Multichannel Content Marketing Strategies For SaaS Businesses

Content marketing is arguably more important for SaaS businesses than any other.

That’s because your customers can often lack imagination.

Sure, they understand what your software does exactly. But they don’t understand how they can best utilize it and the immense value it can provide.

To make customers understand why they need to buy your software, you need to be creating specific pieces of content that address the problems they’re facing and frames your product as the solution.

In this guide, we’re going to show you how to establish a multichannel content marketing plan for SaaS companies.

You’ll learn which types of content to create, when to serve them to your prospects, and how to get your content marketing efforts out there.

As an 8-figure bootstrapped SaaS business, Viddyoze has followed these principles. Through effective content marketing, we’ve established ourselves as a leading video creation SaaS brand. Now we want to show you how to do the same.

Before you create a single piece of content, it’s helpful to split your SaaS content marketing strategy into clearly defined sections. These sections, as you’ll see below, make up the 4 unique stages of the customer journey.

• Awareness – First contact. Usually, the customer has a problem and is looking for a solution. Serve them content that provides it, such as tutorial (how-to) videos, guides, and vlogs.
• Consideration – Your prospect conducts more research. They’re starting to think your SaaS brand could be “the one”. Hit them with a case study, video testimonials, or some behind-the-scenes video content marketing.
• Decision – Very few people buy from the first SaaS company they come across. So, at this stage, it’s highly likely your prospect will be checking out your competition, too. Give them a reason to pick your product with customer testimonials, product/service videos, and demos.
• Retention – You’ve won the customer. Now, you have to keep them. As a SaaS brand, support plays a big part in your business model. Always add value with new tutorial content.

The important thing to note here is that customers in each phase have different mentalities.

This ranges from super-cold leads that don’t know your software exists yet, to customers who are actively comparing your product to your competitors.

The key to building an effective content marketing strategy is creating an even amount of content for each section.

Many businesses make the mistake of over protizing awareness stage content and then get frustrated that their content marketing efforts aren’t generating enough ROI.

What these businesses don’t know is that the further along the buyer’s journey your prospect gets the more likely they are to buy.

Hence, it’s crucial that you always have content in the next phase to funnel your prospects to in order to progress the sale.

Next, we’re going to elaborate on the types of content marketing you should be using at each stage of the customer journey.

Here are some ideas to add to your SaaS content calendar.

Right now, your leads are ice-cold. Pretty much as cold as they can be.

As a result, your awareness-phase SaaS content marketing needs to focus on introducing your brand and products to people who have never heard of you before.

The goal of this section is to increase your organic reach, get into people’s newsfeeds for the first time, and leverage the audience of other people.

To do this, it’s best to go for a less sales-driven approach and instead focus on providing expert opinions and thought leadership content that is an easier entry-point for cold leads.

Here’s the type of content SaaS companies should be pushing at this stage and the strategies they need to make it work.

Search Engine Optimized Blog Topics

When it comes to SaaS content marketing, the written word is still a very big deal. In fact, the vast majority (77%) of internet users still read blogs, according to Social Media Today.

SEO-optimized blog content is a great way to boost your organic search results, and bring new customers onto your site through search engines.

The importance of SEO in your blog strategy can not be overstated. You want new customers to land on your website and engage with your content for the very first time, they won’t be able to do that if your content has no search engine visibility.

To get started, you’ll need to conduct some keyword research to find out what your customers are looking for. Useful tools include Ahrefs, Answer The Public, and Google Keyword Planner.

One important rule to follow is to: only target keywords that are relevant to your product. Avoid chasing high search volume keywords that will bring traffic to your site but never generate new customers.

Let’s take Viddyoze as an example. We want to help people unlock the power of video marketing to grow their businesses. We might create the following blogs:

• How to get more customers for my business (we’d include a section on video marketing)
• 2022 digital marketing trends (we’d include something on new video content)
• How to improve brand awareness (we’d include something around growing your brand with video)
• How to get more sales through Google Ads (we’d include a section on the importance of using video ads)

Each one of the above is relevant to our SaaS offering, without being too salesy.

Create YouTube SEO-Optimized Videos

Just like Google, YouTube is all about search engine optimization. Your average person spends around 20 minutes a day (Hootsuite) on the platform. On top of that, one-third of internet users watch a tutorial or how-to, every week.

That means there’s huge scope to attract new prospects through YouTube. For the best chance of appearing in YouTube’s search, your videos need to be optimized. There are 3 main ways to do this:

1) Include your main keyword in the video’s title

2) Write a clear description using relevant keywords

3) Subtitle your video (YouTube will crawl the text, just like Google does for blogs).

Take a look at this video, How To Make A Product Showreel | Made With Viddyoze, from our YouTube channel, and you’ll see what we mean.

Before creating your videos, remember to do your keyword research and create content that allows your products to feature organically.

Recommended reading: check out our blog on Video SEO to learn how to make your YouTube videos SEO friendly.

Content Partnerships

Content partnerships are a tremendous way to leverage another brand’s reach. This could be a guest blog, a collaborative video, or even a product collaboration.

