With many features and updates, Instagram is not just a visual platform for communication with friends and family. Still, it can also be a valuable marketing channel to grow your SaaS company if you know how to use it right.
The software as a service (SaaS) industry is seeing tremendous growth. Over the last decade, the SaaS market has increased by around 500%, and now it is worth $195 billion, claims one report. For SaaS businesses, this means higher competition, and therefore, companies realize the importance of using lesser-known marketing channels for business promotion.
The solution? Use Instagram to grow your SaaS company!
As a communication app with a focus on visuals, Instagram has never been an obvious option for marketing SaaS products, but the situation has changed.
In need of help with your social media strategy? Hire a top-performing social media consultant.
Why Use Instagram to Grow Your SaaS Company?
If you still believe Instagram isn’t the best choice for SaaS growth, here are three reasons to use it.
- Your target customer is active on Instagram. The Instagram community has over 2 billion monthly active users, 90% of whom follow at least one business in-app. This means your target customers are definitely active on Instagram and they are ready to start a conversation with your brand.
- Instagram encourages people to take action. As specified in Meta’s own research, 81% of users research products or services in-app, and 79% of people search for more information after seeing a product on the platform.
- B2B marketers see great potential in Instagram. One report claims that Instagram is the 3rd most popular platform for B2B marketers and 68% of them want to learn more about its functionality because of its potential.
Instagram can be a powerful tool for SaaS companies to market their products or services, connect with the right audience, and even boost sales. When done right, it’s possible to grow your SaaS company with Instagram.
Now let’s dive into practical tips and best practices from various SaaS companies:
1. Boost Brand Awareness
2. Educate Your Customers
3. Promote Your SaaS Company
4. Drive Sales on the Platform
1. Boost Brand Awareness
Brand awareness plays a key role in business growth. The more people know about your SaaS company, the more potential customers you can acquire. To boost brand awareness on Instagram, consider the following three strategies for your SaaS company.
Market Your SaaS Business
Since users crave brand communication in-app, Instagram has evolved from a photo-sharing app into a powerful marketing tool. For SaaS companies, the primary goal that leads to business success is to market products on Instagram.
To do this, you should:
- Choose a relevant username that includes your brand name
- Upload a profile image that represents your company
- Create a branded hashtag
- Write a descriptive Instagram bio
- Tell about your products/services in posts and Stories
- Organize Instagram Story Highlight albums
HP is a great example of a SaaS company that uses Instagram to market its products successfully:
Moreover, HP has a descriptive bio that informs about its products and services, and the company also uses Story Highlight to gather relevant Stories about products into separate albums where interested visitors can learn more about their products.
Pro tip: Don't forget to secure your Instagram account when setting it up.
Encourage Word-Of-Mouth Referrals
Instagrammers love interacting with business profiles on the platform, so it can be a good idea to find clients on social media.
However, it can be hard and time-consuming to build a solid following on the platform. To reach a wider audience of potential customers and market your products to the right audience, it's important to make good use of word-of-mouth marketing and give your happy customers a solid reason to promote you.
Here are several proven reasons on how to encourage word-of-mouth referrals for SaaS:
- Set up a referral or affiliate program
- Share customer success stories
- Publish customer reviews
When other people spread the word about your SaaS company, not only can you boost brand awareness but you can also spark users' interest in your products/services as modern customers trust peer recommendations more than branded content.
Offer Lead Magnets
Practically every business aims at boosting brand awareness. But if you want to make sure that your company attracts the right target audience who has interest around your product, offer lead magnets.
With the right tactics, Instagram can be an important part of an effective lead generation strategy as its audience is active and engaged. So, wouldn't it be great if you could use Instagram to generate leads for SaaS?
Take the following steps:
- Decide on the right lead magnets that grab your audience's attention
- Promote your lead magnets on Instagram
- Make it easy for potential leads to share information
TailWindApp knows its audience's pain points. To help its followers get something valuable, the company tells about its useful resources and invites interested people to sign up for updates with the help of a Story link.
As a result, Tailwindapp generates leads from its Instagram and therefore achieves business growth.
2. Educate Your Customers
SaaS buyers are like common customers who crave products that provide value and help them solve their problems. To prove to your potential customers that your product is worth giving a try, it's important to educate your customers and tell them more about the ways your products can help them.
When it comes to Instagram marketing for SaaS, here are three effective ways on how to educate your customers.
Create Explainer Videos
Video content is getting more and more popular among internet users, and 91% of Instagrammers say that they watch videos on a weekly basis. With the dynamic and engaging nature of videos, this content type can deliver your brand message to the audience with ease.
And when it comes to customer education in SaaS, there's no better way to tell your potential customers about the importance of your products than creating explainer videos that guide viewers on how your products work and what value they bring.
What is more, Instagram offers various options for video content: from short-form Instagram Story videos that disappear within 24 hours to long-form IGTV videos that stay on your profile. Check out how Hootsuite uses explainer videos on its Instagram:
With the growing popularity of AI, Hootsuite has launched its AI-powered Instagram caption generator and made an explainer video that informs about its new feature as well as shows it in action. This approach educates followers and sparks their interest in the SaaS product.
Organize Q&A Live Sessions
At every stage of the customer journey, your customers may have questions about your company and products. To educate your audience, engage them, and get more organic visits, it's a smart idea to organize Q&A live sessions that allow your viewers to get their questions answered in real-time.
