Content marketing is really like a first date. If all you do is talk about yourself, there won’t be a second date.

David Beebe, former head of content, Marriott

Content Marketing comes in many different shapes and forms. As HubSpot remarks, there are about 12 types of content marketing in a marketer’s arsenal. Case studies, eBooks, whitepapers, and yes, even memes!

But while that is a step in the right direction, what content is the best fit for the growth stage your enterprise is experiencing will differ from case to case. Something that will work for an established industry giant will be an ill-fit for an upcoming company still in its infancy.

Simply stating content marketing comes in a dozen-odd “types” will also be a disservice. Instead, we need to explore the different formats of content marketing. This will require you to understand which format will help achieve a particular goal for your enterprise.

So, without further ado, let’s explore the appropriate route for your organisation.

Growth Stages and Relevant Formats of Content Marketing

Growth Stages

At the outset, let’s have a clear understanding of the different stages your enterprise will experience.

#1 – Childhood

Childhood will be the stage in which an organisation is innovating how a problem is tackled in the industry. We’ll further explore an example of Calendly which helps you schedule meetings professionally and efficiently in a post-CoVID world.

#2 – Adolescence

Adolescence is when an enterprise is part of a breakaway group preferred by the early adopters and early-majority of consumers. An example that we’ll explore further is Teachable, which helps you teach audiences globally by personalising content as per your brand’s unique positioning.

#3 – Adult

The adult is the stage in which an enterprise is part of a breakaway group preferred by the late majority and laggards of consumers. Examples include Adobe, Mailchimp, etc.

Formats

What content marketing options you have available to yourself for the different growth stages vary. There are essentially three formats out there:

#1 – Product-Focused

Your content will revolve around talking about what benefits consumers are receiving from using your product in this format. Examples include publishing case studies to increase brand value and thought leadership, issuing how-to guides to educate and support consumers, and sharing customer stories to generate revenue.

#2 – SEO

SEO-friendly content helps you attain domain authority and rank higher on search engine result pages. Examples include publishing informational articles on topical issues to increase brand value, sharing error-resolution content like Shopify does to educate and support consumers, and sharing different integrations your product can incorporate to generate revenue.

#3 – Original Content

This secret sauce helps you stand apart on the playing field. Original content draws in your target audience and keeps them hooked, courtesy of its inherent value. Examples include personal storytelling and tapping into industry networks to share insights and wins. These help to increase brand value and educate, and support customers. You can also share data studies that your enterprise has conducted and specific concepts you have invented like Drift did, which helps educate and support consumers and build thought leadership. Finally, you can share the results of surveys you have overseen and the actionable insights gathered from them that help increases brand value and amplify your voice.

Formats and Types of Content for your SaaS Company

Stage/Format	Product Focused	SEO	Original Content
Childhood	Customer Stories, Case Studies		Personal Storytelling, Network-based Content
Adolescence	How-to Guides, Product Updates	Informational	Data Studies, “Invented” Concepts
Adult	Product ROI Reports	Errors	Surveys

Let’s look at the examples of types of content you can publish depending upon your company’s chosen formats and relevant growth stage.

Pro tip: If you need 30 standout SaaS growth hacks to attain double the growth for your SaaS business, fill out the form below!

#1 – Childhood

Product-Focused

Customer Stories

This type of content helps you share what efficiencies your product offers to organisations in different industries. Calendly’s power lies in scheduling meetings. Take a look at how it showed its customer’s success story in this well-crafted piece.

Case Studies

A case study helps you extensively share rich information about how your company helped even an industry giant. For example, take a look at this example by Drift and how it helped Adobe build engagement across its heavily trafficked website.

Original Content

Personal Storytelling

In this approach, you guide your target audience by illustrating what worked (and didn’t work) out for you while tackling specific business situations. In an example closer to home, Concurate brainstormed and designed a lead magnet for Triangle IP and presented the results in a blog post.

Network-based Content

In this approach, you conduct honest conversations with people in your industry and discuss insights and different ways of doing things. ScanWriter helps tackle the challenges of modern fraud with cutting-edge technology. We help them host a podcast called The Future of Fraud Investigation as their marketing partner.

#2 – Adolescence

You can incorporate the strategies from the Childhood stage (except original content) over here. Let’s now discuss Adolescence stage-specific strategies.

Product-Focused

How-to Guides

This type of content hits closer to home about your core product offering. Teachable is one of the best choices for making courses online. Take a look at this blog post by Teachable on creating an online course. It gives them an advantage in sharing their ideas without the audience doubting their credentials.

Product Updates

In this type of content, you share new features that your company has launched – the latest technology you offer, how the updated design and experience helps customers get more out of your product. Take a look at this product update example from Loom, an asynchronous video-sharing platform.

SEO

Informational

Cryptocurrencies are the new-age solutions for sending and receiving money. So it makes sense to tie up the concept in content pieces that revolve around the same. Stripe, a payment processing software company, shared this article on how it is making payouts happen globally using its software. In addition to providing information about changes happening in the industry, it helps Stripe rank well on search engine result pages.

Original Content

“Invented” Concepts

Drift is an online chatbot service created with the mindset that customers want to have a conversation and not just be at the other end of a sales pitch. So they coined the term “conversational marketing,” which helped the brand scale new heights. We noted this in a previous article – Drift Marketing Strategy.

Data Storytelling and Data Studies

In this approach, your content creation will follow a storytelling approach of analyses that your business conducted across multiple factors. Concurate is a boutique content marketing agency helping medium-size SaaS businesses. As part of our work, we try to understand the best practices followed by different SaaS businesses worldwide. Whether it be Grammarly, Drift, or Shopify – we work on distilling their content marketing strategies into medium form content and explain it to our target audience.

#3 – Adult

You can incorporate the strategies from the Adolescence stage (except original content from the Childhood stage) over here. Let’s now discuss Adult stage-specific strategies.

Product-Focused

Product ROI Reports

In this type of content, you can share the potential returns on investment businesses receive from using your products and services. For example, look at this study commissioned by Adobe which revealed that organisations experienced benefits of $32.5 million over three years and an ROI of 250% by using Adobe Experience Cloud.

SEO

Errors

Mailchimp, as stated by Wikipedia, is a marketing automation platform and email marketing service for managing mailing lists and creating email marketing campaigns to send to customers. However, they understand that customers would sometimes like to tinker with technology. So, in an SEO-friendly article, they walked the customer through some common HTML mistakes that are made while sending emails. This article helps customers from making mistakes and provides a ready-reckoner piece that helps establish domain authority for Mailchimp.

Original Content

Survey

In this approach, you present a status report of how complex problems are tackled in your industry or businesses utilising your service. Your organisation achieves this by requesting specific insights through surveys. For example, popular graphic design firm Canva released a survey’s results. It showcased how different non-profits utilised Canva’s design tools to prepare their data reports. In addition, it allowed Canva to showcase that by utilising its tools, an organisation can present data-heavy content in an accessible, user-friendly, and engaging manner.

Parting Thoughts

We hope this piece provides you with actionable insights on creating standout content based on the growth stage of your SaaS company.

Concurate is a content marketing agency that brings business, not just website traffic. We curate the best original content as per your company’s requirements. If you need any help with content marketing strategy, book a call here!

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