Content Marketing For SaaS – Drive Traffic, Increase Brand Awareness and Revenue

In the world of SaaS, businesses are realizing the importance of content marketing.

Companies like HotJar, Asana, and HubSpot have already mastered this art and are harnessing the benefits of content marketing.

Whether you’re a small startup or a large enterprise, a strong content marketing strategy can help you attract and retain customers, increase brand awareness, and drive revenue growth.

But what is content marketing, and why is it so important for SaaS businesses?

Simply put, content marketing is the process of creating and distributing valuable content to attract and engage your target audience. It’s a way to educate potential customers about your SaaS product and how it can help solve their problems.

By providing helpful information and answering their questions, you can build trust and credibility, which catalyzes your sales growth.

Some of the biggest SaaS businesses, like Asana and Hubspot, are already leveraging the power of content marketing to reach new customers and drive growth.

Salesforce uses its blog to share industry insights and thought leadership, while Hubspot’s blog and inbound marketing strategy have helped them become one of the leading players in the marketing automation space.

In this article, we’ll dive deeper into content marketing strategies for SaaS businesses and explore how you can use content to attract, engage, and convert potential customers.

SaaS Content Marketing Examples

1. ClickUp
2. Salesforce
3. DocuSign

Before we dive into the content marketing framework for your SaaS brand, let’s take a look at some of the successful businesses that are already reaping the benefits of content marketing.

From thought-leadership blogs to webinars and case studies, the different content formats these companies have used and how they have helped position their products and services as valuable solutions for their target audience.

1. ClickUp Content Marketing Example

ClickUp is a project management software company that has effectively leveraged content marketing to promote their product and build a strong community of users.

They have created a variety of resources such as blog posts, webinars, guides, and videos that educate their audience on how to use the software, as well as best practices for project management.

They also share customer success stories and case studies to showcase the real-world impact of their product.

Additionally, ClickUp has a strong presence on social media platforms where they actively engage with their audience and share valuable tips and resources.

2. Salesforce Content Marketing Example

Salesforce is a CRM software company that has successfully used content marketing to drive brand growth and attract new customers.

They use a variety of content formats, including blog posts, eBooks, webinars, and videos, to provide valuable information and insights to their target audience.

They also created a dedicated brand for their global blog, The 360 Blog, an excellent resource for anyone interested in CRM, sales, marketing, sustainability, and even employee experience.

One of the key areas that Salesforce focuses on in its content marketing is thought leadership.

They publish a wide range of content that provides insights and expertise on the latest trends and best practices in the CRM industry.

This helps to position Salesforce as a leader in the industry and builds trust and credibility with its target audience.

Additionally, Salesforce also provides a lot of resources and information on how their CRM software can help businesses solve specific problems and improve their operations.

3. DocuSign Content Marketing Example

One example of a B2B SaaS company that has been successful with a content marketing strategy that is not focused on blogging is DocuSign.

DocuSign is an electronic signature and digital transaction management software company. Instead of blogging,

DocuSign focused on creating and distributing high-quality, informative and educational webinars, case studies, and white papers.

DocuSign’s webinars are designed to educate their target audience on the latest trends and best practices in the digital transaction management industry. They also use webinars as a way to showcase their product and how it can help businesses to improve their processes and workflows.

They also have a library of case studies that provide real-world examples of how their product has helped other businesses in different industries to improve their operations.

Additionally, DocuSign publishes white papers that provide detailed information and insights on specific topics such as digital transformation and compliance.

By providing valuable information and resources through webinars, case studies and white papers, DocuSign helps to establish themselves as experts in the field of digital transaction management and positions their product as a valuable solution for businesses.

In terms of impact, DocuSign’s content marketing strategy has helped them to attract and retain a large number of customers, increase brand awareness and drive revenue growth.

DocuSign is now considered as one of the leading players in the electronic signature and digital transaction management space and as of 2021, the company has over 600,000 customers worldwide.

