You might say that SaaS companies are more dependent on content marketing than some other businesses. These brands live and die by online traffic, so every word they post on their website or social media can affect their day-to-day operations.
As a SaaS owner, your main task is to find a digital marketing agency that can meet your expectations. The provider’s main role isn’t to simply post new articles on your website. Instead, its main responsibility is to drive leads and convert them.
In this article, we’ll talk about the importance of content marketing for SaaS brands. We’ll also share some strategies that will help you write content in-house.
What makes SaaS content marketing different?
To understand the nuances of SaaS marketing, you need to understand Software-as-a-Service. Promoting this type of web solution is very different from selling clothes, appliances, and other physical products.
The main thing that separates SaaS is that there isn’t a physical copy of the item. The entire transaction is done through the web, without a transfer of rights or transfer of the product. Buyers don’t buy SaaS; they only subscribe to the software service for a limited time.
So, when a person wants to buy this kind of software, they don’t go to the local PC hardware store or video game shops. Instead, they learn about the available solutions by browsing Google and other search engines.
As they browse the web, they pay close attention to the following:
- Reviews of various SaaS and software sites
- Google user reviews
- Social media chatter
- Information provided on SaaS websites
When researching SaaS businesses, a potential customer starts with top results in the search engines. An average brand has a 2.35% conversion, while top performers convert at a 5.31% rate and higher.
In other words, you don’t create content just to fill our web pages with text or images. You do it to establish a solid basis for search engine optimization and improved conversion. Everything that a person reads online (whether written by third parties or us) can mold potential customers’ opinions.
And while you can’t do anything about competitors, you should at least make the content on our site as good as possible.
What are the benefits of SaaS content marketing?
SaaS brands use content marketing to achieve several goals:
- Improve overall marketing and sale performance
- Explain product features and benefits
- Reduce certain marketing and business risks
- Increase customer retention
- Manage online reviews and user perception
- Scale the business
- Gain new partnership opportunities
Although some SaaS marketers will tell you the main focus is on driving more traffic, this isn’t entirely true.
Yes, you need to reach out to the target audience to generate leads and potentially close deals. Brads need to write actionable posts that will answer users’ questions and improve their browsing experience. But if we were to summarize a SaaS content marketing strategy, it’s all about increasing the number of free trials.
SaaS marketing and free trials
Another thing that separates this field is that almost all companies provide free demos. You can try out the program before committing, and, depending on the product, you might even use the freemium version indefinitely. The success of a SaaS brand usually relates to its flexibility and ability to create a customized experience.
Here’s why free trials are so important for SaaS companies:
- Simpler lead generation and lead classification
- First-hand experience
- Helps acquire marketing and sales data
- Improved product conversions
Even if you don’t want to provide a free trial, it’s really hard to do so. This has become such a trend within the industry, so not offering a trial can be seen as a red flag. That being said, here are a few issues you might encounter along the way:
- Trials expose you to the competition
- They increase overall costs
- Potentially reduces the number of paying users
SaaS marketers and software developers often work together.
Marketers analyze tools’ usage data to see how it performs as opposed to competitors’ solutions. Then, they use this information and serve it to the IT team so they can make the necessary adjustments. In that sense, free trials are crucial for long-term business scaling and keeping up with the competitors.
Free trials and content
So, how do we connect free trials with content?
Many people make a false presumption that writers are meant to sell these tools. And while content marketing teams help mold the public’s opinion, they aren’t responsible for closing the deals. Instead, SaaS brands rely on dedicated sales departments to convert potential clients.
Content marketing allows us to increase brand awareness, explain the product, and bring people closer to the business. However, brands usually need human interaction to finish the sale. This is especially true for expensive SaaS suites and enterprise-level plans.
And while content has its limitations, it’s an integral part of the marketing and sales process.
What does a SaaS content team look like?
Given how important content is for any company, you need a highly dedicated team to execute this operation. Simply hiring a few content writers via Upwork isn’t enough, as they might struggle to understand the company’s vision.
