How to Use Social Media to Elevate Your Subscription Business

The software as a service (SaaS) market grew from $12.2 billion in revenue in 2011 with an expected $21.3 billion by 2015, according to E-Founders. While those numbers are enticing for startups looking to get in on the revenue, it doesn’t give clues for how to build your SaaS empire. Start with a relatively low cost marketing tool like social media to boost subscription sales and recurring revenue. Here’s a roundup of how to break the code on social media marketing and get more signups.

Launch a Webinar on LinkedIn

Tap into the power of webinars to sell subscriptions. Spend a few weeks building up your LinkedIn contacts and your email list before announcing your webinar directly on your LinkedIn account. Solve a problem for your clients in the webinar. For example, if you sell a project management SaaS, discuss how to delegate responsibilities to employees while maintaining accountability. Offer a promo code giving a discount for your service that expires at the end of the day to help boost sales.

Run a Twitter Party to drum-up interest.

Even companies with a minimal social media following can host a successful Twitter party and drive sales. Instead of running it yourself, ask a Twitter user with an interest in your services to help. Pick someone with a big following who runs a popular blog. Choose a hashtag relevant to your offering like #SmallBiz and entice people to sign-up for your email list by offering to give away a free service to one new subscriber.

Create Infographics for Social Sharing

Infographic search volume increased 800 percent between 2010 and 2012. It’s also reported that 90 percent of all information we remember is based on visual impact, notes Web Marketing Group. An infographic displays statistics and compelling information through pictures, charts, graphs and minimal text. But there’s a bigger reason than attractive graphic design that makes infographics compelling. Infographics get retweeted 832 percent more often than images and articles. Make your content relevant to customer needs and offer compelling evidence for why they should use your product. At the bottom of your visual, encourage people to share it and sign up for your product. Use a tool like Visual.ly to create an original, compelling infographic.

Release a Video Tutorial on YouTube

People love a success story. The ride-sharing app Sidecar regularly includes National Driver Spotlight in their blog to feature their best drivers. The drivers are always young, hip and enthusiastically praise Sidecar for providing an income stream. A SaaS business can adopt a similar approach by taking it a step further. Launch a video series on YouTube featuring customer success stories. Between filling up your YouTube channel with a stream of video case studies, include a few tutorials on how your product works and how it can solve your customers’ problems.

Make it Easy to Onboard Customers

Although savvy social media promotions and webinars can all help attract sign-ups to your business, it won’t mean much without a simple onboarding process. Use a service like Bitly to keep track of your links and measure how many clicks and sign-ups come through each individually branded link. Next, incorporate a recurring billing system like Chargify to handle collect subscription credit card payments and automatically manage your payments, and emails in one place. Make sure to give your customers plenty of options for customer support including chat, phone and email in case of sign-up, billing or subscription issues. Good customer service and easy processing gives an added boost to your reputation, making it easy for customers to spread the word to sing your praises.

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