Connect with your audience by covering the topics they care about the most.
Plan out a network of interlinked blogs that answer related questions and help each
other rank.
Write and publish content that helps people, and watch your rankings go up!
Find topics and outlines catered to your business.
B2B Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) content marketers really have their work cut out for them. That’s because marketing a SaaS platform simply isn’t the same as trying to sell a concrete product. So, how do you effectively capture the benefits of one SaaS platform over another, especially when their differences are highly nuanced? Making things even more complicated, many SaaS transactions are based on a subscription model, as opposed to being one-and-done transactions. This means SaaS marketers have to find clever ways to present compelling value over time, to attract and engage customers, and provide them with enough value that re-upping’s a no-brainer.
What we’re saying shouldn’t come as a total shock. The importance of designing and deploying an effective SaaS content marketing strategy seems to be well understood by companies. According to the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), a majority of B2B and B2C companies (91% and 86%, respectively) understand “that content marketing is a fundamental strategy for SaaS.” What’s more, 73% of these companies say they do have a content marketing strategy—these, of course, are not all created equally. Without going into too much depth here, this essentially means two things for would-be SaaS content marketers:
Whether you’re dabbling as a freelance SaaS writer or you’ve already assembled a whole Saas writer portfolio and are looking for a few new tips, you’ve come to the right place! We’ve put this resource together—our Ultimate Guide to Saas Content—to help you hit the ground running with some best practices for how to write SaaS content that drives results. In it, we’ll answer three big questions:
Effective content writing can be a truly powerful tool for a business of any size and in virtually any industry, especially when that tool is wielded by a pro.
That being said, content creation for SaaS companies is just one piece of an all-important equation. Here, it’s important to distinguish between the terms content, content strategy, and content marketing. They’re each different, but they’re closely related to each other:
Modern search engines use complex algorithms in an attempt to understand user search queries and the types of website content those searchers are likely to find useful and relevant. Look no further than Google’s recent helpful content update, designed to “ensure people see more original, helpful content written by people, for people, in search results.”
How does this update work? It’s a little complicated…but in short, it uses machine learning to automatically evaluate published content in order to classify it as helpful or unhelpful. The most important takeaway from this update is the importance of writing human content for human readers. It’s all about creating the kind of content that can connect with prospects and help them understand how your product/service offerings can address their most compelling pain points.
Your future customers are out there—and will likely turn to a search engine when they’re looking for information, so the B2B SaaS content writer should focus on creating content that attracts and engages their ideal customers. In other words, getting them to your website is one thing—answering their questions and providing relevant information is another altogether. Content marketing helps you be there, for them, with the exact answers (and solutions) they’re looking for.
When you understand what Google is looking for, the value of Pillar-Based Marketing (PBM), our specialty, becomes apparent.
You’re probably wondering, “what is Pillar-Based Marketing?” In short, it’s an example of a specific content marketing approach that empowers companies to produce consistent, high-quality content that search engines—and customers—will both find value in. By producing a network of topically-related content, a company positions itself as a trustworthy authority on a given topic.
A typical PBM plan consists of 16 pieces of interlinked content, including one piece of Pillar content, three Sub-Pillars, and a dozen Supporting Blogs:
Here’s how all of your high-quality SaaS content can be linked together:
This linking structure signals to Google (and other search engines, presumably) that your content, website, and company are credible and appropriately geared toward human readers.
A number of compelling benefits come with successful content marketing, mainly centered around the development of productive, long-term relationships with high-value customers.
From a marketers’ perspective, the distinct advantages of B2B SaaS content marketing include its ability to help companies:
Speaking of useful, what do customers expect from a B2B SaaS company’s content? Whether they realize it or not, they’re looking to work with companies that understand them, are willing to learn about their pain points and priorities, and provide consistent engagement and messaging throughout—and even beyond—the buying process.
Another way to think about the benefits of content marketing for SaaS companies is to explore some of the best measures of content marketing success. There are five categories of metrics you can use to measure the effectiveness of your B2B SaaS content writing campaign, shown below:
These metrics gauge how familiar your customers are with your company, product, and/or service. If they don’t know you exist, they certainly can’t do business with you! A few solid brand awareness metrics include website statistics like unique users (website visitors), pageviews (per page), and unique pageviews (by a single visitor). Create and publish engaging and informative content to connect with prospects and educate them about what you’re offering.
