Ultimate Guide to SaaS Content Marketing

Did you know that SaaS businesses using content marketing report lead generation growth of up to 400%? And a whopping 97% of SaaS companies are finding some degree of success in their content marketing strategies?

Content marketing is undoubtedly one of the most powerful tools in your marketing arsenal, no matter what you’re selling – and SaaS products are no exception. In fact, in the quick-changing terrain of SaaS, the role of content marketing transcends conventional promotional tactics, providing a way to cut through the noise, resonate with your target audience, demonstrate yourself as a thought leader, and connect with audiences.

The reason content is so powerful is that it is not just effective as capturing attention, building trust, and boosting brand awareness, but is a key piece in the puzzle when it comes to driving tangible business outcomes.

So, if you’re new to content marketing or are looking for new ways to fill your sales funnel with qualified leads, this is the blog for you.

What’s in this article?

• What is SaaS content marketing?
• What are the benefits of content marketing for SaaS businesses?
• How to build an effective SaaS content marketing strategy from start to finish
• How to measure saas content marketing

What is SaaS content marketing?

SaaS (Software as a Service) content marketing is a strategic approach to creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and informative content with the goal of attracting, engaging, and converting the target audience for a SaaS product or service. SaaS content marketing is an integral part of the overall marketing strategy for companies that offer software solutions as a service.

It’s important to understand that content marketing for SaaS, like any other kind, is a long-term marketing strategy. It’s not about hard-selling your product or services. Although sales are the ultimate goal, content is about building lasting relationships with your target audience and nurturing this towards conversion. Results can take time. For example, you won’t have thousands of LinkedIn followers overnight and you won’t rank in position one across all your target keywords as soon as you hit publish. Content takes time, but if you’re consistent, the results will come – no doubt about it. Don’t believe me? See the results for yourself.

What are the benefits of content marketing for SaaS businesses?

The benefits of content marketing are endless. According to Semrush, an incredible 70% of SaaS companies already have a ‘fairly developed’ or ‘advanced’ content marketing strategy, with 97% of these companies finding success in these strategies. While 24% of companies spend between $5,000 and $10,000 per month on content marketing, the average monthly spend sits at around $3,000 ( £2,390). However, interestingly, 75% of SaaS companies expect to increase their budgets in the coming year! So, what are you waiting for?

10 Benefits of content marketing for SaaS

1. Build brand awareness: Content marketing helps SaaS businesses establish and strengthen their brand presence. Regularly publishing valuable and relevant content on-site and through various channels, such as social media or email, increases visibility and positions your company as an industry authority. Shareable content, such as infographics, blog posts, and videos, can be easily distributed on social media platforms. This extends the reach of the SaaS business, driving additional traffic and potential leads.
2. Educates your audience: SaaS products often require a level of education for users to understand their value. Content marketing allows companies to create educational resources, tutorials, and guides that help users make the most of the software.
3. Demonstrates thought leadership: Regularly sharing insightful content positions a SaaS business as a thought leader in its industry. This can enhance credibility and influence, attracting new customers and helping nurture and convert your leads. 
4. Drives website traffic: High-quality content attracts organic traffic to the SaaS company’s website. By optimising content for search engines, businesses can improve their search rankings and draw in potential customers who are actively seeking solutions.
5. Generate leads and sales: Content serves as a powerful lead generation tool. By offering valuable resources such as eBooks, whitepapers, or webinars, SaaS businesses can capture contact information and nurture leads through the sales funnel. 
6. Fosters customer engagement and loyalty: Content marketing is not only about attracting new customers but also about engaging existing ones. Regular communication through newsletters, product updates, and user-centric content fosters customer loyalty. This is particularly important for SaaS companies that rely heavily on repeat customers for their subscription model.
7. Supports customer onboarding: Content can be instrumental in guiding new users through the onboarding process. This may include tutorials, FAQs, and best practices that help customers get started with the software quickly and effectively. If a customer is incorrectly using your software or unaware of all its features, they may lose interest and not see the value of your product, which could impact retention rates.
8. Boosts search engine optimisation and visibility: Well-optimised content increases the likelihood of ranking higher in search engine results, improving the SaaS company’s online visibility. Effective SEO will result in increased organic traffic and higher click-through rates.
9. Provides measurable results: Many content marketing efforts can be tracked and analysed. Metrics such as website traffic, conversion rates, and engagement levels provide valuable insights that help refine and improve the content strategy over time. Read more about the ROI of content and how to measure it. 
10. Adaptable to industry trends: Content marketing allows SaaS businesses to stay agile and adapt to industry trends and changes. They can create content that addresses emerging topics, challenges, or innovations. This helps to solidify your position as a thought leader and enhance customers’ trust with you.

