I build and execute content strategies for sales-led B2B SaaS startups that sell complex solutions to large buying teams. | Former Inc. 5000 marketing director | Mom x 3
Four types of content you NEED to publish if you're a sales-led B2B SaaS company: 1. Thought leadership content (that maps to the product). Firstly, the term "thought leadership content" makes me wanna barf up my Cocoa Puffs because it sounds so goddamn pretentious. 🤢 HOWEVER, it's standard code for "anything other than your basic, regurgitated, SEO content." And I'm here for that. If you sell to an intelligent audience, you're gonna want to dip your toes in the thought leadership pool. ⚡ This is how you convince them you know the market and you know their problem. ⚡ 2. Product content (that ties in thought leadership). The key here is NOT to release boring product content (like snooze-worthy product update blogs that announce another "exciting" new feature). 😴 You've got to show people how they can use your product to solve burning problems ... and you've gotta back everything up with data. Your thought leadership content feeds your product content. For example, if you discover that 70% of your target audience struggles to do x, use that stat to tee up a relevant how-to product blog/video. ⚡ This is how you convince them your product is relevant. ⚡ 3. Sales enablement content This is where you repurpose a lot of the content + work you've already done to help make selling easier. Ex) Build webpages for each of your top industries that include: - Industry-specific stats from your research report - Videos on using the product to solve industry-specific problems - Customer testimonials for each of your primary personas and use cases within that industry ⚡ This is how you convince them your product is the right solution for THEM. ⚡ 4) Content to surprise and delight (BONUS) Leave a bit of wiggle room in your budget for experimentation. People complain that B2B is "boring," yet most companies give their marketers very little creative freedom. Missed opportunity to make a splash if you ask me. #balsays #b2b #contentmarketing
Yes! This! 👏 1. For a Sales lead company, through leadership has to be baked into each sales call. 2. Love the ‘how to’ example. I recently saw a SaaS brand do video FAQs for product content and the response and engagement was brilliant. 3. I’d personally love to create more of this. I see so many brands with brilliant reports and e-books that feature first hand insight, just lying gated. And instead of the wholistic ‘challenge-solution-change’ case study, niche use cases need to be featured more. Would help with both upsells and cross sells. 4. If only more brands did this.
When budgets are tight, I think the creative content is always the first to go, but it feels like the type that stands out in the market, builds brand awareness, and provides a serious morale boost for the team working on it. Not that you can't be creative with thought leadership, product, or sales enablement content, but love how the extra can bring it all together.
I've always struggled with product content because I viewed it as "here's how great we are!" and, coming from a journalism background, that just felt gross. But your point that "you've got to show people how they can use your product to solve burning problems" is the key. We've started doing very specific "how to do X" product content, and it's been successful in terms of both organic traffic and conversions.
That's a whole lotta content Erin Balsa which would you say is THE most important?
I think sales enablement content is one of my favorite to create and one of the most effective for companies, but it's sooooo neglected
FWIW, that phrase makes me want to barf up my Cocoa Puffs too
This is so accurate! And I love your explanation of thought leadership as "anything other than your basic, regurgitated, SEO content." 😁 This is the type of content that IMO could (and maybe should) be connected to key figures (leadership and experts) to give the content (and company) real personality and to grow trust.
+1 to hating the term "thought leadership" - In my mind it's giving your opinions and sharing your POV.
Yes, to all of this, Erin 👏👏 Which companies according to you have done well with point 4? I'd love to know what you think!
Head of Lifecycle Marketing, Portfolio at Atlassian
1yAwesome breakdown! This dovetails a bit with a post I shared yesterday about the intent of each asset. Everyone insists they're creating learn-intent content, but usually it's a mix of buy-, use-, and trust-intent content. (I'm still noodling a bit on the fourth category because it's getting at thought leadership, but it's meant to be about building that long-term relationship with the audience). If you have some other goal besides "understand", it's not learn-intent. And that's ok! As you call out with your definitions, sales enablement shows the audience how your product is relevant to them. And THAT is useful 🙌