SaaS Content Strategies that Drive SaaS Product - Bistriti Poddar, CCO, uKnowva

The article has been contributed by Bistriti Poddar, Chief Communication Officer, uKnowva

SaaS or software as a service makes use of cloud technology that allows users to access the software virtually from any location with the help of a device connected to the internet. With the proliferation of the SaaS market over the past few years, SaaS providers are eyeing to develop a solid marketing strategy that helps their products to stand out from the competition. Content marketing is a big part of the SaaS marketing strategy which if used effectively can produce the desired conversions and leads. However, the challenge comes in the form of offering engaging, relative and creative content in the $157 billion SaaS market. With millions of SaaS content already available on the internet, most companies make the mistake of repeating the same content over again or bore their audience with technical jargon. However, there are ways through which one can step up their content marketing strategy. Read on to know how!

Ways to Create an Effective SaaS Content Marketing Strategy

• Define the Target Audience
• Identify the Issues or Pain Points of the Target Audience
• Analyse the Competition
• Identify the Keywords
• Consider the Vision of the Business
• Create Relevant and Interesting Content
• Monitor the Results

Ways to Create an Effective SaaS Content Marketing Strategy

Creating good content for SaaS requires effort and time, however, it is an investment that can provide good results and generate leads in the future. Here are some of the ways to devise to step up the content marketing strategy:

Define the Target Audience

The most important strategy in SaaS content marketing is to first identify the target audience. When the audience is identified, it becomes easy to create a content strategy suited for them. Identifying the audience at first is important since different people have different preferences.

To better know the audience, businesses must look at audience metrics or surveys that were conducted previously. Alternatively, they can seek market research to understand more about the people they are targeting.

For instance, as uKnowva provides 360-degree AI-backed HR solutions, our target audience usually includes the HR fraternity, CXOs, CHROs, CEOs of businesses, HR leaders, and decision-makers.

Identify the Issues or Pain Points of the Target Audience

While learning about the target audience, it is also crucial to pay attention to their issues or pain points. These are actually the issues they wish to address through a SaaS product or service. For this to happen, deeper research is required so as to visualise the main obstacles that are holding them back from realising their goals.

We identified the pain point by analyzing the industry and surveying with the help of our entrepreneur friends. The overall aspect of business growth is dependent on the kind of effort one puts in to make it stand out from the crowd. Human resources play a crucial role in making a business grow and prosper. When it comes to workforce management, the administrative burden is often projected onto the human resources department. To ensure easy management and smooth functioning of data, human resources, and different business processes, we have developed our AI-enabled HRMS. uKnowva HRMS allows businesses to create an AI-driven and on-cloud HRMS platform for modernising daily HR activities on one platform. These include Core HR, Payroll & Expenses, Employee Management & Collaborations, Recruitment, Training and Development, and more. uKnowva HRMS is a comprehensive tool for HRs to successfully acquire, manage, develop, and engage their employees with transparency, security, and fun.

We also emphasize a lot on addressing ongoing topical content around workplaces/HR with our perspective and industry-backed data. We inform and educate our potential customers about how HRMS can greatly transform their business functions and digitally transform their organizations. Apart from that, we create content nuggets around tapping into key questions customers may have in their minds before they opt for an HRMS.

uKnowva HRMS - Founders | Business Model | Competitors

uKnowva HRMS helps to systematically acquire, manage, develop, and engage your employees. Read to know about uKnowva, founder, and startup story.

StartupTalkyPreeti Karna

Analyse the Competition

Competitor research is one of the key aspects of a successful content marketing strategy. However, it isn’t as easy as it sounds. Competing in the content space is totally different from competing with other companies in the SaaS space. That’s why it becomes all the more important to analyse a competitor’s backlinks as well as their content for topics and keywords. The data, when combined with intuitive browsing, can help businesses to get a better understanding of their competitor's content marketing strategy. This data can be crucial to understanding weak links in a competitor’s content strategy, and this can be utilised to outcompete them in the market.

