Creating a successful content strategy is like constructing a high-rise tower on short notice. 

There is much to do over a short period with huge ROI expectations from your managers. 

TOFU, MOFU, BOFU isn’t a trick to hit your content marketing ROI faster. But it’s a straightforward method to create content that rhymes with your customer journey to close more leads.

This guide will discuss the different stages of the content marketing funnel and how you can implement them in your content strategy.

What is TOFU, MOFU and BOFU?

TOFU, MOFU and BOFU stand for “top of the funnel,” “middle of the funnel,” and “bottom of the funnel,” respectively. 

They are stages of the inbound content marketing funnel that narrow down from the vast crowd to real customers who purchase your product.

Think of it like a stack of three sieves, each one finer than the last, allowing for increasingly precise sifting.

Generally, a customer doesn’t come from the blues to purchase your product. They go through a buyer’s journey that starts with becoming aware of your product, then making considerations, and finally, making a purchase decision.

The goal is understanding your buyer persona and getting their pain point at each stage. With the data, you create helpful content that resonates with them, intending to push promising leads down to the last step.

1. TOFU: Top of the funnel

TOFU is the top part of the marketing funnel that taps into the broadest audience.

Your target customer at this stage might have a pain point to which they don’t have an answer. Maybe they saw an ad on TV that aroused their curiosity. Or perhaps they want to research a question of interest that favors content that informs.

The first thing they’ll do is search on Google. The search engine receives 5.6 billion searches daily, and a sizable percentage of the searches are informational queries.

For example, as a content marketing agency, our target audience for TOFU is new content marketers.

The keywords they’ll likely search for include “What is content marketing?” “How to create a content strategy,” or anything else on that line.

They’ll also search for youtube videos, infographics, ebooks, and whitepapers in all things content marketing.

Our goal is to appear on their radar through valuable educational content that goes deeper into their needs. 

2. MOFU – Middle of the Funnel

Visitors moving to the MOFU stage have realized their problem and are already considering a solution.

They’re evaluating different options but are still skeptical of the available providers. The questions they have in mind are:

• What factors should I consider when searching for the right product?
• What are the pros and cons of each option?
• How many companies offer solutions to my problems?

But it’s not yet time to introduce your product. MOFU aims to create content that nurtures and strengthens their trust in your brand. 

The most effective strategies to use at this stage include the following:

• Lead magnets in exchange for emails.
• Quick surveys or questions.
• Email marketing campaign.
• Social media posts.
• Podcasts and webinars.

3. BOFU: Bottom of the Funnel

Every content marketer’s dream is to get as many leads as possible to this stage.

It’s where you pull the trigger by creating conversion-focused content. The aim is to present your product for quick purchase.

BOFU shouldn’t be challenging if you have good engagements for TOFU and MOFU. Why?

Your visitors have already developed a strong trust for your brand and see your product as the most viable solution to their needs. 

Nevertheless, there’s no time to waste as the prospect may opt for another tool that offers a similar solution to yours.

The most relevant content for BOFU that drives conversions includes free trials, product demos, product comparisons, and listicles.

Why TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU matter in your content strategy

Here are a few reasons why the content marketing funnel is essential to your content strategy.

• You become a part of your customer journey.
• You’ll understand different visitors at each stage and create content that resonates with them.
• Have a clearly defined content strategy with goals.
• Keep your content calendar filled all year round. 
• Enables you to create marketing strategies that yield results.
• Makes it easy to measure your content marketing ROI.
• It gives you an edge over competitors.

Key differences between TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU content

Here’s a quick scenario to give you an idea of the differences between TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU.

Imagine you own an online fitness equipment store. Sarah, a fitness enthusiast, discovers your blog post on “10 Simple Exercises for Beginners” (TOFU) during a Google search.

Intrigued, she subscribes to your newsletter and receives a guide on “Building a Home Gym on a Budget” (MOFU). Now interested in specific products, she clicks on a limited-time discount for a starter home gym bundle (BOFU) and makes a purchase, completing her journey from awareness to conversion.

As you can see, the main difference between TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU content is based on your buyer persona and their current needs. 

It’s not even related to the content you create at each level.

For example, since ebooks and white papers are the most relevant TOFU content and webinars for MOFU content, it doesn’t mean that you can’t interchange the two.

This is where things get tricky, and that’s why you‘ll hear content marketers having different opinions on the type of content you should create at each funnel stage.

The confusion arises because they emphasize content and forget the most critical thing – customer intent. 

Nevertheless, you need to be careful when interchanging content for each stage. The goal is to make it relevant to your customer based on their persona.

Here’s the critical difference between TOFU MOFU BOFU based on customer intent.

• TOFU – Answers “why” and “how”

TOFU content gives answers to “why” and “how.” 

The visitor doesn’t have much knowledge of their needs. Your content provides factual information without explicitly promoting your product.

For example, suppose you’re a SaaS business selling an email outreach tool. In that case, your TOFU blog post, ebook, YouTube video, or infographic can be about “How to conduct an email outreach for SaaS startups.” 

The title cuts across most channels but keeps the customer’s intent at heart.

• MOFU – Answers “which”

At the MOFU stage, the visitors already know their problem and consider the perfect seller.

They’re evaluating different options but are unsure of which product they should choose. Therefore, you create content that seals the trust as you slowly introduce your development as a suitable option.

An example MOFU blog post, video, guide, etc., can be “Your product vs. Competitor – Side by side comparison.

• BOFU – Answers “where”

Visitors who’ve reached the BOFU stage are already hooked to your product. They just need that extra push and a little more coaxing.

BOFU content aims to create extra reassurance, add more incentives, and create a sense of urgency to your product. 

Only at this stage do the content you create differ significantly from TOFU and MOFU.

Ideally, you’d only focus on conversion-focused content like product comparisons, testimonials, and case studies. However, the most effective BOFU strategy is offering free demos and consultations.

TOFU MOFU BOFU content in action

Let’s look at a brand that has used TOFU MOFU BOFU in its content strategy to turn its blog into a money-minting machine. That’s Mailshake.

(I don’t have a working relationship with the company. They’re just a well-known SaaS brand that came into mind for this example).

Mailshake is an email outreach tool laser-focused on content marketing to gain traffic and sell its product.

At the time of writing this article, their blog receives 128k organic traffic per month, according to SEMrush.

• Mailshake TOFU Content

It’s hard to determine how a blog’s TOFU content performs.

Luckily, SEMrush divides a site’s traffic based on the intent of the keyword. One of their metrics is informational keywords. Visitors use these search terms when they want to learn about a pain point they’re experiencing.

In short, they’re the keywords you’ll target for TOFU content. So is it a coincidence that those keywords bring in 73.2% of Mailshake’s traffic? Not really. 

By targeting these keywords, Mailshake gets 94,080 visitors looking for answers to a pain point they don’t know about. That’s the goal of TOFU content.

Here’s a screenshot of a few keywords they rank for and the estimated traffic each brings.

• Mailshake MOFU Content

Since Mailshake relies on content marketing for traffic and leads, most of its MOFU content is mainly blog posts.

