5 Quick & Easy Ways to Promote Your Newest Piece of Content

Posted by Brad Beutler on January 15, 2016

Congratulations, you’ve just completed an awesome new content resource for your company! SaaS marketers know that creating valuable content that will get shared, promoted, and downloaded is no easy task. But finishing the piece of content is just the beginning. How will you promote your newest piece of content in order to get the most leverage out of it and reach your prime audience?

As SaaS marketers ourselves, we know getting content out there can be a trick – but if you do it successfully, the content can pay dividends in terms of leads, opportunities, branding and exposure, and closed won business. From our experience, here are 5 ways SaaS marketers can promote content effectively:

1. Spread the Word With 3rd Party Relationships

Developing strong third party relationships can be incredibly valuable for your SaaS company – especially when it comes to partnering on events or content promotion. Relationships with those that offer a complimentary technology but don’t compete with your business can offer an expanded reach to individuals that will likely benefit from the content that’s shared.

Having trusted third party companies or thought leaders help spread the word about your newest piece of content can accomplish a few things: 1) When others share your content, it adds an additional “stamp of approval” for both companies participating 2) It creates brand exposure for both companies, as well as the potential for inbound leads that can be shared between the two companies 3) It create a 2-way relationship where the other company or thought leader may approach you for help in the future.

Third party relationships have many benefits, but perhaps the most powerful is the ability to help each other succeed and expand both audiences at the same time.

2. Leverage the Email Signature

Email signatures are a key part of every email your employees send. Several organizations have caught on to the fact that email is the lifeblood of their company (an average employee sends 10,000 emails a year), and a huge opportunity to drive incremental awareness and engagement with their marketing content. By automatically appending calls to actions to your newest piece of content directly to employee email signatures, marketers are finally breaking down the barriers of the employee email, and leveraging it to gain millions of brand impressions. Check out a free trial of Sigstr here.

3. Give LinkedIn Sponsored Updates a Try

If you haven’t used LinkedIn Sponsored Updates, give it a try. For SaaS marketers, it’s likely that your audience uses LinkedIn on a daily (if not hourly) basis. LinkedIn lets you post an update, then similar to other social media networks, you can sponsor the update and tailor the audience so it appears only to those that meet your criteria, such as: location, job title, education level, number of employees, and so on. In addition, you can use more characters than Twitter and can also include a catchy image to promote your newest piece of content. Once you define your audience, you can then “bid” on how much you’d like to spend on either individual clicks or overall impressions. Then, just set the campaign and watch the results come in once the update is approved! SaaS marketers loved LinkedIn for promoting content, so give it a try when you launch your next big piece.

4. Promote with Email Marketing & E-newsletters

Though email service providers (ESPs) such as ExactTarget, MailChimp and others have been around seemingly forever, email marketing is often forgot about as a channel for promotion of new content. SaaS marketers should leverage this easy way to send mass email to subscribers, especially since marketers can customize with dynamic information to target only those interested (such as Sales teams, Marketers, IT, etc). When using an ESP or Marketing Automation tool to send out emails to promote content, be sure to include a large image of the content, 3-4 key takeaways, and a quick summary – all “above the fold” so the information isn’t lost in the shuffle. But most importantly, include a call-to-action for the reader to download the content and share with peers.

5. Send Direct Mail Packages to Executives

Getting the attention of busy executives can be very challenging. While calling and emailing are always an important part of the prospecting mix, try breaking through to their desk by sending a direct mail box that includes the printed piece of content, a cover letter from the rep or an executive from your company, along with an object they can keep on their desk (hint: everyone loves a good coffee mug!). Once the package has arrived (be sure to use tracking), begin your follow-up process. Remember, follow-up is key! It’s unlikely that the executive will be the first to reach out, but since you took the time to send a package and tailor the note, you are likely to get a response – or even a shoutout on Twitter!

If you’re a SaaS marketer, what are some tips and tricks you use to promote your newest piece of content? What have you tried in the past that hasn’t worked?

For more information on how to promote your most important content and initiatives, check out these recent Sigstr resources:

10 Ways to Promote Your Most Important Initiatives

Studio Science Case Study

Sign up for Sigstr and start your free 30-day trial today to begin using the power of email signature marketing.

