11 Best SaaS Education & Customer Support Resource Strategies (2024)

💬 We've all heard about the power/effectiveness that content marketing can do to drive growth for SaaS and startup brands - but with the new era of search, more competition, higher prices to compete in terms of acquisition (and the list goes on)... the content game to generate growth is becoming more challenging.

It's now about marketing managers and founders to think outside of the 'usual SaaS/B2B content playbook' - approach to content needs to be thought about in terms of strategy for the whole customer journey - meaning, content needs to be catered for acquisition, but also for activation, customer support (retention), advocacy/referral, and numerous other areas/objectives.

So, what I'm sharing with you today below are some of those content initiative approaches to seriously consider doing (if not already) for those who are marketers/founders in the world of SaaS and/or B2B.

Content initiatives and strategies for SaaS brands (from early stage to scale-ups) to think about for organic growth across the CX funnel

💬 These are some key opportunity areas around content and education support resources for brands to add as experiments to test, add to the future marketing roadmap, or for those doing some of the below already, some thoughts for optimisations to consider - plus, I included some references as I go along.

If there's one initiative that can help SaaS startups with retention and improving LTV (and even the likes of product upgrades with increasing ARPU/ARPA), is by creating damn good education resources around features and solutions related to the product.

In terms of SaaS brands doing this, here are a couple of awesome example references to be inspired by.

Example #1 - Airtable resource centre

• Big fan of what Airtable have done with their resource library
• They have a mix of various assets and resource types for customers/users and those browsing, including videos, articles, reports, ebooks, past webinars, events/recordings, and more.

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• Love how they've split the sections between above fold and then below here with the "browse" section
• Header focuses on main content pieces (videos) - good to steer attention for important content
• Then, really love the UX of the filters for "types" and "topics" - love the card details and images used as well

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• And a good way to end the page with more categories for visitors to explore

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Example #2 - Calendly resource centre

• Another example I really like is from Calendly, who've also done a great structure and UX for visitors/customers to explore content
• Like the above fold "featured" virtual event CTA - good to focus for visitors
• Then like the tabs feature for people to explore different types

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Whether part of initial onboarding and also via other behavioural triggers (like low activity, usage on certain features, etc), highlight features visually through the likes of mini Loom videos, or even the likes of gifs.

And promote these via email flows and even the likes of low-budget ads (depending on audience bucket sizes and your goals).

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Example #1 - Notion

• Notion are one of the best I've seen when it comes to onboarding email sequences, and they do awesome GIF-based emails for feature releases and updates
• Love the section layout and 'minimal' approach

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Example #2 - Loom

• Using the likes of a video embed like Loom here is great for focusing users to view this section, which can help increase clicks/CTR to the video

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Something which a few brands have done is create an academy experience, which is essentially a curated resource library of existing articles/posts, but packaged up together nicely to create easy steps - a great initiative, especially for new suer acquisition. Plus, helps with TOF/MOF marketing content too for acquisition/nurturing, as well as helping with activation.

Example - Webflow

• It's only appropriate to mention Webflow here (being one of my fave tools and CMS)
• They've worked on their academy for years and no doubt has played a role in activating and helping with acquisition/nurturing efforts for new users
• As you'd expect, they've done a great job with the UX of the page, using a mix of anchor links for main categories, and then a left hand sidebar for other applicable CTAs/resources

Action step: Absolutely worth going through and taking notes on UX, topics, and how they position their university.

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Related to the above in terms of creating educational resources, ensure to create really good documentation and knowledge bases.

There's nothing more frustrating for users when it comes to understanding features and what's possible, and then running into issues, and finding no documentation around assisting - sure, chat can be available, but having this info in a consolidated place like a knowledge place does help reduce friction around problems that users may run into, which does help retention.

Here are a couple of great Help Centre/Knowledge base examples

Example #1 - Slack help centre

• Like the simplicity of Slack’s help centre main page, highlighting just primary categories
• Then they go into more detailed category pages with then further sub-categories (which can have many resources connected). 
• Overall like the UX/navigation that can satisfy all user types

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Example #2 - Asana Help Centre

• Really love Asana’s Help Centre (and of the best I’ve seen) - great UX and breakdown of the various types of content
• They’ve created a page that can satisfy users/visitors across their journey, such as those exploring/researching about using Asana, to existing users who need help with certain features

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Having a frictionless onboarding experience really does help with activation and providing a seamless experience for new users.

And as part of onboarding strategies, such as walkthroughs, pop-ups or internal checklist prompts, comes with providing educational resources that are related to whatever feature you're highlighting.

Recommendations for top onboarding experiences

There are many SaaS products which have done an incredible job with their onboarding experiences which I’m a big fan of, including:

• Notion
• Clickup
• Asana
• And a few others… (which I will share in future resources/emails)

What about onboarding software recommendations?

In terms of tooling/software I recommend when it comes to creating checklists/product tours, I created a dedicated resource on this to check out.

View onboarding and product tools

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As a preview, there are two which I like worth checking out, including:

Appcues

• Been in the market for a long-time now
• Used by some of the world’s top brands including Adroll, Vidyard and many others
• Initiative builder to create awesome experiences and analytics to measure
• Quite a few integrations available

Check out Appcues

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HowdyGo

• Another platform I came across not long ago which I like
• You can create interactive guided product tours - great for ending as part of onboarding sequences

Check out HowdyGo

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Recommended free resource: make sure to also check out my activation strategies and tactics checklist for improving onboarding and retaining more new user signups.

Link to activation tactics checklist

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An initiative to help with user retention and even engaging the likes of 'freemium' users (where you want to improve free to paid signup conversion rates), us by hosting AMAs and events (like webinars, 'office hours', etc), where you share valuable resources/education to these segments.

Each segment has a different goal, and regardless of those who turn up 'live' or opt-in to these content initiatives, it's worth promoting through channels like email automation, to help with goals you have for each segment.

Plus, you can even use pieces of content, and host internally or externally on your blog/resource section - there's always a way you can repurpose.

To help with user acquisition and product upgrade efforts, a good strategy that I've seen prove to be really effective, is by working with B2B content creators/thought-leaders/influencers, where they can create mini-content snippets and tutorials around key features.

In many ways, like what you see eCommerce brands do with UGC ads on the likes of TikTok/Instagram, but in the context of B2B SaaS marketing.

User (focus) groups are awesome for numerous objectives, like research and gaining qualitative/quantitative insights, where you can understand the problems/solutions they face - and based on the problems they bring up, you may identify gaps in messaging/content strategy which is not addressing some areas. And the simply solution here is by creating helpful resources around these areas.

In conjunction with the above with the theme of research/user feedback, create guides/resources based (or even optimise existing guides), around any friction points or common problems that users may face.

Then, distribute that content to those segments (that answered).

Whenever you're promoting specific features or sending out 'data update' emails based on product usage, tie in helpful content that's related.

Now building a community is another topic altogether (which I've created a helpful checklist for too with strategies/tactics and initiative ideas) that can really help SaaS and B2B brands create a competitive advantage.

And by competitive advantage, I mean everything that comes along with scaling and thriving communities, such as - helping with user acquisition (TOF/MOF), referrals, retention, product upgrades/upsells, and lots lots more.

The amount of content ideas that you can gain from owning a community is amazing.