SaaS SEO FTW: How to Engage Users in Consideration and Purchase Stages

We’re lucky to work with a ton of ambitious, forward-thinking SaaS clients at JDM, and lately there’s been a trend of interest from those clients in creating content that targets later funnel stages.

Specifically, we’ve been creating content strategies that target users by informational and educational content at the middle and bottom of the funnel.

No matter the specific product, SaaS companies have a lot of commonalities in their offerings. We’ve been able to establish some best practices that work across many of our clients, so I think you’ll find value in me detailing them here.

Engaging Middle-of-Funnel Users

At the middle of the funnel, we’ve gotten great traction addressing common user comparison pain points, including:

• Unclear differentiation between platforms
• Concerns about total cost of ownership
• Worries about ongoing support and upgrades
• Comparing automation levels between platforms
• Doubts about scalability and customization
• Concerns about long-term reliability
• Comparing vendor reputation and trustworthiness

Some of the subject lines for content that directly address those pain points include:

• "[Your brand] vs. [Competitor]: A Feature-by-Feature Comparison"
  • Goal: Create a detailed comparison chart that showcases your brand’s unique features, which could include easy integrations, more user seats, and more intuitive reporting.
• "Understanding the Total Cost of Ownership: [Your brand] vs. Competitors"
  • Goal: Make a business case for the benefits (whether added revenue or saved costs or both) your product provides customers, and compare that to what you know about your competitors.
• "What Sets [Your brand] Apart in Customer Support and Product Evolution?"
  • Goal: Compare customer service, upgrade frequency, and product roadmaps between your brand and your competitors, reassuring prospects that they will receive continuous support. If you have an easy way for your users to engage with actual people, like dedicated account managers, make sure to highlight that, since mass AI chat adoption will soon make that a real differentiator.

Engaging Bottom-of-Funnel Users

At this stage, volume may be lower, but the stakes are incredibly high. Your strategy needs to understand what users need to know to be reassured that selecting your product is the right move for their business – and their reputation.

Key decision-making pain points to address include:

• Uncertainty about ROI
• Integration with existing systems
• Fear of data security and compliance risks
• Fear of losing control over decisions
• Uncertainty about transitioning from manual to automated processes
• Doubt about the accuracy of automated data
• Fear of vendor lock-in or poor customer support

You can directly address those pain points with content like:

• "Calculating the ROI of [Your service or product]: What You Need to Know"
  • Goal: Provide an in-depth analysis of the ROI from adopting your product or services, including specific examples from industries in your ICP.
• "How [Your brand] " Integrates with [Popular complementary tech stack product] in Three Easy Steps
  • Goal: Address concerns about the complexity of integration by explaining how easy and flexible your API integration process is.
• "Ensuring Safety and Compliance When Adopting Automation Platforms"
  • Goal: Reassure industry leaders in your ICP by focusing on legal compliance, highlighting your brand’s alignment with relevant regulations.

No matter your users’ funnel stage, these recommendations don’t necessarily need to be written content; customer testimonial videos, infographics, carousels, etc. should all be part of the content strategy, with reports showing which tend to work well for each stage. Ultimately, the more you build the muscles of understanding user pain points for each point in the customer journey, the greater depth of knowledge you’ll build – which will lead to many more ideas than I’ve listed here.

If you’re a SaaS brand interested in hearing more about how we’ve driven transformative organic growth for similar companies, let’s start a conversation.