· Content strategist
Most companies employ their chief editor as the primary content strategist. Aside from checking the phrasing and grammar, this person is also supposed to monitor link policies, scheduling, and other factors. The content strategist has a direct line of communication with the upper management and is in charge of content performance.
· Content creators
When we say that someone is a SaaS content creator, most people think they’re writing articles. However, this term also refers to video creators and editors, photographers, and graphic designers.
· Public relations experts
Back in the day, PR experts worked almost exclusively for medium and large brands. But as more brands started to rely on local SEO for leads, smaller brands also started employing people to monitor online mentions and address negative feedback. Sometimes, these professionals are also involved in link building.
· Outreach experts
Although outreach teams aren’t necessarily involved in content creation, they’re crucial for improving the success of your articles and videos. These experts reach out to other bloggers in an attempt to procure links and shares.
How to create a winning content marketing strategy?
Your articles don’t become successful just because you write nicely. Nor do you build a brand by working harder and increasing content marketing efforts.
Instead, top-tier SaaS brands owe their success to effective content marketing strategies.
Our content strategy is the extension of overall marketing. It works in conjunction with other processes and will only yield results if all teams work in unison. When creating a new blog post, newsletter, and social media post, you need to consider how every sentence will reflect your marketing mix and affect your bottom line.
Here are all the things you need to do to create a successful SaaS content strategy:
1. Analyze the target audience
Before writing your first social media post or article, you should first discover the ideal audience. As a business owner, you need to understand what makes users tick and how they make purchasing decisions. All this information will be relevant at different stages of their marketing and sales funnel.
In particular, you have to focus on the following:
- Finding pain points and the best ways to attack them
- Discovering the optimal content form
- Finding a writing style that suites the industry
- Learning about the optimal content distribution strategy
An average SaaS website gets 600 unique visitors every month. And while not all of these users are leads, you need to behave as they are.
Your optimal target audience usually varies depending on the type of product you’re offering. Smaller tools are most popular among casual users, while bigger suites are perfect for B2B clients.
2. Set realistic goals
As mentioned, most SaaS companies use content marketing to drive traffic to their site or increase the number of trial users. But if you’re serious about your business, you should be a bit more specific than that.
Software businesses utilize a wide variety of KPIs to measure their success. Aside from the usual SEO metrics, like the number of website visitors and time spent on the site, SaaS companies use indicators specific to their industry:
- Customer lifetime value
- Average revenue per user
- Customer acquisition cost
- Monthly recurring revenue
- Churn rate
- Retention rate
- Revenue growth, etc.
Each one of these metrics can provide information about certain company performance. Given SaaS make most of their money from recurring subscriptions, churn rate and monthly recurring revenue should be at the top of your list. Customer cost vs. customer lifetime value is also important as it demonstrates your marketing efficiency.
Aside from paying attention to stats, we suggest you try to create a real-world connection with existing customers. SaaS brands shouldn’t neglect recurring purchases, and you need to do everything in your power to keep the users coming for more.
Of course, you can’t tie all of these indicators to your content marketing. Sometimes, a good or bad performance might relate to product features, the sales team, or your business policies.
3. Find your voice
Unfortunately, most companies don’t pay much attention to their content voice. Even if they do everything else right, they don’t have a distinct style that they can use across social media and web pages. This can be a major issue, especially if you have numerous writers on your team.
Unless you find the right voice for your SaaS brand, you can’t fully capitalize on the target audience. You need to send a message that will resonate with a specific demographic and would cater to their needs. And while you can still run a successful company without a brand voice, it’s something that can significantly boost your conversion rate and overall content performance.
The ideal voice also depends on whether you’re focusing on B2C or B2B. While all SaaS brands use professional voice, companies that cater to casual users have more leeway in their writing style.
4. Discover lucrative keywords
Keyword research is at the forefront of every search engine optimization process. By using tools such as Google Analytics, a SaaS company can check its organic traffic and perform competitive analysis.
