SaaS Content Marketing: 9,000 Word Guide For 2022

What type of marketing strategy costs 62% less than traditional marketing methods, but generates three times as many leads?

The answer is content marketing, and its popularity continues to increase. 82% of companies are currently using this marketing strategy, a 12% increase since last year. These are great stats for a new method employed by SaaS companies, so we can easily say that SaaS content marketing is right on track of being vital for most companies.

If you want your brand to keep up with others, you need to have a good content marketing strategy yourself. So, here’s the ultimate guide for you to start off if you’re new to content marketing, and to improve if you’ve started already. In this article, I will not only give a basic definition of content marketing but will also provide you with a solid framework through which you can plan your content marketing strategy.

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing, or, for the sake of this article, SaaS content marketing, is an inbound marketing strategy. It addresses a target audience’s inquiries by consistently creating meaningful content. Said content can be in any form and on any platform as long as the audience fits in with the brand’s consumer profile.

Now, what’s interesting is that content marketing strategies are not focused on explicitly advertising a product- they are more about helping people with their needs while showing them how your SaaS company could help them. This marketing technique can help you drive traffic to your landing pages, improve your brand’s reputation, increase your brand awareness, and grow your SaaS revenue.

How is SaaS Content Marketing Different?

SaaS companies have different obligations because their products are not physical, and they rely on long-term relationships with customers that are usually done on a subscription basis. This makes SaaS content marketing inherently different compared to the conventional way of marketing. This means that there are several SaaS-specific points your company has to consider while doing content marketing:

• You must be educative to improve the brand’s positioning

Your leads should see you as a knowledgeable expert in the field: that is how you get them to trust you and keep their business. The main component of SaaS content marketing is the trust your customers have towards you and your business.

• Search engine optimization is crucial for your brand

You need to be one of the first companies to pop up once a potential customer in their research stage asks a question. You should aim to drive traffic to your site as customers find SaaS products through digital channels. Visibility is vital since 62% of consumers overlook a business if they don’t recognize their online presence.

• You’re not only selling your service but also the support behind it

Customer service is vital for SaaS companies: if you can’t help your customers when they ask for it, they’ll likely switch to a competitor. Your support is not only vital for your SaaS content marketing but user retention and user activation as well.

• Good reviews and recommendations are important to get new and meaningful leads

Word of mouth is one of the best ways to create awareness for your brand and to pull people down your sales funnel.

However, even with all of these expectations from customers, 70% of marketers still lack a consistent or integrated content strategy. Follow the step-by-step guide below so that your SaaS company won’t be one of them.

An 8-Step SaaS Content Marketing Strategy

1. Define your Ideal Customer Profile

An ideal customer profile is a description of the company or consumer that will benefit the most from your services. The companies/consumers that fit this description are the quickest to buy your products, and they are the ones that stay loyal to your brand. This is vital when it comes to understanding what your SaaS content marketing should aim for.

So, how are ideal customer profiles different from buyer personas? Actually, ideal customer profiles are one type of buyer personas. However, not every buyer persona is your ideal customer. This is a vital point if you want to understand the nature of SaaS content marketing.

An ideal customer profile includes the firmographic details for companies and personal details of a customer, but these profiles are only the profiles that get your brand the most profit or attention. So, naturally, these profiles should be the center your SaaS content marketing strategy is built on. Without understanding the relationship between content marketing and user profiles, it is impossible to successfully create a proper content marketing strategy.

Your content will primarily be directed at your ideal customer profile, so start by learning about their characteristics. Some questions to ask are:

1. What’s the company’s budget/the consumer’s income level?
2. Which industry are they involved in?
3. What other brands do they work with?
4. Which media outlets do they use?

By using a good SaaS analytics tool like Hockeystack, you can identify the profile of customers with the highest retention rates, which would help with your marketing strategy. Once you do so, you can direct your focus at these types of customers instead of other profiles that are less fit for your brand. Your sales reps shouldn’t waste time on leads that won’t buy from you because of predetermined factors. This sort of automation will make your SaaS content marketing much more efficient.

One last thing to keep in mind about ideal customer profiles is that they should be updated from time to time. The profile will change as your company evolves and improves over time, and you shouldn’t limit yourself to the customer type that worked for you in the past. This is the case for most of the metrics that are related to SaaS content marketing. Keeping your metrics up to date is essential for succeeding in content marketing and is a must-have for your marketing strategy.

2. Analyze your competition

SaaS content marketing is a very important area where you need to keep your competitors in mind. You need to know how they are pulling leads so that you don’t lose yours to their strategies.