For the best results, reach out to a non-competitor brand with a similar target audience to yours.

Below is a great example of a SaaS content partnership in action, where social media specialists Buffer team up with SEO tool Ahrefs to boost each other’s reach.

Alternatively, you can run a collaboration campaign with an influencer (almost half of consumers say they depend on influencer recommendations, according to Ion).

Guest Appear On Podcasts

In the last decade, podcasts have taken over the world. Take the US: nearly 60% of consumers listen to podcasts, according to Influencer Marketing Hub.

Similar to brand collaborations, appearing on a popular podcast with a similar target audience to yours is an easy way to boost awareness.

The great thing about content marketing for SaaS is that there’s almost always an industry-specific podcast related to your service.

For example, at Viddyoze, we’d look to guest on a podcast about entrepreneurship, video technology, or business growth.

Be Active On Social Media

With half the planet on social media – seriously, 4.6 billion people use some kind of social platform – it’s an absolute must for SaaS marketing.

Consistent content creation and posting is key to follower growth and brand awareness, and should play a big part in your marketing strategy.

At this stage, keep your content soft sell, focusing on educational and entertaining content, such as infographics, live stories, and how-to videos. Everything you create should address your prospect’s pain points. Before creating content, ask yourself: “why would a person need my service?”

Try to post something once a day if you can. Failing that, aim for three times a week.

Boost Your Most Successful Content With Paid Ads

Organic reach isn’t what it used to be. To make sure your content cuts through, it’s a good idea to add a little paid advertising to your SaaS content marketing strategy.

Paid ads are an easy way to stay relevant on social media. Using a platform’s inbuilt ad dashboard, for example, Facebook Ads, you can push your content to your target audience, whether that’s a blog post or video.

At this stage, you don’t need to worry about conversions. Instead, look at the key performance indicators for your content, such as dwell time on landing pages, watch time, bounce rate, and page visits/number of views.

Things are starting to heat up. Your potential customers are beginning to turn into warm leads.

At this stage, there are plenty of SaaS options on the table, and yours is one of them. Now’s the time to begin creating content that heavily features your product and begins to drive sales demand.

Customers here will be much more likely to engage with your sales pitch after you’ve put in the effort to build a relationship during the awareness phase.

Launch A Webinar Series

Webinars are a proven way to warm up cold leads and connect with your audience. The key to any good webinar is to provide value on a topic that relates to your SaaS industry. This could be an online training course, talk, panel discussion, etc.

While a webinar is educational content, you’ll want to position your service (subtly) as a solution to the viewers’ pain points.

For example, if you provide a video animation SaaS platform (like us), you’d want to create a webinar series on a topic like “How To Grow Your Business Using Video Marketing”.

Viddyoze Pro Tip: cut your marketing content into bite-sized two-minute video clips to share on social media

Start Your Own Podcast

Think you could give an interesting, entertaining take on your industry? Start a podcast.

Podcasting is a whole other marketing channel through which to reach people. It’s also a great way to build trust in your brand, address pain points, and position yourself as an industry expert.

Just be sure to choose a format that works for you. For brands, the “one presenter, one interview subject” format often works best. That way, you can keep things fresh by talking to a new person about a different topic every week.

Once again, the key here is to inform and entertain – with the odd nod to your product every now and again, of course.

Write Free eBooks

Ebooks have two major plus points for SaaS providers. One, they allow you to create content on an important topic in minute detail. Two, they allow you to capture important information from your target market.

The first point is the easy one. As an industry expert, it’s very likely you already know the topics and pain points your target audience wants to know more about.

Common FAQs about your product could be a great place to start. Alternatively, use a tool like Answer The Public to find out the kinds of questions people are asking about your niche.

For the second, make your eBook free, but ask for a name and email address in return for the download. Later, you can use this to target your lead with relevant email content and move them along the sales funnel.

For the best results, promote your eBook on social media using organic search and paid advertising.

More Blogging And YouTube Videos

Blog posts and videos work at multiple stages in the buyer cycle. Boost your SaaS content marketing efforts with expert guides for different industries.

For example, we have created a series of guides explaining how video marketing can help multiple sectors, including real estate, lawyers, and hospitality. These are super specific, appealing to very different niches by addressing their pain points.

In each blog post or video make sure you’re targeting the relevant keywords and search terms. These should address the “problems” your target audience is looking to solve. Remember, they’re looking for an answer; your SaaS product is that answer.

You’ve reached the stage in your content strategy where your prospect is ready to buy. Now’s the time to hit them with the hard sell and get them over the line.

At this stage, your content creation must invoke an action. Potential customers here want to know that your product works and will guarantee them the success they need.

The content you create here needs to inspire consumer confidence. Here’s what you need to create to close the sale.

Live Product Demos

A live product demonstration is a great way to nudge your prospect over the line. In fact, 82% of people prefer watching a live video to reading a blog post from a brand, according to Vimeo.

