Standing out in B2B SaaS requires more than a great product. You need a way to attract, engage, and convert your target audience. That’s the role of content and marketing.
This guide shows you how to create a content strategy to do exactly that. And you can effectively accomplish this no matter what stage of business you’re at.
This framework will help you understand the core elements of a successful content strategy. It will serve as a roadmap for creating and distributing valuable content that attracts customers.
But first we need to look at some core concepts:
- Target Audience: These are the ideal B2B customers your SaaS solution helps. Sometimes they’re referred to as your ideal customer profile (ICP).
- Content: Valuable information you create to attract, engage, and convert your target audience. That comes in the form of text, audio, image, video, and even applications. Yes, the can be considered content!
- Content Goals: What you want to achieve with your content. Awareness, acquisition, adoption, and advocacy are typical.
- Content Funnel: The stages your audience moves through as they discover your solution. Awareness, consideration, and decision are labels often used to describe those stages.
- Content Types: Different formats your content can take. Blogs, ebooks, webinars, infographics, UGC, referral loops, programmatic SEO, and free tools are some.
- Content Distribution: Getting your content in front of your target audience. That includes social media, email marketing, and guest blogging.
Here’s how these concepts are related:
- Target Audience drives Content: Tailor content to the specific needs, interests, and pain points of your ideal customer.
- Content Goals shape Content Types: The goals you want to achieve determine the best content types.
- Content moves visitors through the Funnel: Valuable content educates and engages your audience. It guides them towards becoming paying customers.
- Content Distribution amplifies Content: Promoting your content through various channels ensures your target audience sees it.
Let’s look at an example:
A B2B SaaS company targeting marketing managers (Target Audience) wants to generate leads (Content Goal). They create informative blog posts on marketing automation (Content Type). Then promote them on social media (Content Distribution). This strategy educates potential customers (Moving through the Funnel). Plus, it positions the company as a thought leader, ultimately attracting leads.
That’s content strategy, in a nutshell. No reason to over complicate it.