What is B2B SaaS Content Marketing? (Guide for 2025)

B2B SaaS content marketing is the act of using digital marketing strategies to generate demand, capture demand, and turn that demand into paying customers for software-as-a-service businesses. Strategies that are used to generate demand usually include the creation of written material, videos, case studies, white papers, independent studies, and surveys to turn a prospect from being “unaware” in the buying journey to becoming problem aware, solution aware, and product aware.

Key Takeaways

• B2B SaaS content marketing is the act of using content (video, editorial, white papers, studies, PDFs, and downloadables) to influence your target customer into recognizing they have a material business problem that the software is capable of solving.
• B2B SaaS content marketing channels usually include marketing into search engines, social media platforms, email newsletters, and industry-specific publications where buyers frequent.
• Content types that are executed usually include case studies, research studies, product guides, tutorials, buying guides, comparison pages, and other helpful resources that builds trust with your target buyer.

What is B2B SaaS Content Marketing?

B2B SaaS content marketing is a digital marketing strategy that involves the creation and distribution of content to promote a business's products or services to other businesses. The goal is to educate potential customers, build brand authority, and generate leads.

For software businesses, the definition isn’t very different. However, SaaS businesses often need to understand how software is generally “shopped for” comparatively to other business types.

The buyer journey in B2B SaaS content marketing

There are four stages of the buying journey that are critical to understand. They help to articulate how and what marketing tactics will get used.

They can be defined as:

Unaware

The “unaware” customer is a prospect that fits our ideal customer persona (ICP) who is unaware that they have a business problem. Let’s take a hypothetical example of where software helped an unaware customer. Freshbooks, an accounting software. Previous to Freshbooks, accounting took place on paper, in spreadsheets, and through a mix of digitally scanned documents.

Our customer was unaware that this was inefficient and could introduce a number of accounting errors that could be costly on the business.

Problem Aware

The “problem aware” customer moves from a stage of being unaware they had a business problem to potentially identifying an opportunity to improve their business. In the same Freshbooks example, this would be a business owner or Chief Financial Officer realizing that their methods for performing accounting could be improved.

Solution Aware

During the “solution aware” part of the customer journey, the prospect becomes aware that there is “a better way.” Albeit through case studies, research papers, or surveys, the customer becomes aware that some of their practices are not efficient or could be problematic. In our Freshbooks example, it would be our Chief Financial Officer realizing that there is a problem with the way their team operates. And then becomes aware that there are solutions to this exact problem.

Product Aware

The “product aware” stage is the most important. This is when the ideal customer becomes not only aware that they have a problem and that there’s a solution, but that there are a variety of vendors to choose from. At this stage, software companies are “in the running” for that in-market buyer. This becomes the most critical stage to utilize content marketing as it can support addressing all of the questions that prospects may have prior to requesting a software demonstration.

Related: B2B SaaS SEO (Guide)

B2B SaaS content marketing vs. regular B2B content marketing

While there aren’t drastic differences, the main divergences come in the form of how software shoppers review and “shop” for software. You’ve most likely experienced this yourself. In essence, there is usually a “market leader” in a problem space.

Take Grammarly for example. While there are many other software solutions available on the market, Grammarly has established itself as the best product for grammar checking and writing assistance. You may not even know any other competitors off the top of your head.

Content marketing for software aims at doing just this. Building brand awareness so high and establishing credibility so high amongst a particular problem space or paint point, that you wouldn’t know any other brand.

B2B SaaS content marketing differs in this way. In that it requires far more to truly “win” the customer than traditional B2B content marketing.

Related: B2B Growth Strategies (Guide)

Why B2B SaaS content marketing is important in 2024 and in 2025

A report from Sagefrog published for 2024 indicated, “While lead generation and client retention still hold strong positions in the ranking, a strong brand sets a company apart in an increasingly competitive landscape, fostering trust, loyalty, and premium pricing. It enhances marketing efficiency, attracts top talent, and supports expansion and diversification efforts.”

In addition, the same study from Sagefrog showed that content marketing makes up, on average, 23% of annual budgets, right next to direct marketing and in-person trade shows. Out of the potential 17 areas or opportunities to perform B2B marketing, content marketing ranked third on the list.

The study reveals the vital importance of nurturing prospects into trusting a brand. And turning those prospects into product aware customers in the buying journey.

Related: B2B SaaS Marketing Team Structure

B2B SaaS Content Marketing Teams

B2B SaaS marketing teams usually sit as accountability to the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) or the VP of Marketing. Leaders in these roles may provide OKRs (objectives and key results) that they want their marketing departments to hit. The content marketing team usually sits as a cross-functional group that helps other marketers like a growth marketing team, product marketing team, customer marketing team, and marketing operations team.

The B2B SaaS content marketing team may have one or many of the following job titles and roles responsible for the discipline:

• Content Marketing Manager: Responsible for overseeing the quality and production of blog posts, case studies, videos, and other gated assets.
• SEO Specialist: Ensures content ranks for targeted keywords and enhances organic reach through research.
• Video Content Creator: Produces explainer videos, product demos, and webinars.
• Social Media Manager: Amplifies content and engages with the audience across platforms.