We, at uKnowva, do a competitive content marketing analysis, taking a list of our content marketing competitors and following these three steps:

• Take inventory of our competitors’ content (capture everything from blog articles to videos on and off their website. Each content type gives insight into the level of content investment, the format types their audience enjoys, and the range and relative importance of topics and keywords).
• Evaluate content quantity and quality (Take stock of how many types of media and channels they are leveraging, as well as how frequently they are publishing that type or on which channel. We look for trends in engagement levels—shares, comments, etc.—to understand how well the content is performing.
• Tag and analyze content topics (Tagging and analyzing the topics of each content piece helps surface content marketing gaps, which become opportunities for us).

Besides that, we also factor in the most popular and trending/viral content assets that global organizations are pursuing in our space.

Now, once the audience and the competition have been identified, it is time to start developing content, which takes us to our next point.

Identify the Keywords

Every SaaS business has its associated keywords. While developing content, it is essential to be aware of every keyword so as to make a strong impact. It is important to understand that these may not be just words that people use to search for SaaS businesses. It can be phrases as well. The Google AdWords Keywords Planner can be a good tool to understand how often people search for certain phrases on Google. Other than that, there are various other tools as well which can be used to identify what the audience is searching for.

At uKnowva, we do our keyword research organically through Google-related searches, and we also use effective tools like Semrush and Sitechecker for audits and keyword ranking.

Consider the Vision of the Business

Every company has its own set of visions, which play a crucial part in its content marketing strategy. The content strategy must align with the vision of the business. For instance, if a business believes in education, then the way to go is to educate potential customers. This can involve teaching the audience about the different aspects of SaaS products or services so that they become more knowledgeable and, in turn, use a business’s product better. By empowering the audience, one can attract trust and faith in its own products or services.

SAAS Startups: How to Find Product-Market Fit?

Entrepreneurs from SaaS industry shared their ideas on finding the Product-market fit for their SaaS products. Read to know in detail.

StartupTalkyPreeti Karna

Create Relevant and Interesting Content

Content has to be relevant and interesting so as to engage people in it. If the content fails to be interesting and out of context, the audience will quickly move over to some other content. However, this doesn’t mean that the content has to be sales-focused always. To create a position of authority in the industry, businesses can also commission white papers and research.

One has to take the time to understand what the target audience wants to read and then create content based on the same. While blogs are the preferred method for most companies to disseminate information, podcasts can also be leveraged to create a growing interest in a SaaS service or product.

For uKnowva, we focus on relevant brand-oriented content paired with niche PR targeting, which helps to establish ourselves as an expert in the HR tech field. The goal is to be seen in publications and blogs that write about our industry, thus, maximizing our exposure to anyone searching and reading for their terms. We work on long-form or "deep-dive" content that provides customers with in-depth answers to the questions they are searching for. Other than that, we do a lot of thought leadership content on trending popular opinions across different platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook groups, etc. Whitepapers, case studies, blogs, and Slideshare are some other mediums we use to explain a topic to an interested audience.

Monitor the Results

To understand how the content strategy is working, one must keep a watch on the results. Depending on the results, the content marketing strategy can be altered or adjusted accordingly to bring a valuable experience to the customers. You have to come up with a set of KPIs that you should focus on. It is different for all.

At uKnowva, the most important KPIs that we use to gauge the performance of our content strategy are:

• Website Traffic
• Organic website traffic
• Keyword rankings/blogs ranking
• Impressions
• Engagements
• Link clicks
• Views and upvotes on Quora

Conclusion

If all these steps are properly adhered to, businesses can certainly excel at creating a winning content strategy. With a strong content marketing strategy in place, building online credibility and brand awareness becomes a lot easier. This can help businesses to get a step closer to their strategic goals and establish a strong foothold in the market.

FAQs

What is the value of the SaaS market?

In 2020, the public SaaS market had a total value of $157 billion.

How to create an effective SaaS content marketing strategy?

The following are the ways in which one can create an effective SaaS content marketing strategy:

• Define the Target Audience
• Identify the Issues or Pain Points of the Target Audience
• Analyse the Competition
• Identify the Keywords
• Consider the Vision of the Business
• Create Relevant and Interesting Content
• Monitor the Results

How to define a target audience?

To better know the audience, businesses must look at audience metrics or surveys that were conducted previously. Alternatively, they can seek market research to understand more about the people they are targeting.