Rewriting the Playbook: 5 SaaS Companies Defining the Next Generation of Content Marketing

Psychiatrist and psychotherapist Carl Jung had never heard of B2B SaaS content marketing when he penned this famous line. It’s still among the most valuable pieces of marketing advice I’ve heard.

“The world will ask who you are, and if you do not know, the world will tell you.”

This summarizes the current content right now. A handful of brands refuse to succumb to the fear, skepticism, and hesitation that’s been drifting around the SaaS world for the last few years. These brands are telling you—so that you know, without any doubt, who they are and what they stand for. The rest are told who they are: homogeneous SaaS brands whose content is indistinguishable from any other company’s.

While that may seem dramatic in the context of content marketing, I believe this is one of the key differences between the winners and losers of this generation of SaaS brands. After a decade of SEO gamification, we in the content world must choose: will you find your voice and share it, or churn out content as fast as your team can conduct keyword research?

A few months ago, I opined on this blog that the B2B content playbook was in the process of being reinvented. I wrote that, “The opportunity to use content to stand out and attract awareness has never been better.” It’s easy to stand out right now if you know yourself and your reader.

Let’s make this as practical as possible. Here are five brands whose content programs are leading the way. Some of these content initiatives are new, some aren’t—and that’s the point. The best content strategy is evergreen. (It should also be adaptive, though that’s a topic for another post.)

Each example is a rabbit hole I recommend exploring. In researching these companies, I found all kinds of cool stories and tips. Much of that is linked in each description.

1. Wrap Text by Equals

You don’t see many SaaS blogs run on Substack, but Equals’ Head of Product Marketing Matt Hodges says that’s exactly why the company blog has thrived. Substack is simple, fast and has only a few customizations. It mostly gets out of the way so the writers can just write. (It’s gone well too, and you can read more about the decision here.)

But the CMS isn’t the most interesting part of Wrap Text. A few people recommended I check it out, so I dug in. Here are a few things I found:

• Wrap Text is a sub-brand of Equals, meaning it’s a dedicated space for content.
• Much of the content is written directly by the founders.
• They are quite transparent (see “Why we changed pricing 3 times in 1 year”)
• They talk about a wide range of topics (sales, marketing, product, growth, etc.).

The experience feels a bit retro. The transparency harkens back to Buffer’s early days. The range of topics feels akin to Intercom’s first content iteration. The choice of Substack reminds me of when Medium was an option for fast-moving startups.

The evergreen part, however, is what’s important. The content is great, partly because it doesn’t feel like content marketing. It’s people writing, sharing, and thinking. They keep writing to clarify their own thoughts and help readers think through their challenges, too.

This is no accident either. Intercom founder Des Traynor said he’d only invest in Equals if they’d commit to writing one blog post per week. Here’s Equals co-founder Bobby Pinero on that agreement:

My best commitment when starting Equals was to one of our angels, Des. In exchange for a check, he made me promise that in the early days, we’d publish a blog post every week. It’s a practice he also did at Intercom.

It’s important to note that the message was not “go build a content marketing channel.” Dear lord, most content marketing sucks. The advice was simply to write. Its purpose; to build the habit of telling our story, to get over the fear of publishing, and most of all, to test what resonates. As we developed that habit, we quickly learned what lands–sharing openly the lessons we’ve learned in building startups.

Spend five minutes on this blog and you’ll be drawn in by the strong opinions, vulnerable transparency, and great hooks (e.g., “Startups shouldn't feel like walking a tightrope”).

2. Off Script by Intercom

A Des Traynor mention is the perfect segue into the next example, Intercom’s new video series “Off Script.” Intercom has a long history of producing great content (including a renowned blog, a series of books and several podcasts).

Video has been the next frontier of B2B content for 10 years, but only a few companies have figured it out (Wistia, 360Learning and Paddle to name a few). It’s not surprising that Intercom is investing in high-quality video. Intercom CEO Eoghan McCabe says in the first episode, “This is our effort at a comeback to the original Intercom content energy.”