Enough said? Find out how we can help you leverage content marketing for SaaS today. Alternatively, here’s how you can do it for yourself…

How to build an effective SaaS content marketing strategy from start to finish

1. Spell out your brand story and product USPs
2. Define your goals and success measures
3. Identify your audience and develop buyer personas
4. Conduct comprehensive keyword research & competitor gap analysis
5. Map content to all stages of the funnel
6. Organise everything in an editorial calendar
7. Build backlinks and boost authority
8. Launch lead nurturing workflows
9. Deploy content promotion and distribution

Step 1: Spell out your brand story and product USPs

At the foundation of any effective SaaS content marketing strategy lies a compelling brand story and a clear articulation of your product’s unique selling propositions (USPs). Begin by crafting a narrative that encapsulates your brand’s journey, values, and mission. Uncover what sets your SaaS product apart from the competition—its unique features, functionalities, and the specific problems it solves for your target audience.

Your brand story should resonate with your audience, creating an emotional connection that goes beyond the functional aspects of your product. Dive into the core values that drive your company, emphasising authenticity and transparency. 

By laying the groundwork with a compelling brand story and highlighting your product’s USPs, you establish the narrative essence that will permeate your entire content marketing strategy, setting the stage for impactful storytelling and audience engagement.

To ensure consistency in conveying your brand story and product USPs across all content, it is imperative to document these elements through tone of voice (TOV) guidelines. These guidelines serve as a roadmap for maintaining a unified and recognisable voice throughout your content marketing efforts. Outline the preferred tone, style, and language that align with your brand personality and resonate with your target audience. Consider factors such as formality, humour, or technicality, depending on your industry and customer base. You should also clearly articulate how your USPs should be communicated to emphasise their significance and value to the audience.

One top tip for creating easy-to-use guidelines that can be shared company-wide and with new-starters is to include practical examples and real-world scenarios to illustrate the intended tone and style. As your SaaS content marketing strategy evolves, regularly revisit and update these guidelines to reflect any changes in your brand narrative or product positioning.

Note: If you’re not sure who your audience is yet, don’t worry, you can swap step 1 and step 3 around. 

Step 2: Define your goals and success measures

Clarity of purpose is fundamental to any successful SaaS content marketing strategy. Begin by meticulously defining your goals, ensuring they are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). Whether your primary objective is to increase brand awareness or drive lead generation, establishing concrete goals sets the trajectory for your content efforts.

Once your goals are in place, identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) and success measures that will gauge the effectiveness of your strategy. Metrics such as website traffic, conversion rates, lead generation, and engagement levels serve as tangible indicators of progress towards your objectives.

Consider aligning your goals with specific stages of the buyer’s journey. For instance, if lead generation is a primary goal, focus on metrics related to top-of-the-funnel content and lead conversion rates. If customer retention is paramount, emphasise metrics tied to user engagement and satisfaction.

Regularly revisit and refine your goals and success measures as your SaaS content marketing strategy evolves. This iterative approach ensures that your objectives stay in sync with shifting business priorities and industry dynamics. We’ll discuss how to actually measure content marketing success in more detail below.

Step 3: Identify your audience and develop buyer personas

An integral step in crafting a targeted and impactful SaaS content marketing strategy is understanding your audience on a granular level. Begin by conducting thorough market research to identify the demographics, behaviours, and pain points of your target audience. This knowledge forms the basis for creating detailed buyer personas, fictional representations of your ideal customers.

Develop comprehensive buyer personas by delving into the specific challenges, goals, and preferences of distinct segments within your audience. Consider factors such as job roles, industry, company size, and geographic location. Leverage data from customer surveys, interviews, and analytics to gain insights into their decision-making processes and content consumption habits.

In the B2B landscape, multiple stakeholders are often involved in the decision-making process. That’s why it’s key to identify and understand the roles of influencers, decision-makers, and end-users within the organisations that constitute your target audience.

Furthermore, SaaS products are often complex and may require in-depth explanation. Content marketing for SaaS needs to focus on educating potential customers about the features, benefits, and value of the software, which often requires more in-depth and technical content. In some instances, SaaS products are marketed to technical or business professionals who understand the intricacies of software. Whereas, in other instances, you will be marketing to non-technical users. This is why it is key to understand your audience through data and first-hand insights!

Learn more about creating B2B buyer personas.

Step 4: Conduct comprehensive keyword research and competitor gap analysis

In this pivotal step, the focus is on strategic intelligence –  understanding what your audience craves and how your competitors are navigating the content landscape. Begin by diving into comprehensive keyword research, unveiling the phrases and topics that align with your business and, more importantly, what your customers are actively searching for.

Comprehensive keyword research will identify key themes that strike a chord with your audience. This will not only help you write content that provides information but directly address the questions and interests of your customers.

