SaaS companies and content marketing

Saas companies and content marketing- it’s a match made in heaven.

Don’t believe me?

Well read on you old cynic and I’ll tell you why every SaaS company needs to invest in content marketing.

SaaS companies are different

Fact!

And if someone says ‘Fact’ on the internet then you know it’s true.

But it really is in this case.

SaaS companies don’t have a physical product.

Most of the time they don’t have offices or storefronts

They don’t have salespeople that you can meet.

In fact, 93.75% of SaaS products are bought with no human interaction at all*

Why does this matter?

Well the truth is that for a customer to buy they need to have some form of validation.

Put simply they need to know your product does what it says it will.

They need to know what it will do for them.

And they need to know that you won’t use their credit card number to buy a Mercedes Benz in Tallinn. (no offence Tallinn people**)

In short, what you need are credibility and credibility.

Content marketing builds credibility

Not on its own obviously, but I can guarantee you that before they choose to buy, people who hit your site have a really good look around.

They look for signs that you know what you are talking about (blogs)

They look for signs that other people have found your service useful (case studies)

And they look for examples of ways that it will benefit them (white papers, eBooks and reports).

If you don’t believe me then think about what you did before you bought that PeopleHr or Calendly subscription.

In my opinion, SaaS companies and content marketing go together like eggs and bacon (mmm bacon) and there are three steps to a successful content plan.

Step – 1 build credibility

The first thing you need to do is to build credibility by having a back catalogue on your site that reflects the service you are offering.

Generally these will be blog postings about specific issues that your customers may face.

So for example, you are a company that offers a SaaS product that automatically tracks and reports on assets.

You’d produce a series of blogs that are related to the fixed asset industry; How to secure your assets, Should you use asset tags? How to report asset depreciation.

These aren’t sales pitches, although there’s no harm in having a call to action at the end of the post, they are more about building the credibility of your site simply by demonstrating that you understand the problems that your industry faces.

Step 2 – Build confidence

Your potential customer already feels you have credibility within your niche but they want to be confident that your product is a good one.

Remember that they can’t touch it or test the quality other than what they find online so you need to provide the digital assets that will give them the confidence they need to make a purchase.

You do this by providing validation of your service.

So my favourite are well-written case-studies.

These show real-life customers with happy smiling faces who have bought your product and found their lives transformed. You know the sort of thing.

In my opinion no SaaS company should ever have a website that doesn’t have half a dozen case studies on it.

Case studies showing happy smiling people work wonders. Just perhaps not that happy. — Ok perhaps not THAT happy and smiling

Step 3 – build shareables

So far we’ve looked at what people see when they get to your site but how do they get there in the first place?

What you need to build are shareables.

These are things of value that people will share with their network and that you can push out to your own network or through paid advertising.

If you do it right, then you can pick up free publicity from newspapers and magazine sites that are hungry for original stuff. Trade magazines are particularly good for this.

So I’m talking about original surveys, reports, eBooks and maybe even infographics and explainer videos.

These cost more but there’s a good reason why you want to invest in it.

They work!

Seriously, have a word with an SEO guy (or gal, let’s not be sexist here) and find out how valuable a link to your site from the top trade magazine in your niche would be.

A good, weighty piece of original work is also worth handing over your email address for so it also helps you build your mailing list. Gold dust.

OK so this isn’t the whole story

Look you’re not going to get rich just by doing a load of blog posts and sticking them on your site. Often blog posts don’t work on their own.

The truth is that there are a whole load of things around it that you need to get right in order to really sell your proposition, but having a credible and fresh site is the way to start and once you have the foundation, you can then start to add the bells and whistles that will really make your site earn its keep.

The whole point about SaaS companies and content marketing is that it helps develop the credibility of your business and if done right fosters a community feel that is worth its weight in gold.