How healthcare and SaaS companies can produce conversion-optimized content

Are you happy with the results of your company’s content marketing?

According to the Content Marketing Institute’s 2023 research report, only 29% of B2B marketers rate their content marketing as very or extremely successful. The rest feel like their content marketing isn’t working or is only moderately successful.

Moreover, a different survey found that only 32% of B2B marketers are proud of most of their content. These marketers identify a number of barriers to producing good content, including a lack of agreement among stakeholders as to what constitutes quality content. In fact, only 14% of B2B marketers say their organization agrees on what good content is.

This particular barrier doesn’t surprise me because, as a freelancer, I get a peek into the operations of a variety of SaaS and healthtech companies — and very few of them seem to have an accurate idea of what makes content effective. These are the most common problems I see –

• Companies focus on keywords but not on actually producing content that their target audience would want to read.

• Companies have no defined content strategy; they are instead what I call “volume shops” that produce a lot of content, very little of which will actually convert readers into customers.

• Companies treat their content marketing as a free-for-all endeavor in which any and all senior professionals who have something to say get to write their idea as a blog post, no matter whether their idea will work in attracting leads.

Your SaaS or healthtech company can avoid these problems by developing an evidence-based strategy for producing quality, conversion-optimized content (that is, content that drives your readers to take a defined action, such as contacting you or scheduling a demo). Of course, developing a full strategy can take some time.

If you instead want a quick win, you can begin combining two strategies that data show are effective in converting readers into customers.

1. Target your audience’s pain

Many companies make a mistake in targeting keywords, rather than pain. Keywords may get you traffic, but traffic isn’t your goal. Your goal is sales, and to get sales, you need to target what your ideal customers are struggling with.

For example, let’s say you sell software that helps building managers lower their energy costs, and one of the pains/problems your customers have is high energy costs. 

Content that targets this pain would call out your customers, their pain, and make clear that you’re offering a solution. The title of your content might be this: “How facilities managers can lower their energy costs through energy management software.”

Compare that to an article that is merely targeting a keyword, such as “building energy costs”: “Survey shows that over 80% of facility managers struggle with building energy costs.”

This second article may get traffic, but the traffic won’t be from people who are laser focused on lowering their energy costs. The traffic for this survey article will instead be those who are merely curious about a survey; they have no buying intent. In contrast, the article on how facilities manager can lower their energy costs will attract people who are looking to solve that problem.

Another type of post that targets pain would be a post that follows the structure “best software for [accomplishing particular goal].” So, “Best software for managing building energy costs” would be the kind of post that would draw in someone who has the intent to find and purchase such software.

You can likely see, intuitively, why targeting pain points would lead to more conversions, but you don’t have to rely on intuition alone. The data bear out this point; take a look at this analysis, example.

2. Create an asset that includes multiple short videos

Once you’ve chosen a topic for your asset based on your audience’s pain, you should then make sure that the asset you create also includes videos. Videos significantly boost conversion rates as these statistics show.

Many companies resist producing videos because they think video production requires expensive vendors who create sophisticated videos that include custom graphics and music. But not all your videos need to have such high production values. For most content assets, your company can instead use Loom, which is free, to create simple demo videos between 10 and 60 seconds that show different aspects of your software. 

Loom allows you to record what is on your screen as you talk. As a result, all you need to produce a strong Loom video is someone within your company who has a decent speaking voice and can demo your features. You can see how easy it is to create a Loom video in the below short video:

For each feature of your software that you describe with words in a blog post or other piece of content, you should include a corresponding short video that shows the feature. 

For example, this blog post includes a video in the middle that helps the reader picture how Trello’s interface makes it easier to track work assignments.

Short demo videos within your content assets will build enthusiasm for your solutions that will make the sales process easier. In contrast, when you only describe your software feature in words and then make your customers schedule a demo to see more, your customers are likely to be annoyed that they had to agree to a sales call to finally see your software in action. 

Which party would you rather sell to: someone who has seen short demo videos, liked what they saw, and is excited to learn more, or someone who hasn’t seen anything yet and wonders if the call is going to be a waste of their time?

Find a writer who will help you craft a conversion-optimized piece of content

Want to create content that targets your ideal customers’ pain and presents them with short videos that show the features of your solution? 

I help companies do exactly that. In the below short video, I go over each step of my process.