To grow in SaaS, you need to PRep right. And by PRep, we mean a sound digital PR plan.

But wait, isn’t a PR strategy hard to justify for bootstrapped SaaS firms — especially when the effects are more qualitative than quantitative? Therein lies the craft.

Why is SaaS PR Like an Insurmountable Peak?

Successful digital PR for SaaS involves many moving parts: 

• Iterative brand image building
• Building brand awareness
• Wading through the competition
• Achieving business profiling relevance
• Hunting websites that give high-quality backlinks
• Working closely with the product team
• Locating tech journalists and building organic relationships
• Carving a niche depending on the products and services on offer
• Spending frugally on influencer marketing
• Launching products that give back to society
• Launching in-house offerings
• Security first, always
• Managing a crisis
• Picking the type of media as you go
• Getting technology partners on-board
• Staying radically transparent with users
• Planning the social media right
• Helping build a dedicated user community
• Doing all of the above, all while keeping the growth narrative product-led and not PR-led.

And most importantly, every digital plan should include measuring the success of the existing strategy with well-defined KPIs and objectives.

SaaS Firms That Are Doing Digital PR Right

The entire SaaS industry has grown by nearly 500% over the past seven years. And while we are sure that great, era-defining products are at the core, it wouldn’t have been possible without PR.

Here are the SaaS companies that have actually implemented the strategies mentioned above to come up with those near-perfect digital PR plans.

1. Zoom

What Does the Company Do?

A reputed video conferencing platform, powering communication in the form of meetings, webinars, online events, phone-based conversations, and chats.

The PR Primer

As per data from Statista, Zoom expanded 5x in just two years: 2018 to 2020. And it wasn’t just the products. Here is what they did in regard to their SaaS PR.

• They were vocal and radically transparent about their achievements (clearly conveyed revenue generation numbers to data analysts and firms)
• Kept staying in the news by pushing the growth narrative, increasing revenue from $45 million in 2018 to $225 million in 2020.
• Handled the ‘Zoombombing’ crisis during the pandemic like pros, giving the company much negative publicity.
• Eric Yuan (Founder) released official statements, took responsibility for the issue, and ensured that the Digital PR team aggressively circulated Zoom’s steps to ensure complete safety. The crisis was averted in a matter of weeks. 

What Can be Done Better?

Product upgrades and fixes need to be quick. For instance, the latest login server issue could have been kept hush-hush by making quick fixes. Instead, the news is now out at MyBroadband, with the PR team trying to douse the fire. 

Latest Insight Doing Digital Rounds

The PR team seems to have evaded the Web 3.0 debate for now, as today we see a positive Zoom post on Bloomberg, which says that despite the advent of VR headsets like Meta’s upcoming Quest, Zoom will continue to be useful.

2. Adobe

What Does the Company Do?

A company that started with licensed software offerings but has been moving towards the SaaS-first model from 2012 onwards. 

The PR Primer

The thing with Adobe is that they are very clear when it comes to carving out that niche and with relevant business profiling. Here is what their PR primer essentially looks like:

• Working closely with the product team and spreading the word every time there is a positive change in the bottom line or a new product gets introduced.
• Precisely planning the transition of standard customers to a thriving community by making them feel a part of the journey.
• Focusing on the best possible UI and then creating a sense of supply to quell the user demand.
• Smartest possible product acquisitions with Adobe adding the likes of Flash, Dreamweaver, and Macromedia to its portfolio over the past 15+ years. 
• Great SEO game, led by a pitch-perfect backlinking strategy.
• Focus on simplicity when the SaaS game keeps getting complicated.
• Controlled ad spending with a focus on direct and programmatic approaches

What Can be Done Better?

Adobe could try and get better at the paid media part of marketing, precisely some humane stories led by a more wholesome digital PR strategy. Yes, they have a great product suite, but some empathy is always good. 

Latest Insight Doing Digital Rounds

Remember giving back to society? Well, Adobe is doing just that as it has recently collaborated with AICTE to add to India’s digital literacy coverage. And the digital PR team is pushing out this pro-company narrative rather aggressively. 

3. Salesforce

What Does the Company Do?

An American SaaS leader focusing on cloud solutions and CRM products, powering marketing, sales, and service-intensive firms. 

The PR Primer

For a company as big as Salesforce, it is mostly always about showing strength, courtesy of iterative image building. Here are the things that Salesforce’s PR is particularly good at:

• Focusing on driving organic growth by talking about employment generation at a time when layoffs were becoming industry standard. The company aggressively promoted its vision of hiring 73,000 employees, which has doubled since 2019. 
• Hiring aggressively is a sign of strength, and with that, Salesforce even flaunted its market cap of $167.36 billion as of July 2022. 
• Salesforce’s PR drives important narratives like the company being the existing market leader when the public cloud Software-as-a-Service tag is concerned. 
• They have a dedicated page, more like a collection of news pieces and insights — allowing users to see what good the company is bringing to the world. The page includes customer success stories, earning reports, and almost everything that shouts radical transparency. 

What Can be Done Better?

As Salesforce is a humongous organization, every crisis is blown out of proportion. The digital PR team must have plans in place to get better at immediate crisis management. And that includes social media as well. 

Latest Insight Doing Digital Rounds

Salesforce has recently leapfrogged SAP to become the leading global vendor dealing in Enterprise applications. However, the PR coverage seems to be lukewarm for this massive bit of news. 

Wrap-Up

SaaS is growing, and there is no second-guessing the reasons: the tectonic shift towards IT,on-the-move software modules, and some dope PR game. As per stats, the United States still leads the world regarding the distribution of SaaS firms, having at least eight times more companies than any other country in the world. 

Yes, regardless of every story built around a brand, it is always the product that takes center stage. However, despite the best-in-class product, some SaaS companies continue to struggle due to a non-existent digital PR plan. So, if you plan on making it big in SaaS, take cues from the approaches of the companies we have put together. 

And while you are at it, scroll up and check the digital PR checklist we have put together for you. We really hope it serves you, PRfectly.

Featured Image by pikisuperstar on Freepik