Most importantly, keyword research can tell you more about users’ search intent and relevant topics. You can use the data for your content creation process, focusing on phrases with high traffic potential and low difficulty.
Here are a few keyword categories and examples that SaaS brands should focus on:
- Product-related phrases (software, program, platform, tool)
- Product features (accounting, finances, marketing, logistics)
- Benefit (reduce business risk, improve team communication, automate marketing)
- Target audience (marketing, medical, food, accounting, international teams)
- Integrations (HubSpot, SalesForce, Facebook, Grammarly, Slack)
- Competitors
Interestingly enough, performing keyword research isn’t only important for your website. It’s also a process that you can apply to your email campaigns, social media, and influencer marketing. These phrases show the general interest in specific topics and, as such, they’re the fastest way of driving valuable traffic.
5. Find optimal channels and content formats
Now that you know everything there is about the target market, it’s time to find the optimal channel:
- Search engine optimization
- Paid social media ads
- Paid search engine ads
- Social media marketing
- Email outreach
- Influencer marketing
Each one of these digital marketing channels presumes different types of content. For example, if you go with SEO, you should focus on long web articles. The best way to rule social media is with short posts, videos, and images. On the other hand, a successful email marketing strategy hinges on newsletters and fantastic email templates.
The MiroMind team always puts emphasis on SEO. This marketing approach takes some time and expertise, but it provides massive organic traffic. Furthermore, by creating valuable content and connecting with influential bloggers, you can quickly increase brand awareness and scale your SaaS business.
6. Buy tools
Even SaaS companies rely on SaaS for their business operations.
Whether you’re creating content or analyzing performance, you’ll need a plethora of software to help you out. On average, an efficient content marketing team uses at least one content platform and one project management tool. That’s besides keywords research tools and other related marketing SaaS.
Here are some of the best tools to add to your marketing arsenal:
- Content and grammar tools (SurferSEO, Grammarly, Market Muse, Frase.io)
- SEO tools (SEMRush, Google Trends, Google Search Console, AhRefs)
- Social media tools (Sprout Social, Hootsuite, Buffer)
- Project management tools (Asana, Monday, Trello)
As you probably know, it’s easy to go overboard with your subscriptions. Getting multiple SaaS and expensive plans usually provides adverse effects, putting a strain on your marketing budget. So, we suggest you add new software and additional features as you scale your processes, not before.
7. EAT and content pillars
According to HubSpot, 83% of companies believe it’s better to publish quality content even if it takes more time to do so. The sentiment rings true, given the highly competitive nature of online business.
Because of that, content marketers suggest you adhere to EAT guidelines, focusing on pillar pages and content clusters. So, what does this actually mean?
For a company to rank in Google, it needs to focus on a few specific topics. When you write for different niches and industries, the search engines perceive your articles as a non-expert. In other words, as your website doesn’t specialize in anything specific, Google will give an advantage to blogs that do.
So, instead of spraying and praying, you should only target phrases relevant to your business.
As for pillar pages, these are usually ultimate guides that answer various questions about a topic. However, they don’t work by themselves. You’ll also need to write numerous smaller articles that further break down different sections. Finally, link to the ultimate guide from all these smaller posts to create a pillar page.
Aside from being important for search engines, pillar pages also improve the SaaS customer journey. It can guide a potential user from less relevant pages to sales and trial pages.
8. Distribute content
Truth be told, most articles on the web look like one another. It’s extremely hard for Google to determine which one to showcase, as they have similar semantic bases. Because of that, search engines’ algorithm usually relies on external factors to determine quality.
Links and online mentions are the last ingredients for your content marketing success. They are a vote of confidence that authoritative sources give to your post. It’s as if they’re vouching for its quality and recommending it to their own users.
Unfortunately, the links don’t come by themselves. This is especially true for fledgling SaaS brands that have virtually no followership. So, to get the necessary links, you need to distribute blog posts and ask other website owners to link to your post.
