By Ross Lancaster, Content Specialist.
Software companies do not necessarily need to create brand new content. When thinking about building out a content marketing strategy, keep in mind that repurposing content is an excellent tactic.
It can also be a challenge to think about different types of content to create or how to repurpose a piece.
Possible content categories for software companies
- E-books
- Case studies
- Fact sheets or data sheets to help prospective buyers
- Blog posts
- White papers
- Infographic
- Company news and press releases
- Email support for customers: tips, resources, updates
- Fact sheets or data sheets to help prospective buyers
- Social media communications (remember, don't just self-promote)
- Customer support content (can come in many formats, from forums to an evolving "knowledge base" microsite)
Don't forget that an eBook could become an infographic or be broken down into a series of blog posts. Longer pieces of content, especially white papers, are great pieces to create new shorter pieces.
If you're struggling to think about topics to write about, here are a few ideas.
Content themes for software companies
- Blogs covering upcoming events or industry tradeshows
- New industry trends or broad customer habits
- Industry pain points (that your brand helps solve)
- Research or research questions
- Polls
- Employee interviews
- Customer interviews or customer success stories
- Interesting or unusual ways customers use your software product
Because there are so many ways to use content, we wanted to break down key terms software companies should know.
Content calendar
A content calendar should contain the type of content, the topic, and a schedule. This will ensure that a software company isn't writing about the same topics and providing different content offers for potential leads.
Email marketing
Email marketing helps drive conversions throughout the customer lifecycle. Content plays a significant role in email marketing. Don't just push sales copy to customers using email. Use email to share insights, data, reports, and helpful, interesting, or entertaining stories.
Email marketing is cheap and highly measurable, but many companies abuse email. Work hard to keep unsubscribes and spam flags low. To do this, you must focus on quality, relevance, and brevity.
For example, link email communications to web pages and landing pages to measure interest. If these emails drive conversions, they can be a valuable guide for future emails and site content. Also, be sure to use segmentation to group buyers based on their interests. This will keep content relevant, likely boosting open rates and conversions.
Video
Video can require more planning and resources than blog content, but video can be a highly effective marketing piece. There are many possible themes for using video in software or B2B software marketing, including entertaining, educational, informative, or instructional videos. As a starting point, consider instructional videos to support your software product, as helping customers will build retention.
Webinars
Webinars should be considered as part of a software company's content strategy. For one, conducting a webinar requires content before, during, and after an event.
Webinars themselves help build trust and educate potential customers. They can also be helpful in lead generation if you reach prospects willing to explore your software solution during a live event. Remember to follow up after a webinar with tips, resources, inspiration, or a webinar summary.
SEO audits and keyword research
Audits of website content for SEO should be considered a part of a brand's content strategy to improve conversion rates. For content that already resides on your site, audit your best-performing web pages to improve conversion rates as a starting point.
But SEO tools can also be valuable for considering what themes or topics to create content for in the future. SEO tools from a site like SEMRush can help discover high-volume keywords and keyword ranking difficulties. This information means you can begin to target terms in your content that your buyers want and need.
A strong content marketing strategy for software companies has many aspects that can't be done on the fly or without in-depth knowledge of what needs to be accomplished. If done well, thinking through and executing a valuable content strategy may not come quickly to software firms, but it will pay off in spades with new leads and new business.
