Cracking the Code: Build a SaaS Marketing Team That Destroys the Competition!

Every marketing company that operates from a Software as a Service (SaaS) business model needs to construct a strong, cohesive marketing team as the foundation for success. All members should be worth their weight in gold and fit perfectly within the overall marketing strategy.

As the battle for market share and customers intensifies, your SaaS brand will only come out on top if you rely on a synchronized team to drive your marketing qualified lead (MQL) growth and lead generation.

Although the importance is obvious, SaaS company leaders are often unclear how to define their ideal organizational structure and which marketing roles they must prioritize for optimal results. What are the first positions you need to fill that will bring the greatest benefit to your SaaS startup further down the line? Often, a SaaS Fractional CMO can be of great assistance in laying the groundwork that will propel SaaS companies to a greater level of success. 

The already vast SaaS industry continues to expand, with a projected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.7% through 2030. It is a fiercely competitive field. To achieve success, a myriad of areas require your focus and countless marketing channels demand delicate navigation.

No two SaaS marketing teams will be exactly the same. This guide takes a penetrating look at some of the crucial team-building strategies a SaaS marketing agency would typically suggest:

• Identifying core marketing roles to hire
• Maximizing the power of collaboration
• Encouraging a culture of continuous learning
• Setting the most meaningful KPIs for your SaaS marketing team

There’s a lot of ground to cover, so get ready to take notes.

The Evolving Nature of SaaS Marketing

Overview of the SaaS Marketing Landscape

SaaS marketing still speaks to three key areas: growth, product, and branding. However, since the pandemic, the landscape has witnessed a seismic shift in buyer behavior.

As with other industries, SaaS customers want personalized experiences tailored to their evolving expectations and needs. The same goes for different SaaS buyer personas, such as initiators and decision-makers.

Modern clients, especially B2B buyers, are channel skeptical, tech-savvy, and markedly aware of their needs. Your SaaS marketing team must go the extra mile to capture their attention and earn loyalty.

Today’s SaaS buyer goes back and forth between channels. More crucially, the decision makers (and initiators) spend nearly a third of their buyer’s journey doing independent research online,with 85% of them relying on search, as per WSJ.

The consequence is that the opportunity for marketing and sales teams to influence buyer decisions has become narrower and narrower.

Need for Multi-Channel Engagement

Marketers must know how prospective customers interact with each kind of marketing channel so they appropriately interact with their target audience in this nonlinear buyer’s journey. Marketers need to court, engage, and provide value to prospective customers long before they enter the sales funnel.

Successful SaaS marketing teams have methods to leverage multiple channels for outreach. This approach creates more touchpoints with the buyer’s journey, increasing their likelihood of generating MQLs and pushing conversions.

According to a LinkedIn B2B Institute study, more than 95% of B2B prospects are not active buyers at any moment, emphasizing the need for brands to cultivate lasting relationships through consistent messaging that resonates across all touchpoints. That’s why B2B marketers must earn omnichannel sales rights and effectively use more than a half-dozen marketing channels to create pipeline opportunities and generate brand awareness.

When done well, B2B SaaS SEO ideas such as pushing educational content, PPC campaigns, social media, and other gears work in tandem to drive lead generation, brand visibility, and bottom line.

SaaS Marketing Leans More Heavily Toward Inbound Channels

Software companies have long used outbound channels and tactics such as cold calling and telemarketing to drive action, but they are quickly becoming a put-off. Modern SaaS buyers consider these methods to be irritating or a form of aggressive selling.

Customers now demand highly personalized experiences at each touchpoint of their journey. They want to evaluate software solutions, test drive them, and get the most value with minimal friction.

Research shows that over two-thirds of critical buyer actions, most notably research, are completed outside the traditional sales funnel. Inbound strategies are uniquely positioned to delight prospects long before they are ready to buy.

A tailored content strategy is well-attuned to answer prospective buyers’ most pressing questions and provide value upfront, with little disruption. Although the core objective remains lead generation and conversion, savvy SaaS marketers gear their efforts more heavily toward education rather than promotion.

They use tutorial videos as learning opportunities and use subject matter experts to foster thought leadership. The modern SaaS marketing scene is all about attracting and delighting, not just selling and pitching.

It is definitely not business as usual, which levels the playing field for SaaS SMBs and startups going up against big brands.

