Today’s B2B SaaS market is so competitive that even after you sell your product, you have to ensure customers and users are satisfied with your customer support and nurturing efforts. When you have satisfied users, you grow in this highly competitive market and secure your place among the ideal users of your service or product.
But how to do that? What activities should you take in the aftersale strategy to ensure customer success?
As many times before, the answer lies in effective and functional content marketing. If you are a B2B SaaS company and you don’t use the potential that content marketing brings to your brand, there are great chances that you will miss the opportunities for customer retention. Additionally, you’re missing the potential recommendations you would receive from these customers.
Although it is easier to say what to do than actually do it, you have to take planned steps and know exactly what you aim for. That’s the only way you continuously provide content that attracts new potential customers and constantly conveys existing ones that you still care, even after they buy or subscribe to your SaaS product.
Therefore, with this blog, we will look at how SaaS companies can include aftersale content marketing as a strategy that improves customer success, drives user engagement, and fosters lifelong customer relationships.
So, let’s begin:
Table of Contents
The Power of Aftersale Content Marketing
Sales cycles in the SaaS industry are sometimes quite long, from several months to a year. In the whole process, different phases of the buyer journey are covered with the help of appropriate content, education, information and presentation of features on your platform.
And once you get that customer, you may feel like the hard work has paid off, and your job is done as they confirm the purchase. But many will be surprised that at this moment, a new stage of the sales cycle begins, called aftersale customer support.
As you can imagine, content is a great way to make sure these users stay with you longer. But instead of general and informative content, this time, you should have a personalized approach for these users to become loyal advocates.
The Impact of Customer Success in SaaS
As a SaaS company, it would be devastating for you if a user abandons your product after a very short period of use. Sometimes you wonder if it could have been different if you had more time to educate them about the unique features and the proper way to use the product.
Keep in mind that some users will understand how to use your product on the first try, but some will need more time to get used to the functionalities. Therefore, you need to let them know you are available for their questions and challenges so they won’t feel they’re left on their own. Then you can help them test the limits of your SaaS product and discover that it’s the solution they’ve been looking for for a long time, and now they finally have it.
But what do you get out of it?
Customer Retention and Loyalty
Customer success directly affects retention rates. Happy and satisfied users are more likely to renew their subscriptions and continue using your SaaS product. In the long run, it’s good for you as a SaaS provider and also for them, because they don’t have to go through new sales cycles all over again. As a result, the churn rate decreases, especially if you manage to deliver more than you promised in your sales campaigns.
Upselling and Cross-Selling Opportunities
When you have satisfied SaaS product users, you can easily present additional features and upgrades to them. Although it may not be your ultimate goal to sell a more expensive pricing plan, inform them about special features available for an additional minimum amount or a tool they receive for free for a certain period. That way, they stay with you but get more as a reward for their loyalty.
Positive Word-of-Mouth Recommendations and Referrals
A delighted customer is the most valuable asset in the SaaS industry. Referrals are a more powerful sales tool than any other, especially when you need to get new leads or customers. But none of that would be possible if you don’t commit to aftersale content marketing tactics and properly use the power of case studies, testimonials and customer success stories.
Content Types for Ultimate Aftersale Customer Care
Content marketing is usually associated with attracting leads and nurturing prospects during the pre-sale period. So, it’s time to finally change that mindset and realize how important it is to adopt a forward-thinking SaaS approach. That’s the only way to understand why aftersale content marketing is essential and what types of content it involves.
Here are some useful ideas:
Customized Educational Content
Every customer appreciates a tailored approach when it comes to educational materials and resources. By tailoring your content according to customers’ needs, challenges, and usage patterns, you’re giving them the exact value they’re looking for from you and your SaaS product.
Guidance and User Adoption
Your aftersale content can aid in faster user adoption. Once the customer buys the product, you can provide instructional content like guides, tutorials, and best practices to smoothen the onboarding process.
Addressing the Pain Points
Every customer has pain points and challenges. You can spot them during the pre-sales period and address them proactively throughout the whole journey. That way, you demonstrate commitment to customer success and build ongoing strong relationships.