I have talked about content gap analysis as a good inbound marketing strategy in our inbound marketing strategies guide, however, that was just one way of keeping track of your competitors. There are several other aspects you need to analyze which are:

• Their sources of traffic

Where do your competitors get traffic from? Does it come from direct visits, referrals, social media, or other sources? By knowing their strongest source, you can identify the areas you should be competing in and build your content strategy accordingly. You can increase your user engagement by identifying sources of traffic and refining your content to ensure that it adds value.

• Their backlinks

Backlinking is crucial when it comes to search engine optimization. A good number of high quality backlinks can improve the rankings of your content. By looking at the backlinks of your competitors, you can decide on the standards for your own backlinking strategies, which can, in turn, help you with your search engine optimization.

There are two types of competitors when it comes to backlinking:

1. Domain-level competitors
2. Page-level competitors

Domain-level competitors compete with your website as a whole, not with just one article or one keyword. They are likely to be competitor brands within your industry that target the same audience as you.

Page-level competitors are pages that compete with you on specific keywords. They are not necessarily targeting the same people as you, and they might not even be in the same industry as you.

You should perform a separate backlink analysis for each type of competitor, and use effective backlinks yourself. Use a good SEO reporting tool like the ones mentioned below to look at their referrers, and start using them in your own content.

• Their advertisements

In addition to the referrers and backlinks, you should also have an idea about the advertising strategy of your competitors. Some things to look out for are the extensions they use and the separate landing pages they have for their ads.

Once you understand how their ads are structured, you should analyze the traffic that they are getting from them. If they are successful, analyze their ad copies, CTAs, and other tricks to use in your content. Having a general idea about your competitor’s budget also tells you about how much you should be spending on your paid content distribution.

Some good tools you may use to analyze your competition are:

1. Semrush: an SEO tool that shows you the keywords you should be competing for with other additional features, such as the ability to examine competitor performance and backlinking.
2. Buzzsumo: a social media analytics tool that helps you identify trending topics, keywords and competitor strategies.
3. Ahrefs: a SEO tool that helps you research the backlinks and traffic of your competition.
4. Moz: a competitor of Semrush and Ahrefs, offering advanced keyword search, site audits and rank tracking.

3. Define topics you will write about

Now that you know about your ideal customers’ needs and your competitors’ strategies, how can you combine your knowledge and create quality content to increase the quality of your SaaS content marketing?

Start by defining the topics you’ll write about. While searching for topics, your first step should be to identify the needs of people at the different stages of their customer journey. You’ll have an easier time if you look at this journey by using Hockeystack and analyzing the different steps your leads go through. This way, you’ll know the obstacles that they face or the questions that may arise. You can then define topics that will address their needs at any stage of their journey.

But if I have to generalize the needs of different customers at different stages of their purchase (and so at different parts of your sales funnel), it’ll look a little like this:

The people at the top of your funnel require basic knowledge related to your field: their question may be as basic as “What’s marketing reach?” Do not ignore these fundamental questions and have topics that directly address them to create awareness for your brand.

The people in the middle of your funnel will be researching more specific keywords. If the same customer who had asked about marketing reach moves down the funnel, they may search for a more sophisticated inquiry like “How to improve B2B SaaS Marketing strategies, or how to improve B2B SaaS Marketing Metrics.” These leads do not have problems with your product, but their problems are about general topics that can be solved by your product. Thus the topics you define for them should look like how-to guides with titles such as “How to find your customer persona.”

The people at the end of your funnel may have very specific pain points that need to be dealt with. These may be about:

1. Having a hard time learning about integrating a SaaS tool to their site due to a lack of support, which may be handled by topics focused on your set-up process or about the usage of new features.
2. Struggling to see how your service is a solution to their problem, which can be clarified by providing user guides that show how your tool helps them with the process.
3. Doubts about credibility, which may be managed by comparison posts and reviews.

If you’re a brand that has used content marketing before, gather all the content you’ve already published and analyze their performance. You may want to look back at the topics that were in high demand and address them once again. If you’re completely new and starting your content marketing strategy afresh, create your content marketing plan based on the topics you have just identified, your ideal customer profiles’ needs, and the gaps of your competitors. Now you need to create a timeline for their publication.

All of these might sound complicated at the first glance, but as you gain experience in SaaS content marketing, all of these will become much easier and there is always potential to automate most of the basic work that you have to do at the beginning.

4. Create an editorial timeline

The standards are high for SaaS content marketing: you need consistent and quality content, and you need it at the right time. Publishing too little is just as worse as publishing way too much or publishing irregularly. Your content marketing efforts are dependent on the effort you spend on your content as well as the time.

Too little or irregular content lowers your chances of popping up on searcher’s screens, and publishing too much means less quality and more rushed content, which won’t satisfy the readers.

You need to find a balance between publishing lengthy, quality content and delivering quickly to your audience. This requires good organization and delegation and is fundamental for SaaS content marketing.

