SaaS Content Strategy: How to Educate, Captivate & Convert Paying Users

Having a SaaS content strategy isn’t a shortcut to writing a 3,000-word guide in 30 minutes.

And it won’t get you to rank number 1 for your main product keywords tomorrow.

So, what can a SaaS content strategy help you achieve?

That’s what we’ll explore in this guide.

But first, let’s do a quick check.

Search for your most profitable product keywords on Google.

The top results probably feature your competitors, who already have thousands of users.

And the questions on your lips are:

“How do I create better content to rank on page 1?”

“How do I snatch some of their users to my product?”

“How do I attract new users ahead of competitors?”

Frankly, it will take time, sweat, and body pains.

But you can shorten the time with a winning SaaS content marketing strategy.

Let’s see how to create one that works for your SaaS company.

What is SaaS content strategy?

A SaaS content strategy is a plan that explains how you’ll use content (written, images, video, and audio) to attract, convert, and keep SaaS product subscribers. An effective SaaS content marketing strategy will detail how to provide valuable information to your audience at every stage of the buyer’s journey.

Why go through the stress of creating a SaaS content strategy when you can just write about topics you like?

It’s simple.

Your SaaS content strategy should revolve around your ideal buyers.

After all, they have a problem that wastes their time and energy or hurts profits.

And they’re willing to pay to get rid of it.

So, they’ll trust your brand if you put them first.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s go into the strategy.

With the elements in your content strategy, it can get complicated quickly.

That’s why I’ve broken this guide down into a step-by-step process you can follow accordingly.

Steps to develop a SaaS content strategy

Here are 8 steps to building a winning SaaS content strategy for your product:

1. Develop your brand story

Your business has a story.

It’s what drives you to go the extra mile to create products users love.

It may be your founder’s experience with a difficult-to-use product.

It may be the quest to build a premium product for enterprises.

It may be the urge to provide an affordable option for small businesses.

Often, your brand story differentiates you from competitors.

This is what shows potential buyers that you built your product to further a cause.

So, what is a SaaS brand story?

A SaaS brand story is the narrative that conveys the facts and feelings that define your brand. This will feature how your company started and what drives your mission to serve customers.

Creating a compelling brand story has 3 potential benefits:

• It helps you search yourself and understand why you’re running a SaaS business.
• You can connect emotionally with your prospects.
• It gives your audience a reason to buy.

If you’re yet to develop a brand story, you’re not alone.

Many SaaS founders created their companies without much thought about why their customers should care.

But you can change that today.

See these 5 tips to create a compelling SaaS brand story:

Determine your brand’s why

Here, you have to answer why your business exists. What problem prompted you to build your product, and what mission do you have for users?

Chances are, you’re not the first product in your category. Why does the world need another product when there are already 13 in existence?

You should explain your brand’s values and how your product will contribute positively to the world.

Introduce your story’s characters

A story must have characters.

In this case, your characters are your brand (probably the founder) and your audience.

Even though it’s your story, you have to show how it affects your audience.

Know your product

Knowing your product helps you create a story of what its features can achieve.

This will help you explain the real-life benefits of your product to businesses.

Then, you can show your unique selling proposition (USP) that buyers will care about.

Inject a conflict

A conflict represents the challenges you faced.

It’s the challenge that’s giving your audience sleepless nights.

A conflict is a problem that many products couldn’t solve before you created yours. This conflict will poke the pain points your ideal buyers have.

For Basecamp founder, Jason Fried, the conflict was difficulty managing projects in a large team.

Resolve the conflict

The beauty of a story is resolving the conflict you created.

This is where you show prospects that your product can resolve the conflict.

If you do a few searches online, you’ll find that the biggest brands in the world have a story that connects them with buyers.

These stories inform their approach to content marketing.

Let’s consider Basecamp.

When you visit Basecamp’s About page, you’ll see a compelling brand story.

Jason started with his struggles at his design firm 37signals, and how Basecamp was created to solve their problems.

In the story, Jason makes it clear that Basecamp is about simplicity.

That it reduces complexity in project management for teams.

With this kind of brand story, you can connect and relate with your audience.

2. Create a buyer persona that captures your ideal audience

Marketing has 2 sides.

Your company and your audience.

If you don’t know the person you’re talking with, how can you speak their language?

Think about the last time you asked a stranger for directions.

Then, compare it with the last time you visited your best friend. All the gossip and the laughter.

