Lead generation for SaaS companies

Updated on: May 5,  2025

Lead generation for SaaS companies

Imagine you are a marketer at a SaaS (Software as a Service) company!

How do you address buyer needs?

How do you get into your buyer’s list of shortlisted solutions? 

How do you generate leads for your SaaS company?

Voila! SaaS Lead generation!!!!

What is SaaS lead generation?

SaaS lead generation involves converting interested visitors, into prospective buyers (leads), with the goal of converting them into paid customers.

What are the different types of SaaS leads?

There are two types of SaaS leads:

Marketing qualified leads (MQLs)

They are considering your product. They have expressed an interest in your product. They are considering your solution as an option to solve a problem they are facing. They have either downloaded a checklist from your website or watched a webinar or attended an event.

Sales qualified leads (SQLs)

They are deciding if your product is a right fit. They are hot leads as they are ready to make a decision. This is where a sales person get involved. The sales person then provides a free trial or free demo. This is followed by the sales person closing the deal.

Create a SaaS marketing plan for your business. This will provide you a framework to funnel customers from acquisition to activation, retention, referral and revenue.

How to generate leads for your SaaS company?

1. Blogs

Blogs should be written with quality in mind. Think about your buyer while writing your blog. What problem are they trying to solve? How is your blog going to take them one step closer to solving the problem?

Ask yourself questions like:

1. Do you know your target audience well enough?

2. Does your blog provide actionable advice?

3. Do you provide so much value that your reader is willing to part with their email address?

Your blog will turn a reader into a sales opportunity only if you are providing value.

Optimise your blogs for search engines. This will significantly increase organic traffic to your blog posts. Focus on relevant keywords, create high-quality content, and ensure your blog is technically sound (technical SEO).

Image: An excerpt from a blog post written by Anees Misbahudeen, INNMCO

2. Webinars Or Events

Host webinars and live events to showcase your expertise to your buyer. Demonstrate your SaaS product, and engage with potential leads in real-time. Webinars and events help build trust and credibility. If you attract the right audience to your webinars and events, it helps convert attendees into potential customers.

Decide on a topic that you want to present and are an expert at. Decide on a suitable format - A single speaker format, 2 speaker format (like an interview) or host a panel discussion.

Once you have decided on the topic and format, you need to think about sign-ups for the event or webinar. You can promote it using organic or paid methods. You can post about it on your social media handles, distribute event details to relevant colleagues or run paid ads on social media.

Image: Event hosted by Anees Misbahudeen, INNMCO on ‘Growing leads & sales from inbound digital marketing’

3. Gated Content

Gated content includes valuable content that your prospective buyers can access. You are giving away something valuable (e.g. a research report, a checklist) in exchange for your buyers information such as name and email address.

4. Free Trial

A free trial gives your prospect the opportunity to go through your product and determine, if it works for them. If your prospective buyer starts using your SaaS product for completing key ‘jobs to be done’, then there is a high likelihood that they will move from being an activated prospect to a paid customer.

If you have a sales led go to market motion, then it gives your sales person a great reason to engage with the prospect and have a discussion.

Help your prospective buyer to use the software. Show them around the software. You should create quality content to guide them through using the product. Use videos to show prospective buyers, what features they need to be trying out and experimenting while using your SaaS product. This will help you to maximise conversions from free trials into paying customers.

5. Chatbot

In a physical store, you are always greeted by a customer service representative. The chatbot is a digital version of your customer service representative.

You can set up your chatbot to answer commonly asked questions or you can guide the person in real time, while they are on your website. In case your buyer contacts you outside business hours, you can ask for their email address and you can contact them later.

6. Exit Pop Up

When your buyer decides to exit a web page or has spend some time on a web page, a pop up activates.

What exactly you want to show on the pop up, is up to you.

It’s a good idea to give away something of value to your buyer. Some examples include a downloadable report, free consultation, newsletter subscription.

7. Email marketing

Image: Our monthly newsletter #MakingTheSwitchToFounder. Tried & tested tips on digital marketing campaigns.

8. Social media

Use social media platforms to engage with your audience. Share valuable content via platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook.

You can reach your target audience using organic social media and paid social media. Organic social media is any content that you share for free on social media platforms.

You can generate leads via organic social media by using landing pages along with your social media posts. A few ideas for landing pages include webinar sign ups, free trials, newsletter sign ups etc.

Instagram post: A reel (short video content) inviting followers to an event hosted by Anees Misbahudeen, INNMCO

Paid social media: SaaS companies pay social media platforms (e.g. LinkedIn, Instagram) for content to be shared with a specific target audience. This will enable them to create brand awareness or generate leads for their business.

You can generate leads by running targeted ads via social media platforms like Linkedin.

The LinkedIn ad platform has a few different ad types to meet your marketing objectives. This includes sponsored content, sponsored messaging, dynamic ads and text ads. 

Sponsored content are ads that appear on your LinkedIn feed. These posts are marked as ‘promoted’. Sponsored messaging appears in your linkedin messages. These messages are marked as ‘sponsored’.

Dynamic ads are personalised ads. A few locations where dynamic ads appear include your linkedin home page or profile page. A text ad includes an image, headline and description. A few locations where text ad appears include your linkedin profile page or home page. 

Conclusion

Use a multi channel approach to generate leads for your SaaS company. We have discussed a few tried and tested lead generation techniques including - blogs, webinars or events, gated content, free trial, chatbot, exit pop up, email marketing and social media marketing.

Find out how your target audience consumes content. This will help you understand marketing channels and content that works best for them and your business.

Need help with SaaS lead generation? Let's chat. Book in a free strategy call below. 

Written by Anees Misbahudeen

Founder & Digital Marketing Director, INNMCO

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