That’s why you need to create an editorial timeline. On this timeline you’ll track:

• The topics and content types to be posted,
• The author/editor/publisher that will be assigned,
• The publishing date,
• The promotional channels,

And any other detail that seems necessary for your organization.

5. Choose distribution channels and create a content distribution strategy

Distribution channels define the path your product goes through before reaching a consumer. They aim to promote products and make them accessible to the right scale of customers as soon as possible. Those involved for SaaS companies are mainly media channels, and they can be separated into three categories:

1. Owned media channels: your brand’s website, social media accounts, email newsletter, and other channels you own.
2. Earned media channels: looks like other brands mentioning your product in their own channels or reviews about your products,
3. Paid media channels: Collaborate with influencers and top micro influencers that your target audience already follows and look into paid social media ads, etc.

As a SaaS company, you’ll be using all of these channels for your content distribution strategy. It’s important to find a good channel to content fit. To find the right channels, you will go through a few steps including:

1. Asking questions about your content
2. Benchmarking
3. Analyzing the costs and benefits of the channel

The first step is to ask some fundamental questions about when creating content. What will your keyword research strategy look like? Where will you publish your content? What tone and style will you use? How often will you optimize your content? Will you focus on blog posts or will you look into other styles of content as well?

Here, it is also important to keep in mind that different types of content will require different platforms.

If you’re mainly publishing blog posts, you may consider paid media channels to get other brands to mention your posts. So, if your content marketers could find out which channels your ideal customers are frequenting, say Instagram, and reach out to different relevant brands for paid promotions to increase awareness about your own brand.

The second step is benchmarking. With this method, you’ll research your competition’s distribution channels and strategy, and create a model that’s at least as efficient as that of your competitors’. Your content marketers will then ask similar questions to the ones mentioned in the first step explained above except that this time, the focus will be on your competitors’ content creation and distribution process.

Once you get an idea of what their keyword research strategy might look like, you’ll look for the distribution methods that they use for their content and measure their benefits. To find the most productive channels that they use, you’ll want to use key performance indicators (KPIs).

The third step is analyzing the costs and benefits of a channel. Use a PPC report to see if your paid channels are worth their cost. Make sure to measure the effectiveness of your content distribution channels by using these content marketing metrics and KPIs (which are explained below).

Once you’ve established the right channels for your different content types, set a goal for each one. What do you expect from your social media ads or your reviews? Do you want to increase traffic, create awareness, or build your reputation? You’ll later measure the performance of your strategies by comparing the results and your initial goals.

6. Position your product as the solution

I have talked about customers’ pain points and addressing them under the third headline. But providing general solutions and not showing people the right tools isn’t good for anybody. You need something extra for your SaaS content marketing and content marketing efforts to be successful.

This is where your products come in. For a reader looking for ways to improve their marketing reach, you’ll talk about your insights tool and explain how it’s used to understand visitors’ pain points. You’ll tell them about your product’s ability to track page-based metrics, and you’ll even give them a short step-by-step guide.

There are some key points you still need to keep in mind while promoting your product as a solution though. These points are:

• Don’t make your content all about your product. Your posts should mainly be educative, giving the reader information that they can use without your product as well. This way, they are likely to come back to your articles and have a better impression.
• Don’t force your product into an article if it’s not really a solution to the user’s problem. This will make your content seem like a forced ad, which is the exact opposite of what content marketing is about.
• Don’t make your content too general to show your product to a lot of people. There isn’t a crowd of people actively searching for a solution that your brand provides. Know that content marketing is supposed to be targeted, and that its intent is to reach the right people, not all people.

7. Measure performance

Once you’ve gone through every step that I’ve described above, your content strategy is good to go. But how do you know if it’s working as you want it to?

You know by measuring your performance as you do with every other marketing technique. For content marketing specifically, you should be using key performances indicators (KPIs.)

KPIs measure performance for a certain strategic goal over a specific amount of time. They are used by SaaS companies to figure out how well their content marketing strategy is working out. While metrics track specific actions, KPIs measure overall performance with respect to a specific goal. A metric and a KPI aren’t the same things, but metrics are used in KPIs.

There are countless different KPIs that you can create for your content strategy’s needs, but all of these different indicators can be categorized under eleven main types:

1. Quantitative Indicators: only use numbers to measure progress,
2. Qualitiative Indicators: do not use numbers, examples include customer satisfaction surveys where the opinions are typed out,
3. Leading Indicators: verify long term trends and predict possible positive outcomes for the future,
4. Lagging Indicators: compare performance before and after a certain change is made in order to measure the initiatives’ success,
5. Input Indicators: record the resources needed for a goal such as funding,
6. Output Indicators: measure the success of a business activity or process such as profit, new customers acquired, etc,
7. Process Indicators: measure the efficiency of a business,
8. Practical Indicators: examine the effectiveness of brands’ existing processes, which may be unique to the companies,
9. Directional Indicators: measure a company’s success by comparing with rival brands and examining specific metrics.
10. Actionable Indicators: measure the ability of a company to adapt to changes and improvements,
11. Financial Indicators: measure the monetary stability and growth of a brand

There is a wide range of KPIs that belong to each one of these categories, but some of the most popular ones include sales growth, which is a quantitative and financial indicator, hours of resources spent on sales follow up, which is a process indicator, and monthly website traffic, which is an output indicator.

