A Google search will show you that most SaaS pros associate messaging with marketing. This approach strips SaaS messaging from its true meaning and potential.

I don’t want to go against the grain, but limiting SaaS messaging to marketing is almost criminal. It’s like saying that UX is about appealing aesthetics, ignoring functionality.

SaaS messaging is much broader than marketing. It fuels every interaction a SaaS company has with the ‘external world.’

Let’s take a closer look.

What’s SaaS messaging?

SaaS messaging is how public-facing teams communicate with target audiences to get them to act.

‘Isn’t that marketing?’ I hear some skeptics saying.

Not even close.

Let’s get granular and deconstruct this definition.

SaaS teams

The SaaS messaging definition refers to SaaS teams as all public-facing areas within a company.

Here’s a quick list:

• Marketing, generating demand and attracting qualified leads
• Sales, converting prospects into paying customers (sales-led)
• Product Management, converting free users into paying customers (product-led)
• Customer Support, assisting users with onboarding and answering product questions
• Customer Success, helping users achieve their goals and encouraging up-selling
• User Community, fostering engagement between users and building a sense of belonging
• Executives, sharing the company’s vision, building in public, or serving as the brand face

Every team listed above has to generate messaging for effective communication.

Let’s move to the next part of our definition.

Communicate

Messaging is key to communicating and engaging with target audiences.

SaaS messaging takes different forms depending on the profile of public-facing teams.

Here’s are some examples:

• Software microcopy
• Website copy
• Content
• Webinars (on a wide variety of topics)
• Events
• Campaigns
• Sales decks
• Demos
• One-on-one meetings
• Onboarding docs
• Customer education material
• Community content
• And more

As you can see, SaaS messaging format is not limited to what the marketing team needs.

Let’s move on.

Target audiences

Each team uses specific messaging formats to communicate and engage with target audiences.

But what are those? Target audiences refer to groups of stakeholders at different buying stages.

Here’s a quick list:

• Website visitors
• Leads
• Prospects
• Free trial users
• Free plan users
• Paying users
• Product community members
• And more

In other words, SaaS messaging doesn’t affect only leads and prospects. It goes beyond that.

Let’s move on to the final part of our definition.

Get them to act

Getting target audiences to act refers to the ultimate goal of SaaS messaging.

At the end of the day, you don’t communicate for the sake of it. You want to generate results.

Here’s what these ‘actions’ look like:

• Visitors staying on the website to explore the product
• Leads contacting your sales team
• Prospects purchasing a plan
• Leads signing up for a free trial or plan
• Free users converting to paying customers
• Users easily learning your platform
• Users achieving strong results with your software
• Users choosing to stay with your brand
• Users opting for cross-selling and upselling
• Users advocating for your SaaS
• Users engaging with other users on forums

As you can see, SaaS messaging doesn’t fuel only marketing goals.

On the contrary, it involves countless elements and team dynamics.

SaaS messaging is a system.

A system that bridges the perceived and real value of your software with the needs or expectations of target audiences.

Limiting SaaS messaging to marketing is quite dangerous. It stops SaaS teams from seeing it as the core element of all interactions that affect everyone.

As a result, most SaaS brands:

• Focus on marketing messaging, ignoring other critical areas that depend on communication.
• Have a fragmented approach to messaging. They simply overlook the need to align all communications coming from public-facing teams.

Acknowledge SaaS messaging as a system instead of a marketing gimmick.

That’s the first step to a unified communication strategy that works for your SaaS.

Questions to consider:

• Did this doc shift your perspective on SaaS messaging?
• If yes, how exactly?
• What’s the approach to messaging within your SaaS company?
• Do you limit your messaging efforts to marketing only?
• How do other teams communicate with their target audiences?
• Is the marketing team aligned with the sales team in terms of messaging?
• Is the product team aligned with the customer support team in terms of messaging?
• Do teams communicate with each other? Do they agree on how to build their messages?