SaaS content marketing statistics can impact the way your business performs.
Why?
Because within the data lies some incredible SaaS content marketing strategies you can use to increase your ROI and cap your ad spending.
In fact, you could generate an ROI of 448% or more just by using some of the inbound marketing techniques mentioned in this article.
While it’s important to note that content marketing ROI isn’t immediate, there are a few tactics that accelerate your path to success.
Want to know what inbound marketing strategies are the ticket to business growth?
Let’s take a look at the top 20 SaaS content marketing stats…
Top 20 SaaS Content Marketing Statistics in 2022
1. In the first 3 years, public SaaS companies spend 80 to 120% of their revenue in marketing and sales
Most businesses spend 10 to 14% of their budgets on marketing, but SaaS marketing comes at a much higher cost. A 2013 study that looked at 34 publicly traded SaaS companies found that 80 to 120% of their revenue goes to marketing and sales. This amount drops to 50% by year 5.
The 80-120% statistic still remains relevant today in a BlueTree 2021 study.
Why are marketing costs so much higher for SaaS companies? Two reasons: high competition and customer acquisition costs.
To stand out, SaaS companies will spend millions on paid advertisements (or SEM) and ignore inbound marketing strategies, like content marketing.
What results is an eventual high cost per acquisition metric. Without a content marketing and SEO strategy, a SaaS business can’t stop using paid ads for lead generation.
2. SaaS companies spend $342,000 to $1,080,000 per year (or more) on content marketing
It’s not easy to find data on the dollar amount SaaS companies spend on content marketing, but we can gain some insight by looking at companies that post their SaaS tool customer data.
It’s estimated that the average SaaS business spends $24,000 to $48,000 per year on basic SEO, which often includes content marketing. However, the written portion of the content is designated to thought leadership SEO, accounting for $90,000 to $180,000 per year.
If you combine email marketing, webinars, LinkedIn organic traffic, and PR spending, most SaaS companies will spend a whopping $342,000 to $1,080,000 a year on content marketing. If you’re using SEM, ads, and trade shows to promote your content, that number is even higher.
3. High-quality content marketing can generate an ROI of 448% or more for SaaS brands
Creating content isn’t easy, but when it works, it really works. All of the top SaaS companies utilized visual content and marketing know-how to boost traffic and raise their ROI. One company managed to use inbound marketing tactics to increase website traffic by 448%.
Measuring content marketing ROI can be tricky, but you can use applications like Google Analytics to utilize key metrics that track your SaaS product.
From there, you can use other tools, like BuzzSumo or Hootsuite to measure your investment and calculate returns.
4. 98% of top-performing SaaS companies have blogs
A study conducted by Business 2 Community of 150 top-performing SaaS brands found that 98% of them had a blog. Although the sample size is small, Business 2 Community pulled from the Q2 2019 SaaS 1,000 list, which featured the fastest growing companies in the US.
Interestingly, only 80% of SaaS companies that sell products to enterprises have blogs.
In high-performing companies, 44% of blog posts are how-to guides, which helps users learn more about their products. Comparison posts are also popular in bottom-funnel posts.
5. 83% of SaaS company blog traffic comes from organic search
Investing in SEO can lead to a high amount of website traffic. However, the most effective inbound marketing tactic belongs to blog posts.
About 82.9% of all organic searches land prospective customers on your blog, showing that investing in SEO optimization is necessary for growth.
6. The fastest-growing SaaS companies average 1,700 website visits each month
A 2019 SaaS study found that the average SaaS blog receives 1700 website visits from organic traffic each month, proving that content is still the King of inbound marketing. From there, the drop-off is significant: the slowest growing companies only receive 21 monthly views.
The highest performing blogs in the SaaS market generate 48,800 organic searches per month, but average growth is obtained with 573 organic search visits and 6,055 backlinks.
7. SaaS companies that use educational blogs receive 14% more organic traffic than PR/news-focused blogs
A 2017 study of 250 of the biggest SaaS companies found that 24% of SaaS businesses use their blog as an educational tool, whereas 20% use a PR/news-focused blog instead.
Although 45% take a hybrid approach of both educational and PR/news, the world’s biggest SaaS companies find that educational blogs bring in 14% more traffic than PR/news blogs.
Educational content is popular with the best performing SaaS brands in the study.
36% of the most top-performing blogs focus on educational content compared to the 24% that stick to PR/news-focused blogs.
40% of these industry leaders take a hybrid content creation approach.
8. Feature announcements (22%), tech walkthroughs (18%), and landing pages (15%) are the most popular types of SaaS content
SaaS brands often use feature announcements, tech walkthroughs, and landing pages in their lead generation marketing strategy.
The biggest SaaS companies lean on these relevant content types because they provide the most organic search results from high-performing keywords.
9. Help articles, original research, and landing pages receive the most amount of backlinks on average
Although feature announcements and tech walkthroughs are popular pieces of SaaS content, they aren’t ideal for backlinking.
The average number of referring domains on help articles is much larger than tech walkthroughs, yet SaaS companies prefer to write walkthroughs.
There appears to be a large opportunity gap for producing higher-performing content. Backlinks should be an essential part of any SaaS inbound marketing strategy, as the top SaaS blogs generate 167,000 backlinks from 4,630 referring domains.
10. Around 20% of top-performing SaaS companies don’t have a CTA in any of their posts
It’s clear that blogging plays a major role in business success, but not all of these SaaS giants are utilizing this marketing channel effectively.
While the Business 2 Community study combines both IT and SaaS companies, it’s estimated that 20% of these businesses don’t use CTAs on any of their posts. 15% of these companies are paying for content that leads to dead-ends.
Of the SaaS brands that use CTAs, 87% point to other forms of content, whereas 37% ask their audience to view product details. Contact us CTAs, free trials, and demos are also popular.