6-Step SaaS Content Marketing Strategy For Attracting and Retaining Customers

A well-executed content marketing strategy can help you establish your brand as an authority in your industry and build trust with your target audience.

The following 6-step strategy is designed to help you drive traffic, increase brand awareness, attract new customers and help retain existing ones.

Let’s dive into the process of SaaS content marketing:

Step 1 – Identify your target audience
Step 2 – Set the goals and objectives you want to achieve (Usually higher traffic and more conversions)
Step 3 – Develop a content strategy (this is where the real juice comes from)
Step 4 – Publishing and promoting your content
Step 5 – Measuring and analyzing the performance of your content
Step 6 – Optimize, analyze and repeat

Step 1 – Identifying your target audience

Defining your target audience is essential in any SaaS marketing strategy. It helps you understand your potential customers, their needs and pain points, and how you can best communicate with them.

Here are some of the specific steps you can take to define your target audience:

• Identify your product’s key features and benefits: Understand what your SaaS product does and how it can help solve specific problems for your potential customers.
• Research your industry: Look at the trends and challenges in your specific industry and identify common pain points that your SaaS product can address.
• Define your ideal customer: Consider factors such as demographics, job titles, and company size to create a detailed profile of your ideal customer.
• Analyze your existing customer base: This only applies if you already have a user base. Look at the characteristics of your current customers and identify patterns and commonalities among them.

Identifying your target audience and building an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is the most important aspect of a successful content marketing strategy.

If you know who you are creating the content for, you are better positioned to create content that connects with them.

The deal customer profiles you will build at this stage will go a long way in helping you choose the right channels, the tone to use, the type of content, and even the topics to choose from.

You can find a lot of customer profile templates, but the ones we like the most are from HubSpot. You can download the templates here.

Step 2 – Setting goals and objectives to align your content marketing efforts with your SaaS business objectives

Aligning your SaaS content marketing with your business objectives is crucial for ensuring that your efforts drive value for your company.

You might wonder, what do business objectives need to do with content marketing?

Well, the fact is if you do not align them, you’ll never hit the bottom line but if you do you can expect something like Slidebean.

Slidebean, a SaaS startup that drove $250,000 with its content marketing. They started with their business goal, which was more users and revenue.

They then defined metrics for success as their growth objectives (organic rankings/traffic), and then specified tactics they would use to generate results (evergreen content, link building, etc).

Now you get the idea of how they all align?

You take a further step by diving into the following tips to align your content marketing with your business objectives:

• Understand your sales funnel: Understand the stages of the sales funnel and how your content can support each stage.
• Identify key personas: Identify the key personas of your target audience and create content that addresses their specific pain points and interests.
• Map content to the customer journey: Create a content map that aligns with the customer journey and supports each sale funnel stage.
• Use data and analytics: Use data and analytics to understand what content is resonating with your audience and what is driving conversions.
• Regularly review and adjust your strategy: Regularly review your content marketing strategy and make adjustments based on the data and analytics you have collected.
• Integrate content marketing with other marketing efforts: Integrate your content marketing with other marketing efforts, such as email marketing, social media, and paid advertising, to maximize reach and conversions.

Step 3 – Develop a Content Strategy

A well-executed content strategy can position you as a thought leader and trusted resource in your industry. Developing a content strategy is essential for SaaS businesses as it can help attract new customers and retain existing customers.

At this stage, you will be building the pillars of your content marketing plan. And any content strategy should have the following things covered:

1. Identifying the types of content to create
2. Creating a content calendar
3. Establishing a consistent tone and voice
4. Editorial and brand guidelines

1. Identifying the types of content to create

When it comes to creating content, it’s like being a chef in a kitchen, you have a variety of ingredients at your disposal, and it’s up to you to mix and match them to create a delicious dish that your audience will love. But with so many options, how do you know which ingredients to use?

Let’s start with the most essential ingredient, written content. Blog posts, articles, e-books, and whitepapers are like the foundation of a building; they provide the necessary information and structure for your audience to understand your message.