To create a Q&A live session that drives results, do the following:
- Announce your live stream in advance
- Set reminders for interested users
- Monitor questions you get in real-time and answer to them
- Create a sum up post with FAQs to help other people get value from your session
Share Niche Expertise
With the growing demand for SaaS products, the number of apps is growing, too. The SaaS competition is getting higher, so it's harder for companies to acquire customers. When people make a purchase decision, they choose reliable companies first, so being an expert in your niche is a great way to build brand trust and therefore become the most obvious solution for customers.
Instagram can be a great platform to share your niche expertise and educate your customer base. There are many ways to share niche expertise on the platform:
- Expert reviews
- Industry trends
- Pro tips
Here's an example of this strategy in action from LinkedIn. As a business and employment-focused social media platform, LinkedIn creates tips for job hunters and shares them on Instagram:
When choosing the SaaS product among various options, buyers pay attention to authoritative companies with solid niche expertise. Using Instagram, not only can you educate your potential customers on how to use your products, but you can also gain trust from other clients.
3. Promote Your SaaS Company
As 83% of Instagrammers discover new products and services on the platform, it's just a perfect place to promote your SaaS company and get your product in front of the interested audience. With the right tools and features, it doesn't take much time or effort to boost your presence.
Check out three proven ways to promote your SaaS company and therefore grow it in-app.
Run Ad Campaigns
Practically every company has an Instagram presence these days. But it can be hard to promote 'dry' niches like SaaS unless you invest in paid ad campaigns. Advanced ad setting allows SaaS companies to deliver their ads to the right audience quickly and get wonderful results.
Case in point:
When Webull decided to test a new ad placement to boost awareness and in-app actions, its campaign resulted in 50% more app installs and complete registrations from cell, a 17% lower cost per conversion lift for app installs, and a 40% lower cost per conversion lift for addition of payment information from cell with Reels ads.
Team Up With Influencers
Word-of-mouth marketing has always been the most effective marketing form. With the popularity of social media opinion leaders, when common people can get support from their followers, influencer marketing has become a new approach in word-of-mouth strategies.
Companies of all sizes and niches see potential in influencer marketing campaigns and SaaS companies can also find the right influencers who have a similar audience of potential customers.
When you ask niche opinion leaders to review your company or spread the word about it, you get a maximum impact as you enter an already-established community of loyal followers.
Co-Promote with Other SaaS Companies
Living in the digital era, when software helps people a lot, it's no wonder that an average team uses 50-70 SaaS apps. This means your SaaS company can reach out to other SaaS businesses and make the most out of mutual collaboration.
When it comes to Instagram marketing, you can co-promote with other SaaS companies and promote your product across their loyal followers.
Check out an example of co-promotion between Microsoft and Disney Music:
In honor of the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 release, Microsoft teamed up with Disney Music to introduce the new music playlist and co-promote SaaS products. This strategy allowed both companies to get in front of their followings and therefore reach a wider audience of potential customers.
4. Drive Sales on the Platform
At first blush, people use Instagram for fun. However, SaaS buyers who also use Instagram actively discover products on the platform which means these people are ready to make a purchase decision.
To drive in-app sales and therefore grow your revenue for your SaaS company, consider using one of the following tactics.
Share Success Stories
It's no secret that modern customers read customer reviews before choosing a company. When people see satisfied clients who find value in your products, they are more likely to make a purchase, too.
To take Instagram marketing to the next level, it's a good idea to reach out to your SaaS customers and invite them to share their customer experiences. When you share success stories, you increase brand loyalty and trust as well as prove to potential customers that your SaaS product can bring them value.
Check out how Keap did it:
In the video testimonial above, Hal Halladay shared their experience on using the Keap's automation feature to improve daily operations at their company and therefore set an example for other companies on how to use its products for maximum impact.
Promote Free Trials
When people follow your business Instagram profile, they are interested in your company and they consider your product as an option. To encourage followers to take an action, it can be a smart idea to promote free trials for your subscribers.
Not only does it add a sense of exclusivity, but it also offers something unique and useful that gives a solid reason for users to sign up for your trial.
Offer Exclusive Discounts
All customers love discounts and promo codes. When people get an opportunity to save money, they are more likely to make impulse buying. Even SaaS buyers seek out deals when making a purchase decision.
To sell your SaaS products on Instagram effectively, offer exclusive discounts that reward your followers for their loyalty and allow them to save money. For example, NapoleonCat announced a solid 50% off discount for its annual plan in honor of Black Friday and it was an effective way to drive sales.
And if you want to reach a wider audience of potential SaaS buyers, it's important to learn all about Instagram SEO and optimize your profile and posts for discoverability. When you use the right keywords and hashtags, you help interested people find your content, converting visitors into followers and paying customers.
Leverage Instagram to Grow Your SaaS Company
Gone are the days when Instagram was a photo-sharing app for communicating with friends and family. With the wide array of business-specific features and the growing interest of users in brand communication in-app, it's possible to grow your SaaS company with Instagram when you know which tactics to implement.
When you walk your SaaS buyers through each stage of the customer funnel, you're able to boost brand awareness, educate potential customers, promote your SaaS product, and even drive sales on the platform.
Give the above-mentioned strategies a try and establish a strong Instagram presence for your SaaS company that leads to business growth.
Additional Reading:
- How to Create an Instagram Content Calendar
- Influencer Marketing Trends
- How to Create the Best Instagram Bios for Businesses