Data supports this approach. According to Hubspot, inbound marketing campaigns yield three times more leads at a third of the cost of traditional outbound channels.

When prospective customers come to you rather than being pitched, you can expect conversions to be higher since fit and intent are a close match. Inbound helps you focus your marketing spending where it makes the biggest splash.

Rather than interrupting potential customers, this approach meets them where they are in the buyer's journey. Tailored content, SEO, and social media give your target audience relevant information at the right place when they are ready for it.

That is not to say outbound strategies like trade shows and display ads won’t work for your SaaS marketing. They still front one of the quickest ways to get particular groups of leads into the sales channels.

Traditional Marketing Structures May Not Work for SaaS

Although traditional marketing organizational charts have served other industries well for decades, they are often ill-suited for the unique dynamics of software businesses. The arrival of nascent technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the rise of digital channels have rendered many legacy approaches obsolete.

Methods that used to work, for instance direct mail, telemarketing, and cold calling, no longer cut through the noise. More crucially, since SaaS brands do not offer a tangible product, and their feature-led growth model requires a new playbook optimized for self-researching buyers.

You need to reimagine your traditional marketing heavyweights, such as lead nurturing and demand generation, especially when your target audience conducts most of the research and purchase decisions independently.

Therefore, your SaaS marketing team must be data-driven, agile, and constantly adjusting in response to real-time signals from the market.

Core Roles in a High-Performing SaaS Marketing Team

(1) Marketing Strategist

A SaaS marketing team needs the best-suited captain at the helm, especially with such rapid technology changes and fierce competition. A well-equipped marketing strategist is your ticket to more sales.

Roles of a SaaS Marketing Strategist

As the captain of your SaaS marketing crew, the strategist is responsible for setting the long-term vision and guiding tactical decisions to support it. They must have an unwavering pulse on the market, making sure to stay on top of shifting buyer behaviors, competition, and industry best practices.

The strategist uses target market and ongoing user data to design the perfect marketing strategies our company should follow for the next 6 to 12 months (and possibly beyond).

The last person you want on your team is a marketing strategist who ignores current trends or sticks to old data. They must adeptly synthesize current market signals and qualitative input from every function of your marketing operation to paint an accurate forward-looking picture.

The strategist must understand your company’s goals to create a foolproof marketing plan that aligns campaigns and optimizes the bottom line. A well-crafted plotted content calendar should be part of this process.

A marketing strategist is the leader of your tribe and must steer it with strong, confident leadership skills. Think change and process management skills, coupled with eloquent communication.

Importance of a Strategist

The strategist is the person who makes the whole team tick. They ensure everyone clearly understands the plans, particularly regarding their roles and contributions in the grander scheme.

Marketing strategists connect collaborative dots. They bring in influencers, thought leaders, and external factors while ensuring internal cohesion among team members thus ensuring all the gears move in synchrony.

They are accountable for bottom-line results, often keeping tabs on the key performance indicators (KPIs). They must quickly spot inefficient and underperforming channels and campaigns within the setting of the larger plan so that, when fine-tuning your marketing strategy, any changes bring greater cohesion rather than confusion.

Above all, a masterful marketing strategist focuses on the KPIs that matter most to your SaaS company, be they MQL growth, customer retention, or subscriptions. This helps transform your SaaS marketing from a cost center to a growth engine that is tightly integrated with your brand’s objectives.

(2) Content Creator/Manager

The content manager and creators are the engine behind powerful content that builds brand awareness and generates quality leads. They are responsible for pumping out a steady stream of valuable, shareable assets.

This includes blog posts, eBooks, infographics, and webinars. They should focus on formats that help educate prospects and build trust in the brand.

They also oversee content distribution through email, ads, and influencer partnerships to maximize reach and engagement. Creators and managers must work with SEO specialists, strategists, and other parts of the operation to put content at the core of the marketing machine.

With over 53% of SaaS website traffic coming from organic search engine results pages (SERPs), you must double down on your content strategy, and content managers/creators are at the forefront.

Given content's importance in the modern buyer's journey, this role demands an ambitious publication schedule, with multiple posts per week. Each piece must be optimized for search and social media using keyword research and tried-and-true B2B SaaS SEO strategies.

The creator must also ensure consistency in voice, messaging, and design aligned with your SaaS brand's tone, ethos, and values.

