What is SaaS content marketing? And what's the performance of SaaS content marketing? The king, queen, and everything in between is content. We know it, you know it, and today's purchasers know it. Quality content improves your SaaS sales by increasing brand reputation, emotion, and trust.

Understanding the kind of SaaS content you should be producing is one thing; actually producing and distributing it to your target audience is another.

Why choose a content marketing strategy for SaaS?

Few individuals understand how to balance a sound plan that produces growth and concrete results when it comes to B2B content marketing. This is due to sluggish returns and erroneous value, as some organizations continue to overlook a critical component of their marketing strategy: content.

A good B2B SaaS content marketing plan, on the other hand, may help you build brand recognition and position yourself as an industry thought leader in the long run. It's also critical to confirm your market positioning by providing your audiences with useful, relevant information.

Buyers are not just leaning harder on information to educate themselves, but they are also wanting and expecting greater content experiences, according to Demand Gen Report's 2020 Content Preferences Study. In fact, 67% of respondents said they rely on content more now than ever before, making it an approach that B2B SaaS firms can't afford to ignore.

What is content marketing (specifically for SaaS and B2B companies)?

Helping clients comprehend the product is one of the essential aspects of SaaS marketing. Inbound marketing that focuses on supplying the appropriate material to the right consumer at the right time is known as content marketing. Content marketing, in particular, takes a systematic approach to content, which includes your blog posts, emails, eBooks, landing sites, adverts, and more.

It's all about developing and delivering valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and keep a precisely defined audience in SaaS content marketing. You'll be able to generate great content and align all of your efforts throughout your firm if you have a solid positioning and messaging strategy.

When a potential buyer is ready to purchase, your product will be the obvious choice. Your positioning, message, and content should demonstrate how your product works and how it may help them solve problems, after which you can direct them to try out your products. SaaS content marketing enables you to attract new clients less than a "pitch" way and position your company as an industry thought leader.

Are you worried about whether or not your target audience will read your content? B2B buyers read more material than ever before, with 48% reading 3-5 blog articles or content pieces before speaking with a salesperson.

Incorporating content marketing into your SaaS GTM strategy.

Your go-to-market (GTM) approach will eventually determine your content marketing plan. This approach guarantees that you can convey your unique selling proposition to the appropriate ICP, allowing you to position and distinguish yourself from other industry rivals.

Search engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing are two terms that often get used interchangeably.

The bread and butter of your content marketing is search engine optimization (SEO), which is how many of your potential clients will find you. It's how you get search engines' attention. Consider this: every time you Google something, tens of millions of results appear, and yours may be among them.

You are more likely to rank if you are fascinating and appealing to your audience and use precise keywords and phrases. Write high-quality, shareable content in searcher's terms, use relevant, competitive keywords, and have a high volume of searches.

Goals for SaaS content marketing

The four content marketing goals below should appear familiar to SaaS and B2B organizations:

• Raise brand awareness.
• Educate customers.
• Establish reputation and trustworthiness.
• Obtain leads.

Your responsibility is to ensure that people can find you through your content and brand.

Don't just tell your audience how your product or service can solve a problem; show them. Make a point of emphasizing the characteristics that make your brand unique from the competition so that people remember you.

One of the most compelling subjects for B2B SaaS content marketing is educating potential clients. A satisfied consumer is well-informed. To educate, provide excellent material and discuss the benefits of your product or service––ask your prospects to envisage a life they can't live without it.

Understanding your audience, their pain spots, and their concerns is essential for generating strong, captivating, and educational material. Begin by having your sales staff write down the most often asked questions from customers––these might serve as a solid beginning point for content ideas.

If your buyers believe your product will be too difficult to use, you may provide material that explains and illustrates how to utilize it. Your material should focus on the long-term benefits of deploying your product or service for your audience and potential clients.

Everyone wants to establish credibility and trust, and content is the most effective method to accomplish it.

Your audience learns to trust you and sees that you know your subject when you offer important, helpful, and fascinating content. Not only that but establishing credibility helps them to get a sense of your personality and what working with you would be like.

