Crafting a Winning Customer Acquisition Strategy

Yawn. Another blog about SaaS content marketing?

Wake up, folks - this ain't your average tactical post.

Stuffed with more tips than a Chipotle burrito, what follows is a no-holds-barred brain dump to spark fresh ideas beyond boring blogs.

After running a SaaS marketing agency for 8+ years and trying every content trick in the book, I feel like I've learned what works for generating leads...and what doesn't. This is my playbook of boundary-pushing growth tactics for the modern, mobile-centric buyer.

So say sayonara to the same old conceptual content fluff. The ideas below get practical quickly. How quickly? Faster than my 2-year-old son Kabir demolishes a cookie...and he's a machine!

Leverage Data and Testing

Too many SaaS companies take a spray and pray approach to content. They guess at what topics might perform well rather than letting data guide their strategy. To create content that converts, you need to embrace a testing mindset.

Here are a few quick wins:

• Analyze historical performance - Review past blog posts, e-books, webinars etc. and identify your best performing assets. What topics resonate most with your audience? How can you expand on these in new content?
• Populate topic clusters - Use tools like Ahrefs to uncover questions and search queries your audience has around key product themes. Address these in dedicated cluster pages and assets.
• A/B test content - Craft multiple headlines, meta descriptions or even intro paragraphs for a piece of content before publishing. Use analytics to determine the highest converting version.

When creating any new content asset, start by checking your data. Let this guide not just the topic, but the entire framing and structure. Testing allows you to iterate and improve over time.

Of course, don’t go overboard testing every minor content variation. Start by establishing key conversion goals, then focus experiments only on the highest impact pages and programs. Our agency typically sees the biggest returns from testing lead magnet headlines and meta descriptions. Over a few months, you can compound big wins.

Take a Full Funnel Approach

Many SaaS brands focus their content efforts narrowly - investing heavily in top funnel blog posts for awareness. This overlooks the entire buyer's journey. To maximize conversions, you need a full funnel content strategy that nurtures leads through each phase.

Look at your historical deals and determine which content pieces made an impact during the awareness, consideration, and decision stages. Identify any gaps in the journey where additional assets could accelerate deals. Then build these missing components.

This full funnel perspective ensures you attract and efficiently convert visitors. Align content to buyer needs at each point.

When auditing and mapping content, also assess engagement depth. Are visitors consuming your articles fully or bouncing after only skimming? Read time analytics exposes this to help structure future posts for retention. Similarly, document completion rates reveal if your ebooks or other downloads fully captivate readers’ interest.

Take an Evergreen Approach Too

Many SaaS brands focus heavily on news jacking and trends. While this can drive initial traffic spikes, evergreen content with long shelf lives ultimately accumulates more leads over time.

Some ideas for evergreen SaaS content formats that continue converting for months or years include:

• Ultimate guides - In-depth docs covering all aspects of relevant topics
• Tools/calculators - Interactive tools that provide unique value
• Best practice frameworks - Reusable templates/models to guide decisions
• 1-on-1 interviews - Transcripts with key industry thought leaders

Brainstorm a list of “ultimate guides” you could create for high-priority buyer topics. Or develop a suite of interactive tools tailored to questions your prospects ask daily. By taking an evergreen approach, the valuable inbound leads will keep flowing.

Balance evergreen and newsjacking content based on your overarching marketing objectives. For bottom-of-funnel lead gen, evergreen likely makes more sense. But if branding amid Engineering leaders at conferences, timely thought leadership proves worthwhile despite shorter shelf lives. Match content types to goals.

Leverage Competitive Intelligence

Monitoring your competitors’ content strategy reveals tactical opportunities to outmaneuver them. You can observe what topics and formats resonate, then expand into any gaps in their coverage.

Here is a simple competitive intelligence process for content:

1. List primary competitors- Who creates competing content assets?
2. Map existing content - Search their sites and curate a spreadsheet listing recent posts, e-books, tools etc.
3. Identify gaps – Analyze areas lacking coverage where you can “one-up” competitors.
4. Set Google alerts – Track new content published by competitors.

While competitor posts shouldn’t dictate your strategy, they can uncover smart areas for differentiation. You may find angles to take content deeper or identify buyer questions competitors fail to answer. Use this intelligence to fuel ideation.

Include not only close competitors in intelligence monitoring but also adjacent players. The broader your analysis, the more inspiration you’ll discover.

Collaborate with Influencers

Influencers represent shortcuts to reaching new audiences. Combined with the credibility boost from featuring known experts, SaaS brands stand to gain tremendously from influencer collaborations.

Yet simply asking influencers to share your content or write the occasional guest post has limited upside. To maximize impact, explore more creative ways to co-create content:

• Video interviews – An ongoing series generates recurring exposure plus content for both parties to promote.
• Co-authored assets – White papers, e-books and blog posts with influencers as joint authors can become powerful lead magnets.
• Repurposed snippets – Record interviews via podcast or video calls, then turn sound bites into social posts.