But they’ve diversified on different channels to ensure they have covered everyone considering their product. 

Their most popular social media channel for MOFU strategy is LinkedIn which has over 5000 followers. 

The company’s co-founder Sujan Patel also leverages his massive pool of LinkedIn followers to market the company. He creates insightful posts that often go viral and spread the brand’s message.

In addition, Sujan appears in podcasts to talk about sales and how Mailshake offers the best solution for email outreach. There’s also a YouTube channel, Facebook page, and Twitter page. 

All these are powerful MOFU content that makes visitors gain trust in the company and consider their product.

• Mailshake BOFU Content

With all the nurturing at the MOFU stage, Mailshake creates the most compelling BOFU content to maximize funnel conversion rates.

They have focused mainly on three BOFU content, as shown below.

Product demos

Mailshake provides a demo that they’ve strategically placed on the landing page. 

The free test drive allows potential leads to learn how to use the Mailshake platform to generate leads.

Success stories

Mailshake has dedicated a whole section on its website for customer success stories.

Prospects can see how past users have generated revenue with the tool. Anyone who was initially skeptical will automatically purchase the tool because of the compelling stories.  

BOFU Blog posts

This is where Mailshake makes most of its revenue.

Using the SEMrush Keyword intent bar, you’ll notice that 6.5% of Mailshake keywords are transactional. 

Visitors use transactional keywords when they want to buy something as soon as possible. With a monthly organic traffic of 128k, 6.5% represent over 8,300 hot leads.

Of the 8,300, 110 people are ready with their wallets as they search for “Mailshake pricing.”

Let’s do some math to see how Mailshake might be making by acquiring new customers every month through BOFU blog posts.

We can do this calculation by multiplying these variables.

• Number of monthly BOFU blog post traffic
• The modest conversion rate of 10%
• Mailshake’s most basic plan of $44 per month

The calculation gives us a monthly ROI, as shown in the image below.

Multiply the monthly income by 12, and you get $438,240. 

So Mailshake might make an additional half a million dollars yearly by focusing on conversion-focused BOFU blog posts alone.

How To Implement the Content Marketing Funnel in Your Content Strategy

Even before you execute the content marketing funnel in your content strategy, the first critical thing is understanding your buyer persona. 

Once that’s done, the next step is to determine the best content type you’ll use for each stage.

Suppose you’re a new SaaS business selling an email marketing tool. How would you implement the marketing funnel in your content strategy?

Step 1: TOFU Content Strategy

The first step to start before creating TOFU content is keyword research. It’s where content marketing begins. You want to have a good spot in the SERPs.

How you do your keyword research will significantly depend on your industry. For example, email marketing is a widely contested industry.

Capterra alone has listed over 789 email marketing software products.

Image source

What does that mean? Don’t focus much on TOFU content because the competition for rich keywords is at its peak.

For example, we checked how the TOFU keyword “what is email marketing” ranks.

As you can see, the competition for the keyword is at its peak. You will hardly appear even in the 30 SERP results.

The solution is to go deeper in keyword research to find low-volume keywords your competitors haven’t tackled. Focus on many of those keywords, and you’ll start getting eyes for your blog. 

But you want to leverage the little traffic from SEO. 

That’s where other channels come into place. A healthy content marketing mix must include a wide range of content formats.

You can create an in-depth ebook on email marketing. Or you can create insightful infographics, host educational webinars, or even open a YouTube channel.

The goal at this stage is to create super-quality content that makes your brand shine more than competitors.

Step 2. MOFU content.

Keyword research still plays a significant role here. You want to direct the portion of visitors past the TOFU stage back to your website as they evaluate different providers.

The most preferred keywords for MOFU blog post content should be comparison-related and listicles.

Again, as said earlier, email marketing is a vast niche. MOFU keywords like “best email marketing tools” already have a high KD.

You’ll need to use unique key terms with less volume. For example, you can focus on long-tail keywords that most visitors in the MOFU stage search. A good example is “Best email marketing tools for startups.”

While the volume is low, it lets you tap into a particular audience in their search. 

As you publish the blog posts, create case studies and email newsletters to nurture leads. Also, consider having active social media platforms to spread your brand.

Step 3: BOFU Content 

Some content marketers argue that you don’t need to prioritize MOFU and BOFU if you’re in a competitive industry.

While it may seem like you’re breaking the marketing funnel, there’s some truth. You don’t want to start educating an audience that already knows what it needs.

Consider email marketing, a broad niche equipped with numerous tools. Your target audience likely possesses a foundational understanding.

 Instead of wasting money and resources following the content marketing funnel, invest in BOFU content strategically.

The best content at this stage is channeled to sell your product. Typically, you’d go deeper into product comparisons and demos, offer free trials, and create customer success stories. 

Conclusion

Content marketing is a long-term game. And it even becomes longer if you don’t approach it with a clear strategy.

The content marketing funnel doesn’t mean you’ll get your ROI faster. The goal is to create a straightforward content system that embraces your customers based on their buyer journey.

It ensures you get quality leads to buy your product by the time they’ve reached the conversion stage. The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll start getting qualified leads.

The worst thing a marketer can face is losing a lead. 

Unfortunately, email marketing is the most affected, with 0.18% to 0.52% of unsubscriptions after each email you send.

However, most digital marketers call this a blessing in disguise.

Image source

Image source

We can agree with them to some extent, but we shouldn’t give them the benefit of the doubt. In most cases, people unsubscribe because of many irrelevant emails.

You risk damaging your brand’s reputation by sending emails that don’t engage your audience. Why? You’ve consistently shown that you don’t consider their personal needs.

The only way to escape this endless abyss is to develop a robust, targeted strategy. This is where email targeting comes into play.

What is the Purpose of a Targeted Email?

A targeted email is similar to any other email. The only difference is that it’s sent to a specific part of your subscribers after carefully studying them.

To develop a targeted email campaign, your email service provider should help you segment your subscribers based on interests, gender, age, occupation, Geography, and more. 

This gives you valuable insights to personalize your emails that target your audience with the right content. 

Targeted emails have many benefits; the most significant are high open and conversion rates. 

For example, a survey by Oracle found that one in five subscribers love it when brands send them targeted emails. They’re likely to convert.

Targeted emails also make your brand relevant to your audience. As you keep creating content they want to see, they’ll remember your brand as a source of pertinent information.

Plus, it creates a robust retention capability for your existing customers. It’s possible because you already have your subscriber’s preferences and interests. Use the information to maintain a solid customer-company brand going.

Examples of Targeted Emails

There are different types of targeted emails. This section will give you the most popular styles with examples.

• Geo-Location Targeted Email

If you’re selling a physical product, it’s easy to know the location of your email subscribers. The information is available on their purchase history, delivery address, and zip codes.  You’ll use this to send personalized emails based on their location. 

For instance, Ace Hotels get to know their customers’ location when booking rooms.  They’ll then use the data to inform customers about events near their area. 

