10 Content Types Your SaaS Business Should Have
Software-as-a-service (SaaS) marketing is driven by a product that largely relies on customer retention and upsells to improve its ROI.
The key to this is getting leads in the door and continuing to engage with them long after the point of purchase.
The trick? Content marketing.
SaaS content marketing is invaluable and plays a major role in overall marketing strategy. With high-quality, engaging content, SaaS businesses can dramatically increase their visibility.
In this article, we’ll break down the different types of content marketing SaaS businesses can utilise, and how they impact overall business goals.
Understanding SaaS Content Marketing
SaaS content marketing is the creation of relevant and engaging content targeted at users in the SaaS industry sphere. It’s a strategic and vital element in any marketing plan.
Tailoring content for every stage in the marketing funnel, you can show authority, build trust and develop a rapport with potential customers.
At each point, SaaS marketing informs users of the benefits of choosing their product and company. From general knowledge at the top of the funnel to content like case studies, white papers or comparison guides, further down.
By providing educational content, like tips and guides, you are not only showing why your SaaS product is the best, but also wider knowledge that positions your business as an industry authority.
Why Content Variety Matters for SaaS Businesses
By offering different content types, SaaS businesses can address the different needs, interests and buying intents of each persona in a personalised way that develops the relationship between the company and user.
People process information differently, so the more options a SaaS business has to offer, the wider audience range they can attract. For some, white papers and knowledge bases are their favourite way to digest information, whereas others may find it much easier to understand difficult topics if laid out in a webinar.
If SaaS businesses tackle content distribution strategically across the funnel, they can enhance engagement as they guide the target audience to conversion. At the top of the funnel, when users are looking for general insights and industry information, blog posts and infographics usually do a lot of the heavy lifting.
Later as the user progresses, white papers and case studies highlight your product’s strengths and unique features.
Options like email marketing content, interactive content, and webinars allow you to speak directly to potential users and nurture the relationship; and testimonials provide social proof of your company’s effectiveness in the industry space.
Ultimately, SaaS content marketing offers many different ways for users to engage with the brand, look deeper at its software solutions and impress with industry knowledge.
10 Essential Content Types for SaaS Businesses
1. Blog posts
Well-optimised blog posts drive new business to your company. Approach blog posts from an SEO perspective, looking up common questions in the industry and high-value, but low-difficulty keywords. From there, you can create a plan that tackles top-of-the-funnel users looking for more information and insight into a particular topic.
At the same time, you position yourself as an authority, showcasing industry knowledge and addressing pain points SaaS customers are likely to encounter. This leads to an increase in visibility and SERP rankings, driving higher volumes of organic traffic, like we did for 3D model SaaS company, Elmtec.
2. Infographics
Certain user types and marketing channels, like social media, will respond better to bite-sized visual content. This is what an infographic can offer, highlighting important stats or key industry information.
3. Videos
Diversify ways leads can absorb information about SaaS products by offering other forms of content, other than word-based.
Visual learners will benefit the most from video content marketing, and there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. You can repurpose blog posts for videos to target different social channels or buyer personas.
4. Webinars
Webinars can be utilised at multiple stages of the marketing funnel.
Near the top, a SaaS company can collaborate with experts and thought leaders to discuss common topics and pain points in the industry as a whole.
Later, as leads get closer to conversion, they’re an effective way of demonstrating high-level opportunities your SaaS product can offer a business.
Signing up to a webinar has the added advantage of capturing a lead’s information for further targeted remarketing tactics.
5. Whitepapers/eBooks
Whitepapers and eBooks highlight knowledge and can discuss future potential in the industry showcasing ways the company is preparing for any future shifts. They can draw from multiple other studies and separate their content across logical touchpoints in a much more in-depth way than a standard blog post.
This is also a key opportunity to collect information from the potential customer. Usually, content like eBooks and whitepapers require a sign-up or download to view, meaning you can capture the leads information for further nurturing in the sales funnel.
6. Email newsletters
Email newsletters and email marketing automation chains allow your content to become personalised and targeted to different buyer personas.
They are a direct line for delivering information and encouraging engagement with the reader, leading to higher opening and clickthrough rates.
7. Testimonials and reviews
The best way to showcase your product is by highlighting the testimonials and reviews of customers. If you have a big brand name that uses your SaaS product then even better! Social proof from trusted sources gains your business a lot of mileage.
Don’t forget to highlight these reviews on your site, and across other promotional material and marketing channels to build credibility.
8. Case studies
Case studies are aimed at leads already familiar with your product. They show users real-life instances where your software provided effective help to businesses using it.
This offers social proof and demonstrates the value of your product in action. Leads can better understand the concrete benefits and ROI of using your SaaS product and use these case studies to highlight them to their own stakeholders and purchasing committees.
