-1024x320.png "Untitled design (2)1-1")
Let’s chat SaaS thought leadership. Over the past few years, SaaS has become one of the fastest growing industries across the board. Most businesses ultimately rely on some form of SaaS, whether it be for marketing, organization, hiring, and more.
In an increasingly competitive field, it can be hard to stand out from the crowd and gain attention. That’s where thought leadership comes in. Thought leadership provides fellow tech sector workers with helpful and trustworthy insight on industry topics. It often requires deep industry knowledge and formative opinions gained from extensive experience.
While the term “thought leadership” may have become a buzz word in the world of SaaS, it can be a powerful piece of content that can provide a “moat” around your business and establish you as an industry leader amongst competitors.
To keep up with other leaders in your industry, you may be wondering, “how on earth can I produce thought provoking pieces that get people talking?”
Why Does SaaS Thought Leadership Matter?
In a nutshell, thought leadership can be the one thing that sets your company apart from competition. While SaaS remains one of the highest growing sectors, it also means competition is stiff. If you’re able to set your brand apart as the category leader with insightful, thoughtful content—you’re going to outlast others.
We’ve compiled a few simple concepts to help you gain industry credibility and create your first noteworthy thought piece for SaaS:
Types of SaaS Thought Leadership to Consider
Branded Blog Content
One of the easiest ways to publish a thought leadership piece is utilizing your internal platforms like a company blog. It also cheap and one of the fastest ways to get content in front of your audience. Though, you’ll mainly want to utilize this platform if you already have a built in audience, or are willing to invest in paid content promotion.
For topics, a good starting point is a trend thought piece, perhaps predicting the top trends within your industry at the start of a new year. Ultimately, you want to ideate content that establishes your authority or expertise in a particular area, to help build trust among potential customers and other industry members. Some additional ideas: a hard stance on an industry standard assumption, industry insight into newly released data, trend pieces and opinion blogs.
Byline Guest Articles or Posts
One of the most popular forms of publishing thought pieces is through guest posts on business blogs, or established news sites. Typically, you’ll want to write this piece yourself, in the brand voice and acquire bylines. The more frequently others see your name within the space, the more authority you’ll build over time. Firstly, you’ll want to do research for blogs or news sources within your industry that accept guest posts contributions. Secondly, put together a succinct pitch explaining what you want to write about and why you’re the industry expert to address the topic. Some sites might even have a “contribute” section right on their website that you can apply to.
A bonus beyond gaining a byline and further establishing yourself within your space is acquiring a company backlink. This will ultimately help your company website rank higher in Google’s algorithm. One thing to keep in mind—if you truly want to produce a SaaS thought leadership article—be sure the content you produce is useful. Thought leadership content should inform, delight and answer questions that directly speak to your intended audience. If you want to build a following, your content needs to be original and provide a valuable takeaway for those in the SaaS industry.
For publications to consider, try Inc Magazine and Tech Crunch—both of which publish thought leadership pieces from SaaS experts.
Newsletters
Why not tap into your internal content database and repurpose? Newsletters serve as mini magazines for your subscribers base. They’re also an easy way to ensure your thought leadership ends up in front of the right audience. You can easily tap into a new audience with a newsletter and provide a highly curated experience for your content. Further, one of the largest benefits of a newsletter is the ability to create a highly engaged audience that will become local fans. If any of your content has in-depth data, this could be a good time to repurpose the information into a visual experience. For example, consider including a chart, graph, or even detailed infographic.
Live Video Content
There are many forms of video content available thanks to social channels. From LinkedIn Live, Instagram Live, and Youtube Live, these platforms allow for instant thought leadership sharing. Similar to a webinar, you can boost your SaaS status through sharing useful industry insight. This is also a perfect time to have a one-on-one chat with other SaaS experts that may have a relevant, likeminded audience.
Participating in live content is also a great way to boost your audience following. Be sure to encourage those engaging with you on social to actually follow your channels. This not only boosts your social following, but further establishes your brand as an industry leader. Further, be sure to record your live content and re-share on your website to help customers during the sales process. In addition, you can potentially sell brand mentions in your live content, as your audience grows.
White Papers
Lastly, those looking to produce long-form thought leadership should turn to white papers. White papers are reports, or guides, which provide a deep dive into your SaaS product. Now is the time to get nerdy. This form of content takes complex issues and puts them in simple terms. Due to the complex nature, white papers allow you to show off just how deep your industry knowledge truly is.
Overview of SaaS Thought Leadership
It’s not an easy task, but creating engaging thought leadership content can truly help set you apart. Now is the time to show off what you know and help address your customers burning questions, while establish your knowledge within your industry. If you’ve been in the industry for 10+ years, chances are you have expertise that no-one else does and thought leadership pieces is your time to shine.
If you would like Sonan Digital to help with extracting your knowledge and producing an epic thought leadership piece, get in touch with our team today.