[embed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiWV0T0qbeY]

This program is new—only five videos published—but Intercom captured something important from the start. The gist is that A.I. is an “adapt or die moment” and Intercom is bringing in thought leaders to explain why. The conversations are a mix of philosophical discussions and history lessons. The look and feel is minimalist and profound. The timing is perfect. As we’ve come to expect with Intercom, they dreamed up a concept and nailed the execution.

3. The State of European Tech by Atomico

Atomico is a European venture capital firm that publishes one annual report that easily fuels a year of content.

Each year since 2015, Atomico (along with some partners) publishes a massive report called The State of European Tech. When I say massive, I mean it. The PDF is 258 pages. It feels more of a public service than content marketing—and required reading for any European tech startup.

But the Atomico team doesn’t drop a PDF and go on vacation. The data is the atomic unit (no pun intended) of a year’s worth of content. They’ve built a microsite dedicated to the report where readers can find:

• An extensive video library of presentations and interviews related to the report.
• Reading tracks, which are short deep dives into parts of the report. These include interactive charts and summaries of the analysis. (These are great and the concept is one you might consider borrowing.)
• Previous reports, each of which includes a similar network of related content.

There are a few takeaways here. One is that data reports can be a public good. Done well, the data can support your industry and the people who work in it. Another is that data analysis is perhaps the single best content type. Once you’ve got the data, there are endless ways to use it for more content, sales, etc. And lastly, reports don’t have to look or feel like content, which (as Bobby Pinero mentioned) is one of the keys to doing content well.

4. Fraud Fighters Manual by Unit21

Speaking of content that doesn’t look or feel like content, the folks at Unit21 recently published a physical book called the “Fraud Fighter Manual.”

The content itself can be checked out online too, but the medium is what’s most interesting here. The choice to pour effort into content that will eventually be printed and shipped to prospects and customers is rare.

There are two things I love about this.

• First, the effort required to print a book places a higher demand for quality on the content. A blog is not a medium that demands excellence. There’s plenty of great writing on the internet but there’s also no barriers—especially in terms of cost—to publish.
• And second, there are all kinds of benefits related to reading physical books.

Behavioral psychologist and author Susan Weinschenk has explored some of the benefits of reading paper books:

A physical book has weight, and the feeling of weight is different from book to book. The physical weight affects people’s perception of the importance of the work. Research on embodied cognition shows that when people hold something heavy, they think it is more important.

There is evidence that the multi-sensory experience of reading a physical book enhances retention of the material. Creating a great experience for the reader is a wonderful initiative on its own, not to mention a great way to differentiate.

5. Carta Classroom

This is an extremely well-executed take on the academy/university content playbook that plenty of other companies run. I’m highlighting it here because if your company sells a product intended to make something very complicated as simple as possible, you almost certainly need something like this.

In Carta’s case, the product helps companies and employees, “Manage all things equity in one place, including cap tables, valuations, fundraising, issuing shares, expense accounting, and equity planning.” If you’ve ever worked for a venture-backed company, you know how incredibly overwhelming and complicated this can be.

Here are a few highlights, which also serve as tips if you choose to run this playbook:

• The subject matter is intense and the stakes are high. And incorrect information could lead readers to make misinformed financial decisions. Each piece has to be correct before it can be interesting and readable.
• The content demystifies complex information. This is a massive value to the reader, who may not really know where to turn for good information. Once they find the Classroom, they have everything they need to get educated on liquidity events, taxes, etc. If your company operates in a complex world, "demystifying” should absolutely be part of your content strategy.
• The product ties are obvious and abundant. This type of content feels obvious because the opportunity is so clear. Carta took the obvious route but nailed the execution.

Academies are tried-and-true. The content can be evergreen, search intent already exists, once it’s done you don’t have to keep adding to it like you might do for a blog.

Don’t overcomplicate content, just keep moving

The main takeaway from studying these examples is that these companies:

1. Try to understand their readers’ needs as closely as possible, and then,
2. Deliver content that’s as useful as possible (regardless of medium, distribution channel, etc.)

There’s nothing profound about that, other than that it’s so obvious that it’s easy to overlook. Content is changing right now, but perhaps the boldest move is actually to simplify an overcomplicated content program.

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