9. FAQs and knowledge bases
Make solutions to commonly asked questions easily accessible. Having FAQs and a knowledge base provides a strong foundation of support for users that they can access at any time.
These can also be used to highlight lesser-known product features and capabilities and can target long-tail keywords to increase search traffic.
10. Interactive tools and demos
For complex products like those in the SaaS industry, nothing beats seeing how they work in real-time. Offering product demonstrations towards the end of the buying cycle can persuade leads to take the final step to conversion.
Using interactive tools and demos you can highlight the key selling points of your product and what makes it different from competitors.
How to Implement and Optimise Each Content Type
Any good SaaS content strategy needs to start with a good plan. Dedicated focus and a purpose for each piece of content creation is the most effective and purposeful way you can drive user interaction. If there’s no end goal to a piece of writing – why are you writing it?
For blog posts, video content, webinars, etc. set out a quarterly content calendar. Make informed choices based on keyword research and build out your SaaS SEO strategy in tandem with this, creating content clusters and pillar articles for notable topics in your industry.
The more content writing is created around a topic (with a solid link building strategy in place), the more search engines recognise you as an authority on a topic, thus placing your content higher in its results.
This solid content foundation should then be complemented by content aligned with various buyer personas across every stage of the funnel. Encourage users from stage to stage with tailored content offerings and calls-to-action (CTAs) that inspire response and interaction.
Throughout SaaS content marketing, all information should be high-value and delivered in a way that’s accessible and authoritative. In order to do that, SaaS businesses will need dedicated content writers or freelancers who can promote the product while utilising their overall skill and expertise in the industry to create engaging, thoughtful content.
And don’t forget to check audience responses align with the content goals. By tracking metrics like impressions, click-throughs, and sign-ups, you can assess if the content is having its desired effect, and adjust strategies accordingly.
Case Studies and Examples
Let’s look at a real-world example of a SaaS content marketing strategy done well. We’ve worked extensively with Thomas International, a B2B SaaS company offering psychometric assessment options for recruitment.
Thomas International offers an extensive range of content resources on their site, including a blog, case studies, guides, webinars, training, demos, and its own community area.
By providing so many different ways to absorb information, and a wide variety of content that ranges from simple listicles to in-depth guides and assistance for more in-depth topics.
They’ve covered every stage of the consumer journey with multiple content touchpoints to refer their customers to. With the addition of interactive free tools, webinars, and gated content such as their brochure and whitepapers they’ve also encouraged engagement directly with the brand, so there are multiple avenues where they can form relationships with leads.
What best practices to take from Thomas International:
- Thomas International has built out a wide variety of content for every stage of the marketing funnel, from brand awareness to
in-depth guides and support features. - They consistently produce high-quality content that showcases authority and encourages engagement.
- They offer free community resources that build a relationship with potential leads.
- They market content differently using profile sharing and email automation sequences for maximum reach and effectiveness
The Role of Analytics in SaaS Content Marketing
As in any part of marketing, data should drive decision making. Content should be assessed by its key metrics. At the top of the funnel, this usually means impressions, engagement, and clickthroughs, whereas later measurements can include number of leads, conversion rates, and customer lifetime value (CLV).
Tracking these via platforms like Google Search Console and Google Analytics allows for industry trends to be noticed more quickly, opportunities to be spotted (and enhanced by taking advantage of competitors keyword gaps), and resources to be allocated to specific areas of content that are high-performing.
In doing this you can streamline the entire content process, thus optimising your user journey and ROI.
Advanced analytics tactics like attribution modelling help marketers understand what content touchpoints are having the most impact in driving customers through the conversion process. Just because a piece of content may look like it’s underperforming at a quick glance, doesn’t mean it’s not playing an integral part in the choice to convert. Understanding where it sits in the journey and its desired results contextualises its impact.
Of course, none of this is achievable without tracking. The best SaaS companies ensure tracking is integrated and standardised across the board in order to get a cohesive picture of success.
This is best achieved through a third-party analytics dashboard like Agency Analytics who can consolidate information from multiple touchpoints like email, social, website visitors, etc. to create the bigger picture.
Conclusion: Building a Comprehensive Content Strategy for SaaS Success
We’ve developed content creation strategies across multiple SaaS businesses, leading to higher organic traffic and retention rates. It’s a crucial part of improving your ROI and building trust and credibility with a potential customer.
Given the complicated nature of SaaS products and the long-term relationships you aim to develop, content marketing offers vital support, guiding leads through each stage of the funnel in a personalised and engaging way.
Using data-driven insights and keyword research, content creation should be continuously monitored and refined to suit the business lifecycle.
Don’t forget to vary content options from blog posts, to webinars, to case studies and infographics to appeal to as many different user types as possible and nurture long-lasting relationships.
With a good content marketing strategy in place, SaaS businesses can more easily set themselves apart from competitors and maximise their engagement and reach.