What are the different types of SaaS content?
When marketers talk about content, they usually refer to articles and landing pages. Honestly, these formats are crucial for software companies as all leads will eventually arrive at your site.
However, that doesn’t mean you can’t market the SaaS product through other channels. For example, social media is an important part of the marketing funnel for many brands. Emails are another great way to target customers.
Anyway, here are different types of content to implement in your SaaS marketing process:
Written articles
Written articles or blog posts are the alpha and omega of digital marketing.
This type of content is the first thing that pops up when you browse Google. Although the search engine also features videos and images, people still refer to textual posts when learning about new topics.
We can classify all blog posts into several categories:
- How-To guides
- List posts
- Though leadership posts
- Featured story
- Reviews and comparisons
- Entertaining blog posts
- Case studies
- News
- Interviews
A SaaS company can experiment with different approaches, but traditionally, how-to guides and listicles are the most popular options. Case studies can also be powerful tools, but only if you can promote them the right way.
Social media posts
Your approach to social media posts can vary significantly depending on the platform you’re using. For example, sharing stories on Facebook isn’t the same as on YouTube or Instagram. Here are some of the main elements that a post can have:
- Textual content (post description, title tag, hashtag, anchor text, etc.)
- Image content (visual solutions are required for just about any type of social media post)
- Video content (aside from YouTube posts, we use videos for Instagram and TikTok)
Before starting a marketing campaign, MiroMind suggests that you evaluate your company resources. In the end, creating entertaining videos for YouTube is much more difficult than writing articles. This is especially true for the SaaS industry, where the technical nature of the business makes it hard to create entertaining content.
So, you need to see if you have enough money to keep creating high-quality videos. Most importantly, you have to assess how they will impact overall marketing and sales.
Emails
When we talk about content, most people never think of emails. However, this is a crucial promotional method for SaaS brands.
Basically, software companies live and die from recurring revenues. Although they should always be on the lookout for new clients, the existing ones can provide significantly more value. This is especially true for large B2B brands where sales cycles are extremely slow.
With emails, you can stay in touch with some of the biggest clients. You can notify them about discounts, new features, and other updates. You can even send their management birthday messages! It’s all fair game as long as it keeps the client in check.
Of course, aside from helping build relationships, emails can be fantastic for the initial outreach. Once again, this method is much better for B2B SaaS than B2C solutions that deal with numerous users.
Images
Nowadays, you need images for just about any type of web post. As mentioned, they’re crucial for social media but are also required for website blog posts. Aside from the hero image at the top of the page, it’s best to add a few other images throughout the text to break the content.
Aside from traditional images, many SaaS brands use infographics.
They are a type of visual solution that is especially great for statistical posts. By using fantastic graphic design, you can make otherwise boring subjects much more appealing to the audience. Furthermore, many software companies use infographics as a method for building links.
Videos
Like images, we use videos to enrich various posts. You can embed them into your articles to improve user experience and keep people on your site. According to an older study from 2016, websites that use videos on their site have a conversion rate of 4.8% compared to 2.9% for sites that don’t. So, adding them definitely moves the needle!
Despite all the benefits, videos aren’t as effective for software companies as they are for some other businesses. Having an explainer video on your homepage definitely helps improve conversion. However, heavily investing in a SaaS YouTube channel usually doesn’t make sense.
Downloadable content
In many ways, downloadable content is similar to traditional articles. However, these posts are usually much more in-depth and provide exclusive information that you might not see on the website.
The most popular type of downloadable content is eBooks. SaaS brands use them to increase interest in specific services and collect emails. They’re also a fantastic way to demonstrate expertise and provide something extra for loyal fans.
10 Elements of a successful blog post
Even though we now use various content formats to attract attention, web articles remain the optimal tool for mastering search engines.
However, not every post is made the same. In fact, the majority of articles companies publish will be dead on arrival. Even if you manage to build a few links, there’s no guarantee that the article will be able to break through the top of SERPs.
