When building an inbound marketing strategy, there’s no shortage of channels to target. Organic acquisition channels are a critical part of every sustainable business growth model. However, you should avoid biting off more than you can chew. Just because you can leverage a certain marketing channel doesn’t mean you should.
To help you choose, we’ve created this list of the most popular acquisition channels. Keep reading for a summary of how they work, and how to maximize your ROI on them.
1. Organic search/SEO
This is probably the most popular form of content marketing in the SaaS industry — and for good reason. Building your organic presence can help you grow your brand authority and engage prospects at various stages of the awareness funnel.
Unlike ads, SEO is always working in the background; you don’t have to constantly spend money to continue reaping the business value.
That said, SEO is a long-term play. It requires continuous content creation, which can be difficult for smaller teams. You’ll likely have to hire a full-time content marketer, a freelancer, or an agency to keep up with a regular publishing cadence. But if done well, SEO can lead to exponentially higher web traffic over time, more qualified leads, and growth into a thought leader in your space.
How to optimize
Create topic clusters. Craft content around customer FAQs and other topics of importance to your target audience. Avoid targeting keywords in isolation; tackle multiple long-tail keywords that coalesce into a larger theme.
Use high purchase intent keywords. A keyword that sounds relevant to your business may also draw visitors with other interests.
For example, a query around “content marketing” could pull up a Wikipedia page, a how-to blog for people looking up marketing tips, and other resources in addition to a listing for content marketing software. Double-check that your keywords bring up relevant search results and attract people with an intent to buy.
Map out your user journey. Content can play a powerful role in discovery and winning business. Take a look at what your user journey looks like, the considerations a potential buyer has at every stage, and what they ultimately want to use your product or service for. This will help you create more tailored, impactful content that converts.
2. Affiliate programs
Approximately 81% of advertisers and 84% of publishers in the U.S. leverage affiliate marketing to acquire new customers. Affiliate returns are some of the easiest to track, and when executed well can provide more than just monetary rewards.
Affiliate programs are revenue-sharing arrangements in which individuals and/or companies who promote a product receive a cut of the final sale. For example, a blogger may write about your SaaS platform in exchange for a commission whenever someone signs up for a subscription. This results in more revenue, but also further brand reach and more positive user-generated content around your company.
You can pay your affiliates in a variety of ways, including pay per download, free trial signup, newsletter signup, and more. Affiliate programs are generally flexible and easy to set up. The biggest challenge is ensuring your affiliates represent your brand correctly, and that you have a reliable system for tracking affiliate-driven conversions (these are usually tracked via unique URLs).
How to optimize
Make it is easy to join. Affiliates should know exactly how to sign up, where to send leads, and how to keep track of their success. Put everything into one clean webpage with an FAQ section at the bottom, to avoid your potential affiliates having to dig around for more information.
Build reliable attribution reporting. Most programs rely on last-click attribution when, in fact, your affiliates could have been involved in earlier stages of the buying process. Consider whether first-click or other attribution models are worth tracking as part of your program.
Publish clear terms and conditions. Protect yourself from unscrupulous affiliates who try to game the system by inflating numbers or finding loopholes. Consult a lawyer and include policies for returned items, family member participation, and employee participation.
3. Referrals
Referral programs allow you to leverage word-of-mouth marketing and peer recommendations. According to Heinz Marketing, 75% of sales leaders say that referrals have a higher conversion rate, 70% say they can close referrals faster, and 59% say referrals have a longer customer lifetime value. Every metric points to the same thing; capturing referrals are better for business.
Simultaneously, you can collect social proof to showcase on your site or social channels. Social proof is especially valuable for SaaS companies, which often grapple with high CPA costs and long sales cycles. Through a referral program, you can ask existing customers to recommend a friend, family member, or other acquaintance to use your product in exchange for a discount on their next subscription payment or a free month of service.
How to optimize
Be selective. Invite customers who have used your platform for a while and can attest to its value through personal experience.
Prioritize exceptional customer support. Some of the best SaaS recommendations are inspired by great customer service. Prioritize your customer support to improve your customer experience, which can lead to better referrals.