Unearth insights from a comprehensive analysis of your competitors’ content strategies. Pinpoint gaps in their approach that you can exploit — areas they overlook or subjects where you can provide a distinctive perspective. That being said, you should also look to your own site for opportunities. Harness the potential of your current content library by identifying high-performing pieces and explore ways to repurpose or expand upon them. This approach ensures the continuous relevance and coherence of your content narrative.

During this research phase, you can also determine the most effective channels for reaching your audience. Whether it’s your blog, social media, or niche industry forums, use this information to strategically deploy your content where your target audience is likely to find you.

Step 5: Map content to all stages of the funnel 

Creating a content strategy that guides your audience through the entire buyer’s journey involves mapping content to key stages of the marketing funnel and maintaining an organised editorial calendar.

Awareness

At the awareness stage, the goal is to capture the attention of your target audience and introduce them to your brand and offerings. Here are some of the ways you can do this:

1. Blog posts and infographics: Develop informative and engaging blog posts and infographics that address industry challenges and highlight your expertise. These should be easily shareable to broaden your reach.
2. Social media campaigns: Craft social media content that sparks curiosity and encourages interaction. Shareable snippets, industry insights, and teasers can help create brand awareness and draw your audience into your content ecosystem.
3. Educational webinars or videos: Host webinars or create videos that provide valuable insights into industry trends or common pain points. These can position your brand as an authority and introduce potential customers to your solutions.

Consideration

During the consideration stage, your audience is evaluating potential solutions to their challenges. Here, you should provide content that guides them toward understanding the value of your product. Effective ways to do this include:

1. Guides and whitepapers: Offer detailed guides and whitepapers that explore specific topics relevant to your industry. These resources provide in-depth information and position your SaaS product as a solution worth considering.
2. Case studies: Showcase real-world examples of how your SaaS product has successfully addressed challenges for previous clients. Case studies provide social proof and build credibility during the consideration phase.
3. Product pages: Make sure that your product or services pages are well-optimised for search engines and provide all the information visitors may need to inform their buying decision.
4. Comparison content: Develop content that compares your SaaS offering with alternatives in the market. Transparent and unbiased comparisons can help potential customers make informed decisions.

Decision

At the decision stage, your audience is ready to commit. So, at this point, you should tailor your content to facilitate a smooth transition from consideration to action.

1. Product demos or free trials: Offer product demos or free trials to showcase your SaaS solution in action. This hands-on experience can be a powerful motivator for conversion. Just like trying on a pair of jeans before buying to make sure they fit, giving customers a free trial provides them with a try-before-you-buy experience. They can then make an informed decision on whether your product is right for them.
2. Testimonials and reviews: Highlight positive testimonials and reviews from satisfied customers. This social proof reassures potential customers and boosts confidence in choosing your SaaS product. B2B decision-makers love a case study as it shows them the real impact of their investment and enables them to make the business case for your service, so make sure to prioritise this!
3. Limited-time offers or discounts: Create a sense of urgency with limited-time offers or exclusive discounts. This can incentivise users to convert and become paying customers.

Surveys revealed which content formats decision-makers were most influenced by. Coming out on top were one-to-one recommendations, original research product reviews, in-person events, and product demos. However, one thing they agreed upon was that they wanted content to speak to their specific needs and pain points (62%), provide product or service specifications (57%), and be educational rather than promotional in nature (43%). Now, that’s food for thought!

The marketing flywheel

While the marketing funnel is a helpful way to visualise things, it does not show the complete picture. That’s why many marketers choose to use the marketing flywheel model instead. The marketing flywheel also incorporates the after-sales journey and looks at the process as a cycle, rather than a funnel.

After all, content marketing isn’t just about attracting and engaging prospects; it’s also about delighting your existing customers, and even more so in the SaaS world due to the subscription-based model. 

Step 6: Organise everything in an editorial calendar

Maintain consistency and strategic alignment by organising your content creation efforts in a well-structured editorial calendar. By mapping content to each stage of the funnel and organising an editorial calendar, your SaaS content marketing strategy becomes a strategic roadmap that guides your audience seamlessly from awareness to conversion.

1. Content themes and topics: Plan themes and topics that align with your business goals and resonate with your audience. Ensure a diverse mix of content types to cater to different preferences, based on your keyword research, social insights, and competitor analysis.
2. Timely publication: Schedule content publication dates to coincide with relevant industry events, product launches, consumer habits, or seasonal trends. This ensures that your content remains timely and impactful.
3. Team collaboration: Foster collaboration among your content creation team. Clearly outline responsibilities and deadlines to ensure a cohesive and well-executed content strategy.

An editorial calendar will look different for every brand, however, they can include things like your target persona, buyer stage, target keywords, key theme or event, the H1, and amplification channels. Where you host your calendar is also entirely up to you. Some popular options include online project management tools or collaborative documents, like Google sheets. 

