LAUNCHING YOUR SAAS PRODUCT USING 10K MICRO INFLUENCERS

SaaS GROWTH HACKING Launching a SaaS product can be exciting and overwhelming at the same time. A lot of Entrepreneurs who start a SaaS business for the first time experience launch anxiety. With so many marketing mediums to choose from, how do you know what marketing method will work the best for finding your first SaaS customers? This SaaS marketing course will provide all the answers you’re looking for. No matter what type of Software you’re developing, you need to drive product awareness where your customers are searching for your solution. Creating discoverable content is key to educating potential customers about your software and generating high intent traffic to your software landing pages. But how do you create content and get it visible where people are searching for it? The answer might seem a bit counterintuitive but if you stick with me, I think you’ll agree that Micro Influencers hold the key to your successful SaaS launch. MICRO INFLUENCERS In order to understand how Micro Influencers can help you launch a B2B software product, we first have to understand what Micro Influencers are and how they can help you reach customers looking for your solutions. Micro Influencers provide an enormous amount of potential value to SaaS companies looking to create discoverable content and get it ranked on keywords your customers are searching for to find the solutions that your software provides. On average, Micro Influencers have 2200 followers and deeper connections with these followers, compared to a Macro Influencer with millions of followers but little interpersonal connections. The value Micro Influencers bring to your SaaS product isn’t their follower reach, it’s their ability to help you create content, increase account authority and get your content ranked in the search engines your customers are using to find the solutions your software provides. For instance, if your customers are searching YouTube for Graphic Design software, your Influencers can create topic specific videos about your software product and how it relates to your customers problem or needs. When you utilize thousands of Influencers and help them craft content your customers are searching for, you’ll have hundreds of quality videos driving those customers to your SaaS sales pages. This is just one way Micro Influencers can help you promote your SaaS product. FIND MICRO INFLUENCERS The most effective way to find Micro Influencers is using Facebook and Instagram ads. This will be covered in more detail below but for now, running ads on Facebook can help you target Micro Influencers actually interested in your niche using interest and demographic targeting. It’s possible to acquire new Influencer signups for as little as .34 cents each. You can find micro influencers on most social media platforms, some popular ones are listed below: Micro Influencers on Instagram - You can find thousands of Micro Influencers on Instagram by searching for people who are models or brand sponsors. Micro Influencers on TikTok - TikTok has a massive creator community of people who are used to creating short format videos that can help launch your SaaS product to the TikTok community. Micro Influencers on Pinterest - There are millions of creators on Pinterest who can help you create amazing content that appeals to your SaaS customers or users if it’s a consumer facing software product. Micro Influencers on LinkedIn - LinkedIn is the perfect place to find Micro Influencers in your industry or niche. Reaching out to these Influencers can help you attract your first initial customers and provide referral opportunities for growth. Micro Influencers on YouTube - There are millions of amazing content creators on YouTube with channels that reach targeted audiences that you can tap into with an offer that incentivizes them to create a video review of your software. MICRO INFLUENCER PLATFORMS An alternative approach to finding Micro Influencers using ads or individual outreach is to find them on Micro Influencer platforms. You can find some niche specific influencer platforms that engage Influencers in specific niches like product marketing influencers or B2B micro influencers. A few Micro Influencer agencies that we’ve used in the past are EngageCreators and GramSponsor. Finding the right Micro Influencers is a vital step in launching a successful Micro Influencer campaign so find a platform that caters to your specific industry and niche. There is an amazing course on acquiring Micro Influencers using Facebook and Instagram ads that goes into incredible detail on the entire process from setting up the ads, targeting the right influencers, creating the ad images and writing ad copy that will lead to low cost Influencers who are highly targeted. Here is the Micro Influencer Acquisition Course. TARGETING MICRO INFLUENCERS IN YOUR NICHE USING FACEBOOK ADS Within Facebook Ad Targeting, there is an option to further refine your audience by adding a secondary conditional targeting filter. This is where I add additional Interests that target people by Job Title (Graphic Designer in our scenario) and Interests (Graphic Design, UI Design and so on). SaaS MARKETING STRATEGIES Now that we know where to find Micro Influencers, let’s talk about utilizing them to promote your SaaS product. These ideas will help you formulate a detailed SaaS Marketing Strategy for your own SaaS product. #1 SPOKESPERSON CONTESTS When I run an Influencer campaign, I use a Spokesperson Contest as the basis for my interactions with Influencers. My contests last for three months at a time and I offer a contract worth $5,000 to the Influencer who I choose to be my Spokesperson. Influencers earn points during my contest, at the end of each one month period, the top 70% of point earners move on to the next round. At the end of three months, the Influencer with the most points earns the contract and gets paid. This setup allows me to leverage 10k+ Influencers who are all helping me promote my SaaS product for three months without having to pay each one of them for their efforts. Because I’m targeting Influencers who are models, actors and actresses, they are able to create higher quality video content and are more active in social media with more engaged followers and existing social media account authority. There is an excellent course on Running Micro Influencer Spokesperson Contests. #2 TURN INFLUENCERS INTO BETA TESTERS Generate thousands of new users by asking Influencers to Beta Test your software. Because they are already interested in your niche because of how we targeted the Influencers with your Facebook Ads, they will be more receptive to Beta Testing your Software. Here are a few ways to maximize your Beta Testing initiative with Influencers: Offer more points for Beta testing your Software - This is the quickest way to generate more Software users. Your Influencers will