Software-as-a-service (SaaS) tools have revolutionized how marketers access software to build businesses. Instead of installing it on their computers via keycode, people pay subscription fees for cloud-based services that they can download and access from anywhere. Some types of SaaS applications are particularly advantageous for digital marketing.
1. Social Media Management Tools
Statistics from 2018 indicate that there are more than 3.1 billion social media users, which suggests that any digital marketing plan without a social media component is failing to reach its target. The increasing number of social media platforms also makes it more difficult than in the past for digital marketers to maintain a constant presence on the most prominent sites.
Before SaaS social media management tools existed, marketers had no choice but to update their social media feeds manually, the same way everyday users did. But now, other options let them schedule posts, assign tasks to members of a social media team, monitor for brand mentions or hashtags and more.
As a result, marketing through social media is highly efficient, and there are opportunities to automate tasks or get notified of characteristics signaling that something is amiss within a channel’s audience, such as an uproar over poor customer service.
2. Email Marketing Tools
Even though many people are so bombarded by emails that they don’t open them unless they have a relationship with the sender, email marketing can still be effective with a well thought through strategy. Research indicates that this fact is especially true for B2B communications. A recent study showed that email marketing was the top lead-and-revenue-producing method of contacting people in that sector.
One useful thing about SaaS tools for email marketing is that they typically allow marketers to keep their leads in one place and update them quickly instead of using outdated and cumbersome methods and tools such as spreadsheets.
Plus, options are available that allow marketing professionals to segment their audiences and test different versions of emails. This capability makes split testing much more streamlined than it used to be.
3. Meeting Scheduling Tools
Digital marketers, like most other kinds of professionals, usually can’t avoid spending time in meetings. But specialty SaaS tools at least help them use less of their precious time figuring out the best times to meet. Many of the choices on the market integrate with popular platforms like Google Calendar and GoToMeeting. Attendees can quickly indicate the best times to get together.
Apart from these services, artificial intelligence (AI) is also becoming more prominent for scheduling meetings. Some tools communicate back and forth with meeting participants to iron out the specifics. Digital marketers can even use AI for scheduling sales calls with leads, meaning this use of the technology spans far beyond internal meetings.
4. Chatbots
Digital marketers need to sleep, so it’s understandable that they’re not available 24/7. However, chatbots can answer questions from customers at any time of the day or night. They’re also particularly useful for connecting with millennials. More than 60 percent of people from that generation have used them, and of those, 70 percent reported positive experiences.
Chatbots help answer the most common questions people have about an in-demand topic. For example, if a concert promoter announces a ticket on-sale date for a popular performer, a chatbot could answer questions like “Is [artist] coming to my town?” or “What is the lowest price for a ticket?” As a result, marketers and customer service team members don’t have to spend so much time responding to repetitive queries.
5. Website Analytics Tools
Digital marketers can’t confirm that their tactics have the desired effects without statistics that show definitive results. SaaS analytics tools give them the facts they need to decide if a campaign is functioning well as-is or needs adjustment.
Website analysis tools can determine things such as how long people spend on particular pages, the devices they use to reach those websites and what links they click on while there.
It’s then possible for marketers to tweak portions of product or brand pages so that the content aligns with how people usually behave as they browse. Also, website analytics tools offered on a subscription basis are often scalable, allowing marketers to add more features as desired when their marketing efforts evolve.
In the past, there were substantial limits on the number of things a digital marketer could track, and the ways to do so were not very user-friendly. The leading SaaS tools for analytics are now all-encompassing in terms of metrics calculated. Many let people get information from a huge database in seconds.
What’s Next for Marketing-Based SaaS Tools? It’s not easy to know what’s on the horizon in the SaaS market, but if the five kinds of tools listed here are indicators of what’s to come, new offerings will make marketers’ jobs more straightforward and productive.