Using Facebook Live, YouTube Live, or a webinar, you can demonstrate firsthand how your product works, what its USPs are, and why it’s better than your competitors’ B2B SaaS services.

You’re also able to react to questions in person, smoothing out any last little doubts your prospects may have.

Promote your demo using email marketing, paid advertising, and organic posting.

Success Story Case Studies

A good case study video proves your SaaS product works, adding another dimension to your advertising.

Done right, this kind of content marketing for SaaS provides a high conversion rate. Video, the internet’s preferred type of content, is the best way to tell these success stories.

Create a series of videos where your existing clients explain how your SaaS service has helped them to achieve their goals.

The key here is to use hard data. Include facts and figures, as well as positive statements. Given you’re selling a SaaS solution, buyers will want to know exactly how your product can help them address their pain points.

Have Influencers Review Your Product

Over 90% of content marketers have used an influencer as a part of their content marketing strategy. Why? Because it helps build brand trust.

Reach out to an influencer who could benefit from your software, and offer them a free subscription in exchange for a review.

Not only will you add credibility to your brand and encourage conversions, but you’ll reach a whole new audience, starting the buyer’s cycle again for new leads (the awareness stage).

Remember to make it clear that this is a paid promotion. Social media platforms have very strict rules about influencer marketing.

Product Feature And Competitor Comparison Blogs

At this stage, your written blog posts must focus on two areas: product features and competitor comparisons.

For the first, create a series of guides that highlight the individual features of your service, and how this can help your users. For example, if you provide accounting software for freelancers, create one guide about ease of use, one about tax returns, and so on.

For the second type, you’ll have to be a little cheeky. Look to other brands (your key competitors) and highlight the features that you offer, but they don’t. Do this for 2 or 3 of your biggest competitors.

Share these blogs via email and social media.

Video Testimonials

Video testimonials are first-class lead converters. Like case studies, they show that your service works, putting a human face to your success. At the end of the day, happy customers make sales.

In terms of content marketing for SaaS, this type of video is very easy to make and can be shot in a simple interview style. Just be sure to focus on your client’s main pain points with probing questions. Here are a few ideas:

• What made you buy our service?
• How has it helped you?
• Did you have any concerns before purchasing?

Once you’ve created your SaaS marketing testimonials, create a dedicated landing page where you can host them on your website. You should also share them on social media.

You’ve made the sale. The work stops here, right? Wrong. Now you’ve got to retain your customer.

Because your customer is likely to be a subscriber, content marketing for SaaS means constantly providing value to your user to keep them paying for as long as possible. Here’s how.

Expert Training Sessions

The more a user can get out of your SaaS service, the less likely they are to cancel their subscription.

Expert training sessions are a simple, effective way to show your customers you value them, while addressing any ongoing pain points they may have. You can host these in the same way you’d host a webinar, and encourage your users to sign up via email.

This creates a two-way dialogue between yourself and the customer, an incredibly important thing for SaaS brands and their businesses.

While these should only be for paying customers, you can also use your training sessions for advertising purposes, too.

Video Tutorials

Some SaaS buyers will want to find their own answers to any pain points they might have with your software.

Make things easy for your customers with a series of video tutorials. These resources should answer common questions about your product, or offer basic “how-to” style advice for different elements of your SaaS service.

Aside from being useful content, these kinds of videos can be used to provide support for your customer support teams. Provide a link to your tutorial videos on your customer support page and chances are your customer will solve their own issue.

Host these videos on YouTube and your website to help boost SEO.

Email Newsletters For Your Current Customers And Lost Customers

Email newsletters are a tremendously effective way to keep customers engaged. At this stage in the journey, there are two specific audiences you should be targeting: current customers and lost customers.

For current users, managing customer relationships is the name of the game. Provide subscribers with useful content, such as tips and advice videos; case studies and testimonials; and product videos for other services (an existing customer should be encouraged to upgrade after a certain period of time).

For lost customers, your distribution strategy is slightly different. Tempt them back with discounted prices, sales promos, and other exclusive offers. Case studies and testimonials should also factor in your content strategy for lost customers, too.

Exclusive Facebook Groups And Discords

Think of these groups as a mini-forum where your users can discuss your software, share hacks, and help each other with issues and advice.

We’ve set one up at Viddyoze where users can recommend their favorite video templates, as well as share tips about the platform in general.

You can use a social media channel, such as Facebook or LinkedIn, or create your own portal and host it on your website.

These groups are also great places to announce new products or features and gain feedback for existing services or future plans.

Content marketing for SaaS is an ongoing process. Every stage of the buyer’s journey requires marketing research, content creation, and precision delivery.

By creating the right content for every lead’s mentality and having a piece of content to funnel them towards to progress the sale, you’re in a strong position to dramatically boost the ROI of your content marketing efforts.

Viddyoze enables SaaS providers to create high quality video content in a matter of minutes. It’s fast, easy, and proven to help SaaS companies harness the power of content marketing through video.

Supercharge your SaaS marketing with Viddyoze. Learn more about our SaaS marketing video now.