Here’s an example of an event that was to take place in Los Angeles. They emailed this to all subscribers living in the area.

• Gender Targeted Emails

Gender-targeted email marketing segments subscribers based on their gender. 

For example, Lucchese Bootmaker, a bootmaker brand based in Texas, uses targeted emails to communicate differently to their male and female customers.

In their most successful campaign, they developed ” Roy ” boots for men and “Gabby” for women.

Emails sent to their female audience showed a woman wearing a Gabby boot in a hero-like kind of image. The boots are then pictured below the image. They did the same for their male subscribers. 

This campaign had the highest click-through rate in the company’s history because it targeted its audience with matched-gender content.

• Behavior Targeted Emails

This type of target email relies greatly on tracking your website’s users as they navigate through the website. Lucky for you, there are many tracking tools to help you here.

A perfect example of a targeted email is from Medium, an online publishing platform. You can only read three free articles every month if you’re not a member.

Medium’s editorial team then recommends articles based on your reading history. Here’s a screenshot of some recommendations they sent me.

If you’re an avid reader, the recommendations will compel you to pay the $5 monthly fee for unlimited access. There are multiple approaches you can still use here. 

For example, you can use transaction emails if you’re selling physical products. These emails provide the buyer with personalized cross-selling products to motivate them to revisit you.

This strategy has become Aliexpress’ mode of making their customers come back.

How to start using Email Targeting

This section will focus on how you can embark on creating your first targeted email.

• Create an Email Database

You need people in your email list before starting your email targeting campaign. The process isn’t complex. First, get a reliable email marketing provider. 

Consider the ease of use, price, and premium features when choosing. Then, create an attractive opt-in form for new sign-ups. 

The opt-in forms shouldn’t just collect emails only. Add other options like phone numbers, physical addresses, and birth dates. These data might come in handy later when starting your email targeting campaign.

• Gather information about your subscribers and create customer segments

This is the most challenging part of email targeting. Why? There’s a lot of data to consume to segment your list.

Technically, each segmentation step considers your audience’s challenges and why they subscribed to your list in the first place. As hinted earlier, you can segment your list based on gender, demographic area, and purchase history. 

Use surveys or quizzes for more technical segmentation, like behavior and preferences. They dive into the mind of your audience to show you their interests.

• Make Your Emails Targeted

With the results in the above section, the next step is to adjust each email you send based on their needs. It shouldn’t be a hustle as you already know what they want when needed or where they want it.

• Test and Analyze

You’ll probably have a few misses when starting. However, this is precious data to help shape your overall target email marketing. 

You can even do the whole email targeting process with a portion of your subscribers. If you have 5000 subscribers, start with 500 to see how your targeted email goes.

The results you’ve received will help you start targeted email marketing for all your subscribers. 

For example, you’ll know how to shorten the process, create laser-focused targeted emails, and increase ROI.

Takeaway

Brands are throwing money into email marketing, yet they don’t get the full potential of what it can do. 

Email targeting is the only way you’ll be assured of getting $36 for every $1 spent. You can even be more successful when you’ve got a laser-focused strategy. 

Creating content is a tiring and demanding process.

Research shows that 36% of bloggers spend more than six hours creating a single article. That’s almost an entire day of researching, writing, and editing to get everything right.

Source: Orbitmedia.com

Never mind, you’ll be creating engaging content regularly. Content worth publishing and that drives better results (read: increases conversion rates.)

But how consistently can you pull that off?

Other SaaS brands are churning out excellent content every few days, leaving you baffled. How do they publish such great content regularly without getting tired?

The secret lies in using a SaaS content research process.

In this article, I’ll show you three steps of researching and creating killer content using a practical SaaS content research process—which will help you create and publish better content backed by examples, statistics, and studies.

Let’s get started.

Step #1. Research Your Competitors’ Best Posts for Ideas

Before you begin writing, research your competitors’ top-performing content. What makes their posts so engaging? Or what tips the scales in their favor?

Analyze all their best content to determine which topics rank well on the SERPs.

Knowing your competitors’ top-performing topics, especially those attracting more traffic, will help you improve your content marketing efforts.

Also, tracking popular topics people are searching for or want to read about is the first step to writing great content. And since you already have proof of what works in your competitor’s blog, it’s easy to avoid writing content around stale topics.

But how exactly do you find your competitors’ top-performing content?

How to Find Your Competitors’ Top Content

The instinctive, knee-jerk reaction is to use data and insight tools to help reveal your competitors’ data. But some of these tools lack the precision to provide insightful data.

Luckily, that’s not what you’re looking for.

What you’re precisely looking for is your competitor’s content strategy framework. And to find one, you’ll need to do a simple competitor analysis.

There are many tried-and-tested competitor analysis tools to help you get started. Try each tool individually and learn how it works before using it.

Note: Not all of your competitors are worth analyzing. Some could improve their content marketing, and others need an effective content strategy. Ensure to analyze only those competitors who boast successful content marketing for actionable insights.

The big question remains: how can I find worthy competitors to analyze?

How Do You Find Competitors to Analyze?

You may find executing SEO or conducting research challenging, but you probably know your competitors. If you don’t, then find them using one of these three ways:

1. Google-search the Query “Your Main Keyword + Tool”

One way to find your competitors is to Google-search your primary SEO keyword. For better results, Google-search keywords your competitors might be typing to find you.

For example, if you’re an inbound marketing SaaS company, Google-search keywords such as “inbound marketing tool,” “inbound marketing software,” “inbound marketing,” or similar keyword phrases to find your top-ranking, direct competitors.

2. Use Relevant Blog Topics

You may also find competitors through topics that competitors cover on their blogs.

This option is more complex than the previous one, but it helps you significantly broaden the scope of competitors you want to analyze.

Before Google-searching relevant blog topics, ask yourself: What topics are my competitors likely to cover on their blogs?

Then run the answers you get on Google as your relevant topics. For excellent results, include the words “advice,” “how to,” or “tips” in your search.

Some of your successful competitors will target a niche, which is more or less a blog topic meant to attract a specific audience.

Let’s say you’re a SaaS company that develops software for construction companies. Since your target audience is the construction industry, your competitors’ content will likely target the same audience. 

In that case, Google-search phrases such as “how to onboard workers for your construction company” or “time management tips for your construction company.”

You may successfully find your direct competitors from the search results, and sometimes, you may even land on other people’s blog posts. However, some may not be relevant to the blog topics you’re looking for.

3. Use G2 and Capterra Directories

Another way to find competitors (especially if you’re a SaaS brand) is through browsing popular directory sites such as G2 or Capterra.

You may ask: But my site isn’t listed in any of these directories. How will I search for other SaaS brands? That doesn’t matter at all.

Just browse through the category you’d belong to (if you were listed) and then start searching for other brands within your niche. You’ll score a laundry list of competitors.

Focus your search on other categories to find even more competitors, as other SaaS brands may get listed in multiple niche categories because most of the tools they sell boast multiple features and functionalities.

Step #2. Implement the Skyscraper Technique

You’ve researched your competitors’ top-performing articles and found the best topic ideas. Now it’s time to create a superior version of their content.

