Most marketers follow the same old pattern for creating a SaaS content strategy.
They jump onto Ahrefs or SEMrush, do some competitive analysis, extract keyword data, and then use the search volume and keyword difficulty to create a content strategy.
These days, topic clustering has also become easy, thanks to SEMrush, which can generate detailed topic clusters with the click of a button.
Despite marketing gurus shouting from rooftops that it’s not the way to find your ICP’s needs, we don’t seem to give a damn (let’s blame the tight deadlines).
But… here’s the problem.
SaaS content strategy should not revolve around keyword data siphoned from Ahrefs or SEMrush.
It should address your ICP’s pain points (if conversions are your ultimate goal).
Now, the challenge is finding this info. Where can you search?
Here are the six places my team & I go to—always.
6 Places to Find Your ICP’s Pain Points
#1 Customer Support Queries
Your support team interacts with your customers every day, and in most cases, 24/7.
Whether you have a one-person support team or a 50-person support team, the queries you get on a day-to-day basis are a treasure trove for content strategy.
For example, if you’re running an HR-tech platform, you might get multiple queries about setting up payroll or migrating from a previous ERP to your platform.
During these conversations, you might find specific issues that your customers are enquiring about.
Maybe some customers have issues with tax data for their employees, or maybe they want to add custom fields for tracking incentives paid.
Now, that’s the information that showcases the real problems your customers face, and most probably, your future customers (ICPs) will also face.
You can shortlist these details, and they can help you in two ways:
Create product documentation and knowledge base
Address ICP pain points in your blog content
Now, the big question: how can you scale this search?
If you primarily rely on chats and emails for your support, you can collect all the conversations, organize them by type, and then provide the document to ChatGPT with precise prompts, and voilà… you’ll get the data you need.
If you use call support, use any transcription tools to generate the script and follow the same process as above.
Once you have this data, categorize it into topics, figure out the nature of queries in line with the marketing funnel (Top, Middle, and Bottom), and now use keyword data to find keyword volumes and difficulty to prioritize.
#2 Sales Team Conversations
The number of rebuttals your sales team handles on every call is truly amazing.
And getting to those conversations is like doing rock climbing every day.
Now, we all know that not every sales conversation turns into a sale. At least, not the big-ticket sales.
Nonetheless, you will get to know unique problems of your ICPs.
For example, your prospect may refer to a feature of your competitor that's not as good as what you're providing, or they may talk about things that are better with your competitors.
Now, that information helps in two ways:
To make your product better
To create detailed comparison articles (your product vs. competitor or competitor vs. competitor)
These comparison articles actually lead to most conversions because prospects search for this information during the decision-making stage.
So, collect your sales team conversations and run them through ChatGPT to find unique insights and problems.
#3 Reddit
Reddit is so good that even Google ranks some of its content in the top 5.
Here’s an example
And you know why?
Because Reddit has the most interesting conversations, queries, and answers.
Thanks to the anonymity, users generally reveal their most honest feedback about various topics and issues. From B2B headaches to B2C nightmares, you will find information on almost everything in this space.
So, go on a wild ride through Reddit and find out what customers in your industry are talking about.
Find subreddits specific to your niche.
If you’re an accounting software company, you can find subreddits related to different types of accounting.
You can then scrape the data either manually or using automation tools.
Once you have the data, follow the usual process of categorizing it into topics, subtopics, and assigning it to different funnel stages.
#4 Slack Communities
The big difference between Slack and Reddit is the anonymity.
On Reddit, people are generally brash, whereas Slack is a bit more professional.
Nonetheless, people do have genuine conversations in open Slack communities.
And that information is really helpful.
Join relevant Slack communities where your ICPs hang out. Participate in discussions or just lurk around to see the conversations happening organically.
The insights you gather here can be directly used to create content that resonates with your audience. They might not be as raw as Reddit, but they’re often just as valuable.
#5 1:1 Customer Interviews
Nothing beats talking directly to your customers.
While it’s not scalable, conducting 1:1 interviews with your customers can reveal deep insights into their pain points, needs, and preferences.
Ask open-ended questions that allow your customers to share their experiences freely.
For example, instead of asking, “What do you think about our product?” ask, “Can you walk me through how you’re currently using our product and what challenges you’ve faced?”
The insights gained from these interviews can help shape not just your content strategy but your entire product roadmap.
#6 Surveys (only if you can)
I say only if you can because it’s a painstaking process that usually requires a lot of time.
Surveys are great because they allow you to gather data from a larger sample of your audience.
However, the challenge is crafting the right questions and ensuring a good response rate.
To maximize effectiveness, keep your surveys short and focused. Ask questions that are directly related to your ICP’s challenges and needs.
For instance, if you’re a project management software company, you might ask, “What’s your biggest challenge in managing multiple projects?”
Once you’ve gathered the survey data, analyze the responses to identify common themes and pain points. Use these insights to guide your content creation.
Next Steps: Validate the Info Against Search Data
Once you’ve gathered all these insights, it’s time to validate them against search data.
This step is crucial to ensure that the pain points you’ve identified are also being actively searched by your audience.
Use tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush to find out the search volume and keyword difficulty for the topics you’ve uncovered. This will help you prioritize which pain points to address first in your content.
Go Beyond Search for Content Promotion
Finally, don’t just rely on search engines for content promotion.
Share your content in the communities where you found the pain points—whether it’s Reddit, Slack, or through email newsletters to your interviewees and survey participants.
This will not only drive targeted traffic to your content but also help you engage with your audience on a deeper level.
Comentarios