March 4, 2024
5 min read
Matt Gray

SaaS Content Marketing: What It Is and How To Use It

Sharing information through content marketing is super important for success in the SaaS world. It involves making and sharing helpful tips that fit your audience's needs. This way, SaaS companies can stand out and grow.

Good content marketing isn't about ads. It's more about making people trust you. It shows you're an expert and keeps your customers happy with great info. If you sell to other businesses, you must show how your product can massively help them.

This guide is here to make SaaS content marketing easy to achieve. Your SaaS company will be able to reach more people and do better. You can make a strong connection with your audience using smart content strategies. This turns them from maybe-customers into always-customers. Now, here comes the good part. Let's look at how to make a content plan that talks to your audience and helps your SaaS business grow.

Understanding the SaaS Landscape

SaaS stands for Software as a Service. It's a part of technology where you can use apps from the internet. You don't have to install anything. Instead, you pay a subscription to use the software. SaaS is getting more popular because it's flexible, saves money, and updates by itself. This makes it great for lots of people and businesses.

Incorporating stories and info into your SaaS content strategy is important for growth. It helps teach potential customers why SaaS products are helpful. Understanding SaaS content can sometimes be tricky because you can't touch it. Using blogs, stories, videos, and pictures solves or improves problems.

Sharing info does more than draw people in — it also keeps them around. Helpful and exciting content makes customers happy and interested for a long time. Ensuring their content is interesting and helpful for companies selling to other businesses is key. Content marketing is a big part of teaching customers, keeping them engaged, and helping the business grow.

Defining SaaS Content Marketing

SaaS content marketing is a way of sharing helpful content that interests others. SaaS means you use software over the internet instead of owning it. This marketing includes blog posts, videos, and images to show how great SaaS products are.

It's important to talk about what makes SaaS unique. Like how you can use it anywhere, save money, and always get better. This kind of marketing also helps people understand the product. It addresses safety, working with other programs, and growing bigger when you need to.

SaaS content marketing also helps make the company look like the go-to expert. This is super important when lots of companies are trying to get noticed. Stories of successful experiences make people more likely to choose their product.

The big goal is to make a group of happy, loyal users. This keeps people returning for more and helps the SaaS company do well for a long time. Sharing valuable tips and news is a big part of this. It's not about selling; it's about helping and growing together.

Importance of Content Marketing in SaaS

Content marketing lets SaaS companies show off the unique features of their software. It tells people what the software does and how it can fix or improve problems.

With smart marketing, B2B SaaS content ideas can make complicated software understandable. They can guide potential customers closer to buying and make their brand strong. This is super important when lots of companies are trying to get noticed.

Let's look at some real examples of SaaS companies doing great with content marketing:

HubSpot

HubSpot is a big name in marketing. They are good at content marketing. They teach people about marketing with free blogs, ebooks, courses, and webinars. HubSpot has become a go-to source for marketing tips. This has helped them get lots of customers. They show how their tools solve marketing problems.

Slack

Slack changed how we talk at work. They use content marketing to show how their app makes team chats easier. They share stories of teams that love using Slack. This shows how Slack helps us work together better. Their stories make more people want to use Slack.

SaaS Content Marketing: Strategy Fundamentals

A great SaaS content marketing strategy knows what's special about your product. You also need to know how it helps your audience.

A good plan has a few important parts. Here comes the good part: let's look at these steps to help you make the best content plan.

1. Understanding Your Audience

First, you gotta know who your audience is. Find out what they need, what bothers them, and where they like to hang out online. This helps you make content they'll want to see. It shows how your product can fix their problems. Making up buyer personas (like creating characters) is an intelligent way to keep track of the people you're talking to.

2. Setting Clear Objectives 

You need clear goals for your plan. They can be on brand, getting more leads, making more sales, or keeping customers happy. 

Make sure your goals are SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Your goals should be clear, realistic, and relevant to your overall business plan — and giving them a set deadline is important to help you stay on track.