That’s where the skyscraper technique comes in.

For the uninitiated, the skyscraper technique is a strategy that involves finding top-performing content from the SERPs, revamping it, and replicating backlinks (with high-quality ones). Think of it as building a taller skyscraper than your competitors.

The strategy works in three simple steps:

Source: Ahrefs.com

To get started on the skyscraper approach, research your competitor’s existing content structure to create a perfect outline for your article.

An outline acts as the foundation for creating better content. It structures the headings and subheadings of your article—organizing them in a hierarchy consisting of the Heading (h1), Section Heading (h2), Section Subheading (h3), and so on.

In other words, it lets you stay on topic and maintain the flow of your article.

So, in this step, review your competitors’ top ten content and search for weaker areas. Then figure out ways to improve them. You’ll soon have a better-structured article.

Note: Analyzing their content is only to help you figure out a starting point. So avoid duplicating their content, as this teeters along the lines of plagiarism. Also, it leads to the creation of low-value content, yet your goal is to write better and unique content.

Focus on improving your content by at least 5%, and Google will reward your efforts by ranking your article at the top of the food chain.

How to do this?

Add 5% to 10% more information (think examples, infographics, statistics, etc.) in your post to give it more value. Doing so will significantly boost your rankings on the SERPs.

Once you’ve reviewed your competitors’ content and remodeled it to create a perfect blog post structure, it’s time to improve it.

Here’s how you can revamp your blog post structure:

• Get rid of weak areas. Check the headings for weaknesses—do they provide any tangible value to the reader? If not, get rid of them. And if the written content is poorly covered, off-topic, and excessive, cut it off from your outline.
• Add valuable information. If your competitors’ content missed covering tips, solid reasons why the topic is essential, or its downsides and upsides, find ways to add this information to yours. Ensure your article is as valuable as possible.
• Research other articles within your topic. Go beyond “skyscraping” your competitors’ posts and analyze other articles for your primary keyword. The reason for doing this is to find more relevant topic ideas to include in your article.
• Review your blog structure. Lastly, spend time reviewing your article’s structure. Organize your topic ideas clearly, and cut out those top-level headings that might seem challenging to elaborate or expound on.

Step #3. Find Information Sources for Each Section

Great, you now have a perfect article outline. The next step is finding reliable sources of information for each blog post section.

A more structured outline makes researching information sources easier. But this is no excuse to spend too much time on research as it may lead to information overload.

So how do you research sources for each section of your outline?

Narrow Your Search to a Keyword

No need to overthink your blog sections too much—just narrow down your research to a keyword and then use that keyword as your heading.

For instance, if one of your headings reads like this: “The Advantages of Inbound Marketing for Your SaaS Brand,” You could replicate it with “The Benefits of Inbound Marketing” or simply “Inbound Marketing Benefits.”

Trimming down your headings to shorter, “searchable” keywords filters out unnecessary information that might distort your search results—helping you find relevant resources.

Use the Keywords to Find Information Sources

Here, begin writing your article. But before you do, Google-search your keywords (or headings) to find the best information sources for your content.

Start by skimming through 10 to 20 articles ranking for your keyword. The articles you find helpful (at least 2-3) should go under specific sections of your outline, but only after determining their credibility. Credible sources help you create great content.

After that, create a brief to help you start writing. A simple brief will do (as seen below):

Using multiple sources of information for each of your blog sections helps you come up with better content. Give your article a unique perspective to boost its value.

Research Your Way to Better Articles

Creating content is a never-ending activity.

Many SaaS brands want a robust content marketing strategy that’s research-based, deliberate, and data-driven. However, for many of them, putting in the legwork to achieve those actionable goals is a great challenge.

If you want to create great content without breaking a sweat, use the right content research process that prepares you for it—because that’s what great SaaS brands do.

And if you want to avoid reinventing the wheel, you can draw inspiration from other sources to create a perfect outline for your article. Use this 3-step SaaS content research process to create the best content for your brand continuously.

In 2017, Sujan Patel, a marketer and entrepreneur par excellence, coined the term “customer engagement is the new marketing”.

With the current development in SaaS, this statement couldn’t be more accurate.

During the global pandemic, many fence-sitting companies were forced to lead with empathy and genuinely address customers’ needs, and for a good reason — to help strengthen business-to-customer relationships.

According to a 2021 survey report, nearly 84% of global customer success practitioners and stakeholders say customer success will shift from defense to offense in the next two years.

This means more SaaS businesses will channel their budget toward increasing customer engagement and conversions. They’ll focus on building and maintaining a loyal customer base.

If you’re not initiating significant changes to your customer experience as a SaaS-focused business, this is the right time.

This guide provides tips on measuring customer success and the best ways to increase customer engagement for your SaaS business model.

But first…

Why Does Customer Success Matter More Than Ever?

Most SaaS businesses either focus on the sales or marketing aspect of the business. But how many focus on their customers’ needs?

While every department in a company wants to leave a lasting impression, neglecting the customer success team seems justified as they’re “just an extension of the customer service or support.”

Customer service or support is short-term, and its main aim is customer satisfaction. Conversely, customer success is long-term, proactive, and relationship-focused, and its main aim is to increase customer value.

In both methods, customers need more attention.

The clear distinction between these two means that the market has significantly changed. And power shifted from sellers to buyers.

In short, customers have a (louder) voice. And they’ll find it easier and cheaper to seek an alternative software solution to solve their problem.

That’s the downside of neglecting your customer success team.

The upside is that if you do it well, you might hit your revenue projections or even surpass them. That’s because 86% of customers are willing to spend more for a great customer experience.

Customer success is a growth engine businesses should pay attention to, and nearly 87% of leaders agree with this fact. Remember, your company’s success relies on your customers’ overall success.

So the more value you give your customers, the faster your product grows.

Happy customers can drive new leads through word of mouth. Or better yet, they can write epic reviews of your products, give insightful customer feedback, write positive testimonials, and increase social shares. 

That said, here are customer success tips to improve your engagement rate.

1. Use the Right Customer Success Tools

Thousands of customer success tools sell themselves as the ideal option for online businesses. Capterra, a free online marketplace vendor, has almost 10,000 products listed on its platform.

Source: Capterra

You can have a strong customer success team but if your tool fails to match your goals? You’ll encounter challenges that affect your team’s performance.

So, before searching for “best customer success tools,” consider these factors:

• Integrations: Get a tool that seamlessly integrates with third-party tools and metric integrations and can synchronize all your data to help you work efficiently without jumping from one tool to another.
• Scalability: Look for a tool that supports your business and can scale with you as your needs grow. Many SaaS startups make the mistake of using an enterprise customer service tool. They end up paying more while only a few customers are in their pipeline. 
• User Interface: This cuts across representation and ease of use. You want to work with a Customer Service tool with rich customer data history that’s easy to access. 
• Metrics and Analytics: The ideal tool should assimilate data and develop reports that strengthen your customer success efforts. For example, it should predict future customer growth or signal red flags based on data related to interactions, inquiries, and payments.

