With so many choices out there, it’s hard to know what type of content marketing strategy will work best for your SaaS business.
It seems like every day there are new tools and strategies coming out that can allegedly help you market your product more effectively.
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To make sure you have the right content marketing strategy in place, I’ve put together a list of the most important tactics to consider when creating your plan. If you’re looking to develop an effective content strategy that works best for your company, keep reading to find out more.
The Importance Of A SaaS Content Marketing Strategy
Having a SaaS content marketing strategy helps you define the direction that you want your business to move towards. In fact, it can be used as a blueprint that guides your every decision regarding content marketing.
On the other hand, if you don't have a content marketing strategy, going round in circles is a very real possibility. This will make it difficult for anyone involved with your company to know what to do and what's expected of them when they do their jobs. It will also send mixed messages when your prospects and clients consume your content.
Why Is Content Marketing For SaaS Companies Different?
The first step in creating your content marketing strategy is understanding that content marketing for SaaS companies is different when compared to other businesses. The reason for this is that a SaaS company has to accomplish a few goals through its content:
In order words, in a SaaS company, you are generally selling a solution that people also need to learn how to use. This can obviously take some time and requires a bit more thought to it. You’re also convincing people that your solution is better than other ones in the market as well as educating them on the possible benefits they’ll get through long-term use.
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Your blog articles, eBooks, whitepapers, and infographics should all be geared towards teaching people what your company does and how it can help them solve their problems.
Here are a few concrete examples. Let’s say that you’re in marketing. In this case, you can’t just create an eBook on the subject of how marketing works. Your ebook should be geared towards teaching people marketing skills for their specific business that involves long-term results that would get through the use of your software.
Let’s have a look at another example. If your company deals in the HR industry, then creating content about the importance of a great job description when hiring, isn’t nearly enough.
Instead, you'll have to think about creating content that adds a ton of value to the industry while also clearly showing how your job vacancy software (as an example) can help serve your target audience and allow them to reach their recruitment goals faster. In addition, it doesn’t hurt to show how your software is better than others at what it does.
What Goes Into An Effective SaaS Content Marketing Strategy
The following are the essential ingredients for creating an effective SaaS content marketing strategy.
Define Your Target Audience
You have to know who you are talking to in order to create content that your target audience will appreciate. This means that you have to conduct detailed market research from the very beginning.
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First, find out what topics are currently being discussed in the industry. There are several ways for this to be done and obviously, these are market dependant. However, some of the best ways to do this are by joining groups on LinkedIn or Facebook where other people in your industry hang out, read blog articles about the industry and participate in webinars related to your business sector.
Second, write down a list of problems people might face with their current solutions. For example, suppose you were creating an HR software application. In that case, there might be some common issues in the HR industry, such as keeping track of workplace diversity, recruiting the best talent, or even ensuring that everyone is performing to the best of their abilities.
Third, understand what your company can do that can help solve these problems. For example, if you have an HR software application, combining the above features into an easy-to-use software solution and presenting it in a way that anyone in any HR department can fully utilize, might just be a good idea.
Once you have all this information, you'll be able to create buyer personas which are profiles for the different types of people who might buy your product. This will help you determine what content to develop and tailor it specifically for them.
Define Your SaaS Content Marketing Strategic Goals
To track whether or not your content marketing strategy is working, you need to set some campaign goals.
These are goals that you want to achieve through your content, such as increasing leads by a certain percentage or even getting people to sign up for a webinar. Another goal example could be one where you want to increase the frequency at which people call in for a demo of your software. No matter what the goal is, it should be something that is clearly defined.
Once these goals have been set, they need to be tracked so that you can see if there is an improvement over time and well as understand if you are on target to hit your goals. If not, adjustments will need to be made to the content marketing strategy in order to produce better results.
Keep in mind that the clearer you are on the goals that you set, the better the plan of action you’ll be able to come up with in order to achieve these goals.
Create Action Steps
Once the goals have been defined, you can create action steps that will allow you to reach such goals with your content marketing. These action steps will influence your content calendar and allow you to know what type of content needs to be created and published on which dates.
Having everything laid out will allow everyone on your team to see what needs to get done and what has already been completed.
Consider Search Engine Optimization
One of the main things you need to consider when creating content is how your target audience will find it. This is where search engine optimization (SEO) comes in. By using the right keywords and phrases, you can ensure that your content shows up high in the search results.
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A content strategy should include SEO in order to increase your site's visibility over time. This allows you to determine what keywords you will need to use and how often you should use them.
Considering search engines and how they will find your content when it comes to SaaS marketing means that you will not have to spend tons of extra cash in the long term (on paid advertising, media buying, etc) to get eyeballs on your website or blog.
Creating An In-Depth Distribution Strategy
Once you have your content created, you need to plan to get it in front of the right people. In addition to having a content calendar, you also need to consider your distribution strategy. This outlines where each piece of content will be published and who will help promote it.
For example, if you have a new blog post, you might want to publish it on your website and share it on social media. You can also send it to other websites and blogs in your industry to publish as well.
In addition, you'll need to create a list of people who can help promote your content. This could include journalists, bloggers, and even customers who are happy with your product.
By having a detailed distribution strategy, you'll be able to get more eyes on your content while building relationships with people along the way. As momentum increases, you’ll find that you’ll have to do less in order to get more exposure to your content.
Caring About What You Create
When creating content, you must be passionate about what you are writing or producing. If you are not really into it, and are just creating content for the sake of putting something out there, then no one else will care. This will eventually result in a decrease in leads and sales.