The Importance of the Content Manager/Creator

Content managers and creators help drive organic traffic and MQLs to marketing and sales assets. They analyze site traffic, downloads, social engagement and other metrics to fine-tune your content strategy.

They are also the face of your brand's thought leadership, helping establish credibility and positioning your company as an industry expert.

Their content forms the backbone of an always-on marketing approach that attracts and converts prospects long after publishing.

Their work addresses the most pressing questions, pain points, and challenges facing your target audience, paving the way for MQL growth and lead conversion month after month with minimal overhead.

(3) SEO Specialist

SEO specialists are the guardians of organic search traffic, wielding powerful influence over your SaaS brand’s customer acquisition and lead generation efforts.

They are responsible for keyword research, on-page optimization, link building, and technical SEO to help the business rank above the fold in unpaid SERPs.

Given Google's frequent algorithm updates to weed out unhelpful content, they must stay on the cutting edge of best practices through continuous education.

A masterful SEO specialist analyzes search behavior and trends to identify new target keywords with high commercial intent and develops strategies to rank for them. This includes carefully crafting page titles, meta descriptions, and heading tags based on user intent.

These specialists also focus on off-page link building through quality backlinks, guest blogging, and other SaaS SEO tips to gain search engine trust and authority. They cultivate these relationships while ensuring all content passes muster for technical quality and user experience.

The best SEO specialists also monitor and analyze factors that Google and other search engines favor, such as mobile-friendliness, site speed, and image optimization.

The Importance of the SaaS SEO Specialist

An SEO specialist hands your SaaS company a competitive edge when they ensure your site and pages are perfectly primed to satisfy searchers. Their efforts have a direct impact on qualified traffic and MQL volumes without paid advertising costs.

As search algorithms evolve, the specialist’s guidance future-proofs your SaaS marketing strategy from unexpected dips. In the hands of a talented SEO expert, organic search becomes a renewable lifeline continually driving prospects toward conversion.

(4) Performance Marketer

The performance marketer increases the level of scaling through optimized advertising spending. As the master of paid acquisition channels, this role controls campaign management across search, social media, and display using tools like Google Ads and Facebook Ads.

Testing is central to a performance marketer’s ability to continually fine-tune ads, copy, and targeting to find the highest-converting combinations. They run A/B tests to improve lead forms, email campaigns, and website user experiences.

Moreover, they measure ROI and attribute traffic sources by making good use of data analytics and tagging.

Importance of the SaaS Performance Marketer

Armed with data from KPI analytics, the performance marketer finds ways to lower customer acquisition costs by identifying low-hanging fruit for optimization. They refine negative keywords to filter unqualified traffic and cut marketing costs.

Ongoing testing ensures campaigns maximize qualified leads for every dollar spent. They use first-touch data from website usage and customer relationship management (CRM) to build robust custom audiences for retargeting marketing.

ROI optimization is at the center of this role. Because the position is on the pulse of all performance data, they can ratchet up top-performing campaigns or pause losers to maximize ROI.

(5) Fractional CMO

A fractional CMO can supercharge your entire SaaS marketing spectrum at a fraction of the cost you would spend for a full-time staff member. Hiring a fractional CMO will cost mere pennies on the dollar for the same level of executive work you would expect from a full-time chief marketing officer.

Fractional CMOs are experts with extensive experience strategizing and executing highly effective campaigns specifically tailored to the unique needs and opportunities of the SaaS space.

A fractional CMO is an all-in-one solution for a SaaS marketing operation. As part of routine SaaS Fractional CMO tips, they will conduct a thorough audit of your current marketing activities to identify gaps and areas for improvement.

The specialist will develop a comprehensive strategic plan to strengthen your brand positioning, messaging, and overall marketing strategy. This runs the gamut from optimizing your website and content to paid channels and lead generation.

Hiring a Fractional CMO allows you to immediately benefit from their deep SaaS expertise and proven track record of success. They understand how to navigate the complex buying cycles of SaaS customers and will implement best-in-class tactics to acquire more leads and customers for your business.