Aside from creating an actionable promotional strategy, you also need to follow the best content creation practices. Here are 8 elements that every blog post should have:
1. Title
The title is the main reason why someone would click on a link in Google search engine pages. Because of that, it isn’t uncommon for SaaS companies to revisit their posts and tweak headings when they underperform.
Ideally, your title should try to accomplish one of these things:
- Incite curiosity
- Create controversy
- Provide entertainment value
Unfortunately, as titles are rather short, they don’t give content creators much maneuvering space. So, these professionals use several tricks to make their headings better:
- Heavy inclusion of numbers and stats, especially at the start of the title
- Use of power words such as fantastic, excellent, killer, and ultimate
- Adding the year to indicate that the content is relevant
Whatever the case, make sure that you can deliver on your promise. Some brands use misleading titles in an attempt to increase click-through rates. However, as visitors land on the page, they quickly discover that the title doesn’t match their query. As a result, they might bounce immediately, sending a negative signal to Google.
2. Hero image
As previously mentioned, the hero image is visual at the top of the page. Even if you don’t have any other images in the article, you need this one.
SaaS organizations often use tech-inspired visuals. It’s also common for brands to use vivid colors with clear patterns. Of course, you might create your own image strategy that will be a part of your overall branding.
Whatever you do, make sure you have a similar style across the board. Some brands try to cut their costs on visuals by borrowing free content from sites such as Unsplash. However, this might come back to bite you in the long run.
3. Initial paragraph
If the title is crucial for bringing visitors to the landing page, the initial paragraph is vital for keeping them on the site.
Nowadays, even avid readers have a limited attention span. A person decides to keep reading or leave within the first few sentences. This is why they need to be the most impactful section of your article. In this section, you need to incite curiosity but also explain the underlying topic.
You shouldn’t go overboard with the intro. Most content marketers recommend up to 100 words, but you might go a bit above that if you need to discuss something specific. The worst thing you can do is aimlessly write just to fill the empty space.
4. Subheadings and subsections
Subheadings and subsections are crucial for breaking down the post and making your article more visually appealing. If you also create a table of content, people can use the links to skip to specific sections. This can significantly improve user experience and the likelihood that a person will revisit your site.
So, how do we maximize the impact of subsections?
- Start by planning your SaaS article. Focus on several main talking points, and use an H2 subheading for each of them.
- If you need to go into more detail, you can use H3 and H4 headings to break down the subtopic even further.
- Depending on your style, subheadings can also be fantastic for bullets and number lists.
Aside from user experience, subheadings can also boost your SEO. Specifically, putting keywords in subheadings can improve your optimization while increasing the likelihood that your article reaches the top of Google.
Ideally, a subsection should be around 200 words long. Similarly, your subheadings should also be shorter and follow similar rules as the title.
5. Bullets and numbering
As indicated in the previous section, bullets, and numbers are important pieces of the puzzle. Aside from using them for H3 and H4 subheadings and lists, they can be a powerful tool for breaking up long sections. Our content team suggests you use them every 100 words or so.
It’s much better to alternate between numbers and bullets so that the sections look different. If you’re using a number list, we suggest you indicate that in the subheading (for example, “4 Best project management SaaS).
6. Information
The majority of online content was rewritten from other sources. And as unfortunate as it may be, this is the only solution for most content creators and blogs.
Simply put, companies often don’t have enough money to perform case studies and research certain topics. Even if you’re well acquainted with the SaaS industry and can provide an expert opinion, your articles might still sound familiar.
However, this doesn’t mean you can’t regurgitate other people’s information so they look unique. Here are a few tricks that will help you to do just that:
- When creating a SaaS article, take inspiration from business, marketing, and software sites.
- Mix information from various sources so that your piece doesn’t seem like a carbon copy of another blog post.
- Approach each subsection as a separate entity. You can expand on just about any topic indefinitely as long as you perform good research.