The team can be structured in a number of ways depending on the types of channels that the company is investing in. As an example, a company that’s spending a large annual investment into search engine optimization (SEO) may have an SEO manager, SEO strategist, SEO analyst, and other roles that help to support the content marketing team efforts. In addition, multiple SEO copywriters and editors may fall into that same team.

We highly recommend that you choose your channel focus before hiring an immediate team. Or choose to work with an agency like ours to test into the channel and invest in-house once the channel has been established.

Related: SaaS Marketing Metrics (Guide)

B2B SaaS Content Marketing Metrics (or KPIs)

As a team, they are tasked with the advancement of share-of-voice, market share, brand awareness, and revenue. However, key B2B SaaS content marketing metrics can include: unique visitors, conversion rate, lead velocity rate, churn rate, customer lifetime value (CLV), customer acquisition cost (CAC), monthly recurring revenue (MRR), lead-to-customer rate, bounce rate, activation rate, and Net Promoter Score (NPS). All of which can help assess the effectiveness of that content in terms of generating leads and converting them into customers. Metrics that relate to retaining those customers over time may also get assigned to the team, however, shared with other marketing and product disciplines in the business.

To choose the correct B2B SaaS content marketing metrics to track, we suggest assigning specific KPIs based on the focus area. For example, if we were to be investing in SEO, we would recommend giving the SEO team the following KPIs to track:

• Rank position
• Impressions
• Clicks
• Click-through-rates
• MQLs (marketing qualified leads)
• Lead velocity rate

SEO is a fairly common investment from B2B SaaS companies, since it averages a 5:1 return ratio on advertising spend. That means for every dollar spent on the channel, it averages a return of five dollars.

Related: SaaS Inbound Marketing Guide

Types of Channels Used for B2B SaaS Content Marketing

Channels refers to the platforms and places that your ideal customer uses to perform research. Or, platforms where your customers frequent. As an example, since we’re talking about B2B Saas products, we would most likely not advertise or promote content on Reddit, since it’s more widely adopted for consumer use. In contrast, we would probably use a social media platform like LinkedIn, where it has a greater business use alignment.

Some of the common channels for B2B SaaS content marketing include the following:

• Search engines: Optimizing a website or producing content for search engines like Google, Bing, and GPTSearch.
• Social media platforms: Places like LinkedIn, private Facebook groups, or even private communities that are pay-to-access.
• Email newsletters: Whether it’s an owned newsletter by the brand or a partner newsletter where the content can receive promotion and distribution.
• Industry-specific publications: Getting a study or survey published on an industry-specific publication can be a great way to get exposure to a niche-specific group of prospective buyers.

Types of Content Used for B2B SaaS Content Marketing

There are really only a few types of formats that are used for B2B SaaS content marketing: videos, editorial, studies, white papers, and downloadables. These are the primary types of content formats that are used for content marketing.

However, the execution of these types of content can vary depending on the channel that the marketers are trying to get engagement from.

The primary subject matters that are used are one of the following:

• Case studies: Case studies are often used to display progress of a particular company utilizing a technique, a software, or something else. The idea is that a prospect will be interested to “see” how a certain level of growth was achieved. Then learn more about the solutions that were involved in the growth.
• Tutorials: Tutorials are either written or in video format. And help the User to solve either a big or small pain point that’s common amongst customers in the field that the software is marketing into. As an example, tutorials on how to use Google spreadsheets more efficiently.
• Product guides: Product guides help to break down common software solutions and how to use them. For example, many Users still struggle to know how to use Adobe Photoshop. Product guides act as a way of telling the User how to solve a simple problem they have.
• Comparison guides: Comparison guides help to compare various software solutions. And act as a vehicle to empathize with the in-market buyer. For example, discussing pricing, features, contract lengths, and more.
• Software demonstrations: Software demonstrations help to show in-market buyers what they could expect from software that’s behind a paywall. Or requires a long-term contract. This preview helps in-market buyers manage expectations on what the software solves.
• Research studies: Research studies share annual reports, industry metrics, survey results, and other criteria that help to guide business leaders with annual planning or upcoming challenges they may face in the next fiscal year.

These are the most common types of B2B SaaS content marketing materials that are produced. How they are produced and where they get distributed becomes the “art form” behind the marketing. And what separates a mediocre team from a very advanced team.

Common Questions

Common questions about B2B SaaS content marketing:

Should early stage technology businesses invest in content marketing?

Yes. Aside from demand generation tactics that utilize paid advertising, content marketing strategies should be the next best place to put a budget. As mentioned earlier in this article, content marketing usually ranks #3 on the total 17 areas of opportunity to invest in your omnichannel marketing.

If you’re a startup or early stage business, there’s no time like the present to get started. In addition, content marketing does have a rather long “ramp up” period before you’ll generate enough MQLs to make the channel have ROAS (return on advertising spend). Meaning, it’s better to start early than to wait too long.

Related: SaaS SEO Strategies for Startups (Guide)

How much budget should go into B2B SaaS content marketing?

On average, most SaaS companies are spending anywhere from $360,000 to $1,200,000 per year on content marketing. That typically includes the team required to execute on the channel. This usually fits within the 7% to 12% of annual revenues that go into the marketing budget on behalf of SaaS businesses. However, if you’re an earlier stage software product, with little product-market-fit, you may find yourself needing to spend more to “get the ball rolling.”