Your website audience consists of people you don’t even know in real life.

At least, a buyer persona helps you avoid awkward conversations with them.

Or takes the conversations to a friendly level.

What is a SaaS buyer persona?

A SaaS buyer persona is a semi-fictional document that contains details about your ideal product users. These details come from existing and potential customer data.

The main aim of a buyer persona is to explain who your ideal user is, what they do, their pain points, ambitions, and why they need your product.

You can have more than 1 buyer persona for a product.

For instance, you may need to convince a product user, their chief marketing officer (CMO), and the founder before the purchase.

In that case, you have 3 buyer personas to win.

When planning and creating your content, your buyer persona is the imaginary friend you want to help and convince to buy your product.

Here are 3 tips to create your buyer personas:

Research your customers

Your current customers have common traits you can add to buyer personas.

Information sources could be:

• Their demographic data
• User behavior on your tool
• Most used features
• Common complaints to customer support
• Interviews
• Surveys and polls

From this data, you’ll see trends in your customer base.

Form an ideal customer

Sometimes, the image of your ideal customer may be different from that of your current customers.

So, over time, you want to acquire users that fit into this profile.

Note details that are different from your current customers.

Document common information

After your research, you can combine information from both sources.

A buyer persona will likely contain details such as:

• Demographic data (name, age, location, income, etc.)
• Pain points
• Ambition
• Their goals
• Objections about your product
• Preferred marketing channels
• Organization size
• Suitable subscription plans

Here’s a buyer persona example:

Source: HubSpot

If creating a buyer persona is too complicated, you can download free buyer persona templates from HubSpot.

After creating your buyer personas, you now know who will be on the other end of your content.

3. Set SMART SaaS content marketing goals

Only a lunatic goes out of the house without a destination.

And a person without a destination can’t get lost.

That applies to content marketing too.

Without content marketing goals, any result you achieve makes sense.

But this approach can waste your time, money, and effort.

That’s why you need to set SaaS content marketing goals.

A SaaS content marketing goal is a specific and measurable objective for your content marketing campaign. This can range from brand awareness to customer retention.

Setting smart goals can create a focused campaign. And in turn, achieving your targets becomes more likely.

According to CoSchedule’s Marketing Trend Report, marketers who set goals are 376% more successful than those without goals.

Your goals will affect the topics you create content for, content types, and distribution channels.

Setting SMART goals means goals that are:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable 
• Relevant
• Time-bound

For example, a smart lead acquisition goal may look like this:

Acquire 200 leads through landing page content in a month.

Some common goals you can achieve through SaaS content marketing include:

• Increasing brand awareness
• Increasing website traffic
• Boosting brand engagement
• Generating quality leads
• Acquiring customers
• Increasing revenue

Here’s the kicker.

Setting smart goals isn’t an exact science.

So, you can come up short in terms of achieving your goals.

That doesn’t indicate a total failure.

Because you may have gotten poorer results without the goals.

You can adjust your goals as you get new information about your campaigns.

How do you set SMART goals for your business?

Determine your important business goals

Your content marketing goals should filter down from your overall business goals.

What does success look like for your business?

For most SaaS businesses, it usually boils down to user base, revenue, and profits.

Knowing these bigger goals will allow you to create smaller content marketing goals to reach them.

Know conversion rates and other customer metrics across campaigns

Your current conversion rates can help you know the number of people you need for each campaign.

These include:

• Visitor-to-lead conversion rates
• Lead-to-customer conversion rates
• Customer retention rates
• Customer lifetime value

Let’s consider this situation.

You need 600 website visitors to get 60 leads to get 6 paying subscribers.

These 6 paying subscribers can pay $1,000 annually, resulting in $400 profits.

From these numbers, you can form goals for your brand awareness, lead acquisition, and customer acquisition campaigns.

Of course, this is a simple example, and you need more data.

Document the number of visitors, leads, and paying users you need

Once you have your long-term goals, you can break them down for short-term campaigns.

Then, ensure you document them.

A goal without documentation is a wish.

By setting SMART SaaS content marketing goals, you can give yourself a better chance of achieving your overall business goals.

So, think about some goals you want to achieve with content marketing and note them.

4. Research content topics at stages of the buyer’s journey

Now that you know your ideal buyers and goals, the next step is to create content, right?

Well, not so fast.

First, you have to research possible content pieces that can turn visitors into customers.

Why?

