How Content Marketing Drives Sales For SaaS Businesses

According to HubSpot, more than 60% of marketers consider sales as the primary indicator of success for their content marketing strategy.

Now, sales are the lifeblood of any business, and that includes SaaS businesses. Every closed deal represents a customer that will bring recurring revenues, ideally for many years to come.

And that’s the end goal of content marketing: to drive sales.

It’s not just about getting a lot of followers for your blog or YouTube channel. But it’s about turning those viewers into actual paying customers.

So how do you make it work?

Let’s take a look at some essential ways how content marketing drives sales.

1) Content Marketing Drives Brand Awareness

The first step in the sales process is getting potential customers to become aware of your brand.

You might have the best SaaS solution in the world, but if nobody knows about it, you’re not going to make any sales.

Your content marketing efforts help with this by attracting prospects with valuable content that may educate them about whatever needs they have.

Note that these content pieces don’t have to mention your brand or SaaS product yet.

The goal, for now, is to introduce your brand and make a good first impression.

But merely creating these content assets is not enough. You need to make sure that potential customers can actually find them on the internet.

How do you do that?

Here are some tips you can follow:

Optimize Your Content For Search Engines

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of making your content more visible on search engines like Google and Bing.

The better you optimize your content, the higher the chances that potential customers will find it when they’re searching for information related to your SaaS product.

There are many factors that go into SEO, but some of the most important ones are:

Keywords: Make sure to include relevant keywords in your title, headlines, and throughout the body of your text.

These keywords should be words or phrases that potential customers are likely to use when searching for information related to your SaaS product or even just your niche.

Links: Include links to other relevant websites and blogs in your articles. This helps search engines understand what your article is about and can also help improve your ranking

Backlinks: These are links from other websites to your website or blog. They act as a vote of confidence, telling search engines that your site is high-quality and relevant.

You can get backlinks passively by creating great content that other people want to link to. But you can also do it proactively by reaching out to other website owners and asking them to link to your site.

Get Featured On Other Websites and Blogs

One of the best ways to get more eyes on your content is by getting featured on popular websites and blogs in your industry.

You can do this by guest posting or contributing articles to these sites. Alternatively, you can also reach out to influencers in your industry and ask them to promote your content.

This is also a great way to get backlinks for your blog pages.

2) Content Marketing Helps Build Trust With Your Target Audience

Once potential customers are aware of your brand, the next step is to build trust with them.

Nobody wants to buy from a company they don’t trust. So as your target audience starts trusting your content, they will also be more likely to trust your SaaS product.

But the opposite is also true. If your content somehow fails to earn your potential customer’s trust, it’s going to be bad for your brand.

So how do you make sure that your content is trustworthy?

Here are some tips:

Give Accurate Facts & Sound Advice

This one should be pretty obvious. But it’s important to make sure that the information you’re sharing in your content is accurate.

If you share incorrect information or give bad advice, people will quickly lose trust in your brand.

So see to it that you fact-check the information you put in your content pieces. And if you’re not 100% sure about it, you can get input from an expert on the topic.

I know that may take additional time and resources. But it may very well help you dodge a potential bullet down the road.

Focus On Giving Value, Not Promotion

People can smell self-promotion from a mile away

So if your content is all about how great your SaaS product is, it’s not going to help you build trust with potential customers.

Instead, focus on giving value to them through your content.

How? By solving the problems that your potential customers are facing.

For example, let’s say you’re offering an email marketing SaaS solution. You could write a guide on how to write engaging subject lines that really entice leads to open their emails.

This would be much more helpful to your potential customers than a blog post that’s all about how great your email marketing SaaS solution is.

Share Real-Life Stories Or Data That Support Your Points

In addition to giving accurate facts and sound advice, you should also share stories or data that support your points.

For example, if you say that video content is the rising star as a content type, it would be more believable if you mention how it worked for another company.

If you can’t find such stories, try looking for surveys and statistics to support them.

If you still can’t find those, then maybe adding that point to your content isn’t such a great idea after all.

3) Content Marketing Drives Organic Website Traffic

Organic traffic is the best kind of traffic for any website. It’s free and it represents people who are genuinely interested in what you have to say or sell.

How do your content marketing efforts help in driving organic website traffic to your site?

It Can Help SEO

The relationship between content marketing and SEO is a symbiotic one, in a way. Great content helps with SEO and vice versa.

More specifically, an excellent SEO strategy can help improve the visibility of your content and drive more traffic to your blog pages.

In return, high-quality content will get more backlinks from other websites. The better your content, the more likely people are to link to it and share it.

And the more backlinks your content gets, the more it will help improve your overall website SEO.

It Makes Website Visits Longer

The longer someone spends on your website, the better. This is because it indicates that they’re actually interested in what you have to say or sell.

And one of the best ways to keep people engaged on your website is by having great content. If your articles are interesting and informative, people will spend more time reading them.

