Once you’ve outlined the buying journey, you need to decide what content to produce for each stage. You’ll be creating content targeted at each step of the funnel, and with a slightly different approach for each persona. Reaching your prospects with the right message at the right time in their decision-making process is essential.
For example, when marketing to someone in the awareness phase, you’d focus on providing them with information that would help them assess whether or not they have a problem that your product can solve. This is where blog posts are particularly helpful – people often read through blogs very early in their decision process before moving on to other research methods like reading reviews and comparing prices. Assuming this has been done well, you should receive opt-ins from leads who want more information about your product or service.
One thing many SaaS marketers do incorrectly is focusing only on content that drives traffic. Instead, you should create content for every part of the marketing funnel, guiding your customers through your entire process.
What content fits the different phases of the funnel?
Awareness: Create content that targets top keywords related to your industry. When your potential customer finds your content, it needs to be entertaining and educational to retain their attention.
Lead Generation: When your potential customers know you exist, the goal is to make them aware of how your solution fixes their problems. Next, you want them to engage with your brand to gain their trust and eventually buy.
Trial Sign-Ups: Now that you’ve gained the initial interest from your potential customers, provide them with all of the information they need to understand how your solution is different from your competitors and get them to sign up for a free trial.
Conversions: This phase is where you provide a path for customers to reach out to you and convert from a trial sign-up to a paying customer. Content here needs to explain your software and the most valuable tools it offers.
Retention: The goal is to manage expectations and provide support after the sale with actionable content that helps any potential problems become non-problems. A crucial aspect of this phase is building trust with your audience and establishing yourself as an expert in their industry.
Repurposing will maximize your content ROI
SaaS businesses of all sizes face similar challenges when it comes to content marketing: new channels and formats emerge constantly; there’s always more work than can possibly get done. Marketing teams struggle to make informed decisions about how their time should be spent, and what projects will have the most significant impact on growth.
One of the many benefits of a good content marketing strategy is that one single piece of content can power a big part of the promotional strategy. You can repurpose content in multiple formats, like an infographic for social media or a presentation for email marketing, to name just two examples. This will enable you to maximize your results with the same amount of time and effort when done correctly.
Always take a customer-centric approach
When creating content marketing for SaaS companies, it’s easy to get stuck in the technical weeds of explaining what your product can do. It’s more important to look at why customers should care and how they will use it. Also, make sure to focus on the problems and the needs of the customer at each phase. Here you’ll need to know your target audience and the platform for the content, as it’ll determine your success.
The last step in creating a successful SaaS content marketing strategy is to monitor your results to make adjustments throughout the year. By tracking metrics like visits generated from blog posts or cost per lead, you will be able to ensure that your process is continuously improving.
Lucas Quist
Lucas is a freelance content writer and the founder of Copywise. When he's not writing about digital marketing, finance, and Fintech, he's probably listening to a podcast, playing golf, or reading a classic novel while munching away on a croissant.