When companies in the SaaS industry use a sound PR strategy, they benefit from brand awareness, media coverage, and attracting the right consumers. However, companies in the SaaS industry don't always have the privilege of working with PR professionals and partnering with agencies.
They have to figure out more cost-effective options for achieving the same PR goals. There's no need for these companies to reinvent the PR industry to achieve success with their PR efforts because there are several tried and true PR strategies that can get them closer to success.
Data and Insights
Most companies in the SaaS industry sit on a lot of data, whether it's from developing a company's solution, or simply user stats.
This data is a goldmine for journalists. Companies in the SaaS industry can use all of this data to provide insights into their target market or predict industry trends, which can then be pitched to relevant outlets or journalists.
When utilizing data in a pitch, it becomes a lot easier for journalists to create a story that's based on numbers, because stories that are based on data tend to perform much better compared to those that have no data.
Data also makes content a lot more scannable and attention-grabbing to the readers. It's a lot more shareable, and journalists can more easily create follow-up stories with additional data.
Familiar Story Angles
Plenty of companies in the SaaS industry haven't realized that they don't always have to create brand new or original content to grab the attention of the media.
Sometimes, using stories that have already performed well in the past can work just as well as creating something from scratch. All that businesses have to do is rework the narrative of the original story to make it more relevant to them.
For example, back in 2014, Buzzfeed published an article about an artist that asked people from different countries to Photoshop one of her images according to their local standards of beauty.
The article ended up getting picked up by many other outlets and went viral, while the original generated millions of views. A few years later, the health and beauty retailer Superdrug decided to use a similar idea in a marketing campaign by examining women's body standards from different countries around the world.
The core idea of the story was the same - women's appearance in different parts of the world, but Superdrug changed the presentation and focus of its story by titling it "Perceptions of Perfection", which was actually picked up by Buzzfeed too, along with hundreds of other publications.
Consistent Publishing and Media Relationships
SaaS companies rely heavily on word-of-mouth referrals and social proof for growth, which makes a consistent publishing cadence and active media relationships part of the core PR strategy, not an afterthought.
- Publish a company blog post on a regular cadence, and look at what competitors are covering to find relevant angles worth writing about.
- Build relationships with the specific journalists and outlets who cover SaaS and B2B software, rather than mass-blasting generic press releases.
- Join industry conversations and events where other SaaS professionals and press are already paying attention.
- Anchor every release and pitch in the company's specific unique selling proposition, so the message stays consistent across press releases, social posts, and customer communications.
5W is a SaaS PR agency that builds these media relationships and story strategies for B2B software companies, and works alongside 5W's SaaS digital marketing practice when clients need SEO, paid media, and demand generation running in tandem with PR.