Why Bringing Fractional CMO to your Marketing Fold is Crucial

With the average Chief Marketing Officer earning close to $350k a year in the US, it makes a great deal of financial sense to bring in a fractional CMO. And the results of hiring an agency like Digital Authority Partners, with an award-winning team of fractional CMOs, speak for themselves:

• Nearly all (95%) of the companies that have hired a SaaS Fractional CMO were so pleased with the results that they either renewed their contract or expanded the scope of services
• Hiring a fractional CMO can save you up to 75% on marketing costs compared to hiring a full-time CMO.
• SaaS companies that hire a fractional CMO can expect to see a 4X improvement in their ROI
• Fractional CMOs can help businesses grow their revenue by up to 27%

These figures are a small sampling of the benefits a fractional SaaS CMO can bring to your company.

For a growing SaaS business, the guidance of an experienced fractional CMO is extremely valuable, especially when given the prohibitive cost of hiring for a full-time role. The Digital Authority Partners model provides on-demand access to top marketing talent at a fraction of the cost, helping you maximize your marketing investments.

The Power of Collaboration: Integration and Overlap

Sales and Marketing Alignment

If high growth is your goal, your sales and marketing units must be complementary forces. The most successful companies achieve a true symbiosis between these business-critical functions through open collaboration at every step.

It starts with frequent joint meetings where sales and marketing teams align their priorities, challenges, and opportunities. This helps bring both perspectives together so these teams can gain a more holistic view of the buyer’s journey.

You can then develop integrated plans that make the best use of each group’s strengths in a coordinated fashion. For example, marketing may own lead generation while sales concentrates on product demos.

However, both departments are accountable for moving leads through the funnel.

Shared KPIs also help drive alignment by ensuring sales and marketing are measured by the exact definition of success. Rather than focusing solely on MQL volume or deal size, tying incentives to customer acquisition cost, renewal rates, or expansion revenue fosters mutual accountability.

You should include regular reporting of joint metrics to keep your SaaS marketing team focused on the same goals. Beyond meetings and metrics, collaboration demands open communication up and down the pipeline.

The best part is that your SaaS marketing team will provide sales agents with qualified leads that are primed, scored, and packaged for handoff according to precise criteria. Meanwhile, sales may share timely feedback to help the marketing crew optimize content, channels, and targeting over time.

This two-way information flow keeps the process continuously improving. The most aligned SaaS organizations also promote collaboration through cross-training.

Marketers who understand the sales process can craft more compelling content, stronger campaigns, and other collateral, while salespeople who grasp digital campaigns can better engage prospects.

Regular collaboration, transparent goal-setting, and an emphasis on the customer experience over individual function silos are hallmarks of top-performing sales and marketing teams.

Tactics to Promote Sales and Marketing Collaboration

- Joint Meetings

Regular joint meetings are essential for sales and marketing alignment. Bi-weekly stand-ups ensure open communication of priorities, blockers, and opportunities.

Meeting agendas should cover pipeline reviews, program performance, account coordination, and process improvements.

- Shared Key Performance Indicators

Establishing shared KPIs with clear definitions holds both teams accountable for the same goals. Metrics could include MQLs, opportunities created, conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, renewal rates, and expansion of annual contract value (ACV).

As Entrepreneur Magazine puts it, transparent tracking, reporting, and incentive compensation tied to joint targets motivate collaboration.

- Cross-discipline Training

Cross-functional training allows sales and marketing teams to better understand each other's roles and pain points. Marketers learning the sales process can design demand generation programs that set sales reps up for success.

When salespeople gain insight into campaigns, they can advocate for prospects' needs. The same goes for co-planning integrated marketing and sales programs from the get-go to ensure cohesive efforts.

Aligning the messaging, timing, and call-to-action of campaigns, events, and sales outreach drives maximum synergy. Product Marketing Alliance (PMA) advises SaaS brands to collaborate internally across departments and externally with partners on their go-to-market strategy and other operations fundamentals.

Product and Marketing Collaboration

A seamless flow between your product and marketing teams is paramount. They must work hand-in-hand to deliver the best possible experience for customers, from initial discovery all the way through to the onboarding and renewal process.

Effective collaboration starts by establishing frequent feedback loops. Product managers should regularly solicit input from marketers on user pain points and desired new features in order to help improve the products offered to better meet customer needs.

Marketers rely on product managers to report on product insights so they can prepare compelling messaging that communicates the new capability's value and competitive advantages. Regular check-ins allow both sides to stay closely aligned on strategic priorities.

When planning new product launches, cross-functional teams are critical. Marketers can guide campaign timing, audience targeting, and messaging to drive the right level of hype and awareness.