Your KPIs will be specific to your brand’s long-term goals and content strategy. You may create original KPIs that are tailored for your needs, or you may use the popular KPIs like the ones mentioned above. As long as you have specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based goals and select KPIs that are fit to follow these goals, you’ll be on the right track.

As I’ve mentioned above, KPIs involve a combination of different metrics. In order to record them, use tools like Hockeystack and get qualitative data plus automated insights, use tools like Ahrefs and track how your content ranks on search engines, and use tools like Mailchimp to get detailed reports about your campaigns. Software analytics tools like these make it possible for you to create displays and reports modified for your brand.

8. Optimize the process and content

After measuring your performance via KPIs, you’ll have a good understanding of your SaaS content marketing strategies’ strengths and weaknesses. Now, it’s time for you to optimize the process by updating your topics, editorial timeline, and content distribution strategies according to the results. At this stage, it would also help to conduct keyword research once again to ensure that there aren’t any extremely relevant keywords that you’re currently not ranking on.

If your strategies are all working–great! Locate the specifics (such as the type of content that’s thriving, or the distribution channel that is working best) and focus on using more of that method. If some of your strategies are underperforming, which is alright and quite likely, make adjustments and see improvements via lagging KPIs.

As you can see, content marketing is all about adjusting and catering to your audience’s needs. If your content strategy is constantly improving with this in mind, and if you keep on making unique, meaningful, targeted, and quality content, you’ll reap the benefits of this inbound marketing technique. This need for constant change and tracking is especially important for SaaS content marketing since it does not deal with conventional ways of selling a product.

SaaS Content Marketing Metrics

Regardless of the industry you work in, if you are doing SaaS content marketing, you need to track its results. Many SaaS companies track these metrics to increase their content marketing efforts. This tracking of results also constitutes a vital part of their marketing strategy.

You need to know how your blog posts, social media actions, or ads are working. Because while you are thinking that you are doing a great job, certain types of content might be repelling customers.

Or you might be overlooking a channel that is actually bringing in customers that are ready to convert.

There are tons of different content marketing metrics that you can track to optimize your business and achieve your full potential.

But the ones I picked here are the 15 most crucial content marketing metrics to track for your high-growth business.

1. Unique Pageviews

Unique page views measure the number of sessions where a certain page was downloaded at least once.

This is actually a very simple metric to track, but you shouldn’t overlook it because it’s easy. It is still one of the most important metrics for SaaS.

Unique page views can give you an idea of your website traffic, the number of new and returning customers, and which pages are more interesting.

Many digital analytics tools, including HockeyStack Analytics, will allow you to access your unique page views and also provide you with additional and insightful data.

However, one thing to keep in mind is that you will not have access to enough data for content that is outside of your own website. So if you have blog on Medium.com and you want to see the unique page views for those blog posts, you may not obtain efficient data.

2. Social Media Interactions

Social media is now a part of our day-to-day lives and it’s where we spend most of our online time. So, it is a great outlet for your content.

And once you have your content out there, you should track how it’s doing. You need to keep an eye out for all possible social interactions.

They could be

• comments,
• likes,
• followers,
• shares,
• reposts,
• saves,
• direct-messages (dms), etc.

All the data you collect from your social media interactions will provide knowledge to your target audience profile and will help you create a customer persona for next marketing campaigns.

You can also use the data to optimize your content and transform it into a form where it will interest more people and acquire more customers.

3. Followers/Subscribers

Your followers or subscribers are people who have enjoyed your previous content and want to be updated on your new content.

This is another metric that is easy to measure because it is quantitative and it will not take a lot of your time and effort.

Higher numbers of subscribers indicate that your content resonates with your audience and is interesting.

That’s why it is important to track the number of followers/subscribers your business has.

4. Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is the percentage of customers that leave your website after only seeing a single page.

High bounce rate is an indicator of content failing to interest your customers. If they are not entertained or engaged they won’t be moving further in the conversion funnel.

Your content will not apply to every single person and there will be accidental clicks, so it is inevitable to have some amount of bounce rate.

Your goal should be to keep it as low as possible, around 40% is a good bounce rate that you can target.

5. Backlinks

Inbound links are when other businesses link your website or content on their websites. This makes your company look credible and authoritative.

The more inbound links or backlinks you have will help you become a thought leader in your industry.

