. 

Here are some tips you can use when building your popups:

  • Don’t show the same popup to all users — make them more contextual. Display different text on pop-ups depending on the page where your user has landed for the first time. You can also think of other criteria that matter for your business!
  • Trigger popups at the right time — don’t bombard users with pop-up windows right after they enter the website. For example, you can set pop-ups to display for the users who scroll at least 50% of your SaaS page and stay on the page for at least 20 seconds (choose your display rules wisely!).
  • Design action-driven popup content — show the value of signing up, support it with user testimonials, or even play on users’ fear.
  • Choose the right exit-intent popup tools — choosing the right exit-intent popup tool for your saas business is very important as different tools have different features and capabilities. You need to choose the right one for your business.

3. Offer gated content

Offering gated content is a great way to gather contact information from your customers. Think of email marketing templates, message templates, and even downloadable charts. 

These resources bring value to your customers, hence, they would be willing to give your their email address in exchange for one of these downloadables.

Apart from free downloadable templates, you can offer other alternatives — such as a free trial of your software or exclusive access to a webinar. You can create such pages in no more than an hour using simple landing page builders.

4. Use a video explainer

Using a video explainer is another element of SaaS marketing that is successfully used by various SaaS businesses as a tool to boost conversion on sales pages. 

Thanks to a short video, you can show the capabilities of your SaaS tool, engage users better, and drive more signups. 

Presenting 60-second interactive videos visualizing how your tool works can save your customers time and effort scrolling through your website. This can result in users registering for a demo or free trial faster. 

Check out how this SaaS is integrating a video explainer on their landing page.

An example of a SaaS using a video explainer.
An example of a SaaS using a video explainer.

When creating your video, consider working with marketing professionals who can write a succinct copy for the video focused on user needs and challenges. 

Usually, outsourcing video creation to a marketing freelancer or an agency can be a faster way to create a video than doing it in-house — especially if video marketing is not the core of your business. If you have a limited budget, consider creating videos using video maker, off-the-shelf tools that are cost-effective and offer high-quality animation effects.

5. Monitor the cost of lead acquisition

Managing your marketing expenses wisely can result in decreasing conversion costs and help you get more leads within the same marketing budget. 

Some marketing channels can work like a dream, while others eat at your marketing budget at full pace. That’s why you have to monitor conversion costs across all marketing channels regularly.

When some channels become too expensive or start generating less engaged leads, it’s time to rethink your activity there. It might even make more sense to get rid of some channels and focus only on the ones that help you reach growth targets faster.

While eliminating a marketing channel should be the last resort (only if nothing works to improve it), you should start by analyzing the cause of decreasing conversion rate first and try to optimize worse-performing channels. 

For example, if you notice that the cost of generating leads on Google Ads increases, it might be the case that only a few keywords you are using in your Google Ads campaigns are eating out your budget while the rest of them perform well. In this case, you might think of pausing the keywords that generate “expensive” conversions. 

As every marketing channel has its own specifics — make sure you know how to measure their performance well and optimize when required. Don’t be afraid to rethink or even create a sales strategy from scratch if the old one doesn’t help achieve KPI.

6. Use social proof

There is a range of tactics to implement social proof on your SaaS website. Here are just a couple you can consider using for your business.

List your top customers

Ask for permission to use logos of your biggest customers who your users recognize. You can add their logos within the above fold screen of your website to build trust with new users instantly.

After all, people like to do business with those they’re familiar with.

Mention your user base

If you have a lot of SaaS users, use this to your advantage! You’ve built a strong customer base, so mention a rough estimate on your website. 

This makes your software and business look reliable and credible because so many other businesses have already used your tool. 

Include user testimonials

Let your users talk about your SaaS product — what they like about it, why they chose it over your competitors, and what made them stick with it.

Including user testimonials on your website gives new customers the confidence that your software is legitimate and that they’d most probably enjoy using it too.

Add case studies

Carry out in-depth interviews with your customers — ask them how they discovered your tool, what challenges it has helped resolve, and what solutions it offers. It’d be even better if you could come up with case studies from well-known brands to boost reliability. 

Add some numbers and percentage rates showing the change in effectiveness, speed, or other aspects where your users have noticed improvements while using your product.

7. Reduce friction at signup

Make it easy for users to sign up for your SaaS tool. The less information you ask for users to fill in, the less friction there is for them to sign up and start using your tool. 

Think about it this way — if signing up for one software had a 20-step process, most people would drop off halfway because it’s taking too long to even get started. 

Make users feel that signing up is the right decision to make by supporting your signup form with a customer testimonial or by posting an average review ranking on a review platform (G2 or Capterra).

Also, make sure you show a user that there is nothing to lose. Mention the fact that you don’t require a credit card (if you don’t), offer a free trial, and include trust badges.

Consider hiring a UX designer who can review your sign-up process and suggest fixes to page elements that can block conversion. Sometimes, it’s worth getting a second opinion if you are constantly working on one project – your SaaS startup. A fresh pair of eyes can do miracles.

Conclusion

Driving more traffic to your webpage won’t likely bring satisfying business results if your page is leaky. 

However, SaaS page optimization can help you generate more leads. Simply start off with any method on this list to fix your website, and you’ll be converting more traffic without even increasing your marketing budget. 

If you’re interested to find out how Novocall can help you generate more leads, get started with us today! 😛

Picture of Margo Ovsiienko
Margo Ovsiienko

Margo is a freelance growth marketing strategist. She creates content that converts website visitors into paying customers for SaaS companies by building sales funnels.

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