2. Communicate More with Customers

Of course, using the right customer success tool isn’t the only step to increasing engagement. Ensure to communicate more with your customers as they interact with your SaaS products throughout the customer journey.

That means regularly checking up on them to see how they’re faring and find out where they need help. Avoid the usual “Hey, how’s everything going?” type of communication. Add value to your customers instead.

A good case in point is to provide short training videos, hints, or product tips on how your customers can best use all your products’ features.

When it comes to communication, Jeff Gardner, Intercom’s director of customer support, says it best:

• Be easy. Make it easy for your customers to use your SaaS products without jumping through multiple hoops.
• Be effective. Know your product well, including its core weaknesses.
• Be authentic. Ensure everyone understands your cultural values and aligns with them for exceptional results. 

Another communication strategy is to offer personalized support to your customers through one-on-one calls. 

This strategy works best if you boast a relatively small customer base or a dedicated customer success team.

If that’s hard to achieve, set up an automated email campaign. Then embed different video tutorials in your campaigns for good measure. It works.

3. Improve Customer Onboarding Process

Customer success begins when a visitor immediately converts into a buyer. And this is the best time to improve your customer onboarding process.

Start by educating your customers. Introduce them to your product by covering all the details and how best to use it. Be clear.

Ensure they also understand how to use the product’s key features. And how they can reach customer support when the need arises.

Customers who achieve the initial value of your SaaS product during the onboarding process are more likely to become long-term customers. Those who lose interest or get confused undoubtedly leave.

Spend extra on your onboarding process (if possible). It’s a worthy investment that retains customers. Just automate your onboarding process until your customers succeed with your SaaS product.

Wrike did this. They automated their onboarding process by creating simple tutorials, reducing onboarding time by 70%. That’s nothing to sneeze at.

Another great way to improve the customer onboarding process? Create a customer onboarding course. Online courses can enhance retention rates, increase adoption of your SaaS product features, and boost engagement.

If creating an online course seems like a stretch, personalize introductions to your SaaS products to fit each customer. Digital courses work best for those running a small online business or are solopreneurs.

Some methods you can use to improve your customer onboarding process include (but aren’t limited to):

• User guides
• One-on-one video calls
• Automated email campaigns
• Evergreen webinars
• Video tutorials

There’s no better way to help customers get comfortable using your SaaS products than setting up an onboarding process. Get it right, and you’ll improve customer success for the longest.

4. Setup Feedback Loops for Customers

Want to know what to do to support your customers effectively? Create a customer success feedback loop. That way, you’ll collect essential information (positive or negative) from your customers.

Getting positive customer feedback is good. But if it lacks a specific focus on customer success, it’s challenging to know what needs improvement. For example, a customer’s feedback after a survey might go like this:

“Your platform is great. It helped me create my first SaaS product. Unfortunately, I’ve not made any orders yet.”

Such feedback comes from a satisfied customer and not a successful one as they’re yet to achieve their objective with your SaaS product (which is to sell products to their customers).

To create a successful customer success feedback loop, find out what’s exactly going wrong. And where your customer’s problems lie. For better results, delve deeper into the “but..” portion of their feedback.

Dan Steinman, a former CCO at Gainsight, warns against collecting feedback en masse. He says specific customers give the best feedback.

To get the right feedback:

• Find out what’s essential to your customers.
• Communicate your entire customer process to your customers.
• Handpick customers you believe represent the future of your business. Communicate your entire customer process to your customers.

When customers feel more involved in the feedback collection process, they become more loyal. In turn, enhancing your customer satisfaction strategy.

5. Monitor Key Customer Success Metrics

To improve customer success, track and measure your efforts. Doing so helps you get a clear picture of what’s happening in your business — all your customers’ pain points and where they’re doing well.

So, which are the key customer success metrics to monitor?

• Customer health score. This metric represents the number of product features your customers use, the time they spend with the product, and the number of product renewals they’ve initiated.
• Repeat buying rate. The percentage of customers making repeat purchases of your SaaS product.
• Customer lifetime value. This is revenue generated from a customer over their entire relationship with your business.
• Customer retention rate. This metric shows the percentage of customers loyal to your business over a specific period.

The only way to tell whether customers derive value from your product is to monitor your crucial customer success metrics constantly. This ensures your investment pays off. And that customers successfully adopt your product.

However, the best metrics for your business largely depend on your goals, business model, and specific products and services you’re selling.

Conclusion

Customer success can do so much for your SaaS business.

You may have quality products or services, but it’s the experience they provide to customers that matters the most. In fact, customer experience is what gives you an edge over your competition.

But to keep your customers happy all the time, you need to master the best customer success strategies. And they cover the whole cycle: customer journey, onboarding, feedback, and even mastering human communication.

There’s no better way to deliver maximum value to your customers.

As a B2B SaaS content writer, my other job apart from writing is searching for the next job.

Of course, this doesn’t imply that I’m desperate. 

But with freelancing, you must be on the hunting ground to keep your client base full all year round.

This means having a robust marketing strategy and networking skills that bring you an inch closer to prospects. 

But still, the good ol’ method of lurking on job boards, slack channels, and Facebook groups is the most promising way of getting hired, 

So I’ve applied to many jobs at content marketing agencies, SaaS companies, and even affiliate marketers.

While I’ve had success with most of my applications, I began to imagine how hectic it is to hire writers. 

A couple of months ago, I posted a job ad on a Facebook group to outsource some extra work. It didn’t take more than five hours before getting overwhelmed with proposals in my inbox. I got to experience what recruits feel first-hand.

I’ve realized three main challenges recruiters face in my short experience hiring writers and applying for B2B SaaS content writing roles.

I’ll discuss this briefly before we go to the meat of this piece.

The Challenge With Hiring Writers

✅ Style and Tone

Most content writers try to do better at essential things like improving grammar, writing clearly, reducing fluff, etc.

But to get a writer that can share your mission, they must drop their voice/style and embrace yours.

That’s easier said than done.

I had similar challenges when starting. I’d do a test article and get feedback like the one below.

It took me a long time to understand how to shift to my client’s style and tone.

To check if a writer can write in your style, send them a test article with detailed instructions and a few examples.

✅Lack of Expert Knowledge

Let’s assume you’re selling an accounting software targeting experienced accountants and finance managers in big tech companies.

These are people who’ve spent decades in accounting practice. They know everything about accounting tools and can sniff mediocre options from afar.

Then you hire a writer on Fiverr to do a 1000-word article for $10 targeting them.

Typically, this is the approach your writer will take.

• Spend 30 minutes on Google looking for articles written on the topic.
• Pretend to be an expert by writing a “catchy” intro.
• Spend another hour spinning and rewriting what they read from their “research.”
• Add a few internal links for “SEO.”
• Add a feature photo from a free stock photo site like Pexels.
• Pass through Grammarly and follow the suggestions religiously.
• Send it to you with an invoiced attached.

Of course, you won’t get any eyes on your piece, leave alone conversions. 

