Which channel do you believe has the biggest impact on growing revenue?
Expected:
Certainly a large spread of answers. The fact that one answer dominates the rest is still a good indicator of how different it is for everyone. If there were 2 or 3 dominant answers, that would paint a much different story of what’s working for SaaS companies.
Unexpected:
I expected content to be one of the more popular answers, but I didn’t expect just how popular the sentiment is. That’s a huge portion! I expected product virality and advertising to be at least a close 2nd and 3rd. It's surprising that app marketplaces and engineering-as-marketing aren't as popular.
Which channels have you invested resources in the last 12 months?
Expected:
Content and advertising lead the pack, which I would expect to see given the responses to the previous question. The distribution isn’t an exact match, however, so it’s interesting to see the differences.
Unexpected:
Partnerships are an outlier as a clear 3rd. This is a channel that is more under the radar, but up and coming.
It's surprising that guerrilla tactics aren't more popular. Scrappy, unorthodox tactics used to be more of the norm of what you'd expect from a startup.
Which channels have your company advertised on in the last 12 months?
Expected:
Google, LinkedIn, and Facebook are still the "Big 3" in SaaS advertising. The mix of reach, targeting, and ad platform maturity make them go-to options.
Unexpected:
It's interesting to see Newsletters as one of the emerging advertising channels, outpacing Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. Podcasts had just a single response, which I would have expected to at least be equal to Newsletters.
Does your company send an email newsletter?
Expected:
Email marketing is still a main stay in SaaS and a regular part of the mix for the majority of SaaS companies.
Unexpected:
35.4% is still a significant number of SaaS companies leveraging email marketing to its full potential. Personally, I’m a huge fan of newsletters as a product and customer marketing strategy.
Which best describes how much money you have invested in marketing in the last 12 months, including salaries?
Expected:
There’s a wide spread of results across the board. This question in particular is going to depend on revenue, funding, and time in market. So it’s not a great standalone analysis. Regardless, interesting to compare against budgets.
Unexpected:
I’m actually quite surprised to see that the $100,000 – $1,000,000 answer was the 2nd most popular. A 6 figure investment in marketing is nothing to snuff at.