Meanwhile, product teams ensure all necessary documentation, assets, and training are in place to support the marketing push. Coordinated efforts across these teams set the stage for launch success.

Consider Long-Term Integration

It is also important to consider how products and campaigns will mesh over the long term. For example, if marketers promote new self-serve capabilities, product tours, then help documentation should be updated in a timely manner to complement those efforts.

The same applies to renewal and expansion campaigns—marketing materials should always accurately reflect the current user experience. Maintaining this integration ensures customers receive a consistent brand experience.

The most collaborative SaaS brands find ways for product and marketing to mutually reinforce one another. One strategy is to tie marketing incentives or quotas to product adoption and engagement metrics.

This helps align team goals and encourages finding innovative ways to promote underutilized features. Regular cross-training is also a valuable way to foster deeper understanding between teams and spark new ideas for partnership.

Growth-Oriented Additions to the Team

Which roles should you incorporate into your SaaS marketing team when your primary goal is to drive growth?

(1) Social Media Manager

Core Responsibilities

Despite a slump in advertising in Q2 2022, the total ad spending on social media jumped 8.8% over the year. That underlines the indispensable role played by social media managers.

A core responsibility of a social media manager is to develop and execute a comprehensive content calendar. The calendar should strategically map out the mix of promotional, educational, customer stories, and thought leadership content to be shared each month across key social platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Engaging the brand's audience is also critical. The manager actively comments, shares, and replies to foster two-way conversations and community around the posts. They work to boost such engagement metrics as comments, shares, and reactions.

Analytics skills are equally important. The social media manager should be laser-focused on such metrics as follower growth, engagement rates, click-throughs, and content performance to inform an iterative strategy.

By understanding which types of posts and publishing schedules drive the best results, they can optimize the social presence to the best effect over time.

Importance of a SaaS Social Media Manager

A social media manager helps foster a strong sense of community around your SaaS brand. Through regular posting of engaging content and active conversation with followers, the manager encourages connections between your target audience and cultivates a following of advocates.

Real-time representation of your SaaS brand online is also critical. As people increasingly connect through social platforms, the manager ensures a constant company presence where your prospective customers are actively engaging.

The manager publishes scheduled updates as well as timely, urgent messages to maintain relevance. When they interact with your community around the clock, the manager strengthens relationships and raises top-of-mind awareness of your SaaS brand.

The manager can also identify and resolve any customer service and PR issues immediately before they spread. This helps enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty over time.

(2) Community Manager

As customer expectations evolve, fostering a sense of community around your SaaS brand becomes increasingly important. To keep this group engaged, a community manager is needed.

As a dedicated part of your SaaS marketing team, this growth-oriented role is vital for cultivating long-term user advocacy and retention. The community manager will manage your brand's online user groups, Reddit forums, and other community platforms.

Community managers go far above fostering conversations. They provide ongoing community support and share helpful resources that establish your brand as a thought leader.

This builds a supportive environment where your prospective customers can help each other. The community manager also identifies super-users and asks them to become brand ambassadors and mentors.

Community managers can make a massive difference when it comes to feedback loops. They host surveys, interviews, and idea labs, passing actionable insights to other members of your SaaS marketing team.

The Importance of a SaaS Community Manager

The true value of the community manager lies in building brand loyalty, which in turn, helps drive customer engagement and retention, as well as MQL expansion. Customers or users who feel invested in each other (and your brand) are far less likely to churn.

This manager also identifies and resolves issues before they go out of hand. For instance, they will likely pick up any PR issues and douse the flame before it turns into a full-blown fire.

The qualitative feedback community managers collect can supercharge your SaaS marketing efforts. The insights revealed from surveys, interviews, and idea labs allow product optimization to meet customers’ evolving needs and pain points.

Community building can pay dividends through enhanced customer satisfaction, a higher net promoter score, and more opportunities for viral growth through peer recommendations. This expanded reach of the support team saves costs while strengthening advocacy.

(3) Customer Education/Success Specialist

Providing comprehensive education and ensuring the successful adoption of your SaaS solution are essential elements for maximizing customer lifetime value. A dedicated education specialist capably leads these customer enablement efforts.

The specialist owns such developing self-service resources as tutorials, user guides, FAQs, and instructional videos. They publish this content through your knowledge base (Help Page) and search to empower self-sufficiency.

Designing and presenting live webinars and training sessions is another core duty. To maximize value, the specialist instructs customers on best practices, advanced features, and industry trends.

