For early stage SAAS: What is the best channel to start with for aquisition through inbound?

Question

- Content marketing
- partnerships
- Ads

??

Rahul Arora · Accepted Answer

Blend of many things that can develop trust online
Checkout this tweet: https://twitter.com/rahhularora/status/1297440377528410112 for social media tips

Content marketing will always take you a long way as people start seeing you as someone legitimate

Caroline Chiari · Answer

I don't have customers yet, so I cannot answer your question with 100% certainty, but my strategy is content marketing. I have a few reasons for that:

1) I want that when my customers look me up in Google, my company comes up in the first page.I.E.: SEO

2) It builds a relationship with customers. Partnerships do that too but they don't necessarily do #1.

3) It provides value.

4) It works for you. If you create evergreen content, it will pay off on its own over time, whereas partnerships and ads have to be nurtured, and paid for. A good piece of content will drive traffic to your website 24h/day for years.

5) It takes a LOT of work, the earlier you start, the better off you will be. I think I saw somewhere where someone was saying that roughly 1% of the content they make will drive traffic and help in conversion. To get 1% you need to be at at least 100 pieces of content.

6) It helps you understand your market and customer better. The more content you put out there, the more you'll know what your target audience reacts to and, even, who your target audience really is.

7) It's free. All it costs is your own time.

Honestly, content marketing is probably the hardest. It takes a LOT of time and effort, but there's a very good reasons people are doing it.

Caroline Chiari · Answer

@prasanth_d Oh yeah! absolutely! For a solid marketing strategy, you can't just do one. I feel just like what you say at the end, do all of it but be invest more time and energy into content marketing.

Sai Prasanth D · Answer

@eharris04 Yes, I agree that stories can take the brand faster to the market.
This implies more about social media marketing 
Does this imply social media marketing is the channel we have to start quick for inbound than content marketing (which talks about features and product benefits)

Sai Prasanth D · Answer

@caroline_chiari Yes, I 100% agree about content marketing
But the only problem with content marketing channel is it takes time to give us results
so should that be mixed with short term goal channels like SEM, partnerships etc

After talking to various experts I got to know that content marketing should be mixed with short term marketing channels like ads etc

There may not be perfect mix for this, but 
what should be primary channel and how should other channels like SEM, partnerships contribute? To be precise approx % mix for quality traffic on website? 
For example - spend (time and budget) on content marketing 70% and around 15% on promoting the content and keywords (SEM) etc

Sai Prasanth D · Answer

@rahul__arora Hi Rahul,
That is very informative. But the point is content marketing can give long term effects for sure
But is that the only first inbound channel to focus and then focus on others

Goal is to get some quick quality demos through inbound in 2 months, so will content marketing with out ad spends can get us there or should we start with partnerships?

For early stage SAAS: What is the best channel to start with for aquisition through inbound?

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