For any SaaS company, acquiring new users is the ultimate goal. And what better way to achieve this than through content marketing, which has become an indispensable tool for acquiring customers and building a brand?
In this article, we'll share with you a case study of one SaaS company who successfully earned over 5000 sign-ups within a mere three months using a high-quality content marketing strategy.
A little background about the project
Last year, a SaaS company was seeking a SEO audit for their website. Unfortunately, we cannot share the name of the tool, let’s just say it’s a 'Reporting Tool' in the SaaS space. So, it was struggling to convert website traffic into sign-ups, with a mere 200+ sign-ups per month despite generating close to 2k+ monthly traffic. After a thorough consideration, they decided to focus on content marketing to boost brand awareness and drive more sign-ups.
The winning strategy
Content marketing plan was centered around creating a 'content machine' that catered to their ideal customer profiles (ICP). They dedicated the next five months to creating a targeted content distribution strategy, with a focus on the following key areas:
- Planning content for the entire SaaS funnel
To reach the company’s target audience effectively, they didn't just focus on volume, but rather on targeting the right audience with precisely the right content. The approach involved tailoring content for each stage of the sales funnel, from the Top of the Funnel (ToFu) to the Bottom of the Funnel (BoFu).
The sales funnel consists of three segments:
- Top of the funnel (ToFu): This stage aims to spread awareness about the product and the solution offered. They created educational blog posts and beginner tutorials to explain concepts related to the industry.
- Middle of the funnel (MoFu): This stage nurtures visitors and provides detailed information about the product or solution. They focused on creating MoFu content that discussed the best alternatives and pro tips for driving better results in the business using the tool.
- Bottom of the funnel (BoFu): This stage aims to convert visitors into customers by providing solid reasons for choosing the product. They found that the best BoFu content was to talk about the use cases of their tool and demonstrate its ROI to customers before sign-up.
They allocated 30% of the content efforts to ToFu, 30% to MoFu, and 40% to BoFu.
- Keyword research: The foundation of content marketing
Keyword research is the backbone of effective content marketing. The company relied on tools like Ahrefs to identify low-hanging fruits — keywords with a difficulty score of less than 25 and a monthly search volume of 20–300. To generate new keyword ideas, they used the following strategies:
- Generate keyword ideas from competitors;
- Use forum sites like Quora and Reddit to find relevant keywords;
- Take suggestions from ChatGPT to generate ideas for keyword research.
- Using AI to generate and publish content
AI tools have changed content creation, but they can sometimes produce robotic and disjointed content. They used AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude AI for research insights and SurferSEO for content optimization. Human editors and writers made the necessary changes and added valuable insights to the draft.
- Creating templates for BoFu content pieces
The company discovered the concept of templatizing content from Brian Dean's 'How I get millions of visitors from 4 simple templates.' They created templates for BoFu keywords, which saved time and streamlined content production. This strategy contributed to more than 20% of the website traffic and had higher conversion rates for sign-ups compared to other content.
- Building high-quality backlinks
In most niches, especially in the SaaS space, content optimization alone is not enough; backlinks are also crucial. They used outreach to scale backlinks, focusing on high-quality content that was link-worthy. The backlink strategy involved:
- Guest posts;
- 2-way link insertions;
- Three-way link exchanges;
- HARO and journalist outreach for media mentions.
They built around 100+ backlinks, which helped them rank in the top 3 results of Google. Once their content started ranking, they focused on optimizing and creating new content.
Conclusion
Content marketing requires careful planning, understanding of the target audience, and company goals. Investing in content marketing can pay dividends, as seen in this SaaS tool's experience.
To achieve success in the competitive SaaS landscape, the practices mentioned in this article are no longer optional — they're a necessity. By tailoring content planning, solid keyword research, human-edited AI content, and a scalable backlinking strategy, you can boost sign-ups and improve your bottom line.