Getting writers who are experts on what they do is a tough battle. And to rub salt in the wound, readers are becoming wary of low-quality content.

Stay tuned to see how these content managers get expert writers who know their stuff.  

✅Writers that can go deep in research

Research isn’t opening ten articles on the same topic and picking one tip from each piece.

I believe you need something better if you’re willing to pay upwards of $200 for a 1000-word article, 

In your job post, ask writers how they do their research. Consider writers who can dive deep into the farthest corners of the internet, conduct expert interviews, and scour through case studies and surveys to extract fleshy details.

For example, when planning for this article, I could’ve simply Googled X tips to hire freelance writers. And there are a lot of results on that topic.

But my article could’ve been another boring piece adding nothing valuable to my target audience.

My unique research process was to create a Google form and send it to content managers I’ve met on Linkedin. Plus, I reached out to past clients to get their thoughts.

That’s a deep research that taps into valuable first-hand tips not available anywhere on the internet.

With that said, my guests today are experts who’ve hired and worked with writers for years. They have led successful content teams that sky-rocketed their company’s blogs in traffic and leads.

The tips they’re about to share are valuable, so have a notebook by your side. 

1. Raw Talent Above All Else

It depends! (Ugh, I know.) 

I’ve hired freelance journalists when I worked at a magazine, I’ve hired full-time, entry-level content writers when I worked at an agency, and I’ve hired experienced writers at a B2B SaaS company. 

At the magazine, I might have looked for a musician to write the monthly music column … whereas a musical background wouldn’t matter at the agency or the B2B SaaS company. 

At the agency, I had a small budget for salary, so I looked for raw talent and drive, and then I trained them up. 

At the B2B Saas company, I had a bigger budget and less time to train, so I looked for more experienced writers who could hit the ground running. 

However, the common thread is raw talent. If you don’t have some natural writing ability, nothing else matters.

Connect with Erin

Martin here: Few recruiters look for talent, yet it is a crucial trait to consider. It’s one thing to be a trained writer but another thing to have it in you.

2. Simple Grammars Mistakes Are a Big Deal 

As we’re a B2B SaaS brand, I want to see examples written for similar types of clients, or at least written on a technical subject. 

You can tell quite quickly from writing samples if a writer has a good grasp, knowledge, and expertise of the subject – something that’s very important. 

It also gives me an idea of the person’s writing style. When I read someone’s work, I want to have confidence in what they’re saying and understand that they are writing as an expert. If I don’t get this feeling when reading samples, I won’t work with them.

I don’t ask writers to write samples if they already have relevant published work or pieces written for previous clients. However, if that’s not the case, I would appreciate some samples written for us.

I notice instantly if there is a grammar or spelling error, so proofreading everything is essential.

That goes not only for writing samples. But for LinkedIn messages and exchanges over email, you would be surprised how many people misspell my name in an email or LinkedIn when it’s written very clearly.

One typo in an email gives me a bad impression of the writer and makes me reluctant to work with them, even if their samples are strong. 

It indicates that the writer doesn’t have good attention to detail, meaning there will be more work for me in the editing stage.

Connect with Francesca

3. Portfolio! Portfolio! Portfolio!

When I hire writers, the #1 element I check out is the writer’s portfolio. If the portfolio is good enough, I’ll hire a writer. 

If the portfolio isn’t solid and I instinctively know that the writer could improve in the future, I save their details and request their current work when next I have a suitable project. If it’s good, we can work on a project to see how it goes.

Connect with Precious

4. I Look for Scientists, Not writers 

When hiring writers, I look for someone who (in order of importance) is:

• Smart, clear thinker, and present an argument logically

Because of this, I look for people from the STEM fields. No English majors, economists, social scientists, artists, or nutritionists.

I’d want Mathematicians, Physicists, and Engineers. 

So why’s my approach quite different?

Clear thinking is a rare skill, and I couldn’t care less if I get a writer with such a skill. These people can learn anything and hence are automatically problem solvers.

• Agreeable

Look for a writer who’s afraid that they’ll let you down. These writers will work hard to make sure the next piece they write is better than the previous one.

• Polite and orderly

Polite people are typically more agreeable and are easy to work with. On the other hand, orderly writers score higher on conscientiousness. 

Determining the two traits isn’t harder. You can clearly see who’s orderly and polite from their writing and formatting.

• Not “Creative”

Yeah, that’s right.

Creative writers are a pain to deal with. They always want to do things their way, which is a nuisance.

In general, people are either “visionaries” or “integrators.” As a content manager, you’re visionary, so you need an integrator to ruthlessly execute your ideas and work with the systems you create.

You’re looking for someone to execute and be efficient while doing it.

When it comes to interviewing, first, I don’t listen to what they have to say. 

Every writer is an “expert” when you meet for the first time. They’ll give you links to bylines and tell you the awesome clients they’ve worked with.

All I’m concerned with is their inputs. This is called “Garbage in – Garbage out,” a principle in computer science.

It means that no matter how good your algorithms are, if you feed it crap, it will give you crap. 

Therefore, you should have questions like:

• What are your favorite books on writing/copywriting /HR/ Business, etc
• What’s the last book you’ve read?
• What did you learn from it?
• Which people do you look up to in content marketing?
• What is your take on (your company’s industry)?
• How do you spend your free time?
• How do you spend your vacations?

The trick is to figure these answers from a small talk. If the writer feels like you’re interviewing them, you’ll get skewed results. 

Connect with Mihael

Martin here: I’ve worked with Mihael before, and his approach to content marketing is quite intricate. He creates a content strategy the way a mathematician would approach a complex math question. 

Applying such complexities in your hiring process scares away mediocre writers and gives you the ones pumped for your project. 

5. I Look For Readers who are Curious and Ready To Learn

First and foremost, I ask many questions because you have to get past the portfolio and into the person’s character. 

• Are they Readers?

One of my favorites is whether someone reads. 

In my experience, many aspiring writers spend a lot of time cranking out content, which is excellent. We all need a portfolio. We all need to practice the craft, but they’re not actually reading. 

You can learn a lot by reading someone else’s work that you’re not going to learn by just writing. Someone who’s actively reading is typically going to be a better writer. 

• Are they curious?

Marketing is always changing. Even if someone is just a copywriter, there are different clients, industries, and products. e.t.c.

As a result, learning and research are integral parts of the writing process. If someone isn’t curious and doesn’t naturally enjoy the learning process, they’re probably not going to excel as a writer. 

• Are they well-versed in skills complementary to content writing?

I tend to prefer writers that bring more than writing to the table.

This is someone who understands basic SEO, UX, reader comprehension, branding, e.t.c.

Even if they do not actively have to write about these things, it will give them a more robust understanding of what high-calibre content looks like.

Connect with Melissa

Martin here: I got Melissa’s quotes from a podcast with the High EQ Marketer. I reached out to her and she gladly accepted I used her tips for this article. Feel free to listen to the full interview. It’s full of valuable tips in all things content marketing.

My Final Take

There’s a lot that goes into hiring writers.