SaaS companies rarely convert at the awareness stage in their funnel, so linking to other content that leads users to the bottom of the funnel is a great strategy.
11. Educational content is 7x as likely to have a CTA than PR/news content
A SaaS blog’s content marketing efforts seem to go towards educational blogs. Educational content is 7x more likely to feature a call to action than PR/news content.
This suggests that the educational blogging approach is a part of a carefully considered content marketing strategy.
On the flip side, PR/news blogs are less likely to have a call to action than educational blogs. SaaS blogs that take the PR/news approach are 3x as likely to have no call to action.
12. Publishing 2-4 times a week offers the highest inbound marketing returns
The more frequent you post, the more traffic you’ll earn. But if you don’t have a large team, posting 5 times a week isn’t doable.
Whether you want to make video content or publish a blog post, your documented content strategy should include 2-4 pieces of content per week.
However, small businesses were able to index more traffic than enterprises, in most cases, when they posted a similar amount of blog posts. The sweet spot for content is 11+ per month.
13. 89% of SaaS companies use content types besides blogs, like webinars (65%) and case studies (62%)
Content marketing is the most effective way to gain organic search traffic for SaaS brands, but blogs aren’t the only tool in their pocket. Of 150 of the fast-growing SaaS brands studied, 89% used content other than blogs to market their products and services.
Of the SaaS businesses polled, webinars, case studies, e-books, videos, and white papers are the most popular content types after blogs.
You would think business owners would prefer to read guides, infographics, datasheets, and reports because they provide raw facts.
But it appears SaaS audiences still want to be entertained in the process of becoming more informed.
14. 18% of SaaS companies have their own podcast
26% of Americans listen to podcasts, accounting for 73 million people. Of that population, 64% bought something they heard on an audio show, making it one of the best ways to sell your SaaS product. Other podcasts use the medium to boost traffic through relationship building.
Currently, 18% of SaaS companies have their own podcast that focuses on the SaaS industry.
When done right, your SaaS company can use podcasting to get in touch with your target audience through various stages of the buyer’s journey, allowing you to generate more leads.
15. A SaaS content marketing strategy typically includes stock images (65%) and named authors (87%)
Out of 250 top SaaS companies surveyed, 65% used stock images in their content marketing strategy. Surprisingly, 17.4% of businesses used custom images, whereas 16.6% used no images whatsoever. This proves that custom graphics won’t necessarily pull in organic traffic.
The same 250 companies prefer to create content that’s attributed to named authors. 87% of blogs are written by named individuals.
This approach can help humanize your SaaS startup to potential customers, set you up as an industry leader, and generate leads more frequently.
16. Long-form content should make up the bulk of SaaS content marketing efforts—top-performing content is 12% longer
The days of writing short, 500-word blog posts are history. In fact, top-performing content should be at least 700-words, which is 11.9% longer than average, according to Cobloom’s report.
However, there’s evidence that SaaS blog posts need to be even longer. Top-performing blog posts are typically 1,200-2,000 long, but other types of long-form content around 3,000 to 10,000 words perform even better.
Content marketing generates significantly more if existing customers don’t have to leave your website to develop a better understanding of your topic.
17. Optimizing old blog posts amounts to twice the number of SaaS leads
Engaging content is vital for any content strategy, but SEO optimization can drastically improve your content strategy.
If you recently got into content marketing, but new posts were your primary focus, then you’re missing out on valuable leads from your SaaS applications.
SaaS brand HubSpot found that 46% of their monthly blog traffic came from 30 of their old posts. By updating 2-3 posts per week, SaaS companies could increase the number of monthly organic search views per post by 106%, leading to twice the number of SaaS content leads.
18. The best SaaS posts are shared on social media 246 times
With over 2.5 billion active users, you can’t afford to leave social media off of your content marketing strategy. The average SaaS brand that produces quality content on social platforms will achieve 246 median shares across all websites. The top 10% of SaaS companies get 2100.
Creating content on social media is necessary to rank on search engines, but you can’t use the same tactics for every platform. Users on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn consume content in different ways, so be sure to tailor your social media strategy for every platform.
If you’re looking to brush up on your Content Marketing skills, turn to these helpful posts for some tips and tricks to get you started:
- Saas Content Marketing Guide
- How To Measure Content Marketing Strategy
- Why Your Small Business Needs A Content Marketing Plan
- How Content Marketing Helps Your Business Increase Sales
19. 94% of B2B SaaS brands leverage LinkedIn to distribute content
If you run a B2B SaaS business, LinkedIn is a lead generation goldmine. 97% of B2B marketers develop a LinkedIn content marketing strategy because the platform generates 3x more conversions than Twitter and Facebook. LinkedIn also drives more visitors to your website.
But don’t take our word for it. SaaS company Replicon famously used InMail as part of their inbound marketing campaign and got an 11x better response rate on InMail compared to email.
20. 73% of SaaS companies use gated content for their inbound marketing strategy
Gated content is an effective way to generate leads and make additional revenue in your top funnel, but SaaS companies use this tactic regularly.
About 73% of high-performing SaaS brands will keep some of their non-blog content locked unless an email is provided.
Email marketing is still a great way to nurture prospects. Of the 150 SaaS companies surveyed in the Business 2 Community study, 57% have email signup options for newsletters.
No inbound marketing strategy is perfect, but it doesn’t have to be
Creating content is an essential part of any SaaS marketing strategy, but to do it right you have to compare your SaaS brand to other success stories.
However, perfection should never be your goal. Only use comparisons as motivation to take your business to the next level.
Did you find these SaaS content marketing statistics helpful? Are you ready to use what you learned to increase overall revenue for your company?
If so, Zenpost can give your business an actionable proposal in just three steps.