A/B test incentives. Test various incentives to boost participation in your referral program. You can try gift cards, discounts, and revenue-sharing rewards to see what motivates your customers.
How to Launch a Referral Program: Maximizing the Potential of Word-of-Mouth Marketing
4. Brand partnerships
Brand partnerships present another win-win situation where both parties can expand their online reach into the other party’s network. The best partnerships help to boost your credibility and fill knowledge gaps in your content.
Examples of brand partnerships include joint webinars, blog exchanges, newsletter callouts, and inclusion on each other’s websites. You and your partners should share coinciding values and goals, as well as complimentary services that target a similar audience.
How to optimize
Partner with relevant brands. Check that your partners already have a presence in your industry by measuring their domain authority or popularity among your own customers. If you already have integration partners, you could expand those relationships to include more marketing-focused projects.
Set the right expectations. It’s easy to over-promise when you’re excited about a new brand partnership. However, you should always take time to determine the length, goals, and target audience of any campaign you embark on. Assign roles so there’s no confusion over who does what at any given time.
Brand partnerships strategy: Different partnership types and activities
5. Influencer marketing
Influencer marketing has exploded in the recent years, from Instagram to TikTok. Influencers are brands in their own right, though they tend to have more personal relationships with their followers.
Micro-influencers — people with anywhere between 1,000 to a couple hundred thousand followers — can be great partners who don’t break the bank. Keep in mind that influencers are experts at their craft. Allow them to create authentic influencer content in the formats they know best. You should also take the opportunity to ask your influencers for feedback on what your customers actually want from your brand.
How to optimize
Develop a relationship before committing. Avoid cold, transactional relationships with influencers. Like any relationship, you should set aside time to get to know influencers and build trust before striking a business partnership. Verify they have a genuine understanding of, interest in, and admiration for your product before asking them to promote it.
Assign a relationship manager. Dedicate someone on your team to nurturing influencer relationships so they always feel valued by your brand. Keep partners informed on new releases and train them on how best to use your products.
Is email marketing the best option for your online store? 8 Alternative eCommerce marketing channels
6. Social media
It’s hard to overstate the value of social media, where most consumers spend their downtime and fulfill their psychological needs. Social media can be a breath of fresh air for your brand as well because it allows for more creativity and spontaneity than many other marketing channels.
However, SaaS companies tend to have a harder time landing sales through social media than CPG brands due to the complexity of their solutions. Nevertheless, social media gives you the opportunity to build connections through knowledge-sharing, brand expression, and one-on-one customer conversations.
How to optimize
Be selective of your channels. Track your social KPIs, focus on one or two high-value channels, and create content in the formats users expect. Be consistent with engagement on those platforms, and don’t spread yourself too thin across other channels.
Humanize your brand. Share team photos, gifs, and other content pieces that express your brand’s personality and invite user interaction.
Social media marketing: How to promote your brand and support your customers using 7 channels
7. Email marketing
Despite the rumors, email marketing is far from dead. It’s still one of the most effective and cost-efficient acquisition channels. Unfortunately, it’s often abused by marketers who spam inboxes with salesy content.
To avoid being flagged as spam, follow CAN-SPAM rules and deliver content your consumers actually want, not what you want them to want. Don’t pitch your brand in every email, rather, share information or tips your leads will find useful.
How to optimize
Personalize your emails. Warm up your emails by including recipient names, company names, and other details. For example, if someone left a particular item in their shopping cart when they abandoned it, you can follow up and say, “You forgot something,” then give them an easy way to purchase that item.
Segment your list. If you have a large, diverse contact list, consider segmenting emails by interest and tailoring your content accordingly. Analyze the different priorities of your groups, one of the most popular ways being by job role. For example, a marketing director has different concerns than a finance director, but both may have use cases for your software.
8. SMS marketing
SMS marketing achieves an open rate of 82% and a click-through rate of 36% on average. This is likely because texts are short, casual, and ingrained in customers’ daily routines.