3. Content Creation and Distribution 

Now that you know your audience and have goals, it's time to make excellent content. Pick the right content, like blog posts, videos, ebooks, or webinars. Also, choose the best places to share your content. This could be on your website, social media, emails, or other online spots. This helps make sure the right people see your content. 

4. Measuring Outcomes 

Last, you need to see how your content is doing. Do people like it? Is it helping your goals? Set up key performance checks (KPIs) like how many visit your website, how many new leads you get, how many sales, and how many people are talking about your content. Keep an eye on these numbers to see what's working and what's not. This helps you make smart changes to do even better.

Key Components of Effective SaaS Content

When you make SaaS content, you use different avenues to help people at all steps of deciding to buy. Let's look at some SaaS content writing examples and how to make content that people enjoy:

  • Blog posts: Blog posts are super important. They answer questions, share cool facts, and discuss what's new with your product. They also help more people find your website on Google.
  • Case studies and customer testimonials: Case studies show how your product helps solve real problems. Sharing stories from happy customers makes people trust your product more.
  • Ebooks and whitepapers: These are detailed guides on significant topics. They give helpful info and make you look like an expert. You can ask people to sign up to get them, which is excellent for finding new leads.
  • Video content: Videos make hard topics more straightforward to understand. They can show how your product works simply. People love sharing and watching videos, which gets more people excited about your product. I post video content regularly on my YouTube channel to keep my audience informed and engaged — like this video about leveling up our content strategy.
  • Webinars: Webinars let you talk live with your audience. You can show off your product and answer questions right then and there. This is a great way to connect and share your knowledge.

Tips for Creating Effective SaaS Content

Here are some tips for creating content that stands out and helps your SaaS business shine:

Understand your audience: Get to know the people you're talking to. Understand what they need, their problems, and what they like. Make your content all about helping them see how your product can make things better for them.

  • Understand your audience: Get to know the people you're talking to. Understand what they need, their problems, and what they like. Make your content all about helping them see how your product can make things better for them.
  • Show, don't just tell: Instead of just talking about what your product does, show it in action. Use stories from real customers, case studies, and reviews to show how your product makes a difference. This helps people imagine how they could use it, too.
  • Focus on the benefits: Make sure to talk about how your product makes things better. People want to know how it'll solve their problems or make things easier, not just what it does. Talk about the good things that come from using your product.
  • Be consistent and provide value: Post content regularly to keep people interested and to show you're an expert they can trust. Every content should be helpful, whether solving a problem, sharing new ideas, or updating them on what's new in your field.
  • Optimize for search: Use SEO (search engine optimization) tricks to help people find your content easily. Use the right keywords, make your titles catchy, and describe your content well to show up when people look online.

SEO and SaaS Content Marketing

For a SaaS business, SEO means getting your website and content in front of people looking for solutions. Good SEO practices can help your pages appear higher in search results, where potential customers can find them easily. 

To create SEO-friendly SaaS content:

  • Start with keywords: Find out what words people use when they look for SaaS solutions like yours. Use these keywords in your content, especially in titles and descriptions, to make your pages more findable.
  • Quality matters: Ensure your content is filled with valuable and relevant keywords to your readers. Answer their questions and solve their problems with your content.
  • Match search intent: Understand why people are searching for specific terms. Are they looking to buy, or just looking for information? Create content that matches these intentions to attract exemplary visitors.
  • Structured data helps: Use schema markup to make it easier for search engines to understand and display your content in search results, potentially increasing clicks.
  • User experience: Fast loading times, mobile-friendliness, and easy site navigation can boost your SEO because search engines prefer sites that users enjoy visiting.
  • Earn backlinks: Links from reputable sites to your content can improve your site's authority and rankings. Create content that others want to link to or collaborate with industry partners.
  • Keep content fresh: Update your content regularly to reflect new trends, features, and data. This shows search engines your site is active and keeps your content relevant.

