It's been said that content is king, but that doesn't mean it should be the only thing on your mind as a marketer. Content marketing is a great way to build your brand and generate leads, but it's not necessarily right for every company. In this guide, we'll show you how to use content to grow your SaaS business by creating a marketing strategy based on buyer personas and goals. We'll also explain how you can write great content that will help drive traffic while also increasing conversions.

What Is Content Marketing?

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Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action. It helps businesses to create awareness for their products/services, establish them as thought leaders in their industry or market space, build authority and trust with potential customers, drive leads to sales conversion websites or landing pages.

Content marketing is not just another channel; it’s an integral part of your overall SaaS marketing strategy. In fact, 88% of B2B buyers say they prefer self-service over interacting with sales people (Gartner). As such, you need to make sure that your company blog is up-to-date with valuable information that will help your target audience solve their problems – not just sell them something!

The Importance of Having a Content Strategy for SaaS Companies
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•  Content Strategy is important because your customers want to talk to you, not some random person or company. Customers want to see the face behind the brand and hear the voice of the people who built the product they love.
  
  
  

• Content Strategy helps you build a community around your brand and connect with customers on a deeper level than just selling your product. It allows you to position yourself as an authority in your industry, which can help attract new customers as well as retain existing ones.

• Because of the nature of SaaS products—they're always changing—it's important for companies that sell these products to have a content strategy in place so they can stay relevant with their customers without having to resort to expensive marketing campaigns every time there's an update or change in direction for their product line or business model (which happens more often than not).

The Goal and Timeline
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Now that you have your idea, it’s time to set some specific goals and timelines. Ask yourself: What is the goal of your content marketing strategy? What do you want to accomplish by creating this content? What results do you want it to achieve for your company (e.g., increased sales leads, higher retention rates, etc.)?

How long do you expect it take before results are apparent in terms of traffic coming from search engines and social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn? Are there any events scheduled at which this content could be used as a marketing or lead generation tool (e.g., trade show)? Are there other ways that this content can be used for successful lead generation down the line (e.g., email series)?

Once you have answered these questions and determined exactly what metrics will be used to measure success with each piece of new content—including how many visitors each piece receives through organic searches as well as how many leads come directly from those pieces—you will be able to define more clearly what resources are needed in order to create effective pieces based on these metrics."

Steps to Create a Content Strategy for SaaS Companies
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• Create Buyer Personas

A buyer persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customer. Two of the most important questions to ask yourself when creating a buyer persona are: Who is my ideal customer? Can I describe that person in detail? The more detailed you are with your description, the more likely it will be that this person exists and can become part of your target audience.

• Define Your Buyers Journey

The buyers journey is a framework growth marketers use to describe how people go from being aware of a problem or opportunity (stage 1) to taking action on it (stage 5). It helps marketers understand what stages their customers typically go through before making a purchase decision, so they can create content specifically for each stage in order to drive prospects down their entire path toward purchasing their product or service. To do this effectively for SaaS companies, you'll need to identify all five stages in detail so that you can connect with prospects at every point along their journey—and provide them with valuable information at each point too!

Create Buyer Personas
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This is where the real fun begins.

The first step to creating your buyer personas is defining who your target audience is and what they expect from you. The most common demographics (age, gender, location) are easy to identify but the “why” behind these choices can be more difficult. This can also include psychographics like lifestyle, preferences and interests which will help you know how to speak to them in a way that resonates with them as individuals rather than just as an average member of their demographic groupings.

To get started on this process, start by using tools like Google Analytics or SurveyMonkey to understand who visits your site and what they're looking for before they convert into leads/customers/whatever else it might be called at your company so that you know who exactly needs convincing with content marketing efforts going forward! Once we know our audience well enough through research methods such as these two options listed above we'll have a better idea about how best approach them from now on because once again remember: 1) You're not talking about yourself here; 2) You're talking about THEM; 3) It's all about THEM :)

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Define Your Buyer's Journey
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Before you can create a content marketing plan for your SaaS business, you need to do some research and define the problem. Here are some questions to consider:

• Who is your buyer? Is it someone like yourself? Or someone who isn't an expert in software or your industry?

• What is their goal? Do they want to save time and money by automating something? Are they looking for better ways of doing things (or doing them)? Or do they just want more information about how things work in general, so they can be more confident in their decision making process?

• How much time do they have available for learning new things right now (and what kind of mediums are most appealing)? If your buyer has limited time but wants results fast, maybe video learning would be best—but maybe not if they're not great at digesting large amounts of information quickly. Consider giving them options depending on their situation; don't force one format onto everyone!

