When done correctly, SaaS content marketing is one of the most effective tools for brand awareness and building a loyal customer base, primarily consisting of people interested in your message.
The SaaS community has almost completely embraced content marketing as an essential way to drive their business. Still, incumbents can misuse their ethics for many.
1. Not paying attention to SEO
Unless your business is already well known, the majority of your website visitors will probably come through a web browser. Therefore, if you don’t invest your time (and resources) to improve your rankings, you’ll lag behind your competitors. In addition to keyword phrases, compelling visuals are also essential. Websites with a large collection of images are also ranked high on search engines. Videos also help you rank high in search results. This is because it accounted for at least 80% of all web traffic in 2019.
2. SEO cannot and should never be the sole focus of your efforts.
Creating content by solely focusing on outsourcing SEO service is a problem that must be avoided. Ironically, such content has the worst outcomes, but it is still a very common method of making content, and many online sites continue to make this error. Google aims to rank great content, and its algorithm is improving at assessing and reading content to determine its real value, as well as monitoring user metrics. For example, when anyone visits your blog naturally and immediately returns to the search results, Google will know that the user was dissatisfied. That’s a clear indication that your content isn’t good, and Google will penalize you.
People continue to misunderstand this and create content for the primary intention of keyword targeting. They disregard the fact that someone must read that content and find some value to stay on the site. It’s not a bad idea to consider key phrases. It’s certainly helpful to explore possible keywords, by using keyword research tools. but ranking for a particular keyword should not be the prime objective of the content.
Your content’s primary goal should be to impress the audience. Make every effort to impress the visitor with your content. When you’re writing, ask yourself, “How can I improve on this?” The only requirement for determining whether your content is good is whether it is beneficial to the person who reads it.
3. Marketing automation is ignored
Even if your website is the best lead capture engine out there, your finances will be wasted if you can’t effectively certify leads and foster opportunities for paid users. If you don’t have a formal system, your advertising costs will be wasted. Marketing automation to help connect with potential customers. Lead development efforts do not have to be complicated. However, they must be consistent with your company’s sales cycle.
4. Completion of content strategy in the inbound phase
Many SaaS companies make the mistake of approaching digital marketing as if it were link building. Of course, creating high-quality content that engages your brand with your target audience is a good start, but it’s just the beginning. Content marketing should be integrated into your overall SaaS marketing plan. It should guide prospects perfectly into long-term customer relationships.
5. You believe that you know what your target audience wants.
Ah, we all believe we understand what our target group wants, don’t we? That’s why we created these awesome products specifically aimed at them.
But what if you’re mistaken?
One of the most common mistakes SaaS companies make is presuming they understand their prospects’ major pain points and the alternatives that would best fit their needs. However, these educated guesses are frequently incorrect.
How do you know that the most significant challenge for your prospects is finding the chance to share posts on social media? The truth is, you don’t until you’ve heard it directly from the horse’s mouth.
6. Do not create content in a vacuum.
You have a robust content library to attract potential customers. However, you may not have a reliable game plan to put into action attractive for those blog content, ebooks, research articles, and other types of content. If you don’t have a sales strategy in place to reach your target demographics, you’ll be fighting a losing battle to get the traffic you deserve. Content and strategy development must be indistinguishable in how a SaaS business works.
7. Create content that is not generic to everyone.
While other marketing campaigns may gain from a “broad” approach, aligning your approach with your target audience is the best strategy here. The worst types of content are so common that they lack clear points and messages. If you don’t have the essential ingredients in your content, you probably won’t communicate with many subscribers. So you will not be benefiting from your business. This allows you to save more money and effort while also converting more individuals. Create a detailed customer profile for your target group. Instead, view the material in a way that speaks directly to this demographic. In that case, you should see a significant improvement in the results. Don’t try to promote your advertisements to everyone—you’ll end up with no customers.
8. Do not dismiss the receptive audience.
The most obvious error is creating basic content without concentrating on each stage of the buyers’ journey, which renders it meaningless. Another blunder is concentrating solely on top-of-funnel content for brand recognition or traffic. As a result, essential components such as driving consumers through the funnel to its final step — purchase — are overlooked.
So gather your team for a meeting and walk through all of your customers’ most essential touchpoints with your good or service, step by step. Discuss which issues they may encounter at every stage and how your content can assist them in overcoming them.
After you have intrigued your readers, it’s time to actively engage them in your business. For example, when someone signs up for your service, it clearly shows that you need to contact them and build a deeper connection with them and your content. Communication can be coordinated based on different stages of the consumer’s journey. This increases the value of the user by interacting with the user through the workflow.