When you track the amount of backlinks you will be able to see your business’ growth over time and be able to evaluate your success.

However, as with everything, not all backlinks are of equal quality. Focus on acquiring high quality backlinks from relevant sites.

6. Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Click-through rate or CTR means the percentage of clicks on an ad per impression.

You can calculate your own click-through rate by using this formula. Your CTR will show how effective your lead generation efforts are.

It depends a lot on your copywriting and CTA buttons. The more interesting they are the more likely you are to get customers to do what you want them to do and increase your click-through rate.

7. Conversion Rate

You have various different leads coming from various different paths. Whether they come from your newsletter, your e-book, your “contact us” page, or anywhere; your goal is to make them convert to paying customers.

And to increase the conversion rate, you need to measure the conversion rate.

All leads go through different sales cycles and funnels and you need to track each and every one of those conversions and see which path generates the most leads.

This doesn’t mean tracking only the number of conversions, but also seeing how it relates to time and your different marketing campaigns so that you can make the right conversion rate optimization efforts.

8. Exit Rate

Exit rate might seem similar to bounce rate, but it’s actually very different than that.

Bounce rate records only one page the customer views before leaving your website. Whereas exit rate considers every single page the customer views before they leave.

This is a critical metric to measure for SaaS companies, especially if they have created a funnel for conversion that flows through content on their website.

Tracking the exit rate will help you see which stage many people tend to bail out and will give you an idea of what to change and improve.

But you should realize that the exit rate at some pages are meant to be highfor all SaaS companies. Like the “contact us” page or the “exit” page after a purchase. High levels of exit rate on those pages will mean that a lot of people have successfully completed the sales cycle.

9. Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)

Your business’ monthly recurring revenue (MRR) is one of the most essential metrics to track if you want to visualize your growth —which you should. Without understanding your MRR, it is not possible to measure how well your content marketing is going.

It will not only help you see how much your revenue has grown but also help you get feedback on your marketing efforts for that month.

You can use a tool like Profitwell or ChartMogul to track your MRR and other revenue metrics.

10. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

A business is very likely to fail to become a successful brand because they are not able to acquire customers at a low cost. This also speaks volumes about how well their content marketing is going.

You cannot spend the money you don’t have on new customers. And you certainly cannot spend it on customers if they won’t bring back more money.

That is why it is very important to track your customer acquisition cost and plan your marketing spend accordingly.

Here is the formula:

11. Sales Cycle Length

You need to be aware of how long your business’ average sales cycle is and also what an expected sales cycle length is for your industry.

The longer a sales cycle is, the more you spend time, money and resources. So, you need to focus on trying to shorten the cycles as much as possible. Shortening these cycles is essential if you want to gain an edge over your competitors when it comes to SaaS content marketing strategy.

Tracking the sales cycle length will allow you to see which point you can cut out and see which channels are the fastest for conversion.

12. Customer Retention Rate (CRR)

You want to make sales, but you also want people to come back for more. This will show how valuable your products are and how much they resonate with your target audience.

Calculating the customer retention rate (CRR) will help you see the percentage of customers that are coming back to buy from your business again. This metric creates the foundation of your SaaS content marketing strategy since it provides you with a direct way to measure success.

Here is a simple formula to measure CRR:

Make sure not to include the newly acquired customers for the month.

13. Churn Rate

Churn rate is the amount of customers that stop using your products after a purchase. It is the opposite of customer retention rate (CRR).

Reasons why customers are leaving might be more advanced features, lower prices, better service, etc.

Whatever it is, higher rates of churn means that your business will have to work harder and spend more money to maintain its revenue.

Therefore, it is important always track the churn rate, understand why it happens with a survey tool, and make sure it stays as low as possible.

Here is the formula:

14. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

Customer lifetime value is the amount of money that can be expected from a customer until they stop being a customer of your business.

It is very crucial because it shows how valuable your customers are and determines how much you can spend to acquire more customers.

This is how you calculate your customer lifetime.

And once you have that, you can calculate the CLV by using this formula:

ARPA: average revenue per account.

Notice that the customer lifetime value is inversely proportional to the churn rate. So if you decrease your churn rate, your CLV will automatically increase.

SaaS Content Marketing Examples That Will Inspire You

1. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is a toolset for SEO and backlink analysis. They are known for creating marketing opportunities for their clients and helping them increase visibility.

They are good at helping other businesses, but they also do an exemplary job with their own marketing —which is based on producing content.

Ahrefs’ holistic content strategy is bringing their blog more than 500,000 monthly visitors, an e-mail list with more than 100,000 subscribers, and more than 200,000 subscribers to their YouTube channel.

And it only has three key points:

• Creating content about topics relevant to their company and also searched on platforms like Google and Youtube by their target audience
• Educating and nurturing leads on Twitter and their newsletter
• Increasing customer retention and building brand loyalty through their help-center, academy, and overall the tool itself.