Step 7: Build backlinks and boost authority

Building backlinks and enhancing domain authority are integral steps in a robust SaaS content marketing strategy. These actions contribute significantly to the credibility, visibility, and overall success of your SaaS brand. Incoming links from other reputable sites act as endorsements, signalling to search engines that the content is valuable and trustworthy. Quality backlinks contribute to improved organic search performance, driving more traffic. This is imperative to satisfy Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines. Additionally, they establish a network of connections, expanding the website’s online presence and bringing in referral traffic from other relevant sites. 

Developing informative and shareable content, such as industry reports, whitepapers, and case studies can be a highly effective strategy. Content with unique data or insights is particularly attractive to other websites, encouraging them to link back to your website. Why not try converting these into appealing infographics to make them even more shareable and link-worthy? You should proactively reach out to industry publications, blogs, and news outlets with pitches for stories or collaboration opportunities. Contributing valuable content to reputable platforms not only establishes your authority but also earns authoritative backlinks.

There are a few ways to generate original data. For one, you could conduct original research or surveys within your industry and publish the findings. Unique and insightful data can attract attention from other websites, leading to backlinks from those interested in referencing your research. However, sometimes. It’s not all about reinventing the wheel. Tapping into news-worthy, trending stories with helpful ‘how to’ guides or ‘did you know’ articles can be just as effective at gaining those all-important backlinks through Digital PR tactics. 

Step 8: Launch lead nurturing workflows

Lead nurturing allows you to build and cultivate relationships with potential customers over time. In the SaaS industry, where the sales cycle can be longer, establishing trust through consistent communication is crucial. Since SaaS products often involve complex technologies or solutions, lead nurturing campaigns provide opportunities to educate prospects about the value of your product, its features, and how it addresses their specific pain points. Prospects may be at different stages of the buyer’s journey but lead nurturing enables you to tailor content to their specific needs, whether they are exploring options, comparing solutions, or ready to make a purchase.

Create top quality blog posts, whitepapers, webinars, and educational resources on your website. Remember to create a diverse range of content addressing various pain points and stages of the buyer’s journey. Use SEO strategies to ensure content is discoverable, and promote it through social media and email to nurture leads with valuable information.

Email campaigns are a cornerstone of lead nurturing in the SaaS industry, or any for that matter. Start by segmenting your leads based on their stage in the buyer’s journey. Send targeted, personalised emails with educational content, product demonstrations, case studies, and exclusive offers to guide them through the decision-making process.

Marketing automation can be critical here. Implement marketing automation to deliver timely and relevant content based on lead behaviour. Set up automated emails triggered by specific actions, such as downloading a whitepaper, attending a webinar, making an enquiry, or visiting key product pages.

Step 9: Deploy content promotion and distribution

In a world where competition is fierce and attention spans are limited, the importance of a robust content promotion and distribution plan cannot be overstated. A well-crafted SaaS product or solution, no matter how innovative, won’t yield its full potential without a strategic approach to showcasing its value through effective content distribution. Content is no good if it sits on your site and no one can see it!

Content promotion guides potential customers to discover your SaaS offering and ensures that your content reaches the right audience across various platforms. Diversify your content distribution across channels. Utilise social media platforms, industry forums, email newsletters, and paid advertising. Each channel offers a unique way to connect with your audience, expanding your reach.

Consider investing in paid promotion. While organic reach is valuable, consider investing in paid promotion for critical pieces of content. Platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google Ads offer targeted advertising, ensuring your content reaches the most relevant audience. Another option is leveraging influencer partnerships. Collaborate with influencers or thought leaders in your niche. This way, influencers can amplify your content by sharing it with their followers, providing access to a wider audience and enhancing your brand’s credibility.

Read our top tips for an effective content amplification strategy.

How to measure saas content marketing

Measuring the effectiveness of content marketing is crucial for refining strategies, optimising performance, and demonstrating the impact on business goals. Here are key metrics and approaches to measure SaaS content marketing:

Learn more with our guide to measuring the ROI of content marketing. 

Is it time you began your SaaS content marketing journey?

As you can see, content marketing is not just a nice-to-have for your SaaS business, but makes all the difference to your success. Whether it’s simply getting in front of your customers in the first place with a well-optimised site or nurturing customers through the funnel with tailored messaging across channels, there’s no doubt that content plays a key role. 

Of course, each and every business will be on their own journey and at different stages, which will require different types of content in various formats. Perhaps, you’re a well-established wellness app that has mastered customer acquisition but are looking to build an engaging email marketing strategy to boost retention. Or maybe you’re a small start-up, looking to build brand awareness in your niche and get your name out there with fantastic SEO content and a blog that keeps readers wanting more. Whatever your needs, you’re in need of a data-led content strategy to deliver maximum impact.

Don’t know where to start? Get in touch to find out what content you’re missing and how we can help you fill in the gaps, and realise your digital goals.