Content Marketing for SaaS

Content Marketing for SaaS

Content Marketing for SaaS

Content marketing is a famous type of advertising and marketing for SaaS marketing. Many businesses have succeeded with it. HubSpot, Ahrefs, Zapier—the list is going on.
Despite that, there’s no one way to do content material advertising and marketing for SaaS. Each SaaS operates in a specific marketplace with specific customers, pain factors, and needs.

As a result, each SaaS’s content material marketing method may be distinctive.

So instead of prescribe the “pleasant” content advertising and marketing strategy you must observe for 20XX, I’d want to share how we’ve completed it right here at Ahrefs.

Content advertising is our foremost advertising kind. And with any luck, by means of the end of this manual, you’ll take away some concepts, thoughts, and strategies you could practice on your own SaaS.

But first, let’s answer a few questions.

Why is content marketing for SaaS one-of-a-kind from other industries?
While the principles are in large part the same, there are some reasons why content material advertising may be one of a kind for SaaS:

Complexity – Generally talking, there are extra functions in software, and this will be formidable to capability and new customers. So SaaS content material advertising doesn’t simply help improve logo cognizance and sales—it’s also an critical education channel.
Retention – Since SaaS merchandise are subscription-primarily based, non-stop training is needed to help customers get the maximum out of the product to (optimistically) prevent churn.
More selection-makers – SaaS may be luxurious, which results in greater decision-makers inside the shopping for manner. Therefore, SaaS content material marketing ought to deal with the shopping for issues for these humans.
More use instances – More capabilities mean greater use cases. For instance, Ahrefs isn’t simply used by SEOs however additionally by using content material entrepreneurs, affiliate marketers, website proprietors, and more. We can create content material focused on they all.
Must you do content material advertising and marketing if you’re a SaaS?
No.

Despite its popularity with SaaS agencies, it’s not a have to. Ultimately, it depends in your enterprise, enterprise, and set of customers you serve.

In quick, you should use the proper “looking approach” for the proper “animal.”

A chart displaying which strategy you must use for focused on the proper clients
Content advertising and marketing is a “Nets” channel, i.E., it lets you pull in a large variety of potential objectives right now. This is suitable for organizations which might be focused on deer, mice, and rabbits—metaphors for clients who are paying you around $100–$10,000 in line with yr.

If you’re concentrated on clients of those categories, content material marketing may be a amazing channel for you.

SIDENOTE. This doesn’t suggest content advertising won’t work for elephants and flies. Many agencies focused on company customers have also succeeded with content material advertising.
Learn more: A Simple Way to Build Your Go-to-Market Strategy

How to do SaaS content material marketing, the Ahrefs manner
The way we do content marketing at Ahrefs is called product-led content material.

Product-led content material is about growing content that helps the reader remedy their issues with your product. It’s now not a difficult sell; we’re clearly and strategically weaving our product and its use instances into the narrative.

Here’s how it works.

1. Know your product actually properly
   To create tremendous product-led content, you have to realize your product inside out.

This looks like an eye fixed-rolling point, but you’d be amazed at what number of marketers don’t know their product. That’s due to the fact many of them aren’t their very own employer’s goal clients. They’ve likely attempted out some capabilities all through their onboarding, but they’ve never significantly “eaten their own dog food.”

I admit this became the case for me as nicely. (Not at Ahrefs, though.)

You must recognise every function and use case. You ought to maintain up to date with every new feature your SaaS releases. You should be studying new use cases for present and new capabilities.

You need to recognise your product like the lower back of your hand.

At Ahrefs, we’re lucky we’re our own best customers. But we don’t take that with no consideration. Every new advertising rent works in customer support for three months earlier than formally joining the team. They’re additionally expected to complete all courses in our academy.

This turns everybody inside the marketing crew into Ahrefs experts.

2. Know who can gain out of your product
   Features want to benefit a person.

So you’ll need to reflect onconsideration on who wishes your SaaS. And don’t just think about the most direct client base. You should develop your horizons.