Content at each stage of the buyer’s journey connects you to potential buyers.

Then, you can nurture them toward becoming paying subscribers.

Most buyers will only sign up for a SaaS tool they’ve interacted with.

So, you need to write content for your potential buyer even before they’re ready to buy.

Luckily, research tools can help you find the topics to write about.

These tools are:

• Your brain: research starts here with problems your audience wants to solve. You can then use tools to expand these ideas.
• Google (Search, Keyword planner, Trends, etc.): you can see the current pages ranking on the first page for keywords, find keyword ideas, and search trends.
• SEO research tools (Semrush, Ahrefs, Ubersuggest, etc.): these tools help you find keyword ideas, analyze backlinks, and see what competitors are doing.
• BuzzSumo: helps you find popular posts (according to the number of shares) on domains and see what people say about your brand and industry.
• Awario: helps to track mentions of your brand, competitors, and industry.
• Quora: a question-and-answer platform where you can see questions your ideal buyers are asking. This will show you questions to answer in your content.
• Reddit: a social media platform where people share ideas and questions. You can find common questions here too.
• AI tools (ChatGPT, Market Muse, Surfer SEO, etc.): these tools use artificial intelligence to find content your audience may be looking for.

Beyond these tools, you can also check out content marketing examples from other SaaS companies. Doing this will provide insights for your research process.

When using these tools to research possible topics, group your topics into the three stages of the buyer’s journey, which are:

Top of the funnel (TOFU) content

The top of the funnel is the stage where potential buyers are unaware they need your SaaS product.

Some of them don’t even understand their problem.

Your aim with top-of-the-funnel SaaS content is simple.

• You want to educate your audience.
• You want to drive brand awareness.
• You want to generate leads.

So, your content topics here must focus on solving your audience’s problems.

For most of them, this is their first impression of your brand.

Top-of-the-funnel content includes blog posts, videos, infographics, and ebooks.

For instance, a top-of-the-funnel post for a CRM software blog can be: 

• How to generate leads for your business.
• 5 effective ways to nurture leads.

This doesn’t show a high level of intent, but there’s a problem to solve.

While providing value, you must also use catchy CTAs to generate leads from those visitors.

Middle of the funnel (MOFU)

At the middle of the funnel, the prospect understands their pain points better.

Here, you’ll research content topics that address pain points your product eliminates.

So, when a prospect searches about these pain points, they’ll find valuable information from your brand.

Examples of content suitable here are blog posts, ebooks, whitepaper, templates, and webinars.

For CRM software, MOFU content topics can be:

• How to personalize conversations with prospects.
• 7 tools to nurture and convert leads.
• How to use CRM software to convert more leads.

With these pieces of content, you’ll show how your tool solves these problems.

At this point, a lead should begin to see your SaaS product as an option to solve their problem.

Bottom of the funnel (BOFU)

At this stage, you have your hot leads.

These are people who know what they want and are ready to pay for it.

Your job here is to convince them that your product is the best option to meet their needs.

So, you’ll research topics a buyer will likely look for before purchasing your product.

Your content pieces can include blog posts, product demos, case studies, customer reviews, and use cases.

Some pages you can have at this stage include:

• Product comparison pages
• Product features page
• Product pricing page (including frequently asked questions (FAQs))
• Case studies
• Customer review pages

At the bottom of the funnel, your topics should sell your products to potential subscribers.

Now, the arrangement of the sales funnel can lead to the assumption that a buyer has to go from the top to the bottom before becoming a customer.

That doesn’t always happen.

For instance, when I was looking for a website host, I didn’t need to know why it’s important.

I didn’t need to know the criteria to consider.

I just compared the options (bottom of the funnel activity) and chose Bluehost.

Some buyers are ready to buy.

They just need to know your tool’s capabilities.

So, focus first on topics at the bottom of the funnel.

These are people you can convert in a few days or weeks.

After having your topics ready, what’s next?

5. Create a content calendar

No matter the product you’re marketing, you need over 100 pieces of content.

And the more you create targeted and quality content, the higher the chance of a buyer finding your website.

This is why you need a content calendar.

A content calendar (or editorial calendar) is a schedule of when to create content pieces for your brand and in what format to create them. This can also include promotion schedule and guest posts for other industry websites.

In simple terms, a content calendar helps organize your content marketing efforts.

Then, it provides a platform to accommodate external content creators.