SMS messages also come with their own alert system, which is why 90% of messages are opened within just three minutes of receipt. Appearing spammy is a surefire way to lose prospects, though, so use texts strategically and provide an easy way to opt out.
How to optimize
Personalize your messages. Just like email, you don’t want to make it obvious you’re sending a mass text. Experiment with different personalization tactics, such as including custom offers and emotive messages.
Plan your timing. Test different send times during the week to see when recipients respond the most. You may, for instance, find that non-work hours generate higher engagement because consumers spend more time on their phones.
9. Online events
Webinars and virtual events humanize your brand by revealing the people behind the name. They invite audience participation and help build your authority as a thought leader.
At the same time, webinars grow your contact list. Through webinar signups, reminder emails, and follow-up communications, you can engage your leads even after the event. Recipients may even be more inclined to respond to your emails after attending an intimate class, fireside chat, or other presentation by someone on your team.
How to optimize
Repurpose webinar content. Post clips from your webinar on social media or quote them in your blogs and emails. You could even expand upon concepts presented at your event through blogs, maximizing the ROI of your webinar strategy.
Glean inspiration from internal teams. Ask your sales or support teams what content would be useful for your leads and/or customers. Devise a webinar calendar based on these topics, as well as a targeting strategy that’s aligned with the different stages of the buyer journey.
Webinar strategy 101: Everything you need to run a successful webinar
10. Videos
Videos create a more engaging experience for your customers, with many preferring to watch videos over other media consumption. For example, Biteable found that 68% of marketers say video has a greater return on investment than Google Ads, and 74% assert video has a greater return than static imagery.
Video is also incredibly flexible. You can record product demonstrations, embed them into your email outreach, and add them to your social media ads.
You can also implement video throughout your marketing efforts, not just for top-level acquisition. They can showcase a message from leadership, improve your help center articles, and send more impactful customer support responses.
How to optimize
Keep a bank of your video assets. Videos are less likely to be updated than a blog or web page, which means you need to keep a close watch on which are out of date. For example, you might accidentally share a video that cites an old deal or feature. Keeping a video bank with creation and publication dates will help you identify and remove videos with outdated information.
Test different types of video. Some video styles perform better than others on certain channels. For example, you can repurpose webinar clips to share on your events page as a teaser for an upcoming webinar to encourage registration; you can create an animated video that summarizes your most popular blog, then upload it to YouTube and embed it in that blog to increase engagement on the page; or, you can ask your customers to record a video review of your product and add it to your product listing page.
Victoria Sullivan on sponsoring YouTube videos for lead generation
How to select your top organic acquisition channels
Follow your customers
Where do your customers like to hang out? Do they enjoy reading eBooks, or do they prefer watching videos? Are they more responsive with SMS, or are they strictly email-only?
Your best organic acquisition channels will depend not on what you want to invest in, but where your customers want to spend time. To get started discovering this, ask a handful of your best customers where they found you. It might have been through your blog, on a Slack community, or a referral from a friend. This will tell you which channels to double down on and start testing out first.
Look at what drives your goals
Don’t just look at what brings in signups, look at what drives your goals. Different channels will have different impacts on your bottom line. If you have a freemium business model and you want to grow your revenue, measuring signups isn’t enough. You need to see which channels drive the most paying customers.
For example, you might find that leads coming in through social media convert well to your free trial, but leads that come in through a referral or affiliate program convert well to paid plans.
Consider your capacity
What channels are your team members already experts in? Does anyone on your marketing team have the capacity and desire to upskill into a new acquisition channel, or is it time to hire a contractor or new full-time employee to manage that channel?
Take a look at your current capacity when determining which channels to prioritize. Instead of haphazardly throwing social media posts out there, and potentially annoying your followers, you may want to invest more time in organizing online events, if that is closer to your team’s core capabilities and aligns with your customer base.
Wrapping up – Top organic acquisition channels to grow your customer base
The organic acquisition channels covered here are ones I’ve personally seen make a powerful impact on marketing departments. Test out different channels to find what works best for your brand, and remember to start with the channels your target audience prefers, not your company.