The specialist also researches trends to proactively expand educational materials. They use customer feedback to refine sessions and address common concerns.

Guiding successful onboarding with customized journeys and materials also falls under the specialist's responsibilities. The education specialist creates role-based journeys, including email drip campaigns, to steer new customers through initial setup and usage.

The Importance of the SaaS Customer Education/Success Specialist

Armed with usage analytics, the specialist identifies power users and champions additional personalized support. They help customers maximize their investment and become promoters of your product.

This role directly affects retention, expansion, and customer satisfaction by enabling customers and championing success. It delivers high returns through increased productivity, adoption, and reduced support costs over the long term.

(4) Data Analyst

Core Responsibilities

As the resident metrics expert, the primary responsibility of the data analyst is to conduct a thorough and ongoing analysis of KPIs. This includes tracking engagement, conversion rates, customer retention, and return on investment (ROI).

The analyst derives strategic insights on customer behaviors and the impact of marketing campaigns through analytical modeling and evidence-based questioning of the data.

The data analyst is responsible for A/B and multivariate testing to scientifically evaluate user experiences and identify drivers of engagement and MQL growth.

The analyst presents insights and key findings to marketers, sales reps, and other stakeholders in an accessible and actionable manner that helps inform optimized decision-making across departments.

The Importance of a SaaS Data Analyst

At the core of marketing analytics, accurate data and correct analysis of it is a crucial part of informed strategic decision-making. That being the case, data analysts play a pivotal role in measuring ROI for all the various marketing campaigns and product investments.

Through rigorous statistical analysis and evaluation, an analyst can provide objective performance metrics to optimize processes. Their work helps ground business decisions on facts that, when carefully considered, show what is needed for the most positive impact on growth goals.

With a data-backed rationale, an analyst can help persuade stakeholders to agree with changes. This can also make it easy to measure ROI and reach informed marketing decisions.

For instance, based on specific metrics, analysts can help web developers and content managers add more images and incorporate videos and other SaaS homepage tips to boost web traffic.

Building a Culture of Continuous Learning

The Need for Upskilling

The SaaS marketing scene continually evolves at a rapid pace, as does the industry itself. New technologies, platforms, and best practices emerge almost daily.

If a SaaS marketing team wants to maintain its competitive edge, members must prioritize upskilling and learning new skills. Staying stagnant is not an option in such a dynamic business environment.

Customers’ needs and expectations constantly change, and competitors are always innovating. A SaaS marketing team that does not commit to ongoing learning will quickly be outpaced.

They risk delivering messaging and campaigns that no longer resonate or provide true value to customers. Upskilling is no longer a scary endeavor, as there are plenty of resources to help you on your journey.

Platforms like LinkedIn Learning, Coursera, and Udemy offer thousands of affordable online courses taught by industry experts on everything from the latest marketing automation tools to emerging trends in SaaS content or social media strategy.

SaaS marketing team members should be encouraged to spend a portion of their weekly hours expanding their skills through these types of on-demand training. It is just as important for them to attend conferences, meetups, and virtual seminars, which provide opportunities for team members to learn from and network with peers facing similar challenges.

Attending one industry event per quarter exposes teams to new ideas and keeps motivation high. Subscriptions to top marketing publications ensure continuous learning through case studies, best practices, and thought leadership articles.

Feedback and Iteration

Regular reviews with the client team are critical. The best SaaS marketing teams look at how campaigns perform, what works well, and what works better.

Reviews are a chance to become aware of different perspectives, including those of designers, marketers, and even customers. That outside perspective helps strengthen the work.

No one sees a campaign the same way as its creator, so other opinions are invaluable.

Reviews are also a time to celebrate SaaS marketing team wins. If a social media post drove a surge in leads, or a landing page significantly increased conversions, they should take a moment to appreciate those successes.

Positive feedback fuels continued motivation, but they should make a point of looking at what underperformed so the whole team can learn. Not every idea will land perfectly, but finding out why gives the team insights to apply next time.

After each review, the Saas marketing team must iterate based on the feedback. Minor tweaks to copy or calls to action could make a big difference.

SaaS companies should always be testing, tracking results, and refining. The goal is continuous improvement so future campaigns will have an even larger impact. The first draft is rarely perfect, so an iterative process helps take work to the next level.