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Establish Your Content Goals, Topics and Channels

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Before you start writing or planning your content, you should define your own goals. You can't write about what you don't know, so it's important to understand the problem or challenge that exists in the market.

By establishing this baseline understanding of what needs to be done and how it can be accomplished—and then creating a plan for achieving those results—you'll be able to create more relevant and useful content.

If your goal is just "write helpful blog posts," then that's fine, but it may not provide enough direction for you to achieve real success. Instead of focusing solely on quantity (how many articles do I need?), try asking yourself: What am I trying to accomplish with these pieces? What value am I providing readers? How will I measure success? This will set up a better framework for creating meaningful content that resonates with people in their lives.

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Content marketing channels for SaaS

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Podcasts

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Podcasts can be a great way to create content and engage with your audience. They’re also a good way to promote your products and services, build trust with your audience, and build your brand.
You may be wondering if podcasts are the best option for you—let’s take a look at why they might be the right choice for you.
What are the benefits of using podcasts? Podcasts can help you grow your audience and build trust with them. They give you a way to speak directly with your customers, which builds deeper relationships between you and your brand. You’ll also be able to promote your products more easily. So, how do you get started? Well, there are two ways: 1) create a new podcast or 2) find existing podcasts that might be interested in featuring content about what you

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Podcasting example by Buffer

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Podcasting is a great way to share your content with the world. It’s also a great way to build awareness for your brand.

In case you haven't heard, I'm big fan of podcasts at Buffer. I love them because they're an easy way to learn something new and be entertained at the same time! I also think they can be a great way to connect with people who might not have heard of your business before—and that's why they've been putting out their own podcast, The Science of Social Media, for the past eight months.

In this podcast series, they interviewed experts and influencers in the world of social media marketing so that listeners can learn more about what it takes to succeed online. It's a great way to stay on top of industry trends while also learning from some of the best minds in business.

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Interviews

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Interviews are a content marketing channel that can be valuable for building your own brand and showcasing experts in your industry. For example, if you're the CEO of a SaaS company, you could interview other CEOs about how they grew their businesses. If you're an engineer at a SaaS company, you could interview people from other fields or industries to learn about their experiences with technology.

It's also worth considering doing interviews with customers to hear about what they like about your product/service! To conduct an interview, all you need is access to a video camera (or smartphone) and someone willing to do it.
The options here are limitless: if there's someone in any field that would benefit from being interviewed by someone else in any field then this is probably worth considering as an option for your blog content strategy

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Expert roundups example by Mangools

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An expert roundup post is a great way to help your blog go viral by using the following of top influencers in your niche to your advantage. It also gives you a way to provide unique opinions and advice to your audience. You can also gain access to valuable information that would otherwise be difficult for you to get as well as get yourself noticed by others who are interested in sharing content related to this topic

Mangools has created an SEO roundup on the topic "SEO tips" which is a great example of putting together solid information by interviewing experts in a particular niche.

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Trends & reports

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Reports are a great way to share data and information with your audience. They can be used for both internal and external purposes, such as data analysis and reporting company achievements. Reports are also a good option if you have some knowledge to share that is valuable enough that it should go beyond a small blog post or social media update.

For example, if you're sharing statistical data from your SaaS business, it makes sense to put this into an easy-to-read format like a report so other people can see how the numbers break down or connect them with other relevant facts about your industry (like market trends). You could even create an entire series of reports on specific topics related to your product/service; this would allow readers who want more depth than what's offered on social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook access something more substantial than a micro-blog post but less overwhelming than an e-book or white paper document would provide.

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Example of reports by Canfitpro

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Canfitpro is a Canadian company that has been in the fitness industry for more than 30 years. The company provides an extensive range of services and products, such as personal training, group fitness classes, nutrition counselling and more.

Canfitpro has recently released a report detailing the most likely changes to take place in the fitness industry following the pandemic outbreak. The report outlines several potential changes that may occur within this niche market due to factors such as increased demand for physical activity during times of crisis; increased demand for flexibility in scheduling exercise routines; and changing consumer demographics (e.g., aging population).

This report is an excellent example of content marketing because it provides valuable information about a niche market while simultaneously promoting Canfitpro’s expertise in this industry. Reports & insights are created by businesses with the intention of building trust or establishing an authority within a particular niche or industry; they also serve as a great way to grab PR attention from media outlets

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White Papers

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A white paper is an informative document that covers a subject in depth. You can use it to share your knowledge and expertise with your target audience, building trust with them in the process. It's also a good way to get people to sign up for your newsletter, which can be another form of content marketing.
White Papers can be very effective at building trust with your audience, which is essential for any business. But they're also a great way to get people to sign up for your newsletter.