This will help lower your website’s bounce rate (the percentage of people who leave after only visiting one page) and improve your search engine ranking.

It Can Help With Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is a powerful tool that you can leverage to drive sales.

Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn offer businesses a way to connect with potential customers and create relationships.

And you can use your content pieces to drive social media marketing.

By creating quality content, you can get people to share it on social media. Consequently, this will help promote your brand and reach more people.

4) Content Marketing Drives Lead Generation

Lead generation is the process of getting people interested in your product or service.

Prospects become leads when you get their contact information and your sales team can reach out to them.

And for inbound marketing methods like content marketing, it’s the leads that voluntarily give you their contact details.

Here are some practical ways you can do that using content marketing:

Use Content Assets As Lead Magnets

A lead magnet is a piece of content you’re offering for free in exchange for your potential customer’s contact information.

This could be an ebook, an on-demand video course, or even an invite to one of your webinars.

The key is to offer something valuable that people will want in exchange for their contact information.

Offer Content Upgrades

Another effective way to generate leads is by offering content upgrades.

A content upgrade is a lead magnet that you offer as a supplement to a content piece that people can freely access anytime.

This could be an audio version of your blog post, a PDF checklist, or even a video tutorial.

For example, let’s say you have a blog post about how to improve open rates for email marketing. At the end of your article, you could offer an ebook containing a master list of power words to use in subject lines and spam words to avoid.

That would be your content upgrade.

The key is to make sure that it is relevant and valuable to your target audience so that they would be more than happy to give their contact info for it.

Use Popups (Wisely) On Your Blog Pages

Another way to generate leads with content marketing is by using popups on your blog pages.

Popups are those annoying little windows that pop up when you’re trying to read an article. But they can be effective in getting people to sign up for your email list.

When used correctly, popups can help increase email signups by up to  400%.

So how do you use them effectively? Here are a few tips:

Make sure that the offer in your popup is relevant to the page: Don’t make the popup too intrusive or annoying. A good rule of thumb is to make it appear after someone has been on the page for 30 seconds or so.

Only show the popup once per visit: You don’t want to bombard your visitors with too many popups.

Make sure the opt-in form is short and to the point: The fewer fields there are to fill out, the more likely people are to sign up.

Include a strong call-to-action (CTA): Your CTA should be clear and concise. Something like “Sign up now!” or “Get the free ebook!” should work fine. Still, feel free to go outside the cliches and get creative.

5) Content Marketing Drives Lead Nurturing, Conversion, & Customer Retention

Lead nurturing is the process of building relationships with potential customers.

It’s important to keep in mind that not everyone who comes to your website is ready to buy right away. Some people may just be gathering information and considering their options.

That’s why it’s important to have a lead nurturing strategy in place.

And one great thing about content marketing is that you can target prospects and leads in various stages of the customer journey.

Let’s take a look at what kinds of content can best reach your potential customers in the different stages of the SaaS sales funnel.

Awareness Stage: Educational Content

In the awareness stage, people are just becoming aware of their pain points or needs. They’re just starting to realize that they have a problem that needs to be solved.

So at this stage, it’s important to provide educational content that will help them understand their needs and the different strategies that they can do to fulfill them.

This could be in the form of blog posts, infographics, podcasts, and videos.

Consideration Stage: Case Studies, Buyer’s Guides, & Product Comparisons

In the consideration stage, people are now aware of their problem and are considering their options for solving it.

So at this stage, your goal is to position your SaaS product as the best solution for it.

One way to do this is by providing case studies that show how your product has helped other customers solve similar problems.

You can also provide buyer’s guides that compare your product to other similar SaaS solutions on the market.

And finally, you can create helpful use case blog posts that show how your product can be used to solve specific problems.

Retention Stage: Tutorials (& More Educational Content)

In the retention stage, people have already bought your product and are using it.

But they may not be using it to its full potential.

So at this stage, your goal is to help them get the most out of your product.

One way to do this is by providing tips and tricks for using your product more effectively. The best practice is to keep all of these tutorials in an organized knowledge base within your website.

You can also provide more general educational content through your emails, social media, or customer communities.

The key is to keep providing value even after someone has already bought your product. This will help increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, which leads to higher retention rates.

Final Thoughts About How Content Marketing Drives Sales

Content marketing can be a powerful tool for driving sales for SaaS businesses.

Not only does it build brand awareness and build trust with your audience. But it also helps you generate, nurture, and even convert leads.

The great thing is that you can create different types of content that are targeted for each stage of the SaaS customer journey.

But it’s also important to keep in mind that not all forms of content are created equal. Different types of content are more effective at different stages of the SaaS sales funnel.

So try creating a mix of content that will appeal to your target audience at these various stages.

Want more guides and tips that can help you grow your SaaS business? Visit our blog here.