How to Build a Content Marketing Funnel for SaaS Businesses

Written By: NetZings

SAAS companies should adopt Content marketing because it builds trust and familiarity, provides information, and develops relationships with clients. Unlike other concepts, such as conventional selling, sales in SaaS business models involve a trusting and gullible process, as customers usually pay a recurrent subscription.

SaaS businesses can tackle an issue and prove their software's worth by using text like blogs, case studies, and whitepapers or sharing webinars. Content marketing also uses SEO to drive traffic to the content, helping SaaS brands reach out to vast audiences and get quality leads at a lesser cost.

Moreover, when employed correctly, the content marketing funnel will enable SaaS companies to manage leads through each of the stages in the buyer process and help secure conversions and long-term consumers in an oversaturated market.

SaaS Content marketing is vital for SaaS businesses, and it is crucial in keeping leads engaged and moving through the needed stages to make a purchase. Fortunately, converting clients is not the main goal of SaaS solutions since such products usually target constant communication and training to sell and maintain their consumer base.

9 Best Ways to Build a Content Marketing Funnel

A content marketing funnel, however, does exactly what is intended: it offers value, meets clients' needs at their particular phase and converts. Below this article is a step-by-step guide on creating a content marketing funnel specifically for companies in the SaaS niche.

1. Understand the SaaS Buyer’s Journey

It helps to have some knowledge of the SaaS buyer journey for your business before you start designing your content marketing funnel. SaaS customers often go through three primary stages: In this category, we have Awareness, Consideration, and Decision. Each stage has unique content needs:

• Awareness Stage: People have a need or want but have no idea that your product will solve this need/want for them.
• Consideration Stage: Customers have needs fulfilled by potential solutions, including your product, and are in the process of making a choice.
• Decision Stage: Consumers are willing to buy and are eager for guidance on how they should go for your SaaS product.

If you understand these stages, you can generate content that answers possible questions at each step of the patient’s Journey.

2. Map Out Content for Each Stage

After defining all the phases of the SaaS buyer journey, we create a content map of a SaaS business. Here’s how to structure your content for each stage:

• Awareness Stage: Tightly narrowed down subject matter should be avoided in favor of informative content that will hopefully entice potential buyers. Texts that target the population this industry is expected to boost include blog posts, educational articles, infographics, and videos on topics related to this industry. For instance, if you provide project management software, you should produce articles such as ‘the usual problems faced in project management’ or ‘boosting team efficiency.
• Consideration Stage: At the third stage of the funnel, people who can become customers compare the options available. Provide them with more detailed information in formats like whitepapers, case studies, comparisons between your and competitor’s products and webinars to show them how they would benefit from your product. This content should help your audience and tell them how your solution is uniquely better than all others on the market.
• Decision Stage: The idea here is to guide potential customers in purchasing. These are the tools to give testimonials, customer stories, free trials, and product demos. It is also equally important for landing pages to incorporate the features of outstanding CTAs, the explanation of attributes, and the indicators of success to extend trust in your product.

3. Develop High-Quality, Educational Content

Education content is one of the most important formats in SaaS content marketing. SaaS customers seek information as they navigate a difficult problem; always ensure your content is well-researched. In the Awareness stage, this could include posts and (online) guides on related issues within the industry.

For instance, the most popular SaaS product is a marketing automation tool, so write a blog post on areas such as “Why Marketing Automation Is Crucial” or “Content Marketing Strategies for Enhancing Your Business’s Marketing Procedures.”

You should write more specific pieces about creating content, such as guides on using marketing automation or choosing a particular tool, so the receiver perceives your gadget as handy. These resources should be credible, relevant and targeted, and ideally describe the value proposition of your SaaS offering.

4. Leverage SEO to Attract and Engage Prospects

Marketing qualification tools, such as SEO (Search Engine Optimization), are also helpful for attracting prospects to your funnel during the Awareness stage. Small Business SEO Services Ahmedabad perform keyword research to determine what the audience is looking for and then use those keywords organically.

Short and long-tail keywords should be targeted; while short-tail keywords generate a high volume of traffic, long-tail keywords can attract more potential customers closer to converting.

Also, work on your site’s visibility factors, such as the site loading speed, site usability on a mobile device, and site architecture. Of course, the higher your content is placed in the search engine results ranking, the more visitors you have, which means a larger top funnel for you.

5. Capture Leads with Gated Content and Forms

To have a user progress through the funnel, the marketer requires a means of capturing such leads; this is where gated content and lead forms are important. For instance, you can give away an eBook, whitepaper or a unique webinar in exchange for the users’ contact details. These types of content are particularly useful during the Consideration stage, where the prospect of the buyer is still somewhat active but mostly Interested.

Having checked that the basic lead capture forms are easy to complete and gather the minimum vital info (name, email address, the company, etc.). Once they have opted in, follow up using an auto mailer or the drip campaign to give further info and move them to the decision stage.

6. Use Email Marketing to Nurture Leads

Another way to maintain a constant connection with the SaaS leads as they interact with your funnel is through email marketing. In this stage, connected leads should be engaged by personalized, best-fitting emailing sequences for further communications and valuable content sharing.

Educational material starts in the Awareness stage, where common blog post articles or the latest industry news can be given. As the target audience enters the consideration stage, it sends product comparisons, customer success stories, and testimonials.

The content that brings action should be prioritized in the Decision stage – it includes free-trial invitations, product demonstrations and time-limited special offers. Everyone likes to be called by their name, segment your list and customize your email according to the recipients’ interests.

7. Engage with Retargeting Ads

Retargeting ads are important if you want to recreate the situation where visitors leave your site without making a purchase. These ads are ideal for leads at the Consideration and Decision stages of the funnel because a gentle reminder will force them to return to your content or landing pages. However, to target these prospects again, try using display advertising, social media advertising, or even email retargeting, where you could offer the prospect content such as case studies, demonstration videos or special offers to get them to return to the website.

Retargeting is also commonly used to bring specificity to a campaign based on any activity the prospect may have undertaken on your site, such as visiting a product page or accessing something behind a landing page gate. Retargeting ads can also be easily customized, thus increasing their relevancy and conversion rate.

8. Optimize and Test Your Landing Pages

Landing pages are important elements in the context of the SaaS content marketing funnel since they are the main tool for converting those in the decision stage. Ensure your landing page is highly persuasive with strong and contrasting CTA, quality images and brief, benefits-driven text. Emphasize product differentiation to support the framework, product price, stock details and customer testimonials.

Amending the CTA text, images or the page layout, or combining them somehow can help identify which change works best. By doing so, one can boost conversion rates while also increasing the efficiency of the content marketing funnel that feeds into the landing pages.

9. Offer Free Trials or Demos

In the software as a service industry, a free trial or demo is one of the best techniques to measure conversion rates for the leads in the Decision stage. When a target market customer feels that they can take the product on trial, there is a high chance that they will purchase it. The free trial or a demo means people get to know the value and benefits of the product since they use it.

For your content marketing, always aim to reach the bottom of the funnel and offer your free trial/ demo to prospects. In addition, where possible, you should include prompts in your software that suggest steps to the end user and allow them to test the most fundamental parts of the product.

Conclusion

A content marketing funnel for the SaaS business needs to be developed, which includes specific informative content that will move prospects through the Awareness, Consideration, and Decision stages. By knowing the buyer's Journey, applying SEO techniques, getting Leads, and feeding the leads with proper content, SaaS companies can create a strong chain that narrows the lead in customers.

The consistent optimization of each funnel stage guarantees a progressive increase in the performance and rate of conversion, as well as positioning the content marketing effort as a strong growth engine.

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