Content Marketing Tips For SaaS

In this article, you’ll learn:

In SaaS content marketing is a low touch or touchless acquisition strategy centered on cultivating leads. Your content alone must have its own “unique selling proposition.” In other words, your audience, search engines, and digital influencers need a reason to go to you for content rather than competitors in the industry.

At this point, you have to develop the specific content management system and experience of the SaaS company, which has passed this way might be of great help.

We at Pics.io invested in the content marketing strategy and currently, our blog is becoming one of the important sources of educational content for our customers and potential subscribers.

Here, we’d like to share our experience with the development of our unique content marketing strategy in the last years. I will tell you about the types of content we share with our audience and make some tips on the development of your own SaaS content marketing funnel.

Why Content Marketing is Important for SaaS Companies?

Can you imagine that 15% of the biggest SaaS companies still do not have a blog? Of course, it does not mean that they do not promote their products with content, but it is still an interesting number.

Why is it so? — Because digital marketing for startups brings outstanding opportunities.

It is the time when even a small and medium-sized SaaS company can benefit from branded content creation. People love informational content. It helps them make decisions and, which is more important for your business, encourages them to subscribe to your service.

So, where to start?

Start with Content Marketing Strategy

We at Pics.io develop the content marketing strategy for the whole year and make corrections each quarter and each month following the analytics of the previous period and marketing trends.

We believe that any piece of content:

Should be original and of the highest quality — use your own experience, people require informational content based on expert advice. If you are an expert in your product or service, no one will write about your product better than yourself. All your content has to be well-researched — add outbound links to authority websites in your field and it has to be comprehensive — the reader has to learn everything on the topic from your post.
Should help your customers — it is likely that your customers ask you to develop or add some product features. If you listen to them and, we believe that as a minded marketer you always care about your clients’ opinions, you definitely understand that each new feature should be explained. You either write specific articles or video guides for your Help Center. Or you write blog posts showing the potential application of the new feature in various industries. We at Pics.io do both ways and these posts are always the most readable.
Should be mapped to a business KPI — always think what you plan to achieve at the end. From our experience, the unification of inbound and outbound marketing efforts is the best possible strategy. Our sales staff and content marketers work hand-in-hand to get qualified leads.

The primary thing content marketing professionals need to realize in order to effectively market a SaaS product is that exposure is only the first step in the sales funnel. Your strategy must be designed to build and convert leads, not merely to increase web traffic and social media metrics. For that reason, it is infinitely more valuable to develop a content marketing strategy devoted to building an email list consisting of leads who are interested in solving problems related to your core product than it is to earn exposure in any major publication.

Partnering with a reliable SAAS development company can significantly enhance your product's capabilities and streamline the implementation of your marketing strategies.

Proceed with Native Advertising in Your Own Website & Blog

If you’re a marketer who reads and excellent piece on a company’s blog, you already know that you can simply move on to their homepage to find your way to their services. You know how to buy from them if you really want to.

But most people aren’t marketers. So they don’t even think to buy from the authors of a blog post that actually helped them. They’re not mean. They just don’t think about it that way.

This is where your savvy marketing comes in.

All your blog posts need to have a CTA. Whether it’s in-text, on the right-hand side column, or at the end of the post, you need to let your readers know that your expertise extends far beyond writing. And that they can benefit more from choosing to pay for your solution.

It’s not just copywriting that converts! Content can convert too!

Don’t believe me?

Take a look at this case study and learn how our customer Concordia University raised $150 million donations with the help of Pics.io digital asset management solution.

See that? That’s native advertising on an owned platform.

We’re providing you with an in-depth, helpful article on the SaaS content trends for 2020 but we’re also giving you a slight nudge to help you move forward in your purchase journey.

And this is not the only nudge in this article.

Is it advertising?

Yes, kind of. It’s not blatantly asking you to buy our services. It’s reminding you that we are a business and that we have had great results for our clients. It’s there to remind you that you could be one of those clients.

Do not Forget about User Generated Content and Ask for Expert Reviews

85% of consumers say that user-generated content is more influential than brand content. After all, everyone needs to fact-check what you’re saying, right?

Of course, you think your SaaS is the best in its field. It’s your baby.

Of course, you say that you can deliver results. You need to get more subscribers.

But why should they take your word for it?

You need social proof. You need your buyer persona’s peers to vouch for you.

In 2020 and beyond, you may attract leads with blog posts and whitepaper. But you’ll only convert them with user-generated content.

Make it easy for your leads to find that content. Encourage your existing customers to:

Create testimonials that you can post on your website.
Ask your customers to leave reviews on industry websites (For example, check Pics.io reviews on Capterra).
Create case studies like the one we did with Concordia University and subscriber stories that go in-depth on how you helped them.
Answer the users’ questions — for example, we examined that people in Google Search frequently ask for Google Photos for Business. This analysis led us to the development of the blog post “Does Google Photos for Business Exist?” explaining how Pics.io solution helps such customers.
Work with experts — For example, you can get a few industry experts to promote your product/services. Let experts provide their own opinion on the product, just make sure that you provided them with everything they need to evaluate your product.

Briefly put: wherever your brand can be found, your leads should also find some social proof or user-generated content.

Generate Content from Your Stories of Failure

And one final thought, always share your unique experience with users even if it is a fuck-up story. It may be even more interesting.

For example, after a couple of unfortunate situations when our developers picked a wrong version of the interface and brought it to the production stage, we finally came to the conclusion that we were badly in need of a version control tool. Our very first idea (like in many other software development teams) was to teach our designer how to use GitHub for versioning.

That was painful, to say the least of it… Soon we came up with very simple version control for designers with our own Pics.io app and wrote an article about version control, which remains on top positions in our blog for two years. Learn from our experience and tell the company’s stories — successful or not they attract people and can bring your prospective customers closer.

What’s the bottom line?

Build a strategy
Create high-quality content
Use native advertising for promotion
Convert your fuck-ups into awesome stories

Remember to put your SaaS customer first and use the personalized approach at each part of your content marketing funnel. Make your SaaS content a king and keep it in perfect order with Pics.io smart digital asset management solution.