Why Is SaaS Content Marketing Worth Investing In?

SaaS content marketing is different from traditional marketing, as it requires specific techniques that are adapted to fit with the SaaS marketing funnel. Nonetheless, it is a worthy investment with any type of marketing. It is a cost-effective and convenient approach that reaps high conversion rates, referrals, and a great deal of customer loyalty. As SaaS requires a unique method, there are different ways to improve the key metrics for SaaS businesses. It is categorically different from conventional marketing and has a lot of benefits for software service businesses.

 What are the specifics of SaaS businesses? 

SaaS companies make useful software applications available to customers online. SaaS is also known as software-as-a-service, what this means is that software sits on a server, and users access it remotely. These types of companies essentially maintain servers, databases, and software that allow the application to be accessed over the internet, this type of software can be accessed on any device.

While most other companies are considered to be thriving when having an annual growth rate of 20%, 92% of SaaS companies fail if they show this growth rate. It is important to understand what growth rate is necessary for a SaaS company to prosper.

A SaaS content strategy takes a completely different approach and requires a new way of marketing to succeed. While conventional marketing consists of focusing on customer acquisition a lot more than retention, SaaS content marketing has achieved both, as customer retention is just as important, if not more, for SaaS businesses. This is because SaaS companies are not selling physical entities, product is intangible, therefore the slightest deviation can have adverse effects on conversion rates. Another added marketing technique that is unique to SaaS businesses is free trials that are offered to most new customers.

Most SaaS businesses are assembled in three phases; setup, growth, and stabilization.

Setup

This phase is the foundation of SaaS companies. It’s when founders find gaps in the market and plan products that they want to cultivate, followed by pinpointing their target market and finally creating a viable product and presenting it to the market. It is common that marketing and sales strategies are also created in this stage.

Growth

When the products reach the market, businesses should ideally experience a lot of growth, and employ a strong content strategy for SaaS to expand their target market. This is done when there is a sudden demand for products, which creates a strong demand for content marketing.

Stabilization

When businesses continue getting more customers, that usually leads to much lower overheads. This is due to most SaaS businesses choosing to reinvest into their customer software, marketing automation, and other product developments. These tools help SaaS firms with customer demand, outreach and conversions as they create an enjoyable customer experience.

 SaaS Marketing vs. Conventional Marketing

The main difference between conventional and SaaS marketing is that the software-as-a-service marketing funnel is a lot more detailed and precise as compared to the traditional marketing funnel. The SaaS funnel is also referred to as AAARRR, which is an abbreviation of each stage. This funnel type is very different from conventional marketing because it does not only focus on generating a lead, but also on retaining customers, a process that usually happens after the purchase has taken place. The SaaS funnel consists of

•   Awareness
•   Acquisition
•   Activation
•   Retention
•   Referral
•   Revenue

SaaS companies offer freemium trial services in their activation stage to get new leads and test the system, but the conversion would happen when a freemium user goes on to upgrade their account to premium. Marketing towards those customers is incredibly important, as these companies generally start seeing returns on investment a short while after acquiring a new user. 

Goals and KPIs  

As all the products in SaaS are mainly cloud-based, so any activity can be tracked and measured. Content Marketing automation processes based on interacting with leads and future customers, this automation system can send messages to target customers by optimizing engagement rates and sales processes. Some of the most important metrics for SaaS companies include Monthly Recurring Revenue, Customer Lifetime Value, Customer Churn Rate, and Net Promoter Score. 

Benefits of Content Marketing

Brand Awareness

Content marketing is important because you can show results in the fast-paced tech sector, SaaS brands can jump on new trends and stories to raise awareness for their solutions.

Show Expertise

Including content in your marketing campaigns can bring extra legitimacy to your brand. As you get more mentioned from other credible sources, websites and people will refer to your brand as they would already be aware of its existence. Getting links and mentions will improve your brand and increase legitimacy, subsequently increasing conversion rates.

Promote your Website and Product

A mention of social media can bring in thousands of new customers. Most of the world now uses social media to interact and find new companies, so putting yourself on the social map will increase leads, and is all very cost-effective. A well-written article, nice image, and something that is newsworthy is all you need. As most SaaS companies are looking to retain their customers for many years, they need to work a lot harder on brand awareness, educational content usually does very well as it educates new users what they will get by switching to SaaS.

How are Content Marketing Results Measured?

Content Marketing is a fundamental marketing tool used to attract customers for SaaS companies. There are many ways to measure content marketing results, starting with measuring organic traffic, which is the traffic obtained by coming up on search engine results without having to pay for placement. You need to track organic traffic because it is important to know who is visiting your site as the result of your successful content strategy. You can measure these results on Google Analytics or HubSpot. It is also important to measure SaaS marketing metrics such as total entrances, conversions, and topic clusters.

Conclusion 

SaaS Content Marketing is worth investing in as it is a cost-effective way to promote your business, targeting the audience of your choice, and curating content that suits your company's style. Content marketing results are measurable, which is an added benefit to any campaign, so that you can understand which areas of your campaign need extra work to increase traffic and conversions.