Building a User Community
User-generated content is more valuable than ever. Building a community, such as a forum or social media group, creates a sense of togetherness between your SaaS product users. Give them a safe place to exchange ideas, share insights, and support each other. This way, you can easily spot the ongoing issues they face and surely help them overcome the challenges.
Ongoing Content Improvements
Aftersale content marketing is not a one-time thing, and you’ll have to improve the existing content and also create new. By analyzing customer behavior, user communities, and your sales result, you can refine the content approach and deliver more valuable pieces perfectly aligned with your users’ pain points and challenges.
Key Metrics to Monitor Customer Engagement and Success
Taking care of customer success is even harder to execute than the pre-sales journey. It requires tracking and analyzing different metrics to get an essential knowledge of what works and what you need to improve with your content strategy.
In order to understand the impact on customer success, we’ll explain some of the essential key metrics you need to monitor:
User Activity and Adoption
You need to track and measure how active users are using the SaaS product once they sign up for a demo or purchase it. Track metrics like logins, feature utilization, and time spent on the application. This way, you can identify areas for improvement.
Content Consumption
Analyze how the users interact with your aftersale content. Do they open the emails you send to them? Are they spending time on articles and videos? How many downloads does your user guide have right now? Some content formats will be more popular compared to others, so it helps you re-tailor the strategy for the future.
Customer Retention Rate
This metric shows the percentage of customers who will continue using the SaaS product after a specific period, like two weeks, a month, three months, or even a year. A high retention rate means you’re doing great, delivering great content and quality and useful SaaS product to your customers.
Customer Churn
The churn rate is the number of customers who will stop using the product within a given time. You can track the percentage of subscribers who will not buy the product after the demo or free trial or those who will use the product for a specific period but won’t renew the plan. Tracking this metric helps identify potential pain points or gaps in the content strategy that might be contributing to customer dissatisfaction.
NSP – Net Promoter Score
NSP measures customer loyalty to a specific company. After buying the product and interacting with the aftersale content, customers may receive a survey on how likely they’ll recommend the SaaS product to others. A higher NSP means the level of customer satisfaction is also high, which increases the potential for word-of-mouth recommendations.
The Future of Aftersale Content Marketing in SaaS
As in any industry, the future of SaaS holds so many new emerging trends and technologies but also uncertainties. The goal is to handle them in a charming way and stay relevant and effective in the ever-evolving SaaS market.
So, here are some trends to consider:
Interactive Content
Content consumers love visually effective and interactive guides, assessments, quizzes, and user instructions. This way, they feel involved in content creation and SaaS product improvements in the future.
AI-Driven Personalization
AI takes a large portion of today’s trends, and it’s the same for the future. The earlier you learn to utilize AI for personalized aftersale content, the better you’ll perform in your industry. AI can recommend various content formats based on customer behavior patterns, increasing engagement and satisfaction.
Voice Search Optimization
With the increasing popularity of voice-driven devices, one of the expected trends is optimizing your content and products for voice search. This way, you cover the busy customers, making access to content and software more effective.
How to Stay Agile in the Ever-Changing Customer Landscape?
Staying competitive in the SaaS industry is an ongoing battle because you need to adapt to different trends daily. But a few things are forever:
- Continuous content optimization, adjustments, and tailoring according to customers’ needs and expectations
- Customer journey mapping to make sure relevant content is delivered to everyone
- Multiple-channel content delivery based on where your customers are at the moment
- Feedback loops between customers and content creators to incorporate customer-suggested content enhancements
Final Thoughts on Aftersale Content Marketing
It seems like it’s not enough to have exceptional SaaS products but also to strategically execute your content marketing strategy. In order to enhance customer success and satisfaction, foster brand loyalty, and grow in a highly competitive market, you must deliver exceptional aftersale content.
That way, you create a lasting impact on customers, encouraging them to renew the SaaS subscription or even move to a better (and more expensive) package to get most of your product.