When thinking of SaaS content marketing strategies, understand that you have to put a lot of time and effort into the creation stage. If you do not, your results could be lackluster, which will hurt your company in the long run.
Monitor Your Results And Make Adjustments As Needed
As you put together your content marketing strategy, it is essential to pay attention to the results that you are getting from each campaign. This will make a significant impact on the future of your business as you will be able to see what works and what does not work.
By tracking everything from traffic sources, backlinks built, and conversions generated, you can identify how successful each piece of content was with your target audience. Then, you’ll be able to adjust as needed by either creating more or less content depending on results.
For example, if your blog posts were driving many people to leave comments but they were not signing up for a trial of your software, this would show that you need more in-depth information about your product's benefits, which could lead to more people converting.
The Importance Of Creating Content That Your Customers Want
Many companies sit down to create content without first understanding what their audience wants from them. This is a huge mistake as it means that content may go unnoticed or not be as helpful as it could have been if they had understood what people’s pain and pleasure points were.
For example, if you created an eBook about software that writes excellent website copy all by itself and targetted it towards door-to-door salespeople, there might not be that much interest in this piece of content, no matter how magical the solution is.
Alternatively, if you had created an eBook about improving your conversion rate in face-to-face interactions, this would be more relevant to the people in your audience and there would be much more enthusiasm for it.
Your target audience would share it on social media, link back to it on their website, and tell their friends about it, which could help you build a new client base.
By understanding what your customers want, you can create better content that will help you reach the next level of success. This means building content based on what people are looking for, which will ultimately increase conversions and make a more significant impact in the long run.
The Types Of Content To Produce As Part Of Your SaaS Content Marketing Strategy
When it comes to creating content, there are a few different types of content that you can produce as part of your SaaS content marketing strategy.
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Each type has its own set of benefits and can be used in different ways to reach your target audience.
Let’s have a look at some of these content types:
Other Factors To Consider When Creating SaaS Content marketing strategies
The following are some additional factors to consider when creating a solid content marketing strategy. They are in no particular order and instead, should be considered as part of a holistic SaaS content marketing strategy.
Keyword Research
Keyword research is essential for any content marketing strategy as it will help you understand what people are searching for online. You can then use this information to create blog posts, eBooks, and other types of content that will answer those questions and provide value to your customers.
Competition Analysis
It's important to know what your competition is doing to stay ahead of the curve. By analyzing their website, social media, and other marketing strategies, you can understand what works and what doesn't. This information can help you improve your process by implementing successful tactics into your plan.
Audience Analysis
Knowing your target audience is crucial for creating compelling content. By understanding their age, interests, location, and other demographics, you can tailor your content to be more relevant and appealing to them.
Social Media
Social media is a great way to advertise your business and provide valuable information to the people who need it. This content should focus on delivering value instead of being self-promotional so that people will want to share it with their friends. By doing this, you'll be able to reach a wider audience and establish yourself as an authority in your field.
The Customer Journey
Content creation doesn't end after you've published your first eBook or blog post. Instead, it's essential to create ongoing content that will answer questions, provide more education, or show customers how to use your products or services. By doing this, you'll be able to keep people coming back for more information and increase sales.
Keeping The Pain Points In Mind
It's important to know what questions your customers have and provide the answers to those questions. By understanding people’s questions, frustrations, and pain points, you can turn this information into content that will answer common questions and alleviate their pain points before people even need to verbalize what they’re going through.
Continual Monitoring
You should constantly monitor what your customers think about your business to know what they like and don't like. This can tell you a lot about your products, services, and content marketing strategy.
Moreover, when someone mentions something negative online, you'll be able to handle it quickly to avoid it becoming a more significant issue.
SaaS Content Marketing Strategies - FAQ
It's pretty simple to reach potential customers through informative content marketing. You have to create helpful material that will provide value to your audience while also drawing them in.
Providing information that people are searching for will naturally attract readers and help you show up in search engine results. Several other strategies can be used as well, which should be considered when creating a plan of action for your business.
Successful content marketing entails creating a plan that will include several types of informative material. By doing this, you'll provide helpful information that will help your audience solve their problems and show them different ways they can grow their business.
The success of your content marketing strategy will depend on the amount of time you put into it. To work correctly, you should dedicate some time each day or week to develop helpful blog post ideas or other types of content that potential customers would find valuable.
This is an excellent way to attract new leads without spending any money on advertising campaigns since people will naturally share your posts online, which brings in additional readership.
It's relatively simple to get a clearly defined audience if you know what your target market needs. Everyone who has similar pain points and interests will fall into a broad category, which makes it easy to decide who will benefit from your content before anything else.
You can then decide whether you want to serve a general audience or a more specific one. Remember that the more specific you get, the more defined your audience will be.
By focusing on benefits instead of features and placing yourself in the customer's shoes, you'll be able to determine what people would like or need before you develop any material at all. This is an excellent way to ensure that your business solves the correct problems for the right people, so they become loyal customers for years to come.
Many companies focus too much time on features (instead of benefits) which causes them to lose visitors interested in their product or service while also not drawing in new leads because the information doesn't answer any valuable questions.
Be sure to give people enough details about how things work and always strive to add more value if possible. This ensures that every interaction potential customers have with your content can serve to draw them closer to becoming a customer.
Conclusion
Creating successful SaaS content marketing strategies isn't always easy, but it's definitely worth the effort. By following the tips provided in this article, you'll be able to create helpful content that will attract potential customers and help them learn more about your business.
Remember to focus on benefits instead of features, provide solutions and information, and dedicate time every so often to create new material. These tips will help you get started and move you forward in the right direction.