Remember that it's the message, not the channel, that matters. Not just the product and its characteristics, but the entire experience should be written about. You're more likely to keep the conversation continuing if you provide a lot of helpful resources.

Because the ultimate goal of B2B SaaS inbound marketing is to create leads, a large portion of your B2B SaaS content will most likely get focused on that purpose. Add CTAs and forms to each blog and landing site to generate leads through content.

A great SaaS content marketing strategy is the foundation for good lead creation. Make sure to include tracking links so you can easily follow your progress.

How to Create a Content Strategy for B2B SaaS

You'll need a robust content marketing plan to achieve your content marketing objectives.

Your B2B SaaS content marketing strategy boils down to determining what material will benefit and encourage your target audience to take actions that will help your company.

A good content calendar may help you build your blog and website if it also includes creating high-quality material and effectively distributing it.

Whether you're producing a case study, an eBook, a whitepaper, a survey, a how-to guide, or anything else, make sure it serves a purpose for your audience and is in line with your plan. Don't forget that solid nurturing sequences may go a long way.

Here's how you put together a content marketing plan.

It would help if you always targeted a particular stage of the buyer's journey when designing and publishing content. To avoid putting all of your eggs in one basket, determine how much of your plan you should pour into each funnel stage.

Why change? (50% Consideration)

It all starts with brand recognition. Your audience is merely becoming aware of your company at this point. They may not be ready to buy in or join your email list or newsletter, but they now know who you are, thanks to the quality material you generated. As a result, you'll be able to establish yourself as a resource and thought leader in your field.

You're teaching your audience, increasing brand awareness, and establishing trust and credibility in the awareness stage. Many marketers stop there, but there's a lot more to it if you want to grow your business and profit.

Why are you doing this? (30% Consideration)

People often require time to contemplate your business after they become aware of it, which is where you can use nurturing and thought leadership material to persuade them to buy from you.

Content marketing for SaaS companies is an excellent approach to drive prospects through the consideration stage. It would help if you continued to create credibility and trust in this stage by using blogs, eBooks, and webinars to deliver a bit more direct value than you did in the awareness stage.

Why should I change now? (15% Consideration)

It's time for your consumers to choose now that they've learned about your company, have gained trust in you, and are considering investing.

Either they will become a paying client, or they will not. This stage is your opportunity to give conversion-oriented material like webinars, manuals, and blogs.

Why keep going? (5% Consideration)

How do you keep consumers who are willing to pay? You must produce stuff that makes people pleased. Contact them via email or social media to learn how they like the platform and if they have any issues or suggestions for improvement. To enhance customer experience with your service, you may also build user manuals or one-pagers.

How do you come up with content ideas?

Start by determining your ideal audience (or ICP) for your B2B SaaS content marketing strategy so you can generate highly actionable, engaging, and valuable content to move them through the customer journey and drive sales.

While campaigns and your overall marketing strategy will drive a lot of your content, there may be times when you need to come up with new ideas. If you're at a loss for what to write about, consider the following questions to help you develop ideas for useful SaaS marketing material.

• What are the issues that your customer is having?
• What are your options for resolving them?
• What knowledge gaps do you have in your line of work?
• Can you comment on what you think will be the next big thing in your industry?
• What are the advantages of your product or service to customers?
• What are the most common ways that your clients utilize the solution?
• What information do consumers want from you to receive their first moment of value as quickly as possible?

Start with determining your ideal audience for B2B SaaS content marketing so you can generate highly actionable, engaging, and valuable content to move them through the customer experience and drive profit.

Address a typical client question: "What's in it for me?" as the foundation for all of your content. To put it another way, always have the consumer in mind.

Create engaging and conversion-oriented SaaS content.

Last but not least, I'll give you some pointers on how to write excellent SaaS content since whether you're writing a blog, whitepaper, eBook, or landing page, there's a science to engaging your audience and converting them into a paying client.

• After you've addressed your audience's pain, make a claim + gain.
• Concentrate on SEO-friendly writing.
• Always include visuals.
• Add some CTAs to the mix.

Get your software as a service (SaaS) at the top of the search results.