For instance, we’re an all-in-one search engine marketing toolset. While we manifestly gain SEOs, there also are a ton of other individuals who can use our product, like:

Content marketers
Digital marketers
Affiliate marketers
Agency proprietors
Freelancers
Website proprietors
Indie makers
SaaS marketers (like your self)
And more.

This must be a chunk of cake in case you’ve achieved your market research and have your buyer personas on hand. But if you’ve but to create client personas on your SaaS, I fairly suggest following the system here.

3. Find topics with search traffic ability
   Most people will likely find out your content material thru search engines like google and yahoo. For that purpose, you should create content material for subjects that your target clients are trying to find.

Here’s a way to locate those topics:

Go to Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer
Enter one or some key phrases which might be applicable to the clients you’re focused on (e.G., for Ahrefs, these may be terms like SEO, content advertising, digital advertising and marketing, affiliate advertising, and many others)
Go to the Matching terms record
The Matching phrases report, through Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer
Here, you can see that there are ~2.Five million capacity subjects you could target. Not only are there too many, but a number of them are possibly also out of your wheelhouse (at the least for now).

So we’ll need to slender down the list using filters. Specifically:

Keyword Difficulty (KD) – KD gives an estimation of the way tough it’s far to rank in the top 10 search results for a key-word. The decrease the wide variety, the “less difficult” it is. While it does rely on your web site’s “authority,” you can begin with an affordable range like 20.
Traffic Potential (TP) – TP is the anticipated amount of search site visitors you could probably benefit if you rank #1 for that subject matter. We can set it to at least one hundred so we will find subjects that in reality ship visitors in your web page.
Filters in Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer
From here, you’ll need to eyeball the list for applicable subjects you could cover.

Don’t simply look out for subjects in which you may create articles. Since it’s especially less difficult for SaaS businesses to create free or restricted versions of their present products, you’ll additionally want to keep an eye fixed out for possibilities in which you could create loose tools.

For example, our suite of loose tools sends us tons of search visitors each month.

The quantity of natural site visitors Ahrefs’ suite of loose equipment gets, through Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
To discover these keywords, use the Include filter to search for phrases like “device, tools, calculator, template, templates, checker.”

Searching for device-associated keywords the use of the Include filter, via Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer
Go via the list and see if there are any loose equipment you could create.

Learn greater: Keyword Research: The Beginner’s Guide with the aid of Ahrefs

four. Give the topics you’ve located a “enterprise potential” rating
What’s the secret at the back of developing a chunk of product-led content that doesn’t read like a difficult promote?

Selecting the right topic.

At Ahrefs, we focus simplest on topics our product can clear up. That way, we don’t appear to be we’re unnaturally shoehorning our product into the content—we’re sincerely offering the satisfactory method to the trouble.

How will we try this? We study the topics we’ve observed and give every of them a “enterprise capacity” score.

Table showing the way to assign enterprise potential
By prioritizing subjects that score a “2” or “three,” we make certain that mentions of our product are herbal.

5. Create product-led content that ranks
   Creating product-led content material that ranks isn’t definitely a case of hunkering down and writing. You’ll want to make sure you’re creating and optimizing content for search engines so it is able to rank and generate natural traffic.

Here’s how to do it.

A. Match search intent
Search reason is the why in the back of a question. It’s the motive why someone is attempting to find something in the first vicinity. Google is aware of this and tries to rank handiest the maximum applicable effects.

For example, if we search for “exceptional wireless headphones,” the top-rating pages are all listicles list the great wireless headphones of the modern yr.

Google SERPs for “satisfactory wireless headphones”
Figuring out the quest intent in your target subjects is enormously easy. Just Google the keyword and appearance out for the three Cs:

Content kind – Is the number one sort of content a weblog post, product page, video, touchdown web page, or some thing else?
Content layout – Is the primary layout a how-to guide, listicle, evaluate, opinion piece, information, or some thing else?
Content attitude – Is there a number one angle, such as the present day 12 months or content material aimed at novices?
For example, permit’s assume you need to cowl the topic “how to save money.”

SERP evaluate for “how to store cash,” via Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer
If we analyze the SERPs, here’s what we’ll study:

Content kind – All of the top-ranking pages are weblog posts.
Content layout – Surprise, surprise! Despite the “a way to” modifier, humans are really looking for tips.
Content perspective – Simple, demonstrated, and fast are ability angles you could cowl.
So it’s likely you’ll ought to write a listicle like “XX Simplest Tips to Save More Money.”