So, you know which content to create next week, month, and even quarter.

A content calendar should be unique to your business needs.

How do you create a content calendar?

First, you need a tool. This can be Google Sheets, Excel, Notion, or CoSchedule.

Once you have your preferred tool, you can create your calendar as a table.

This calendar will include details such as:

• Content topic
• Content type
• Content creator
• Due date for first draft
• Editor
• Proposed publish date
• Publish status
• Promotion channels
• Date to update content

Here’s a content calendar example from CoSchedule:

You can also download a content calendar template from the linked page. 

Having loads of topics you want to create content for is not enough.

You have to put them in a content calendar to increase the chances of execution.

So, go into your favorite tool (Google Sheets is good for a start) and create a calendar.

Or use the template.

6. Create compelling topic clusters for your main SaaS keywords

Let’s start with the bad news.

SaaS content marketing is very competitive.

Your competitors are already dominating your main keywords on search engines.

The good news is that you can compete.

But how?

Your best bet is to create topic clusters for your major SaaS keywords.

Because a single isolated page has a low chance of ranking for a broad keyword.

What is a topic cluster?

A topic cluster is a group of interlinked web pages about a broad topic. A topic cluster contains 3 major elements:

• A pillar page content
• Cluster pages content
• Hyperlinks between pillar and cluster pages

The scale of a topic cluster depends on how wide the broad keyword is. So, you can create a topic cluster of 15 to 50 pages.

Generally, businesses build topic clusters to rank for broad keywords and their long-tail variations.

Source: HubSpot

Why do topic clusters make sense for search engines?

No single page can provide all the information about a broad topic.

Except it’s a book.

Heck, some blogs are based on a single broad topic. 

For instance, Content Marketing Institute is based on the broad term “content marketing.”

Topic clusters ensure that searchers can go beyond the content page for a broad term (the pillar page) and find information about subtopics in cluster pages.

So when you execute topic clusters, you can establish topical authority for your target SaaS keywords.

And increase your chances of ranking for those keywords.

Here are 3 steps to create topic clusters:

Determine main topics for pillar pages

Your main topics should revolve around the main solutions your product provides.

During your content research, identify 5 – 10 broad topics most users will search for in the buyer’s journey.

Once you list these topics, rank them according to their importance to your SaaS product.

Create pillar pages

A pillar page is a page that addresses a broad topic. 

It will touch on important aspects of the broad topic.

So, if a complete novice reads your pillar page, they should have a general idea of the topic.

Now, writing pillar pages requires a lot of skill. Because they can go beyond 3,000 and even up to 10,000 words.

I mean, even a masochist can fall asleep before getting to the end.

When they can watch Tiktok videos in 30 seconds, how many people want to read a guide for 25 minutes?

The only way to avoid this is to ensure your writing engages, provides valuable information, and solves problems.

And you need to format your page for easy reading.

You can do this by adding:

• Subheadings
• Bullet points
• Images
• Videos
• Tables
• Call to action (CTA)

These elements give your readers options. 

For instance, a visitor can skim your guide or watch an embedded video.

Apart from using a pillar page as part of a content cluster, you can also use it to generate leads.

All you need to do is package your pillar page into an ebook, and use it as a lead magnet.

Readers who want to see it later can enter their email addresses to get the ebook.

Apart from ebooks, you can display other CTAs relevant to your pillar page. For instance, it can be a free course.

If you get a headache thinking about writing or lack the time, you should hire an excellent SaaS content writer. 

Why?

The writer will turn the facts about your SaaS product into engaging content.

This option beats trying to do it yourself and ending up with poor content that chases visitors away.

Create cluster pages

Cluster pages are pages that dive deep into narrow topics.

People who need more information beyond the “summary” on the pillar pages will find the cluster pages helpful.

How do you get ideas for cluster pages?

First, you should uncover at least 5 cluster page ideas by just going through the pillar page.

Second, you can enter your broad term into a keyword research tool. Then, list the valuable ideas you uncover. 

Cluster pages can help you build trust with your audience.

As an added benefit, you’ll reduce bounce rates, which is good for your search engine optimization (SEO).

After creating these pages, the next step is linking them naturally.

If you already have content pieces, you can integrate them into your topic clusters where necessary.

Now, let’s consider the topic cluster example by Thinkific, an online education SaaS platform.

When you search for the keyword “sell online courses,” here are the results:

Thinkific ranks number 1 for this keyword.