Going Beyond Blogs

Ahrefs has an excellent blog on their website which contains posts that create a lot of traffic. But they don’t just stop there —although they have one of the most lead-driving blogs in their industry.

They also put a lot of energy into utilizing their YouTube channel.

Content in video format has become very popular because of various reasons such as being able to show character and personality more easily, be more descriptive, and be more engaging. All of these metrics are especially useful when it comes to your SaaS content marketing strategy.

Most people search on YouTube the same way they would on Google. They look at blog posts, but they also check out videos.

The channel is continuously growing and Ahrefs is using it to their advantage.

They create videos that explain key topics and are about only 10 minutes. They dive right into the content and include as many advice suggesting action as possible.

Their goal is to cover a topic of the audience’s interest and show that their tools and services are the solution to their problem.

Key Takeaways

Blogs are a powerful channel that will generate a lot of organic reach. But they shouldn’t be your only way of acquiring customers.

Try other channels like YouTube that can also be as effective and bring as many leads. New mediums and channels may open the door to a completely new group of potential buyers.

2. GrowSurf

GrowSurf is a customer acquisition automation tool for B2C and B2B tech companies. They founded in 2015 and successfully accomplished growth with powerful strategies.

They have spent a lot of time and effort building their business foundation and figuring out their marketing strategies.

They say that they have had a slow and steady progress until they properly designed their product vision and decided on goals. They based their target audience on their product vision, and their content strategy on their target audience.

Public Data

GrowSurf shares all of their data publicly to build their company in public as what they call an “Open Startup.”

They are actively sharing core metrics that represent the health of their SaaS business like MRR, ARR, active customers, new customers, etc. They show their goals, how well customers are getting results, and how they handle traffic.

This strategy they follow, prove to their leads that they have nothing to hide. It helps create a nourish customer journeys and increase intimacy. Because GrowSurf is so transparent with their data, they become a trustworthy brand in the eyes of potential customers.

Key Takeaways

Being able to form healthy customer relationships is the key to sales success. GrowSurf does this very well by sharing their data publicly and creating transparency.

Customers get to know what goes on inside the business and have solid proof to believe who they are working with.

3. Lemlist

Lemlist is a cold email and sales automation tool for B2B SaaS companies. They offer clients assistance with email templates and help them improve customer relationships. Their focus on improving customer relationships provides especially useful when it comes to improving the efficiency of your SaaS content marketing strategy.

They have shown a rapid growth from zero to $1M annual recurring revenue over the course of just two years. All thanks to their brilliant content strategy.

They have an excellent blog where they actively post content relevant to their audience. They also create explanatory YouTube videos and are active on various social media platforms —not to mention they are experts in cold email marketing.

Utilizing LinkedIn

LinkedIn is not perceived as an effective marketing channel by most people, but according to Lemlist, it has been one of their marketing channels with the highest ROI.

They give attention to their LinkedIn account as much as they do with any other social media. Lemlit’s number one goal with LinkedIn posts is to inspire action.

They believe that a LinkedIn post should be about a topic you have mastered, something that motivates you, or an experience you have had. In other words, they should be moving around a story.

Some tips they use for their own LinkedIn content strategy and encourage everyone else to try are:

• Writing a catchy intro
• Using short phrases and avoiding long paragraphs
• Tagging relevant people and places
• Using hashtags in order to increase reach
• Including engaging photos

Key Takeaways

LinkedIn can be a very powerful marketing channel for your business. You definitely shouldn’t ignore it and give it try. Who knows, it might end up creating a high marketing reach and conversion rate.

4. Outreach

Outreach is a sales engagement platform with the goal of helping their clients drive more pipeline and close more deals.

Their website can easily be used as an information and guidance base by anyone interested in sales and outreach —professional or amateur.

If you just hover over their “Resources” button you will have access to everything they have to offer —including a library with collective resources, a blog, various webinars, a community forum called “The Peak“, a podcast “Sales Engagement“, and many additional content on Sales Hacker.

Outreach University

Along with all they already offer, they also have their very own university for anyone wanting further master their sales and outreach skills.

They offer live training sessions and webinars as a part of specific programs that come with learning tracks.

By completing your courses you can become a Prospecting Specialist, Closing Specialist, and/or an Admin Specialist. The badges and certification you earn will prove your eligibility in sales, closing deals, and also the use of Outreach.

This university is perfect for sales teams wanting to improve their skills and get the best experience out of Outreach.

Key Takeaways

Once you become an authority in your industry, a University you have to offer people is going to very valuable. Because people trust your work, they are going to want to learn it from you. And this can help you drive a lot of traffic and qualified leads.

5. Close

Close is a CRM software that works with sales teams to generate more revenue from leads and improve overall sales.