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White Paper example by Bike Europe

A whitepaper is generally written by marketing professionals who have expert knowledge on the subject matter being discussed. This allows them to provide their audience with information that can be trusted because it comes from industry experts rather than just salespeople trying to sell products or services at any cost.

The purpose of a whitepaper is to inform the reader about specific issues related to the product or service being marketed. Marketers use this type of content as an opportunity to explain how they can help their customers solve problems or meet challenges.

Let's take an example of Bike Europe, they have created a white paper on "How to improve lifetime, reliability and safety of e-bike batteries" which is an excellent example of content marketing.

The paper starts by explaining e-bike batteries and how they work, then goes on to describe the main issues (battery capacity loss over time) and suggest ways to improve them (improved battery management system). The paper also includes some case studies from other companies who have managed to solve these problems using different strategies.

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Articles & E-books

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Articles & E-books are a great way to share your knowledge and expertise with the world. They can be published on your own website or on other sites like Medium. Articles can be used to drive traffic to your website, build brand awareness, raise brand awareness, and more.
If you're wondering how to start writing articles for your SaaS business, here are some tips:
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• Figure out what you know well enough to write about in-depth (i.e., don't just write about everything).

• Find article ideas by looking at trending topics related to your industry and asking yourself how these topics relate back to what you do as a business owner or marketer (or if they don't relate directly yet). If there's no real connection between the two areas of interest—for instance, if someone wants help starting an IT consulting firm but their only experience is working as a systems administrator—that might not make for a good article topic because there isn't much original insight from anyone's perspective!

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E-book example by Drift

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The Account-Based Personalization Playbook by Drift is a great example of e-book as content marketing. It's a guidebook for B2B sales teams, and it's filled with practical advice on how to make your B2B marketing and sales teams work together to create a personalized account-based experience. The author lays it out in an easy-to-consume format so you can learn as you go.

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Webinars

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Webinars are a great way to connect with your audience. They're also an excellent way to build authority, trust, relationships and community.
You can use webinars to:

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• Teach people something new (like how to write the perfect sales pitch).

• Give them actionable steps they can take away from the webinar that will help them achieve their goals (like how to manage their time better).

• Create a community where people can share their best practices with one another (like when you're learning something new yourself).

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Free Courses

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One of the most effective ways to get new customers is by giving them something for free. You can do this in a few different ways, but one of the easiest is by creating and distributing a free course.
A free course is an online training program aimed at teaching people about a specific topic. It can be used to attract new clients and customers—even partners—but it’s especially useful for attracting leads and prospects who might not have found your content marketing strategy before now.

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For example, if you have an SaaS product that offers improved workflow automation for small businesses, consider offering a free course on how to make the most out of your service through better management practices or employee training programs. This will help you build trust with potential customers while they learn more about what life would look like using your service as well as why they should pay attention now rather than later.

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Social Media

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Social media is a great way to get in front of your target audience. You can promote content and engage with them directly through the types of channels they are already using, while also building your personal brand. There are a few things you need to do in order to make social media work for you and your business:

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• Make sure you have an authentic voice on social media. Your audience will not respond well if they feel like they’re being sold something! Instead, create content that people want to share themselves (or at least tweet about).

• Use hashtags that align with the kinds of conversations happening around topics relevant to your business or industry, so other people may start following along too (this will help grow awareness about what you do).

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There are a variety of channels, and each one has its own unique strengths. If you're going to do content marketing for your SaaS, it's important to use a mix of different types of content.
This means that when you're creating your content strategy, you'll have to think about what channels make the most sense for this kind of business. For example:

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• Are there audiences in my target market that I could reach on LinkedIn or Twitter?

• Are there industry-related blogs where I could post my articles?

• Do I know anyone who would be willing enough to share my articles on their Facebook page if I sent them an email asking them if they would be willing?

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The key here is to remember that there is no one “right” way to do content marketing. Each SaaS company is going to have its own unique advantages, disadvantages, and expertise. The best way to figure out how you can use the different channels available to you is by experimenting with different approaches and seeing what works best for your business.

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10 Examples of Valuable, Contextual Content From SaaS Companies

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It's important for SaaS companies to create content that is valuable for their target audience, and it’s equally important to know the types of content that your audience wants. The best way to find out what your customers are looking for is by asking them. You can do this with surveys, interviews or polls but whatever you decide to do, make sure you get their answers!