They are great for in-depth explanations and can be easily shared and promoted on social media.

Imagine you’re the product manager at a project management SaaS brand; writing a blog post on the benefits of project management is a great way to educate your audience on the subject and establish yourself as an expert in your field.

But what if you want to add a personal touch to your content?

Enter video content, the heart, and the soul of your content creation.

Explainer videos, product demo launch videos, company culture/brand videos, and even webinars are like the cherry on top of the sundae; they give your audience a glimpse into your product and make it easy to connect with you personally.

Zapier is an excellent example of a SaaS brand that effectively uses video marketing to promote its product and connect with its audience.

They have a variety of video content on their YouTube channel, including demos, customer testimonials, and tutorials, which all showcase the power and versatility of their product.

Additionally, Zapier has used video to demonstrate the customer’s journey, including the onboarding process, which is a great way to build trust and show the value of their service.

Another example is User Pilot, which is an excellent example of webinar meant to educate users and make them successful by using their products.

Visual content such as graphics and infographics are like the seasoning in a dish, they add some flair and make complex information more digestible.

Finally, podcasts and audio content add an extra layer of entertainment and make it easy for your audience to consume your content while doing other tasks.

When identifying the types of content to create, think about your audience, what type of content they prefer and what you want to achieve.

Each type of content has its own unique strengths, so choose the ingredients that will create the perfect dish for your audience.

2. Creating a content calendar

Creating a content calendar is important because it helps you to plan and organize your content in advance.

By having a content calendar, you can make sure that you’re consistently creating and publishing content, which is important for keeping your audience engaged and building your brand.

A sample content calendar might include the following information:

• The type of content (e.g. blog post, video, podcast)
• The topic or theme of the content
• The target audience for the content
• The date the content will be published
• Any promotion or distribution plans for the content
• Any metrics or goals for the content

A content calendar can be as simple or as complex as you need it to be. It can be a basic spreadsheet with the above information or a more sophisticated tool that allows you to collaborate with your team and schedule social media posts.

It’s also important to note that having a content calendar doesn’t mean you can’t be flexible and change your plans if something comes up, but it does give you a roadmap to follow and helps to make sure you’re not scrambling to come up with content at the last minute.

Overall, creating a content calendar is a great way to stay organized and make sure that you’re consistently creating and publishing content that will help you to achieve your goals.

3. Establishing a consistent tone and voice

You know how sometimes you’re scrolling through social media or reading an article and you feel like the brand is speaking directly to you? Like they’re using your exact language and tone?

That’s not a coincidence – it’s because they’ve taken the time to establish a consistent tone and voice that aligns with their target audience.

It’s all part of their content marketing strategy. You see, when a brand can connect with their audience on a personal level, they’re more likely to build trust and credibility.

And that’s super important in the world of SaaS (Software as a Service) because people are more likely to buy from a company they trust.

So, how do they do it? Well, for starters, they develop a content style guide.

This is like a blueprint for how they want their content to sound. It outlines the appropriate tone and language to use in different types of content, such as blog posts, social media updates, and email marketing campaigns.

And it’s not just for the writers or marketers; it’s for everyone on the team. That way, everyone is on the same page and the brand’s voice stays consistent.

There are a variety of things you can do to make sure there lies consistency. A brand voice chart example by Content Marketing Institute can be the first step towards defining the tone and voice.

4. Editorial and brand guidelines

Editorial and brand guidelines help to define the voice, tone, style, and overall direction of your company’s content, ensuring that it is consistent and on-brand.

Not only it helps to maintain consistency in messaging and branding, but it also aids in building trust and establishing a strong relationship with your audience.

Additionally, it streamlines the content creation process for your team members, providing them with a clear direction to follow.