SaaS content marketing is one of the most effective methods your team can use to attract, educate, and convert consumers.

While it may take some time for a content strategy to pay off, it doesn't imply it isn't working––patience is key here.

Developing a solid positioning, optimizing search engines, and gaining market share through content marketing and thought leadership needs long-term, constant labor.

Don't give up right away. You'll notice benefits if you keep publishing solid SEO content that appeals to your audience and follows your plan.

What is the performance of content marketing for SaaS?

What marketing tactic costs 62% less than traditional marketing yet creates three times the number of leads?

Content marketing is the answer, and it's becoming increasingly popular. This marketing tactic is used by 82% of businesses, up 12% from the previous year. These are impressive figures for a relatively new strategy used by SaaS companies. Thus, we can confidently assert that SaaS content marketing is becoming critical for most businesses.

If you want your brand to keep up with the competition, you'll need a solid approach. So, if you're new to content marketing or have already begun, here's the complete guide to help you get started. I will not only present a basic description of content marketing in this text, but I will also provide you with a robust framework for planning your content marketing strategy.

Should I hire a SaaS content marketing freelancer?

Hiring a SaaS content marketing freelancer can get costly for your business. And here's why. Most commonly, freelancers don't have the level of experience to deliver the robust needs of most scaling companies.

A high-scale business should consider hiring an agency instead. Freelancer performance may not get determined until anywhere from three to six months into the engagement. Making it costly for the business owner.

What's the difference between regular content marketing and content marketing for SaaS?

Because SaaS firms' products aren't brick and mortar stores, they have distinct duties, and they rely on long-term client relationships that are frequently done on a subscription basis.

As a result, SaaS content marketing is fundamentally different from traditional marketing.

This implies there are a few SaaS-specific considerations your organization should make when performing content marketing:

To boost the brand's positioning, you must be knowledgeable.

Your leads should see you as an expert in the topic; this is how you gain their confidence and retain their business. Your consumers' trust in you and your company is the most critical aspect of SaaS content marketing.

The importance of SEO for your brand cannot get overstated.

When a potential client in the research stage asks a question, you need to be one of the first organizations to respond. Customers find SaaS solutions through digital channels.

Thus, you should attempt to generate traffic to your site. Because 62% of consumers don't identify a company's online presence, visibility is critical.

You're not just selling your service; you're also selling the support that comes with it.

Customer service is critical for SaaS businesses: if you can't assist your clients when they need it, they'll most likely go to a rival. Your help is vital not just for your SaaS content marketing but also for user retention and activation.

It's critical to have positive evaluations and recommendations to generate fresh and significant leads.

One of the most effective methods to raise brand recognition and attract individuals down your sales funnel is word of mouth.

70% of marketers do not have a consistent or integrated content strategy despite these client expectations. Follow the steps below to ensure your SaaS content marketing isn't one of them.

What is a simple, yet successful content marketing strategy for SaaS?

Begin by considering your customer's buyer's journey while creating a SaaS content marketing strategy. Outline each key milestone that clients encounter from the moment they first hear about you to the time they make a purchase.

The following steps are frequently included in SaaS marketing funnels.

• Customer Retention/Customer Loyalty.
• Awareness.
• Lead Generation.
• Trial Sign-Ups.
• Conversion to Paying Customer.

You can begin to understand how you may utilize content to help clients through each phase of the buyer's journey once you've outlined the unique buying funnel they travel through.

For a majority of content marketing efforts, it should get utilized in helping customers through particular pain points that the free trial could drive conversions toward. A clearly defined audience and their interests is one of the most essential elements to an effective strategy.

Hiring a writer or a freelancer to write a blog post or two isn't going to assist a SaaS company in driving referrals and in-market buyers.

1. Determine your SaaS Content Marketing Strategic Goals

Setting appropriate strategic goals can assist you in optimizing your content to meet those aims. A strategic objective isn't a number or a measure. It should specify the function of content marketing in your company's structure and procedures.

A few examples of strategic goals for your SaaS content marketing strategy are listed below.