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Mailchimp: Creating a Content Marketing Strategy Guide

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Mailchimp’s Content Marketing Strategy Guide is a valuable piece of content because it outlines the benefits of creating an effective content marketing strategy and provides concrete steps on how to do so. It also gives readers an overview of what they can expect from Mailchimp, which can help improve their perception of the company and make them more likely to purchase its products or services.

The format is straightforward: it’s a single page with large font and lots of white space. The scope is broad—the guide covers topics like measuring ROI, identifying new opportunities for storytelling, and developing your voice as a brand—and it looks at things from both an editorial standpoint (what type of content should be created) as well as from a business perspective (what metrics you should track). There are three main takeaways: 1) Content marketing isn't just about writing blog posts; 2) Your audience isn't always ready for what you're selling; 3) Don't forget that people buy products because they want solutions to problems they have right now.

Neil Patel: Reddit Marketing Guide

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Neil Patel is a digital marketer and entrepreneur who has worked with some of the biggest brands in the world, including name-brand companies like Amazon and NBC. He's also a well-known blogger and content creator, so it's no surprise that he has been able to drive lots of traffic and leads through his content marketing efforts.

One way he does this is by creating detailed guide on Reddit marketing strategy.

His guides are full of tips, tricks, and tactics that anyone can use to drive more traffic to their website or blog. They're also very easy to read, so learning these strategies is simple!

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Hubspot: The Ultimate Google Ads Optimization Guide

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HubSpot's Ultimate Google Ads Optimization Guide is a guide to optimizing your Google Ads account. It walks you through the process of setting up and managing campaigns in AdWords, the search engine's advertising platform.

It covers everything from campaign goals and budgeting to targeting audiences and measuring performance.

This guide is an excellent example of contextual content because it educates readers on a very specific topic in great detail. It's also practical, as it shows you how to set up and manage your ads, while giving you tips on optimizing each step in the process.

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Square: The Unofficial Guide to De-Stressing Your Small Business

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Square is a payment processing company that has a blog focused on helping small businesses. Square’s blog is written by real people—not just employees, but actual customers as well. And what they write about is super useful.

The company has created tons of content around topics like getting started with Square and how to get paid faster; it also offers helpful tips like strategies for increasing customer retention and why you should be using email marketing campaigns in your business. If you’re running or thinking about starting your own small business and want to learn more about keeping finances healthy, this one's definitely worth checking out!

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Drift’s Conversational Marketing Playbook

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If you're a SaaS company that's into the idea of using content to grow your business, then it makes sense that you'd want to create something like a playbook. A playbook is a collection of strategies, tactics, and examples that can help others learn how they might do the same thing.

To start, let's look at Drift's Conversational Marketing Playbook: 20 Tactics You Can Use Today To Improve Customer Experience And Grow Your Business by Jeff Lauttamus, Head of Support & Growth at Drift (and also my former colleague). This document shares 20 different ways in which Drift uses conversationally-focused content marketing to help their customers succeed in their own businesses. It includes advice on everything from creating educational webinars for free (which are often more effective than paid webinars) to writing blog posts about relevant topics for your audience. This kind of knowledge sharing helps other companies learn from Drift's experience and grow their own businesses as well!

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Unbounce’s Landing Page Template

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If you’re building a landing page, Unbounce is a great tool to help get you started. They have many templates that can be customized with your own text and images. The best part is that they are free! You can use them with no commitment or payment required.

Unbounce makes it easy for anyone who wants to create a landing page quickly and easily because all the hard work has already been done for us!

Unbounce’s landing page templates are one of the most valuable examples of contextual content because they provide an easy way to create landing pages quickly. In addition, they're free and don't require any commitment or payment! Unbounce makes it easy for anyone who wants to create a landing page in minutes because all the hard work has already been done for us!

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Elementor’s Design Tips and Templates

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Elementor is a WordPress page builder that’s used by over 2 million users. The company has a blog where they share design tips, templates and examples.

Elementor’s blog is a one-stop shop for anyone who wants to learn more about designing their website or blog with Elementor. There are plenty of resources for people who want inspiration on creating layouts for specific sites like ecommerce stores, event planners or even wedding websites. The posts range from tips on creating unique layouts (like adding tabs) to starting new projects with themes that have prebuilt elements so you don’t have to start from scratch every time you build a new site or design something new.

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SEMrush’s The Ultimate List of Blogging Statistics

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SEMrush’s The Ultimate List of Blogging Statistics is a perfect example of valuable, contextual content.