On the other hand, writers have to make a lot of applications to get the perfect client. 

Both parties don’t want to land in the wrong hands. As a client, you’re looking for someone that can blend with your goals and create result-oriented content for your brand.

Writers are looking for clients who can give them enough jobs, pay them what they deserve, and help grow their clients’ businesses.

It’s a tit-for-tat kind of affair. But it all starts with getting the right man for the job. I hope these tips will help you get your next perfect writer.

In 2008, Microsoft made a huge offer to purchase Yahoo for $44.6 billion. The aim of Microsoft then was to transform the two “not-so-powerful” tech companies into one big competitor of Google.

This would be the greatest deal since the failure of the Time Warner and AOL merger in 2000. The stakes were high and huge international businesses turned their heads to Yahoo’s CEO Jerry Yang.

However, Yahoo turned down the offer to the surprise of many. Fast forward to 2017 after growing weaker and weaker, Verizon bought Yahoo for a paltry $4.8 billion.

Maybe you are in the same situation and don’t know if it is time to sell your SaaS company. One part of you is reminding you of the time, energy, and money you’ve invested in your business.

The other part is telling you that if you don’t pull the trigger now, you may end up selling for a rock-bottom price like Yahoo. 

Which decision do you make?

Before we get to the meat of this article, let’s first answer this question.

Should you Sell Your Saas Company in the first place?

An entrepreneur will find himself mulling over this question. Different factors might contribute to this. 

For example, new firms might arise and start taking a sizable share of the market. Maybe you made a wrong decision in the past which is now becoming costly. Or you’ve lost interest in your SaaS business and you feel there is something better out there.

In any case, the bottom line is that every business is unique. But when you see many indicators pointing to the selling button, know that it’s time to part ways. 

So what are these indicators? What is the right time when selling your SaaS would be the best decision you ever make?

Inability to Scale High

Imagine this; you have created an awesome SaaS product. It starts with a rocket thrust and within a short time, you have amassed many paying users. It’s generating a profit and you’re sure it will work in the long run.

But for you to penetrate the larger market and compete with the big dogs, you need a robust organizational structure.

Plus, you need to come up with an experienced sales team, software engineers, marketing professionals, and if possible, put up branches across all the continents.

This seems like a pretty good idea, but the problem is that you don’t have enough revenue to cater to the costs. Unfortunately, most investors won’t give their money for a product that hasn’t brought some chills to competitors.

Although some entrepreneurs may not agree, this is a signal that it’s an opportune time to sell your SaaS company.

The bottom line is that the product will get many buyers when it reaches the international realm. The problem – there is no money to take it there.

If you don’t sell it now, there is a chance that competitors will soon infringe on your market share and your business will lose its value over time.

Your SaaS Business is not Growing at the Rate you Desire

The goal of any SaaS entrepreneur is to develop a product that will change the lives of other businesses for the better.

That’s why serious entrepreneurs would go overboard to reduce churn rates. They would invest heavily in marketing and spend nights creating new strategies to defeat the competitors.

But what if you are doing all these and your SaaS trajectory is not going the way you want. In some cases, the following are the reasons why you may not be growing.

• You are targeting the wrong market.
• Your SaaS application is missing instrumental features.
• You have a low Average Revenue Per User.
• You have Low Sign-up rates.

Not growing means that you are not adding any value to yourself and your clients. Besides, you are likely falling behind competitors which is a wake-up call for selling.

The Market Facilitates the Sale of SaaS Businesses

Prevailing market factors play a huge role in determining if selling your SaaS will be beneficial to you or not.

In a nutshell, the market forces you should check for include:

• Presence of SaaS companies (offering similar services) in your field that were acquired in the past.
• Larger companies bought the small businesses for a good price.

When you take a look at the history of SaaS business sales in your industry, you get a glimpse of what they did that made the sale possible.

You will get vital information like the amount the businesses were sold for. It ensures that you don’t miss a sale by putting the price high and vice versa.

You are likely to sell your SaaS for a small price in case there is a surge in acquisitions. If it happens, retreat and wait for the next time the market will be ready to buy saas businesses.

In the meantime, check for indicators like a season of a strong economy and an upward trend in sale prices. 

When there is a Giant Shift in Technology (And You Can’t Keep up)

You know that SaaS rides on tech for almost everything. SaaS companies use technology to develop service-provider applications for businesses.

This means that if technology takes a sudden U-turn, you are either at risk of losing it all or leveraging the shift to make a good fortune.

One of the biggest dangers of SaaS and tech companies is being resistant to change. In the last decade, hundreds of companies have gone under for this reason.

A good example is Friends Reunited, a Facebook-like SaaS company that went into extinction in 2016. 

The company started six years before Facebook but the technological shift found it off-guard, and it faded out of relevance. Although Facebook is not a SaaS company, it’s at the helm of every change which keeps it afloat 

So how does selling your SaaS play a role here?

If a technological change finds you unprepared, it would be a good idea to consider an offer to purchase your business. If it works, you won’t lose it all at once.

Your SaaS Business Offers a Wonderful Feature But not An Actual Product

You probably started your SaaS company because you saw a problem and had a solution. When businesses saw that you could solve their problem, they were more than happy to pay you for it.

The million-dollar question is this – How fast will it be for a much bigger company to replicate a similar product as a feature inside their main product? If they are able to, then your product changes to a feature inside their main product. 

What happens after that?

People will shift to their product because they will sell it for a lesser price (they always do). Eventually, your revenue will likely dry up.

But what if you turned this situation around? Since you have an awesome solution to a problem, sell it to an established company.

It will be of value when a bigger company sells it as a ready-made solution inside their main product.

While this might not have been your initial plan, it is a good move to sell your product to a more established business.

Final Thoughts

Not every SaaS entrepreneur plans on selling their business when they start it. Indeed, it’s hard to see what you have invested so much time and energy into coming to a close.

That’s why you need to take considerable time to think and compare what might be the outcome before you make a move. When you see it fit, then it’s time to sell your SaaS and never look back. 

Looking for a SaaS writer to refresh your blog with posts like this one? Feel free to hit me up. 

You’re a SaaS business owner. You’ve been blogging for a while, but you can’t seem to crack the “how do I make this popular?” code. 

You’ve tried everything: repurposing old content, guest posting, even running ads. And yet, your blog is still as empty as a Friday night in an office park.

Don’t fret: round-up posts are here to save the day!

Round-up posts are a great way to generate organic traffic and backlinks to your website quickly and easily. They feature several contributors in one post, which is a great way to boost engagement and build your content marketing campaign online—without spending a lot of time on content creation. 

Instead of writing a single post about how to fix the X problem, you can turn it into a round-up post by asking other experts in your industry for their advice on the subject.

Why should you care about round-up posts?

If you’re a SaaS decision-maker, you likely get pitched at least ten times a day by other SaaS companies. 

Some are good, some are bad, and some fall somewhere in the middle. But all of them want you to know why their product is the best and what they can do for your company.

Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to make time to evaluate these pitches, especially if they come via email. So what happens? They get lost in the shuffle, or they sit in your inbox while you try to prioritize your time.