Their marketing team consists of only two people and they have managed to grow immensely over the course of four years. And the most interesting part is that their marketing depends only on content marketing which means you will get more from your existing SaaS content marketing strategy.

Quality is Key

Steli Efti, CEO of Close, reveals their secret to an extremely successful SaaS content marketing strategy

He says that in the last four years they have been working non-stop to generate as many pieces of content as possible. The fact that they have so much content out there increases their visibility, but Efti also believes in offering content with high value.

Their initial reason for going with an only-content-marketing strategy was because they had realized that most of the content on the internet did not offer value.

Key Takeaways

Both quality and quantity can be very definitive in your content efficiency. Quantity will provide you a larger marketing reach and quality will make your content actually worth spending time on.

6. Streak

Streak is a customer relationship management software that offers guidance on email marketing, CRM, productivity, and sales.

They have been in the industry for over a decade and they have been able to develop a powerful content strategy that resulted in high-growth and increase in conversions.

They draw out their customer personas very carefully and put a lot of focus on creating content that will be satisfying the audience.

Categorizing Content

Streak has a very strong online blog with hundreds of valuable articles. What they’ve done really well with all of those content was to thoughtfully categorize them.

They have created a special “Knowledge Base” section on their website with all the articles covering key topics like pipelines, email sharing, or contacts, and organizations are categorized.

This makes it so much easier for visitors to find articles they’ve been looking for without Streak having to cut off the number of articles they publish.

Key Takeaways

Sometimes large blogs can get messy and complicated. Creating categories and assigning articles to the related topics might help you tidy up and offer a better user experience.

7. UserGuiding

UserGuiding is a software that helps with user onboarding by offering engaging manuals, templates, guides, and more.

They have been able to form a marketing strategy that granted them rapid growth over just four years. And a big part of this strategy depends on content.

They do a great job at carefully analyzing their audience and creating content that applies to them. They work hard to always keep their content fresh and updated. And they perfect their strategy with thoughtfully done SEO.

Building A Strong Foundation

UserGuiding has an exceptional content strategy, but what really put them forward was their carefully planned foundational-pillar content. They started off strong, so they didn’t have to worry later.

At the very beginning of their journey, they inspected their audience and specified their problems, questions, and needs.

This way UserGuiding was able to create their initial pieces of content that formed a strong base for their strategy. And it was a piece of cake to move on from there.

Key Takeaways

Content strategies depend a good deal on audience analysis, careful SEO, great SEO tools, and up to date content. But one thing that can really get you going is a strong foundation.

8. Intercom

Intercom, an online communication support tool, has one of the most powerful content strategies in its industry.

They have a great way with words. The copywriting in Intercom’s content is just irresistible. They know exactly which words to use in which type content to which segment of their audience.

However, this doesn’t mean they only produce textual content. When it comes to sharing content, Intercom has quite an assortment of channels. They have books, an online blog, a YouTube channel, and even a podcast.

Creating Conversation on Your Business

Intercom has worked hard on creating a podcast where they get to talk about business strategies and scaling businesses.

They have all sorts of episodes from interviews with industry leaders to covering key topics like digital transformation.

It is a way for them to give unique insights to the audience while also creating customer bonds. Unlike written content, podcasts feel more casual and intimate. They require half the effort a video does and are much are more easier for the audience to consume.

Key Takeaways

A podcast can be a very engaging channel for you to put your ideas out and create visibility for your products/services. It can quickly create an audience of qualified leads —that will have a bond with your business.

Podcasts can also allow you to keep the budget low, and still be able to deliver your entire message as efficiently.

9. Drift

Drift allows businesses to communicate with the right customers in real-time. It’s a conversational AI that helps scale your team to drive more revenue.

They have built a sturdy content strategy over the years. They believe in “quality over quantity” and show that in their work.

Whether if they’re writing a blog post or creating a YouTube video, they are always focused on delivering the best content out there.

They also believe in creating communities. For Drift their audience base doesn’t just mean conversions, it also means future growth.

Chatbots that Build Relationships

Their content strategy relies a good deal on communication as well.

They have created a chatbot in their blog that pops up in the bottom right corner every time a potential customer is reading a blog post. As leads spend more time on the website and move down the marketing funnel, chats get more specific and attractive.

The chats usually offer more content specifically picked for the lead’s interest in hopes of movement toward conversion.

The response to these chats (whether as words or as actions), informs Drift about which direction their future content strategy should head.

Key Takeaways

Including a chatbot with your blog posts or website content can give you the opportunity to “push” leads closer to buying.

It might also help you create a bond with the visitors, collect their emails, and develop customer relationships.

10. Asana

Asana is a web and mobile app that acts as an assistant that helps businesses organize, track, and manage teams, ideas, and projects.