- Cite studies and use statistics. The SaaS industry is rich in data, and there’s always some interesting tidbit online that you can dig out from a less-known source.
- Use content tools to analyze phrasing and subsections. The text corpus can tell you more about the existing articles, but also what people expect from such blog posts.
- Ask other SaaS experts for an opinion and perform interviews. This is the best way to have fresh content on your blog post.
7. Graphics
Generally speaking, SaaS companies do a fantastic job with their graphics. Given that this field is data-heavy, you can create beautiful infographics, charts, and tables that can break down certain topics.
For example, if you’re reviewing popular tools, you can use data to highlight and compare performance, features, and pricing.
As previously mentioned, your imagery shouldn’t be erratic. Instead, it has to be a reflection of your branding policies. All imagery on your site should reflect your vision and mission. Among others, make sure to create visual solutions that can easily be shared on social media.
Another efficient policy is using screen capture to talk about software features. The SaaS industry allows you to create step-by-step imagery and explain processes as you go through them. This tactic is especially important when promoting your own products, as explanations can go a long way in converting leads.
8. CTAs and mentions
Call-To-Action is another nifty tool that all content creators should use.
When website visitors land on your pages, they’re usually too focused on the knowledge they can acquire from the post. So much so they often forget to do conversions of any kind.
As the “moderator,” it’s your job to drive them to other sections of the website and turn them into potential leads. You can do so by adding a link to another page or by simply telling them to do something. SaaS businesses can benefit from various types of CTA, including:
- Trial and demo CTAs
- Purchase CTAs
- Contact sales CTAs
- Newsletter subscription CTAs
- Article CTAs
Ideally, you should try to purchase visitors to buy the product straight away or at least contact the sales team. In practice, most users will first go to the trial page and give the software a shot. This is especially true when dealing with large B2B enterprise-level suites.
Aside from CTAs, you should also mention the company’s name several times throughout the post. Furthermore, you should indicate that you’re a software producer. That way, you can put an idea in users’ heads, potentially leading to a purchase.
9. Links
Back in the day, brands were reluctant to link out to their competitors. The general notion was that each hyperlink would improve their site without providing anything in return. However, as Google has become more sophisticated, SaaS businesses prioritize improving user experience, even if that means quoting other sources.
Internal links are even more important than outbound links, and here’s why you need to use them:
- Internal links allow you to create marketing funnels and topical clusters and to guide a user during their journey.
- Including links to other articles will increase user engagement and boost metrics such as time spent on the website and page per visit.
- Lastly, finding all answers in one place will improve user satisfaction. It will increase the likelihood of conversion and your ability to turn random visitors into fans.
Even though internal links are extremely powerful, you need to have a strategy. Make sure to connect related topics so you can reap maximum benefits. Linking out to random pages on your site usually serves no purpose, as people won’t follow them anyway. Furthermore, a poorly placed link might even cause an adverse effect reducing user satisfaction.
10. Meta descriptions
Meta descriptions are snippets shown in Google and other search engines. They’re placed just below the title and provide additional information about the piece.
Like other blog post elements, they follow similar optimization principles. In other words, you need to add the main keywords to the meta description to increase the article’s likelihood of ranking. And, like the title, your metas should provoke users into action.
Although most people create metas in just a minute or two, these tags require some thinking. Similar to titles, they can significantly improve the outlook of a post, increasing its CTR and other user metrics.
Conclusion
For the most part, SaaS content marketing is similar to creating content in other industries. Although the product is different, the same optimization practices remain. Furthermore, people browsing the web have similar expectations from software posts as they do from any other article.
Given the industry’s nuances, it’s good to focus on visual content. Users expect high-quality imagery that would help break down complex topics and showcase statistics. Of course, you also need a team of writers that will bring everything together.
Although you can produce content yourself, we suggest hiring a reputable SEO company. Brands such as MiroMind know how to properly create a SaaS content marketing strategy and perform keyword research setting your company for success.
If you have any more questions about our SEO services, make sure to contact us today!