Sigstr Attracts $1.5M in Funding from Leading Software Executives Across Nation

Posted by Dan Hanrahan on December 8, 2015

The last few months have been an exciting journey for Sigstr, and today is no different! Earlier this morning, we announced that Sigstr has received an additional $1.5M from leading software executives across the nation. The financing will help us rapidly innovate on our email signature marketing platform, accelerate hiring and talent development, support our growing list of enterprise customers with additional services, and fuel sales and marketing efforts.

Why focus on employee email, you might ask?

Email continues to be a critical communication channel for business, and employee emails (think Gmail / Outlook) are routinely the most frequent touchpoint between a business and the outside world. On average a single employee sends 10,000 emails per year, so it only takes 100 employees to send 1,000,000 emails! What if you had a million new opportunities each year to engage your key customers, prospects, vendors, partners, or potential hires all while maintaining a consistent and up-to-date brand image?

The ubiquitous email signature, usually located at the bottom of every single employee email sent, offers an untapped demand generation and branding opportunity that can pay huge dividends. Sigstr unlocks the marketing potential of employee emails. It is smart marketing

through email signatures. With a few clicks in Sigstr, marketers can automatically inject a clickable image, called a campaign, to the Outlook and Gmail email signature. Campaigns are updated automatically with no IT or employee action required. Sigstr Signatures grants companies complete control of the style, format, and branding of employee email signatures.

“I’m delighted to invest in Sigstr and am incredibly excited that Sigstr has created a new channel for marketers in companies of all sizes across all industries,” said Bill Godfrey, Managing Partner at 4G Ventures and Co-Founder, former CEO, Aprimo. “I am very impressed with our leadership team’s vision to unleash email signature marketing as the gateway for employees and companies to get more out of every email send.”

Get Started with Email Signature Marketing

Want to see for yourself just how easy it is to create a signature template and leverage email signature campaigns? Request a free 30-day trial: www.sigstr.com.  

Or, if you’d like more information, check out the full press release or view our YouTube demos of the Sigstr product.

Email Signature Marketing as a Customer & Employee Referral Engine

Posted by Dave Duke on October 2, 2015

It’s said that the “Your Brand is the Sum of Conversations Happening About It”. And as many know, the best marketing tool available is the conversation that eventually leads toa referral. No matter how much you invest in other tried and true marketing programs, there is nothing that compares to the conversion potential of a trusted recommendation from an individual that has had a positive experience with your brand and company.

But How Do I Get More Referrals?

The easiest way to accumulate customer referrals is to ask customers directly for introductions tothose they feel would most benefit from your product or service. Outside of the direct request, organizations should work to create more formal marketing programs to create a consistent referralstream.

Marketing consultant, speaker and best selling author of Duct Tape Marketing and The Referral Engine, John Janestch, does an excellent job of breaking down four types of referralprograms that every business should implement.Check out this post to learn more about creating Direct Referral, Implied Referral, Tangible Referral and Community Referral programs.

In addition to customer referrals it is also common for companies to start up internal programs to drive attention to hiring needs.Many companiesput in place to reward employees for their efforts to assist with filling the talent pipeline. This might include a cash reward, gift certificates or a tangible item like an ipad or a Fitbit. Check out this post that details how companies can use culture to drive talent recruitment.

Employee Email Can Play An Important Role

A newmechanismthat should be considered when honing in on your referral program marketing strategy is the employee email signature. An average employee sends 10,000 emails annually! For a company of 100 employees, your collective company will send approximately 1M one-to-one emails each and every year. That’s a lot of potential brand and marketing impressions that could be put to use!This intimate touchpoint with customers and employees is prime for the promotion of your internal and external referral programs. Better yet by leveraging an email signature marketing application like Sigstr, internal stakeholders (i.e. Marketing or HR) can streamline the management of referral campaigns within the employee signature to ensureconsistency and adoption.

Interested in trying employee email signature marketing at your company? Give it a try on us! Start your free 30-day trial now: www.sigstr.com.