It’s been established that PR coverage can help establish awareness of your SaaS company. As customers continue to travel the SaaS customer journey, PR coverage also plays an important role during the second step of the journey: consideration.
According to CRM giant, Salesforce, it takes 6 to 8 touches to generate a sale. The consideration phase encompasses many of those touchpoints and provides a chance to make your case to prospects as they contemplate solutions. During this evaluation stage, it’s important to address what market problem your organization solves.
The consideration phase matters because your solution is likely not the only one available to prospects. They need to understand the features and benefits of your product or service — and what sets your offering apart from others — to make a purchase. This information is essential for those looking to make informed purchase decisions and often something prospects will seek out.
Oftentimes, other forms of marketing — especially advertising — can’t answer these questions. Targeted media placements can both provide meaningful information for prospects evaluating solutions — and third-party validation of your offering.
Media coverage that influences consideration
There are a number of ways that PR placements can help customers throughout the consideration phase — which ultimately helps both your business and the prospect. Here are three:
- Demonstrates a problem and offers a solution
Prospects end up in the consideration phase of the customer journey because they have a problem to solve. At it’s most simple form, a product review exemplifies the way a product solves a market problem. For B2B SaaS companies, product reviews are challenging to secure, but are incredibly valuable during the consideration stage because they offer third-party’s honest feedback on product or service, which can help to build trust with your prospects.Other pieces like case studies, white papers and customer testimonials also tell the story of a market problem — plus your organization as the solution.
- Addresses market gaps
Addressing market gaps is an important part of the consideration phase. Without a gap in the market or other customer pain points, there likely wouldn’t be a need for your solution. Contributed content about unmet customer needs, quotes in a larger story about industry pain points not only speak to a prospect and provide education but also shows that your organization is a thought leader and source of information.
- Positions your thought leaders as an expert source
Addressing market gaps isn’t the only way to build thought leadership and position your leaders as experts in their field. In fact, thought leadership can take many forms. Podcast interviews, bylined articles and quotes about the industry, are all ways for your subject matter experts to be seen as sources of leading information. Thought leadership can also cover a range of topics, including past industry experience, industry trends and industry forecasting.
As SaaS customers consider the best product or solution to address their pain points, make it easy for them to not only keep your offering top-of-mind but also top of the list. By demonstrating a problem and offering a solution, addressing market gaps and positioning your thought leaders as expert sources, you’ll emerge as the SaaS solution they’re looking for with a leadership full of competent experts that will continually provide a great product.
Learn more about meaningful press coverage in each stage of the SaaS customer journey.