9. Unreliable content
Producing content in which you are not a specialist creates ambiguity and weakens your authority. Of course, it will broaden your customer base slightly. But if your content is too general, you may lose some of your target markets. Just concentrate on what you know best as a professional. Your customers are fed up with impersonal articles culled from various websites. Give them some kind of value. Share your company’s expert knowledge that has helped you prosper. As a result, they will stick with you because your content will support them and add value to their success.
10. Not Considering User Experience
Your site should provide a professional and friendly experience. It should demonstrate to your opportunities that you know what you’re doing. Also, if you’re serious about ranking your website, you should check and acquire data regularly. The following are some of the most common features that must be tested:
- Call-to-action
- The headlines and the USP
- Color and size of text size
- Other elements on your website include reviews, feedback, and social proof.
Aside from that, your blog should provide a good user experience to its visitors. Here are some examples of how company blog posts provide a poor user experience for their visitors:
- The font is difficult to read. Thus, making the user’s long reading activity annoying.
- It contains images, but they are unrelated to the topic, so they are somewhat confusing.
- There is no whitespace between your content and the rest of your website.
- There are numerous broken links that no longer work or link to old information in the blog post itself.
11. Having Difficult Pricing
Pricing information is crucial, and even more so in the SaaS world. Take, for example, a project management tool. You’re providing the tool for free, with paid options ranging from $10 to $20 per month. You also have tools that do not have a subscription model and charge around $249 per month. Remember that the cost of your goods must be based on how large the readership for that specific product is. And also what your unique proposal is towards them.
Some SaaS companies have needlessly complex pricing options on their website. Here are some ways to compress information that you want to convey to your clients if you have a lot of it:
- Reduce your choices to a few.
- Create a tool that allows for personalized pricing.
- You can choose from annual, quarterly, and monthly payments.
12. Failure to Invest in Content Marketing
One of the most common errors that SaaS companies make is limiting their approach to content marketing to only link building. Creating a compelling content marketing plan that will attract more customers to the business is a good starting point. Content marketing must be a crucial element of your overall SaaS marketing plan. It should guide prospects down the path to develop a strong long-term client relationship with them.
13. There is no marketing strategy.
You could write fantastic articles, but if no one reads them, your efforts will be futile. A good article necessitates good writing skills, a professional context that is interesting to your audience, and time. Promoting it necessitates even more effort and time because you must understand the distribution channels for your content and tailor your writing to them.
“For every hour you spend writing a piece, you should spend four hours publicizing it.”
Each channel has its target market, voice tone, format, and marketing tools. So, create a poll in the areas where your intended audience resides and concentrate on the most popular platforms among your clients. Then, align your articles and posts with their needs and create a content strategy for each channel to ensure that your promotion strategy is a consistent success. It can be divided as follows:
- Stage of brand awareness: articles and posts on social media, as well as guest posting about your product on platforms such as Quora and Reddit;
- Manuals, knowledge bases, and academies provide a deeper dive into the product.
- Stage of decision-making: client and influencer feedback on your website and external resources;
- Stage of retention: Provide clients with a deeper understanding of the product and teach them how to use it to its full potential.
14. Social media is underused.
Surprisingly, some businesses, particularly SaaS firms, underutilize the potential of social media. However, in this day and age, you should not ignore social networks. It’s one of the most efficient ways to remind clients that you’re still in their lives. Notify them about upcoming characteristics and other updates of your products.
15. Don't prioritize characteristics over benefits.
When it comes to brand marketing, it’s all too common for companies to concentrate so strongly on all of the amazing features of their product. They ignore the advantages that it provides to consumers. This seemingly effective method, however, ignores a basic element of SaaS marketing – putting the customer first. Your best option for persuading potential customers to support your company is to explain how your product will bring benefits and save them time.
16. Don't mess up the content of the decision stage.
Once you’ve gotten potential customers all the way to the decision stage of the cycle, make sure you don’t make a mistake at this crucial point. This is your chance to close a sale, so your content, including pricing pages, product pages, and testimonials, should be masterfully crafted for precision and functionality. Make certain that your decision content is not only powerful but also pitch-perfect. After all, it can make or break a company and has the most direct effect on conversion.
Final Takeaway
Although it may seem obvious to some, it is worth highlighting that SaaS marketing strategy is far more complex than it may appear to businesses at first. Even though this method has worked for many SaaS companies, its success is still dependent on the structure you put in place to produce your message to potential customers.
Paying attention to the smallest details and to what works and what doesn’t, can help you determine which types of content marketing satisfy your audience and the nature of your product. However, if you take precautions, we are confident that content marketing will work wonders for your SaaS company.
Author
Vaibhav Kakkar is the Founder and CEO of Digital Web Solutions, a globally trusted agency with a full suite of digital marketing services and development solutions. Vaibhav believes in building systems over services, and has helped scale up agencies from scratch to niche-leaders with million dollar turnovers.