These metrics help companies who are already getting a decent amount of website traffic to better-understand where these customers are coming from, how they’re finding your content, and how likely they might be to do business with you. Engagement metrics are primarily used to quantify how visitors behave once they find your website. These can include their total time on your site, time spent reading website content, click-through and bounce rates, and social media shares.
These metrics provide insight into how your content is performing when potential customers are searching for information related to your product or service offerings. Content marketers can use Google Search Console to review their performance and identify opportunities to improve their search engine results page (SERP) rankings.
As we’ve already discussed, the algorithms behind how major search engines (like Google) display results are designed to reward companies that produce genuinely helpful—not spammy—content. Page authority (how your pages rank) and domain authority (how relevant and credible your site is) are two key measures to consider. These can be difficult for rookies to measure and understand, but DemandJump’s SEO keyword research and content strategy planning tools can do much of the heavy lifting.
These metrics can illuminate how customers engage with your content in a way that progresses them through an optimal buyer’s journey. Two of the most important lead generation metrics for B2B SaaS content marketers are click-through rates and conversions. Click-through and conversion rates can be used to measure how frequently the readers of your content take one or more intended actions—like clicking on a Call-to-Action (CTA) button or following a link to schedule a product demo, for example.
These metrics are ideal for companies that want to use content to grow sales, and commonly include things like demo request sign-ups, sales conversion rates, and sales cycle length. Generally speaking, content marketing is meant to move prospects through an ideal buying journey that consists of three main stages: awareness, consideration, and conversion. When content is engaging—and produced/published according to a well-designed content strategy—it streamlines the buying journey and increases the strategy’s potential ROI by simplifying content creation and publication processes.
Like virtually anything else, successful content creation and marketing for SaaS companies comes down to having—and executing—an excellent plan. This is where things can get interesting, since there are so many variables to consider when developing your own objectives strategy. There are three main keys to success:
Let’s take a closer look at each of these three keys to success, so you can have everything you need to get started on your own framework and strategy.
A content marketing strategy framework essentially serves as the scaffolding or foundation on which you’ll execute your content strategy. It provides a structure that helps to ensure that your content strategy is well-planned, and that its ideal outcomes are both realistic and impactful.
The first step to designing a successful content marketing framework involves asking a series of questions. First, to identify the strategy’s objectives and then to think through how it will achieve them. To ensure that your strategy aligns with what your customers are actually looking for, start by asking these questions:
Once these questions have been answered, you can start thinking through more concrete, strategy-oriented questions, like:
Now that we’ve literally covered the who, what, when, where, why, and how of developing a content marketing framework, let’s keep moving. Next, we’ll discuss the elements of an effective content marketing strategy—and outline the roles, responsibilities, and contributions required for a successful campaign.
Considering the primary objective of content marketing—to attract, engage, and convert prospects into loyal, paying customers—the most essential elements for developing an effective strategy include:
There are 4 main steps to develop an effective B2B SaaS content marketing strategy:
Content marketing can be done in-house, outsourced to freelance writers (or a B2B SaaS content marketing agency), or these approaches can be combined. Either way, here are the main roles/responsibilities to account for, from big-picture strategy development to the nitty-gritty of content creation:
It’s worth noting that not every company is going to need to fill each of these roles individually. Sure, for an enterprise-level company, these responsibilities can be assigned to different individuals or teams, but what about smaller companies? In many cases, smaller organizations will benefit from a more streamlined organizational structure, where roles and responsibilities are combined.
DemandJump’s platform was designed with modern content marketers in mind, and provides the tools and insights needed for developing an effective content marketing framework and strategy. It makes it easy to identify and implement best practices for growing your business and driving a high ROI on content marketing initiatives.
Ready to elevate your content game, and harness the power of DemandJump and Pillar-Based Marketing? Use our SEO keyword research and content planning tools to gain a full understanding of your target audience(s), including their pain points and priorities. Our tools show you exactly what your customers are searching for, and identify your best opportunities to create the kind of content that will speak to their concerns and help them make the right decisions for their business. You can even see how you rank for any given keyword or keyword phrase against your top competitors, to prioritize the most compelling content objectives. With all of that intel in tow, then, you’ll be well on your way to developing highly-effective content in line with recommended content marketing methods and best practices.
Inspired to write? Ready to learn more? DemandJump empowers companies to develop winning strategies with minimal headaches. Click the button below to jump right into the platform, to give it a try (for free). You can also read some customer stories or listen to an episode of our Page One or Bust! podcast for useful content marketing examples and success stories.