Measuring Success: KPIs for a SaaS Marketing Team

1- Lead Generation Metrics

One of the primary goals of any SaaS marketing team is to generate qualified leads for the sales team. This allows the business to efficiently expand through a steady pipeline of prospects.

When evaluating lead generation performance, tracking the right key metrics is important. Keep a tab on these lead generation KPIs:

• Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) - These are leads generated through marketing efforts that have provided enough information to be qualified as sales-ready. By tracking MQL generation over time, you can measure the effectiveness of different campaigns and optimize spending accordingly.
• Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) - Of the MQLs generated, these are the subset that the sales team reviewed and agreed are a high fit for your solution. Monitoring the SQL conversion rate from MQLs helps ensure the marketing team properly qualifies leads to sales standards.
• Demo Requests - Tracking the number of prospects requesting product demos is also a strong indicator that your messaging is resonating with the relevant people and compelling prospects to take the next step.
• Conversion Rates - Calculating the percentage of MQLs that become trials and then paying customers reveals how effectively your marketing moves prospects through the funnel. Optimizing these marketing-to-revenue (MoR) rates should be a constant focus.

2- Customer Engagement and Retention Metrics

Customer engagement and retention are considerable KPIs to track and optimize for a SaaS company. Some of the key metrics you should focus on include:

• Churn rate - This measures how many customers stop doing business with your company over a defined period, such as monthly or annually. It tells you how many customers canceled their subscriptions.

Analyzing churn rate, uncovers credible insights into why customers may be leaving and what can be done to improve their experience and keep them around longer. This is a crucial metric, given that more marketers are more focused on boosting customer retention than ever, as per HubSpot.

• Net Promoter Score (NPS) - This metric, measured on a scale from -100 to 100, evaluates customer experience and predicts business growth. It asks customers how likely they are to recommend a business to a friend or colleague. An increasing NPS over time indicates you are providing a better experience.
• Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV) - CLTV estimates the net profit attributed to a customer's future relationship. Determining the long-term profitability of acquiring and retaining new customers is essential information. Appropriate strategies that increase engagement and purchase frequency can boost CLTV.

A solid SaaS marketing team should analyze qualitative customer feedback to understand sentiment better. This, in turn, informs your strategy to strengthen engagement through email campaigns, on-site messaging, social media, and more.

The team's task is to apply strategic and persuasive communication that resonates with customers to support the business goals of increasing retention, advocacy, and lifetime spend.

3- Team Performance Metrics

When it comes to measuring performance, it is important to look at both individual contributions as well as the collective SaaS marketing team results.

On an individual level, critical metrics such work quality, the volume of work completed, and colleague feedback can help team members understand where they excel and where they could improve. However, focusing too much on individual metrics could undermine collaboration.

That’s why it is so important to track team-level KPIs. For instance, keeping tabs on project completion rates over time shows whether workflows become more efficient as team members gain experience working together.

Monitoring the ROI of completed campaigns indicates whether the combined efforts of brainstorming, research, writing, and production are moving the business forward.

Other high-level metrics you should track include customer retention, lead generation, and sales conversion rates. These offer a picture of whether the team's marketing messages are resonating with audiences and achieving the desired business outcomes.

Summing Up

Building a strong SaaS marketing team is crucial for any company that wants to stand out and acquire top-paying customers. The SaaS marketing landscape has witnessed a seismic shift in buyer behaviors, and no two SaaS marketing teams are exactly the same.

With a high-performing team and clearly defined responsibilities, your organization will scale in a sustainable way. It ensures no key functions fall through the cracks when you add customers and complexity.

With the right talent in place, your team can execute integrated campaigns, foster customer loyalty, and continuously improve based on insights, all while freeing executive leadership to focus on the big picture.

For SaaS companies that want to accelerate their results, it's time to evaluate your current marketing structure. Are your team members wearing too many hats? Are there gaps preventing you from achieving your true potential?

By identifying the core marketing roles that need to be part of your team, harnessing the power of collaboration, embracing a culture of continuous learning, and setting KPIs for your SaaS marketing team, you can create a high-performing team to help you achieve your business goals.

We encourage leaders to closely examine metrics, resourcing, and processes to identify areas for improvement. Benchmark yourself against the industry's top performers to understand where your team could be strengthened. With a commitment to continuous refinement, your structure can evolve in lockstep with your business goals and customers' changing needs.