The key is structuring true win-win partnerships versus one-off transactional favors. Brainstorm ongoing value you can provide influencers through content plus promotion. Multi-faceted co-marketing brings extended awareness.

Start small by showcasing respected customers and power users as brand advocates. Gather testimonials plus co-create case studies with these influencers before pursuing analyst houses or industry celebrities. User generated content adds credibility and preps for bigger collaborations.

Adopt a Mobile-First Mindset

With growing mobile usage across digital content consumption, SaaS brands need a mobile-first content process. This ranges from conceptualization to formatting and optimization.

Here are a few mobile-first best practices:

• Favor scannability – Use ample paragraph breaks, bulleted lists and bold key text for skimmability.
• Keep it concise – Cut out any fluff or filler content to deliver value quickly.
• Expand multimedia – Include charts, images and embedded video for more engaging formats.
• Optimize delivery – Ensure fast load speeds via compressed images, efficient code and AMP.

Analyze your content analytics to understand engagement durations. Long form headliner posts may still have a place in the mix. But doubling down on readily consumable microcontent pays dividends for on-the-go users.

Test introducing short-form variants of traditionally long-form content types, like snippets from key reports. Evaluate performance on mobile vs. desktop. Then allocate creation resources accordingly.

Mobile optimization spans beyond content formatting into fundamentally reimagining user journeys. Use data plus user testing to pinpoint and eliminate friction across all mobile experiences. If buyers struggle to learn, trial or purchase via small screens, aggressively streamline those paths to drive conversions.

Go Beyond the Blog

While blogging represents standard table stakes, moving beyond the blog unlocks growth. Creative SaaS brands continuously test and scale alternative content formats.

Consider which mediums align with buyer behaviors at different funnel stages:

• Video sizzle reels – Engaging explainers appeal during initial research
• Podcast interviews – Deep insights hook consideration stage prospects
• Interactive slide decks – Directly address common objections/questions
• Online courses – Self-paced education aids decision validation

Diversify beyond your blog by tapping video, audio, presentations and interactive content. Exposing prospects to educational messages across channels improves retention and recall, resulting in more conversions.

Interactive content – from assessments to calculators – plays well on mobile while delivering immense value. But beware over-indexing on novelty formats just for enrichment. Mobile users demand utility foremost. So ensure interactive tools solve real needs rather than provide hollow entertainment.

Make Content Shoppable

With more recent innovations at the convergence of content and commerce, SaaS brands now have tremendous opportunities to generate trials and leads directly from any piece of content.

Techniques to make your content instantly activating and shoppable include:

• Embedded lead flows - Insert trial signup forms, so readers can act without leaving.
• Contextual CTAs - Links to demo requests when discussing specific features.
• Action tooltips - Floating buttons prompting lead gen actions while browsing pages.
• Instant chatbots - Context-aware bots initiate conversations about trials.

The goal is reducing friction for prospects emerging from the consideration phase primed to take action. Anywhere you have created value, look to incentivize instant conversion via contextually placed CTAs, lead flows and chatbots.

Test these shoppable content elements aggressively across your site, using heatmaps and scroll-based analytics to continually optimize. With the right placement, messaging and intelligent triggers, product interest converts directly into pipeline.

Personalization takes shoppable content to the next level. Leverage intent and behavioral data to serve buyers contextually relevant offers across their journey. If someone reads a pricing post, immediately display a tailored calculator integration. The more you customize based on signals, the higher the relevancy and conversions.

Go Behind the Scenes

Today’s consumers value authenticity and transparency. This presents smart opportunities for SaaS brands to generate interest and engagement by pulling back the curtain to highlight the inner workings.

Some behind the scenes content playbooks worth exploring:

• Product roadmap updates - Build excitement by previewing upcoming capabilities.
• Engineering blog - Humanize developers and technical details around innovations.
• Customer advisory panels - Publicize real users guiding your roadmap.
• Quality assurance testing - Spotlights commitment to excellence and smooth user experiences.
• Employee spotlights - Showcases interesting team members and company culture.

While resisting hype and over-promising, well-crafted inside looks make companies more relatable. These authentic perspectives fulfill informational needs during research plus assure buyers after decisions.

Transparency content builds brand affinity, reaching beyond buyers to showcase workplace culture for recruiting talent. While avoiding overexposure, smart SaaS brands package inside perspectives from engineering, product and customers into premium gated assets that provide value in exchange for sign-ups.

Ultimately, all impactful SaaS content strategies boil down to deeply understanding buyer journeys, then creatively educating audiences throughout every phase. The formats and channels will continually evolve. But by embracing the mentalities and tactics above focused on value, relevance and conversion, your content marketing machine will capture more qualified leads.

What other creative content approaches have you tested successfully? Share your top new SaaS content ideas with us!