gladly use your software and hopefully like it so much that they will pay for it or use it long term. You should offer Influencers who Beta Test your software an extended free trial that lasts as long as the campaign is running. Ask for Feedback using a form - Discover what they liked and didn’t like about using the software. Ask them what features they wish were included but aren’t. Ask them what could make the software better and if anything didn’t work as it was supposed to. Incentivize App Sharing with the Influencers Phone Contacts - Your software should include some internal growth hacking mechanisms like making it possible for users to invite their friends or colleagues to join or follow them. This will allow you to generate more organic users of your software at no cost. It also gives you metrics you can use when building out your pro-forma for growth projections after the campaign is over. Software Review Videos - The most valuable asset you can create with Influencers is a software Review video. This allows you to post the videos on multiple social media platforms and optimize the videos to appear in the search results to find new customers looking for software solutions like yours. You can also use these review videos on your sales pages or in a “testimonials” page on your website. #3 INCREASE VISIBILITY WHERE YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE LOOKING FOR YOUR SOLUTIONS Think about the ways your potential customers are searching for solutions to their problems that software solves. If your customers are using platforms like ProductHunt to find software startups to follow and support, you could have Influencers create an account on their and vote for your Software, leave reviews for it and share your ProductHunt listing in social media. This will increase your visibility on their platform and drive more organic downloads of people who will use your software. Here are a few ways people find solutions that software products can solve YouTube Search - YouTube is an amazing product discovery tool that works particularly well for problem/solution based videos. Google Search - You should have an amazing content marketing strategy that employs proper SEO techniques that make ranking your websites content easier. When you utilize thousands of Micro Influencers, you can easily have them share your content in social media to help it rank in the organic search results. If you have a brand new website with zero authority, you can utilize other platforms that allow you to get content ranked on Google much easier and drive search traffic to your landing pages. A few of these are listed below: Medium.com - This is one of the easiest platforms to get content ranked in Google search extremely fast. Utilize long tail keywords with a decent amount of search volume that your customers are searching for to find your software solutions. If you intend on using Medium as a ranking tool for content marketing, you should add “Medium” as an Interest in your Influencer Targeting for Facebook ads. This will ensure your Infleuncers have accounts on Medium and can clap for your content in exchange for earning more points. Reddit Posts - Adding article content to relevant subreddits can help you get your content ranked in Google Search. Don’t link directly to your App but you can mention it by name so people can search for it and find it. Industry Focused Groups & Forums - You can find and join Industry related Slack Groups or forums that people in your Industry frequent. Adding content that provides value to members of the group can lead to new software clients when you do a good job of pitching your software as a solution to your Industry's challenges. Here are a few ideas: #4 BUILD COMMUNITIES YOUR CUSTOMERS CAN FIND ORGANICALLY Because you have targeted your Influencers by interest in your industry, you can invite them to join communities that you create on different platforms. These platforms give you access to their user base and allows you to acquire new members organically you can engage with long term. By inviting your Influences to join these communities, you can seed them with enough users to make the group more appealing for organic users who find your groups. Here are a few platforms where you can build niche communities: Slack - Slack is a great place to manage a group of people who are in a specific Industry or have a relevant Interest in your Softwares Industry. LinkedIn Groups - You can find and join specific groups for your Industry on LinkedIn and engage with users, post relevant content about your software and message users who show an interest in your software. Subreddits - Start your own Subreddit and add content to attract new members in your niche. Facebook Groups - Create a Facebook group for your Industry and add content they can consume. These are just a few examples, but depending on your Industry, there might be better or more options where you can build your own communities of potential customers. #5 GROWTH HACKING SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNT AUTHORITY When your startup is brand new and you create social media accounts for your SaaS product, you’re starting from scratch with no account authority. You might be scratching your head as to why your social media posts aren’t generating any engagement. The reason for this is because your post isn’t visible in the search results because you have an account that isn’t authoritative. Thus, your visibility is very limited. Account/Post Authority is calculated using the following metrics: Follower Engagement (The number of followers who engage with your content) Follower Authority (The amount of account authority your followers have) Follower Post Engagement (Posts are first ranked according to how it’s engaged with from your followers) Organic Post Engagement (Platforms measure how well your post performs when viewed organically in the search feeds) These are the most important factors that determine how well your content ranks in the Hashtag search results. INCREASING ACCOUNT AUTHORITY When you run a Micro Influencer campaign, the first thing your Influencers should do is follow your social media accounts. They should then like, comment and share your social media posts. This is one of the ways they can earn points during your campaign. This results in very high follower engagement and generates enough likes, comments, shares and saves to make your content rank in the Hashtag search results. Once your content is ranked, it can generate more organic followers to your account as your posts are more discoverable to people in your niche looking for your content. Social Account ShoutOuts Another way to boost account authority is to have your Micro Influencers create a post about your product, App, website or brand and mention your username in the post. This provides additional authority when thousands of people take this step during your campaign.