Measuring SaaS Content Marketing Success

Measuring the success of your SaaS content marketing is like keeping a scorecard for your business. You must track the correct numbers to see if your stories hit the mark. This process tells you what's working well and what needs tweaking. 

By looking at specific metrics, you get a clear picture of how your audience reacts to your content and their actions afterward. It's a way to fine-tune your approach, ensuring your content keeps improving and helping your business grow.

Key Metrics To Consider

To keep an eye on how well your SaaS content marketing is doing, there are a few key numbers to watch:

  • Traffic metrics: Checking how many new visitors you get, how often your pages are looked at, and where these visitors come from helps you see what's drawing people to your site.
  • Engagement metrics: This shows how much your visitors interact with your content. It includes how long they stay on a page, if they quickly leave (bounce rate), and if they're commenting or sharing your content. High engagement means your content is hitting the mark.
  • Conversion metrics: The big goal of your content is to get visitors to do something, like signing up for a trial, asking for a demo, or buying something. Keeping track of conversion rates and leads tells you if your content is convincing enough to get that click.
  • SEO performance: This means how high your content ranks in search engine results. SEO tracks specific keywords, how much of your traffic comes from searches, and how many other sites link to your content. Better SEO means more people can find your content easily.
  • Customer retention: Keeping customers is as important as getting new ones for a SaaS business. Content that helps keep customers around, like helpful guides or updates, can be measured by how often customers leave (churn rate) and how valuable they are over time (customer lifetime value).

How To Track and Measure These Goals

To track and measure the success of your SaaS content marketing, here's what you can do:

Use Analytics Tools

Google Analytics is excellent for looking into how many people visit your site, how they interact with your content, and whether they take actions like signing up or downloading something. You can set specific goals in these tools to see how well your content works.

SEO Tracking Software

Tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs are perfect for keeping an eye on how your content ranks for specific keywords, how many other sites link to yours, and how much traffic you get from search engines. These tools help you see how visible your content is online and where you can make it better.

CRM and Marketing Automation Tools

Linking your content marketing with CRM and automation tools lets you track leads from their first interaction to purchase or sign-up. This helps identify which content pieces are most effective.

Customer Feedback and Surveys

Asking your audience directly through surveys and feedback forms provides insights into how your content performs and how to improve it.

Case Studies: SaaS Content Marketing in Action

Looking at real stories helps us learn about effective SaaS content marketing and how it can help a business grow. We will look at two great examples of companies that are awesome at content marketing. They show us how doing it right can make a big difference. Take a look.

Salesforce

Salesforce is a big name in managing customer relationships. They use many different ways to share knowledge, like guides, e-books, webinars, and blog posts. These are all about helping people get better at sales and CRM. Salesforce also tells stories about how real customers use their product, showing how it helps. This helps get new customers interested and keeps them learning and growing.

Shopify

Shopify is known for helping people sell things online. They have a blog full of tips and how-tos for beginners and experts. Shopify also has something called Shopify Academy. It's full of free lessons and webinars about doing business online. This makes Shopify a trusted place to learn about e-commerce. By sharing all this great information, Shopify attracts many people, making the brand more popular and helping users succeed.

Conclusion

Content marketing is essential for businesses that offer software services. This method helps explain what a software service does, making people trust the SaaS company and keeping customers happy for a long time. To do well, businesses need to know who they're talking to, have clear goals, make great content, and always check how well their content is doing so they can make it even better.

Visit Founder OS today to level up your online business, and sign up for my Founder OS newsletter, where I share practical tips for growth every Saturday. 

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Matt Gray

Founder & CEO of Founder OS

I’ve built 4 successful companies and a community of over 14 million people. My mission is to help 100,000,000 founders automate their business and hit $5,000,000 profit per year. I help you grow your personal brand and business in just 3 minutes a week.

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