That’s where round-up posts come in.

Instead of pitching directly to executives, your company creates a list post that includes several different tools or software solutions (often including itself) to appeal to decision-makers looking for that comparison post.

Once the companies are on the list post, they can share it with their audience, which is what SaaS companies should be doing! So you’ll create an asset for yourselves that will help generate leads over time, and it’s an asset that others (your competitors) have.

How to create a roundup post for your saas website 

At this point, we can agree on one thing: roundup posts are excellent. They help your readers get answers to their questions, and they also show off your expertise in a given area. 

But writing a roundup post isn’t as easy as throwing together some links and calling it a day. You have to make sure you’re creating something that your audience will find helpful. 

Here are five ways to create an effective roundup post:

1. Find the right topic

If you want your post to be successful, you need to find a topic that people care about. The easiest way to do this is to look for questions on Quora. Quora is an excellent platform for finding topics as it’s designed entirely around answering questions.

To get started, search for topics related to your industry. For example, if you’re a SaaS company that helps eCommerce businesses sell more online, you might search for “what are the best online stores?” or “how can I collect more email addresses?”

You’ll get a list of interesting questions like the ones shown in the screenshot. Choose the one with the most upvotes and answers. 

Once done, start thinking about how you can format an answer into a roundup post. For example:

What are the best online stores?

This could become… The Top 25 Online Stores in 2022 shared by 25 Experts

How can I collect more email addresses?

This could become… 30 Conversion Experts Share Their Favorite Lead Generation Tactics.

2. Reach out to the leading saas experts

Roundup posts are a great way to highlight the expertise of your friends and industry leaders—and you may find that they share it on their social media, driving traffic back to your site.

It’s pretty simple: first, you reach out to many people who have done incredible work in the Saas industry. Then you ask them questions about what they’re up to. And finally, you compile their answers into an excellent post that draws everyone’s attention!

Here are some tips on how to get the most out of it:

• Get permission before you publish. If the influencers say no, don’t worry. Just move on to the next person and thank them for their time.
• Be friendly and personal in your approach—make sure they know why you’re reaching out and why you think they’d make an excellent fit for this post.
• Ask them how to spell their name and title to get it right when you write about them!

3. Ask questions that will elicit beneficial answers

Creating a round-up post is one of the best ways to gain links and shares from the web’s biggest influencers. You ask the experts; they give you their answer, publish it on your site, share it with their networks, and boom! You’re a link-building genius.

But for this to work, you have to be strategic in how you go about it. The questions you ask should elicit handy answers for your audience so that when readers see this great list of solutions by top industry experts all in one place, they’ll want to hang around.

Here are some tips on creating questions that will help you get real value out of your round-up posts:

• Don’t make them too short or too long
• Ask open-ended questions like “what is” instead of “how do I.”
• Use numbered lists or bullets
• Keep the number of questions pretty small so as not to overwhelm your expert contributors (2–5 questions is a good rule of thumb)

4. Decide on a format (interviews, list, analysis, etc).

There are many different ways to write round-up posts for your SaaS website. Essentially, a round-up post is a way of curating other people’s research and opinions or your own opinion on the ideas others have already explored. 

It saves you time on your research and allows you to put together something that gets traffic without doing all the work yourself.

So how do you know which format to choose? Here’s some background on the most popular options:

• Interviews: Ask industry experts questions about your subject matter and put their answers in your post.
• Lists: Collect many resources related to your topics, like blogs, articles, or websites, and share them with your readers by linking in the post.
• Analysis: Look at a few different tools or programs, or resources related to your post topic (but not too many—don’t spread yourself too thin) and give an overview of each one’s pros and cons.
• Comparison: Pick two or three things related to your topic, whether tools, platforms, or websites, and compare them.

5. Design your saas roundup post like a pro

Roundup posts are a great way to get your best content in front of new readers, and they can help you build relationships with other bloggers in your industry. If you’re new to blogging, here’s how to design one so it looks professional:

Use Canva or Adobe Photoshop (or any other design program) to create an eye-catching cover image that will draw people in when they see it shared on social media platforms like Instagram or Facebook. 

If possible, include relevant keywords in the headline so search engines will pick up your content online—this will help.

Ensure there is enough contrast between round color and text colors for readers with vision impairments or color blindness issues.

Use bullet points when listing out steps or ideas on how they can make their roundup post! This makes it easier for people with learning disabilities like dyslexia to read through your content without getting lost.

Bonus tip: Avoid using big blocks of text because no one wants another wall-of-text clogging up their screens! Try breaking things up into smaller paragraphs instead!

6. Promote your post to get maximum reach

The content of your round-up post is critical, but it’s not the only thing you need to think about.

Once the post is published, you’ll want to promote it as much as possible to get the biggest audience reach possible.

One way to do this is by reaching out to the experts you featured in your post and encouraging them to share the post on their social media accounts, email newsletters, etc.

Here’s how:

First, take 30 minutes and summarize why they were included in your post and what they can expect from the article. For example: 

Hey (expert name ) thanks for contributing to our roundup post. You mentioned that we have an easy-to-use interface for sending emails and I wanted to let you know that our new drag and drop feature makes it even easier for users to create their own templates. I hope we can work together soon.

You can also do the following to promote the post : 

• Post it on social media

Post the article on social media with a link to the post, and tag the companies and people you included. Make sure to encourage them to share the post on their pages.

• Reach out to influencers

Look for Saas influencers who would be interested in your round-up post and send them an email about it. Ask them to share it with their followers if they find it interesting.

• Include it in newsletters

If you have an email newsletter, include a link to your latest round-up articles so that subscribers will be aware of its existence.

What makes a great Saas round post? 

A great round-up post will usually follow a very similar formula. It will have the following features:

Title 

A great title is the most crucial part of any blog post because it’s what makes readers decide whether to click on your post or move on.  

You need to include a number in the title so that people know exactly how many tools/apps you are recommending. The title also needs to be benefit-driven so that your reader knows what they will get from reading your post.

A catchy introduction 

An Introduction – this can be brief and doesn’t have to go into too much detail. Just let the reader know what they will learn from reading your article and why it is relevant for them. You could also explain why you wrote the article and chose these particular SaaS solutions (e.g., you use them or have tested them or read good reviews).

Your top recommendations

This is the meat of your post, and where you will give a short description of each recommended SaaS solution (1-2 paragraphs). 

In some cases, you may want to group similar products together and then give an overview of this group before diving into each specific product within that group.

The pros and cons of each product/service you review. You need to offer some balance here, so don’t be afraid to talk about any negatives and positives. Again, bullet points work well here because they’re quick to read through and easy on the eye.

The Takeaway

Round-up posts are an effortless way to create engaging, linkbait-y content that gives your readers a trustworthy source of information. 

The best part? It’s so easy to write: all you need to do is find a list of great resources, compile them into a blog post, and write a few sentences on each one. And it can help you get backlinks from the sites you feature!

Have you ever written a round-up post? Let us know in the comments!