There are several steps you should follow to define these guidelines:

1. Establish your brand voice and tone: Your brand voice should reflect the personality of your company and should be consistent across all of your content. Determine the tone you want to use in your content, whether it is formal, casual, or somewhere in between.
2. Develop a visual identity: This includes creating a color palette, typography, and logo guidelines. This will help ensure that your visual elements are consistent across all of your content and help create a strong brand visual identity.
3. Identify key messaging: Determine the key messaging you want to communicate through your content and ensure that it aligns with your brand values and mission.
4. Review and refine: Continuously review and refine your brand guidelines as needed to ensure that they are up-to-date and aligned with your current content marketing goals.

Step 4 – Publishing and Promoting Content

So after the whole process of editorial changes, you must have your content ready to be published. But this is make or break situation. Here are a few things to keep in mind when you’re getting started:

• Checklists are your friend! Before you hit the publish button, make sure you’ve got a checklist of all the things you need to do to ensure your content is polished and ready to go.
  This can include items such as having a catchy title, making sure a table of content is added, formatting of the article is skimmable, a featured image is added, and there are a few more that can become part of your pre-publish checklist.
• Use a CMS (content management system) to make your life easier. This will help you easily make changes, publish content and even assign IDs to your writers to make sure they can even draft the articles.
• Make sure your content is search-friendly. This means making your content easy to be skimmed, with proper formatting. Usage of relevant keywords in meta title, meta description, image alt tags and others.
• Repurpose your content! Just because you’ve published something once, doesn’t mean you can’t use it again. For example, you can repurpose content by turning a blog post into a video or a podcast.
• Once your content is published, don’t forget to promote it! Share it on social media, email it to your subscribers, and reach out to influencers in your niche to see if they’ll share it too.

By following these steps, you’ll be able to publish and promote your content effectively, helping you to attract more traffic to your website and engage your audience.

Remember that it’s an ongoing process, it’s not a one-time action; you will need to keep publishing and promoting your content to be able to see the results.

Step 5 – Measuring and analyzing the performance of your content

Okay, so you’ve finished publishing and promoting your content, and now you should see how it’s performing because you want to scale the on producing the type of content that is performing well and improve what’s not working.

Without measuring content performance, you are doing no better than guessing. Which means you are giving up on control of your content marketing.

This step will help you make informed decisions about how to move forward. Here are a few key metrics to keep an eye on and the thought process behind analyzing them:

• Traffic: This measures how many people are visiting your website, and it’s a great way to see if your content is driving more visitors. Look at the overall traffic to your website, as well as the traffic to individual pieces of content.
• Engagement: This includes metrics like time on page, bounce rate, and click-through rate. These will give you an idea of how engaged your visitors are with your content and whether they’re actually reading it or just skimming.
• Conversion: This metric will tell you whether your content is actually leading to conversions. Are visitors signing up for your newsletter, downloading your whitepaper or becoming a customer?
• Sharing: how many people are sharing your content on social media, this can give you an idea of how your content is resonating with your audience.

By keeping an eye on these metrics, you can get a good sense of how your content is performing and make adjustments as needed. Remember to keep an eye on how these metrics change over time and make adjustments accordingly.

Step 6 – Optimize, analyze and repeat

Once you have all the data at your hand, you should optimize your content, making necessary changes and then again measure the performance.

It’s like you optimize, analyze, repeat and again optimize, analyze and repeat…

The more changes you make based on the data, the better your content marketing strategy would turn out to be.

Conclusion

When it comes to content marketing for SaaS companies, it’s all about understanding your audience and catering to their needs. This includes creating valuable and informative content that addresses the unique challenges faced by your audiences.

You should be always open to experimenting and trying new things because what could work for one brand might not work for your software.

Content marketing is an ongoing process. It’s not a one-time action. You’ll need to keep publishing, promoting, measuring, analyzing, and optimizing your content to see the best results.

Farasat Khan

Khan is an SEO consultant with 8 years of experience. His expertise has helped hundreds of brands generate additional revenue through search traffic. He is an SEO cum Digital Marketing specialist specializing in content strategy, search intent, and the sales funnel.