Spoiler Alert: This proven 3-step approach can help your SaaS get mentioned in publications
Let me ask you a question… How would it feel to have your product mentioned in a top-tier publication like Forbes, The Entrepreneur, or HuffPost
Amazing, right?
Hundreds of SaaS companies are launched yearly and want one thing — exposure!
Most SaaS founders hesitate to do PR due to their low budget or lack of experience.
Having your product/platform featured in top-tier publications is not easy, but that being said if you have the right strategy in place then it can guarantee you multiple top-tier media placements.
To talk about SaaS PR in detail. In this article I will share the benefits of SaaS PR, what it takes, and a 3-step approach to get your SaaS featured using a case study.
Okay, let’s dive right in!
Why Are SaaS PR/Media Mentions Are The Best
Getting coverage through digital platforms is a different ball game altogether. Usually, in a digital PR campaign, you have to earn that placement rather than paying for it.
It only makes sense to develop a strategy for digital PR and by running a digital PR campaign, you’re introducing your SaaS to readers of a publication who may have never heard of you. This is great for publicity, especially if they turn out to be your ideal customers.
Therefore scoring media placements should be a key focus in a SaaS marketing strategy and here I have a list of reasons to share why SaaS PR is the best:
1) Media Mentions Can Increase Your SaaS Credibility
Top media publications platforms like Entrepreneur, Forbes, and HuffPost, Inc. are considered sources of authority. Readers on these websites are more likely to trust any information.
When your SaaS product is mentioned on these websites, it shows readers that your business is legitimate. This creates brand credibility, which attracts organic, loyal, and converting users.
2) Brand Awareness & Reach
Featuring in popular publications exposes your brand to new audiences. Top media websites have massive readerships across the globe, and a single mention can put your business in front of thousands of potential customers.
Over time, this increased brand visibility will grow your customer base as it can incorporate well with your existing marketing strategies.
For example, SaaS PR campaigns incorporated with content marketing played a crucial role in helping our client get 5000+ new signups to their platform
3) Better ROI
You can secure media placements for your SaaS brand with a strategic PR approach. Hence this saves money spent on marketing tactics that may or may not work.
With media coverage, you know exactly what you’re getting (That is exposure).
The quality and impact of media mentions are very high and very rewarding as we talked about above.
This simple equation can explain why SaaS PR can yield better ROI,
Getting featured on authoritative sites = more qualified leads + better marketing play = customers!
4) SaaS PR Can Improve Your SEO
Media mentions can boost your website’s search engine rankings because when authoritative news publications link back to your website, search engines see this as a signal of credibility.
The higher the quality of the backlinks, the better your SEO.
Backlinks from popular media outlets are valuable for SEO as they can determine your rankings on Google and not to mention it will improve your SaaS website’s overall domain authority.
So, more organic traffic means more sign-ups and revenue.
3 Things To Get It Right For Your SaaS PR Campaign Success
Getting SaaS media mentions starts with creating newsworthy content. This means you have to search for story angles that publications want to cover.
Creating the content is one part of your campaign whereas sending tailored pitches to the most relevant writers and editors is the other part of your successful PR campaign.
So in this process, there are a lot of things you need to get right to make everything fall into one place. Through my experience, I have found these 3 things to be the most crucial aspects of a SaaS PR campaign:
1) Think Like a Journalist
You need to think like a journalist if you want your SaaS business to be featured.
Ask yourself — what makes a good story? Look for unique angles or insights. Craft a compelling narrative related to your product.
As you put yourself in the journalist’s shoes. You understand that all they want is attention-grabbing stories that resonate with their readers or your pitch can be ignored.
So make sure to tie your SaaS story to current trends that journalists are already covering or will be interested in covering.
The best tip here will be to follow certain media outlets in your industry understand their writing, and the nuances of a story, and reverse-engineer each successful SaaS PR story that you found online.
Important Tip: Here’s a great article that you must read written by Ashley Couto and published on Better Marketing about, ‘How to Pitch a Journalist — According to a Journalist’
2) Have a Clear Go-To-Market Strategy for Your SaaS Platform
You should have a clear go-to-market (GTM) strategy for your SaaS platform before seeking out any media coverage.