• Increase brand awareness among prospects further down the sales funnel than those you previously targeted.
• Create a two-way interaction with your audience to stimulate network effects and reciprocation, which will help your company grow.
• Create a list of contacts with information that will help you determine which contacts are most likely to convert from lead to customer.
• Develop a steady supply of monthly leads for your sales team.
• Streamline the flow of leads to automated sales pages and other automated acquisition systems.
• Encourage consumer loyalty and brand advocacy.

Also, check the part on funnel mapping for the three strategic goals that any content marketing strategy should have.

The majority of SaaS content marketing should focus on cumulative growth strategies. Investing the same amount each month yields a higher monthly return. This approach contrasts with non-cumulative methods such as PPC, where investing the same amount pays virtually the same return each month.

Content marketing based on SEO principles, for example, will increase the number of organic search hits you receive each month. Depending on your content marketing activities, this number will rise, stay the same, or fall.

Similarly, content marketing based on good list-building techniques will allow you to communicate to a broader audience each month by growing your email, phone, and direct mail list. If list-building activities get discontinued, the number of contacts will decline at the same rate as the rate of unsubscribes.

While a result, as you define your strategic goals, it's vital to understand the cumulative nature of content marketing.

2. Establish Your Metrics

It's time to determine the performance measures once you've defined the strategic goals. Here are a few KPIs to think about while creating content for SaaS.

Per dollar invested, the number of monthly visitors increases.

Organic search traffic increases in a cyclical pattern. This figure may reveal how each dollar spent boosts the overall number of leads available to you.

The initial contact's channel, content, time from first contact to sale, the path from first contact to purchase, and related indicators are all important.

Most SaaS companies ignore these indicators and go on to the last stage of the sales process. The attribution of the initial touch is just as crucial as the attribution of the previous touch. Never think that because every interaction travels through the bottom of the funnel, it is the only one that matters.

Each individual visitor's average lifetime value.

How much will each unique visitor spend on your organization on average? This measure can provide useful information regarding keyword quality, sales funnel and list development, and client retention.

It can also reveal a lack of effort in determining whether current buyers are repeat visitors.

New and returning visitors as a percentage of total visits.

A high number of new visitors shows increased traffic, but a high percentage of recurring visitors demonstrates loyalty rather than stagnation. To obtain understanding, compare these measures to historical growth.

Per dollar invested, the number of subscribers or contacts increases. If this measure is poor, it's crucial to consider low traffic, low conversions, high subscriber churn, a lack of prioritizing of lead magnets and other list-building strategies, or other causes.

Per-visitor sign-ups.

This metric tracks SaaS signups or free trial signups. While this statistic isn't as instantly monetarily useful as the average lifetime value of each unique visitor, it may be pretty strategic. If this number is large yet the average lifetime value of each visitor is poor, it may indicate that the problem is with the SaaS rather than with content marketing. This might indicate a lack of potential for SaaS companies to develop client loyalty through content marketing.

For specialized channels, such as organic search, referrals, email lists, social media, or even individual pieces of content, any of the aforementioned.

Aside from using metrics to make strategic decisions, it's also crucial to consider analytics' expanding role in customizing marketing, mainly through lead automation and email marketing.

Leads that return to certain sites frequently are more likely to purchase the products or services offered.

If this is the case, marketing automation might get used to target prospects who have viewed specific sites but have not made a purchase with a connected offer.

Similarly, it's worth seeing if leads are more likely to buy if they're sent a message about pieces of content that have led to purchases in the past, especially if their pathways are similar.

Marketing automation has progressed far beyond its beginnings. Consider the following elements while planning your SaaS content marketing strategy.

3. Create a Funnel Map

A strong content marketing plan must have three key strategic goals, using real-world data as well as your own conceptual and predictive models:

• Increase the funnel's size by placing it where your leads are.
• Assist the leaders as they progress through the funnel.
• The question to address here is how a lead travels from where they begin to where they complete a purchase.

Should I hire a SaaS content marketing agency?

Ideally, yes. The agency will help to develop a solid content marketing strategy that is designed at educating your ideal customer persona. The agency should perform keyword research, look at technical and off-page SEO. And create content that is designed to convert visitors into potential customers or paying customers.