B. Cover the topic in complete
For certain subjects, searchers could be watching for you to cowl several important subtopics. If you’re lacking them, searchers may think your publish is not precise sufficient and leap.

For instance, a number of the pinnacle-ranking posts for “the way to write a press launch” encompass templates:

SERP assessment for “how to write a press release,” thru Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer
It’s a clue that searchers may additionally value posts with templates higher than posts with out. So if you’re focused on this topic, you may need to encompass one.

Here’s how you could find crucial subtopics to cover:

Look at what the top-ranking pages are overlaying (mainly their subheadings)
Run a content material gap evaluation
Here’s how you can execute the latter approach:

Go to Ahrefs’ Content Gap device (in Ahrefs’ Site Explorer)
Enter a few top-ranking pages in your topic within the pinnacle section
Leave the lowest phase blank
Hit “Show key phrases”
Set the Intersection filter out to three and 4 goals
For example, here’s the way it seems like if we analyze the top-ranking pages for “earned media”:

Ahrefs’ Content Gap tool
Results from Ahrefs’ Content Gap tool
Looking at the listing, we must be masking subtopics like:

What is earned media
Examples of paid media
Earned media examples
Examples of owned media
Earned media strategies
And extra.

C. Weave in your product certainly
As you’re growing the content, upload your product’s use case wherever herbal and viable. This is an artwork—there’s no best manner to try this. It comes right down to your copywriting abilities.

If you want an instance of how this is finished, you’re reading it. 😉

Just bear in mind: Don’t overdo it. If your product isn’t a very good in shape, it isn’t a very good match. Don’t shoehorn your product in only because. You need to be assured approximately what you’re selling—but now not to the point in which you’re lying.

6. Promote the content
   Your content gained’t get traction on its own. You’ll have to provide it a push. That method you need to sell your content material.

Here are a few methods you can do it:

A. Share it with your target market
Email, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. Wherever you have got a following, let them know.

B. Build hyperlinks
Backlinks are considered one of Google’s most vital rating factors. For that cause, in case you want to rank better on Google, you need to construct links.

Link constructing is a whole can of worms, so I fairly advocate you examine our manual on hyperlink building or watch this video.

But I don’t need to leave you with not anything, so here’s a terrific start line to begin your hyperlink building journey:

Paste a competing web page into Site Explorer
Go to the Backlinks document
Look for back-links you’ll be capable of reflect
For instance, let’s say we need to construct hyperlinks to our submit on how to write a weblog publish. If we analyze the pinnacle-rating web page for that subject matter in Site Explorer, we see that it has 5,800 oneway links:

Number of inbound links for a blog submit, through Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
If we analyze them via the Backlinks record, we’ll see that HubSpot got a link from this page:

An example of a back link, through Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
Looking on the page itself, it seems to be a page that curates assets for different industries. And there is a phase for “Sales & Marketing Resources.”

A resource page
If we reach out to the proprietor and introduce our put up (or perhaps even some thing else, like our weblog or academy), there’s a threat they will upload it to their page.

C. Repurpose your content material
Since you’ve already spent so much time creating the content, you have to try to get as a great deal mileage as possible from it.

You can try this by using repurposing it.

For instance, we became our blog submit on influencer advertising into a video. And vice versa—we also became our video on affiliate advertising and marketing right into a weblog publish.

Learn extra: The Complete Guide to Content Repurposing

D. Run advertisements
Finally, when you have the price range, you could always run ads for your content material. Don’t just consider the big networks—smaller networks can power site visitors in your posts too.

For instance, we run advertisements on Twitter:

Ahrefs’ Twitter ads
Quora:

Ahrefs’ Quora commercials
And even YouTube:

Learn greater: PPC Marketing: Beginner’s Guide to Pay-Per-Click Ads

Final mind
This is the method we’ve been using at Ahrefs for the past few years. But the most tough component is to do it continually—gradually publishing content material, following the strategy, and now not chasing every new tactic that comes along the way.