Asana, themselves, are always on top of their content game too. They keep an organized and dynamic content calendar to always stay on track.

They adjust their content according to marketing funnel stages and know exactly how to design their content to attract the target audience.

Keep It Engaging

They do an incredible job by offering a wide range of interactive content and events (both online and face-to-face) alongside their comprehensive blog.

They offer events that target generic audiences and also very specific ones like college students or Southeast Asian startups. The events include webinars, virtual workshops, presentations, and more.

Key Takeaways

Blog articles with valuable information and insight are great, but let’s be honest, they can get a little boring. To avoid this, make sure to offer some interactive content options as well.

Virtual events, workshops, courses, and face-to-face meetings are all great options.

11. ConvertKit

ConvertKit is an lead generation and email marketing automation software aimed at professional content creators.

They help people create effective content strategies, but they’ve also got an amazing one themselves.

They analyze their target audience and determine topics to cover based on their interests. Later they work to create different types of content that will be appealing to the audience. And finally, they either repurpose the content for other mediums or go on with promoting.

Building Personal Connection

The one thing ConvertKit values the most is building a personal connection with customer stories.

They feature personal stories from their customers about struggles and success that helps them create a bond with the audience. And at very end, they mention how ConvertKit was able to solve that client’s problem.

They have even created a series called “Creator Stories” dedicated only to their customers’ journeys.

Key Takeaways

Personal stories and experiences of others before help people feel warmer towards your brand. The key is to first introduce the story, and mention your business’ contribution later on.

12. Shopify

Shopify is an ecommerce platform that allows anyone to set up their own online store and sell products.

Their aim is to create original content and show personality with their content strategy. They make sure that the content they put aut there is unique and authentically theirs.

Shopify’s purpose with their content is to always keep it clear, concise, and formed in order to satisfy the audience’s interests.

Providing Resources

Shopify offers lessons and guides by renowned business leaders and experts to their clients. They make sure to provide the resources that will allow customers to improve themselves while using Shopify services.

They are dedicated to upload fresh content, updates, or progress checks each month without a skip. This way they not only get to increase traffic on their content, but also move leads down the marketing funnel.

Key Takeaways

Shifting a portion of your focus on creating educational and informational content for you visitors may end up benefiting you more than you can imagine.

The more qualified leads will be tempted to consume content that can help them with your products and industry. The more learning resources you have the more qualified leads you acquire.

And the plus side is, you can create these types of content regardless of the medium. Video? Podcast? Social media? You name it.

13. Canva

Canva is one of many free logo creators and DIY design tools. It is a graphic design platform that allows anyone from beginners to experts to create logos, flyers, presentations, social media content, and other visual products.\

When creating content they use a mix of different mediums including videos, instructions, infographics, guest post, personal stories and more.

They focus on their audience’s wants and needs, and offer content that will be engaging as well as beneficial.

Offering Tutorials

One thing that many businesses neglect, but Canva executes flawlessly is product tutorials. Especially since their product is very interactive and their success depends a lot on user experience, tutorials make up a big part of their content strategy.

They keep their tutorials very simple, to the point, and visually appealing. This way they allow their customers to make the most out of a Canva experience.

What’s great about tutorials is that they can be in a video, or slideshow, or flashcard, or any format you want. You can create entertaining content along with providing support.

Key Takeaways

It’s always a good idea to ensure that people who signed up for your solution know how to get the best experience out of it.

All types of tutorials can be a great way to achieve that. You will be delivering informative content to your customers while also making sure that you offer the best user experience.

14. Mailchimp

Mailchimp, a marketing automation and email marketing software, has one of the most powerful and holistic content strategies that brings high rates of conversion.

Mailchimp finds gaps in the industry that haven’t been addressed by competitors before and creates unique content to fill the gaps.

This way, their content is always organic and authentic to their brand personality.

Power of Films and Narrative

Mailchimp uses the art of film and storytelling to reach the depths of their audience’s minds and plant ideas.

They touch on people’s biggest problems and pain points through short films and documentaries —allowing themselves a path to the audience’s subconscious.

Mailchimp has a wide narrative of success stories, entrepreneurship examples, and career paths. They create a connection with the audience by showing them the journey of building and growing a business.

Key Takeaways

Customer pain points are the easiest way to create a connection. People have problems and they search for solutions.

Using storytelling and film to explore your audience’s issues and present practical solutions to them using your content. With high quality content spread across multiple marketing channels, you can increase your chances of reaching your target audience and present them with valuable information and practical solutions to their problems. This way, you can build credibility in the industry and set yourself apart from the competition.

Remember though, simply creating content is not enough. Content marketing is an ongoing process and you will have to keep a close eye on various content marketing metrics such as conversions, scroll time, bounce rate, customer lifetime value, and MRR. In doing so, you will be able to optimize your content marketing strategy to get the results you need.

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