This post is relevant to the audience because it provides insight into how customers use blogs as part of their marketing campaigns. The piece is well written, well organized, well structured and formatted. It also has an eye-catching design that helps guide readers through each section with ease.

SEMrush has conducted extensive research for this piece and shows it in their content by featuring charts and data points rather than just listing facts or opinions about blogging statistics.

You can create some sweet content

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In fact, the best SaaS companies are already doing this. By creating valuable, contextual content you can increase your marketing and lead generation efforts by getting your message out there in a way that will resonate with your customer base.

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The fact is, you can create some of the most valuable content in your industry by taking advantage of your company’s unique expertise and experience. The examples above show how companies in SaaS have taken this approach to great success. They not only publish top-notch articles and guides to help their users, but they also provide resources like templates or other assets that are useful for all types of businesses. If you need some inspiration, take a look at these ideas on how valuable content can be created from within your own business!

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How to Write Great Content for SaaS Companies?

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Writing great content is about more than just SEO. The quality of your on-site and off-site content should be one of your top priorities when it comes to establishing yourself as a trusted brand in your industry. With the right tools and strategies for creating original content, you can reach more people with your message—and that’s what really matters in today’s digital world.

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Use data to create a content strategy

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To get started, you need to know your audience. To do this, you'll want to look at the data you already have.

• Ask yourself: What are our customers asking for?

• Look at the questions people are asking about your product or service—these are a great indication of what they're interested in and what's important to them.

• Check out forums and other online communities where people discuss your topic of choice (SaaS). What problems do they seem to be having? How can you solve those problems with content?

You should also use data from competitors' websites if possible. This will help determine how much competition there is for certain topics as well as give insight into how others are approaching those topics.

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Content quality is an important part of SEO

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Content quality is an important part of SEO. It's what helps your website rank higher in search results, making it easier for people to find your site. The better your content is, the more likely you are to be found and reach out to new customers. You want search engines like Google and Bing to understand that your website contains high-quality information—and there are two ways they can do this:

• By analyzing the words used on the page (which we'll talk about soon)

• By seeing how long users stay on a page (how long they spend reading or watching something)

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Optimize on-site content

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The second step of the content strategy is to optimize the on-site content, which includes blog posts, landing pages and other company pages. Optimized on-site content should have a clear call to action (CTA) at the top of it, as well as links back to other parts of your site like blog posts or case studies. It also helps if you include a few relevant keywords in your optimization process because this will help search engines rank your site higher when people search for those terms!

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Optimize Your Headlines, Metadata and URL Structure to Drive More Traffic

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• Headlines are one of the most important parts of your content. A good headline will make people want to click and learn more, while a bad one might send them running in the opposite direction.

• Your headlines should be optimized for search engines so that they show up in Google searches. This is an easy way to drive tons of traffic and increase your site’s exposure.

• Headlines should be short, but still descriptive enough so that people can understand what they’re going to get out of reading it (e.g., “The Definitive Guide On Content Marketing For SaaS”).

• Include keywords or phrases relevant to your audience (e.g., “content marketing”) at least once per paragraph if not 2-3 times per sentence – this will help boost rankings on Google Search results pages (SERPs), thereby increasing traffic from SERPs rather than just organic/natural sources like social media or email newsletters/emails sent through MailChimp

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Optimize off-site content

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Off-site content is content that you've created for other sites, such as guest posts on other blogs or social media platforms. This can include:

• Blog posts

• Social media posts

• Emails to subscribers

With the right off-site content, you can extend the reach of your SaaS brand and build relationships with potential customers.

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Create and curate visual content

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Visual content is a great way to engage your audience. People love images and videos, especially when it comes to social networks like Instagram and Facebook. You can use visual content in many ways:

• Create it yourself, or find a contributor who can help you do so.

• Use screenshots of your product, explainer videos that show how customers use it, and animations of features in action.

• Use images from around the office when you’re hiring new employees or sending out a thank-you note for an amazing customer testimonial (or both).

Visual content is also more likely to be shared than text-based posts on social media platforms because people love photos and video clips—and they want others to see them too!

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Leverage Your Data and Analytics Tools

• Use your analytics tools to track the success of your content.

• Use your analytics data to improve your content marketing strategy.

• Use it to inform new content opportunities, such as keyword research or persona development.

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It’s a wrap

Content marketing is an important step in building a brand and acquiring new customers. It's also a great way to keep existing customers engaged. If you're ready to create your own content strategy, then download our free template and start planning today!

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