When you read through the guide, you’ll find links to cluster pages like this “sales page” anchor text:

And when you visit the cluster pages, you’ll find a link back to the pillar page like this “created an online course” anchor text:

When creating your SaaS content strategy, you should aim to dominate topics instead of a single keyword.

Achieving this can help you build an authoritative SaaS blog that attracts ideal paying users.

7. Promote your SaaS content

According to Derek Halpern, you should spend 20% of your time creating content and 80% promoting it.

While we may argue about the percentages, promotion is critical.

After all, what’s the point of writing the best post ever if nobody reads it?

This is why you need a plan to promote every content piece you create. Promoting your content gets it to people who can buy your product.

Today, an argument exists for increasing content quality rather than quantity.

Imagine this.

If you create an awesome guide about, say, “customer success” (if you run a helpdesk software), how many people do you think can benefit from it worldwide?

Chances are 10% of those people have not even seen your guide.

So, content promotion is a continuous task.

Here are 6 tips for effective content promotion:

Include shareable elements in your page

Having beautiful images and tweetable quotes can encourage people to share your blog posts.

You can create images or other elements that fit into social media platforms like Twitter or LinkedIn.

Share content with your email subscribers

Your subscribers signed up to receive messages from you. When you create new content, share it with them to build exposure.

In another sense, your content pages can feature in automated email sequences.

So you can promote relevant content pages to each subscriber.

Create schedule for sharing on social media

Sharing a page once on social media is insufficient to reach a large number of people.

Creating a schedule allows you to share pages consistently at intervals. Then, you can reach more people.

Repurpose content into other formats

If you have a blog post, you can get more eyes to it by repurposing it into:

• Audio format
• Video format (YouTube)
• Infographics

Through these formats, you can reach more people with your messages.

Add relevant internal links

Marketers say you’re more likely to sell to a customer than a prospect.

I say you’ll likely get more views from someone already on your website.

You can do this through relevant internal links.

This will help reduce the bounce rate and increase content views.

Use paid ads

If you want to achieve fast results, you can use paid ads to promote your content.

However, if you’re using paid ads, I’ll advise it should be for content close to the bottom of the funnel.

So, you’re attracting someone close to becoming a paid customer.

Not just someone who is “browsing” around.

Content promotion is both an art and a science.

Explore many promotion channels and see what works for your SaaS product.

8. Track your SaaS content strategy results

The ultimate end goal of creating content is to get more customers and profits.

Content that doesn’t achieve those goals wastes time, money, and energy.

How do you identify what’s working and what’s not?

You have to dive into raw numbers about content performance.

Even if you hate touching data.

First, content performance data helps you understand whether you achieved your goals or not.

Second, it provides insights to improve future campaign results.

What are important SaaS content metrics to track during your campaigns?

The metrics that matter depend on your content marketing goals.

For instance, brand awareness metrics differ from those for lead generation.

Generally, various campaign metrics are:

• Change in website traffic
• Visitor-to-lead conversion rates
• Lead-to-customer conversion rates
• Customer acquisition costs (CAC)
• Customer retention rates 
• Customer lifetime value (CLV)
• Customer churn rate
• New user churn rate
• Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Of course, you only have to measure metrics important to your campaigns.

To measure SaaS content results effectively, ensure you:

Determine metrics before a campaign

Before you start a content marketing campaign, you need to determine the metrics to help track your goals.

So, if your goal is brand awareness, what metrics will help you track results?

If your goal is customer retention, which metrics will help you track it?

Once you know what you’re looking for, it’s easier to track.

Use the right tool

The right tool will show the metrics you want to see.

That said, you also have to set up the tool to track complicated metrics.

Some robust tools to track your SaaS metrics include:

• Google Analytics
• Mixpanel
• Amplitude
• ProfitWell

After setting up your tool, schedule time to track these numbers.

Then, you’ll track your content marketing campaign performance objectively.

Conclusion

Phew! You’ve just completed this looong guide.

What’s the next thing to do?

Execute. Execute. Execute.

Pick each section, work on it, and document it in your strategy document to improve your SaaS content marketing efforts.

And if you need an expert to build topic clusters your audience will love, reach out to me. I write excellent content pieces for SaaS products in the marketing niche.

Check out my writing services, and we can discuss further.

Then, I need a favor from you.

Do you know someone trying to build a content strategy for their SaaS product?

Share this post with them now.