The thing is if you don’t know what is important for your SaaS and its customers then how can you market it effectively?
A clear GTM strategy helps you nail down clear target segments, unique value propositions, and pricing. Thus, this helps you nail down your story and gives you clarity on what features/use cases to specify when you work on your SaaS media mentions
3) Connect With Journalists and Establish Relationships
Journalists are easy to contact through their social media profiles, and you can find their email addresses with a simple search.
However, establishing relationships with them is the real walk.
You must have a strategy in place to connect and provide value as an industry expert that they can tap into. This means you can’t just cold-pitch journalists and expect positive responses from them.
You need to nurture your relationship with a journalist first. Once you foster that relationship, they’ll be more receptive later on to your pitches when you become a trusted source.
That being said, having existing connections with journalists will improve your chances of getting your SaaS mentioned on their platform. Now, you shouldn’t let down yourself, if you don’t have any journalist connections, you can either hire an in-house PR team or outsource it to experts like me who have such existing connections.
The 3-Step Approach That Helped My Software Client Land Links From Top-Tier Sites
After helping multiple SaaS clients effectively build backlinks and land coverage on top-tier sites, I’ve developed a proven 3-step process to secure PR-type mentions for any type of SaaS product.
I believe in my approach because it’s well-researched, strategic, and scalable not to mention, most importantly it works.
Below, I’ll explain how I helped a SaaS client in the HR tech space generate dozens of mentions from publications using my 3-step approach.
1) Find data/insights that journalists can link to
As we talked about already, journalists always find unique data and insights compelling. If it’s relevant, they will link to it.
For any SaaS PR, the goal here is to package your story to align with current trends that audiences of top-tier publications want to read about. Unique research is the first step in finding that story.
For our HR tech client, we researched some upcoming Google trends about employees in the US.
I noticed most people searched for news about the working conditions of US employees post-COVID.
So we scraped some data and drafted an insight list about the working conditions of US employees in each state (I won’t reveal too much to protect my client’s privacy).
To gather the data about US employees state-wise, we had to scrape multiple websites, and using our Excel sheet skills we were able to sort that data. This data was converted into PDF reports and infographics so that I could use it in our pitches.
2) Craft an amazing article using your data/insights
As the report was ready, it was time to publish the data in a consumable format on our client’s website. This way, journalists would understand what is written.
It’s important to write about the process of how you gather your data and how you came up with your conclusions. You need solid research and backing to prove your points as this helps both journalists and readers understand how accurate and trustworthy your article actually is.
For our HR tech client, I crafted a 1400+ word article around the report. Then, I did some on-page SEO to help Google understand our content and make it appear in the searches.
Once the data was ready and the article was published, I collected the emails of journalists in the HR tech niche. Before working for this campaign, I already had some journalist connections in the same niche from my previous guest posts and link exchange collaborations.
So I leveraged those existing connections to generate a few backlinks to our reports. Even though these were not top-tier media placements like The Entrepreneur, they helped us establish some trust while I pitched the report to top-tier journalists.
Before pitching to journalists, it’s important to understand their writing style to craft a personalized pitch (I can’t show you my client emails for privacy reasons) for each journalist.
Usually, I follow these 4 steps for an effective cold email SaaS PR pitch:-
- The subject and first line should sell the email. Write an enticing, clickable title for your pitch.
- Share the highlights of your data right away.
- Explain the approach you used to produce the reports and stats. Also, share your data sources.
- Send 1–2 Follow-up emails.
Wrapping This
This above SaaS campaign generated around 25+ quality link mentions from top-tier publications for our HR tech client. Almost all of them had DR70+ for their website.
I feel like the reason why our strategy worked well is because the story was solid and that was the most important aspect of any PR. So, make sure when you want to do a SaaS PR campaign, most of your efforts should go into publishing a well-researched and well-crafted article.
Definitely, along with that experience comes into play and you might not get it right on the first attempt, however, if you stick to it you will get better.
The reason why I emphasize this approach for SaaS PR is because this approach gives us more control and freedom to work from multiple angles. Thus ensuring for better probability of success as you do most things right
