Watching your SaaS content marketing budget *almost* wasted—isn’t that frustrating?
We get it.
Stat says some SaaS companies invest millions of dollars (per year) in their content marketing.
That’s why developing a solid SaaS content strategy plan is really important! To ensure your budget is worth every dollar.
In this post, we’ll break down how to create a winning content strategy plan. But unlike other guides out there, let's simplify the process in 4 simple steps.
👉 Special note: This is the exact content strategy that team CaaSocio used in our face-to-face sales pitch. Book a call with us.
What is a SaaS content strategy?
A SaaS content strategy is the plan (generally in a document) used to organize, create, publish, and distribute content. The goal is to have a clear approach to engaging the target audience and driving user acquisition to customer retention with the SaaS content. Simply, it’s also your guide in establishing your brand voice and tone consistently.
It typically contains the following:
- business objectives
- buyer personas
- types of content to create
- channels to use
- content metrics
In a nutshell, a content plan is like a roadmap that aligns content creation with the buyer’s journey. Because, in reality, people's needs differ at each stage of their buying process. When you plan correctly, you ensure that your content marketing efforts help your prospects move down your sales funnel easily.
Here’s a good visualization of what their journey looks like:
But the strategy is not only for your content leads. Your content team (whether in-house or outsourced) will benefit as well when it brings a laser-like focus to writers, preventing wasted efforts on irrelevant content and burnout issues.
How to develop a lean content strategy?
Planning for your content doesn't need to be complicated. Without fluff, here are 4 simple questions you must answer when developing a lean SaaS content strategy:
🎯 What’s my SaaS marketing advantage?
This is the driver of your overall SaaS marketing strategy.
So yeah, identify the strength that will accelerate your SaaS growth. And it’s worth noting that the idea is from Emily Kramer, former marketing leader of big SaaS like Asana. As mentioned in her newsletter, “Without marketing advantages, you won’t win.”
Emily divided into 3 categories the advantages that a SaaS can have:
- Product-led growth advantage (all about making your users your champions)
- Market/ecosystem advantage (leverage partners or other ecosystem players)
- Brand/story advantages (includes founder story or founder/market fit)
Knowing what advantage you have is key to picking the best channels to leverage. Here are a few public SaaS and the channels to accelerate their respective advantages from Emily.
🎯 What are my objectives and tactics for getting there?
After identifying your advantage, it's time to set your content marketing objectives.
- Is it increasing website traffic?
- Boosting trial sign-ups?
- Or improving user onboarding?
And for each objective, detail the specific tactics you’ll implement to reach it. Some example is publishing X number of SaaS blog posts per month, hosting educational webinars, and
launching email campaigns.
🎯 What will be my short-term and long-term content goals?
Aim for a balanced approach for both your short-term and long-term SaaS content plans Here’s a quick sample: The number of sign-ups for your free webinar brings immediate results and probable conversion. But don’t ignore long-term strategies like SEO.
Just allocate your efforts accordingly.
🎯 Who are the WHO?
No, this isn’t a riddle. 🤭
This is just a question for you to determine WHO will execute your SaaS content strategy plan. Assign the key players responsible for implementing the specific tactic. Depending on your budget, you may leverage in-house team members, collaborate with freelancers, or engage a specialized SaaS content agency like CaaSocio.
With us, you scale your content to fuel your SaaS growth.
From the same newsletter from Emily, we super agree with one of her not-so-obvious marketing advantages examples:
“Work with, not against, service providers or agencies.”
So, what makes your plan good?
- It *truly* supports company revenue goals.
A good content strategy is tightly aligned with your company goals—sales pipeline. Strategize your content to fit with each stage of the funnel. Whether it's boosting user acquisition (top of the funnel), nurturing potential customers (middle of the funnel), or improving customer conversion and retention (bottom of the funnel), every aspect of your content plan should contribute to these overarching goals.
- It’s grounded in research.
A solid content strategy is informed by research. Research-backed content strategies are founded on a thorough understanding of the target audience, including their pain points, behaviors, and preferences.
Also, do research on your competitors. Examine their content offerings and engagement tactics. You can identify the gaps and see opportunities for making unique and differentiated content.
- It highlights your positioning.
Positioning is different for a startup versus for a large company. So, find your unique value proposition and positioning in the market. And everything else will follow. Including your SaaS content strategy plan. Your product messaging should clearly communicate what sets your SaaS product apart, even if that means focusing on your unique product features, benefits, and experiences that make them different.
- It should be a mix of measurable and non-measurable goals.
In SaaS marketing, all things measurable are auto-like. But non-measurable have a different story. And that’s exactly how ‘the Dave G.’ frames it:
We use another DG post as an example to show non-measurable ROI.
Social content isn’t direct response marketing. It's non-measurable so what’s the ROI?
Thing is, non-measurable content goals shouldn’t be automatically NOT a part of your SaaS content strategy plan. The virality of your social media post (with your target audience) is the ROI. Because it can be the basis of your next podcast episode, email newsletter subject, or future courses.
Not everything you do in marketing can be tracked, like in content marketing, so you must be willing to invest and risk. But risk smartly!
A well-rounded content strategy includes both measurable goals (traffic, trial sign-ups, conversion rates) and non-measurable goals (brand perception, thought leadership, virality, or customer engagement).
Crafting a successful SaaS content strategy
A safe conclusion is that a SaaS content strategy plan isn’t a static document. Your goals today may change in the ever-evolving SaaS world.
But mastering how to create a SaaS content strategy maximizes your content’s impact, so it’s your content marketing investment counts. The 4 simple ‘steps’ mentioned above can get your content plan running as soon as possible.
Not have enough time to do it yourself?
CaaSocio got you!
Not only do we write copy, we can be your SaaS content partner! We’ll help strategize your content planning tailored to your SaaS needs. Let's redefine your content marketing story together. Book a call with us today!
