Let’s get this straight: SaaS content marketing isn’t about SEO. Sure, getting ranked – and more importantly, getting found – is part of it, but creating content simply to say “Hey, we’re over here!” won’t inspire the trust your audience needs to seek a long-term relationship with your company.
SEO does not equal warm and fuzzy.
We’re not blind to the fact that you need to rank. You need to be discoverable, after all, and strategic keyword research and implementation is a core component of our content strategy.
But you have competitors, and your audience is exploring them, too. Depending on your current rank, your audience will see them before you, after you, all around you.
If you want to:
- Convince customers you’re the answer to their problems, the best choice, the easy button
- Spark excitement for your SaaS
- Inspire action (subscriptions)
… you need to do more than simply hang your digital shingle.
To that end, here are three ways to convert readers into customers for your SaaS product.
1. Speak to their desires
You know your customers’ problems. Solving them is likely the foundation of your SaaS, it’s raison d’etre. If you’ve spent 15 minutes reading about how to write effective copy, you’re probably familiar with the notion of promoting benefits over features.
However, it’s easy to get bogged down in benefits and miss the most important element: customer desire.
Here’s an example: Let’s say you’ve built a fintech platform that automatically tracks your customers’ income and expenses and helps them create a workable budget.
There are a hundred other tools like that, so you need to differentiate yours. Your competitors will probably make statements like:
- Set a budget and free up money for the things you enjoy
- Learn to save so you’re not caught off-guard by unexpected expenses
- Save time – manage your finances in just 15 minutes a week
Those are nice feature/benefit statements, to be sure. And they do speak to customer desires – who wouldn’t want more time and money, after all?
But they’re not as strong as this statement:
Never worry about money again
That simple, five-word sentence captures the essence of your SaaS and communicates it in a powerful way that speaks to your customers’ true desire: financial security – or perhaps escape from financial fear.
It’s short, sweet, and memorable, too – readers will remember it long after they’ve left your page, and they’ll remember it when they’re ready to take the next step in the purchasing process. Faced with the choice between a competitor who only discusses saving money and your SaaS that’s built to keep them safe, customers are more likely to choose you.
It’s a great statement for your homepage, your sales page, perhaps even your tagline – indeed, that sentiment should be embedded in all your content, sales copy and otherwise.
Thus, we would recommend a series of articles (or posts, if you prefer) that lend themselves to that feeling of relief, of security, of joy. Perhaps:
- 10 Steps to Never Worry About Money Again
- 5 Easy Ways to Secure Your Financial Freedom (Starting Today)
- How to Work 20% Less and Have 30% More Money
- 7 Ways to Budget Your Way to Wealth
Naturally, these posts would be tailored to rank in the SERPs – but the critical point here is that once you’ve attracted visitors, you need to show them you understand them. Then, they’ll trust you to deliver a solution as promised.
2. Educate and follow up
What do you know that your customers don’t? How can that information help them?
Answer those questions, and you can craft engaging content that fascinates your audience.
Let’s say you’ve developed B2B software that tracks company vehicle fleets. Your SaaS tracks ongoing fuel charges, maintenance fees, mileage and more; then, it uses a predictive algorithm that leverages market data to let business owners know the best times to replace vehicles – before they nickel and dime them to death.
We imagine that type of software would prove valuable to businesses with large fleets, but how do you draw them in and demonstrate the value – especially when the greatest value (when to sell, or flip, vehicles) is in the semi-distant future?
With content that educates.
For example, fleet owners might not know that proper tire pressure can improve gas mileage by as much as 3%. Maintaining proper tire pressure, then, could save businesses with large fleets thousands of dollars annually.
It’s valuable information, and sharing it with your audience helps establish your authority and introduces them to your product – as well as your intimate knowledge of their problems and how to solve them.
In this case, we would probably recommend a series of posts on how fleet owners can save money, lower maintenance costs and otherwise increase their profits.
And that brings us to the next part… follow up.
Think back to your education. Did your teachers show you something once, then never revisit the topic? Probably not. Key points were hammered home, time and again during class. You were assigned reading and homework. You took quizzes. Finally, you were tested on your knowledge.
While your audience probably doesn’t have the patience for all that (unless your SaaS is a learning platform), they do want to know as much as they can about how to improve – whether it’s their business, their life, their passion or whatever your software caters to.
Thus, we would recommend offering a free downloadable resource packed with additional information they can reference – a lead magnet, if you will, but something more than that. We do not advocate for filling inboxes with rolling advertisements, but we do believe in giving prospects something valuable.
In this case, a download that offers real-world advice for how fleet managers can improve their bottom lines would be a powerful motivator for them to share their contact information.
A PDF report or white paper that gives your audience true value can be the difference between you or your competitors earning their trust.
It also gives you the ability to follow up on a personal level: an email or phone call to learn more about how you can help your prospect. Of course, you can also enroll subscribers in automated email campaigns.
In other words, you can leverage education to earn your audience’s permission to contact them directly. Use it to your advantage, but do not abuse that trust.
3. Showcase your software
We’ve mentioned how SaaS content marketing shouldn’t be a rolling advertisement for your software. However, it is a good idea to identify opportunities to show off your goods in your content. This is a fantastic way to demonstrate its value to your audience, the eventual end user.
That doesn’t mean every post should be a pitch deck, but it does mean you can find ways to showcase your SaaS without insulting your readers’ intelligence.
Let’s use our fleet management software example. You might publish a post that educates business owners on easy money-saving practices. Within the section about how tire pressure maintenance can improve fuel efficiency, you might illustrate the point with screenshots that depict how your software track fuel economy.
In this manner, your audience can see first-hand how your software will benefit them; at the same time, they can still gain excellent value from the post even if they are not yet customers.
It’s another powerful way to establish authority and earn trust from your audience.
When you take the time to craft content that speaks to your audience’s desires, educates your readers and ties your SaaS into their lives – with meaning and relevance – you’re much more likely to convert readers into customers.