Jesse Kelber

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Effective Blogging Strategies for SaaS Executives: 5 Things to Know

blogging for SaaS executives

Effective Blogging Strategies for SaaS Executives: 5 Things to Know August 26, 2024 Rumors of the death of blogging have been greatly exaggerated. You can be forgiven for not having given much thought to a pastime many still view as something for angsty teens and influencer wannabes. What I’m here to do today is dispel that nasty rumor and ensure you leave with a clear understanding of just how powerful your words can be. The B2B SaaS world moves fast. You probably didn’t need me to tell you that. What you do need me to tell you is that that doesn’t mean people don’t read. Humans are a species raised on narratives. From our earliest days on the Savannah, humans have told each other stories. Stories about how we got here. Stories about what we should and shouldn’t be doing here. And even stories about how we should or shouldn’t treat each other while we’re here. Swirling around in that mix of stories is the one about your company. It has an origin story where the founder had the spark of an idea. It has a middle, where the company comes together around a central mission (a sub-narrative, if you will) to create a thing that will change how people do what they do. But who’s controlling that narrative? Executive blogging (sometimes called Thought Leadership) was, is, and will remain a potent tool for communicating insights, establishing thought leadership credentials, and more broadly connecting with your audience of existing and potential customers. Blogging, whether on your corporate website, LinkedIn, or even Reddit provide a plethora of outlets for your words. Words that can sway public opinion. Words that can explain how a product can help with a particular pain point. And words that can help keep your narrative moving forward while showing the human side of SaaS leadership. Here are my top five things to know when starting an executive blog. Please note: this is a living document (another benefit of blogging, right there), so remember to come back often to see what updates I’ve rolled out! Know Your Why The last thing I want anyone to do is start a blog because I said so. That’s the quickest way for a blog to fail, because you won’t have a ‘Why’ and I can’t give you one. Therefore, the first thing you need to know about your blog is why you’re creating it. Before you spend hours every week drafting up a compelling story to tell your rapt audience, you need to know why you’re doing it. Are you trying to help them solve an existing pain point? Convey updates about your product? Get something off your chest about the weather? There’s another Why in play: why should your audience invest their precious time in reading your words? What are you giving them in exchange for the 10-15 minutes you’re asking them to take out of their day? Blogging provides an opportunity to leverage a powerful communication channel. You have specific knowledge of your sector that your audience could potentially be using, right now, to help them power through or around a sticking point in their everyday lives. A blog can be your platform to build your reputation as a thought leader by sharing that knowledge. It can be a venue to influence tired industry narratives in need of overturning. It can be a way to foster direct connections with prospective customers and turn your existing clients into brand ambassadors. But how you proceed will be heavily influenced by which of those is your goal. Once you know why you’re starting this blog, it’s time to dive into the next, and potentially equally crucial piece of information: the who. Know Your Who As in, who do you want to read this blog? Before you can write even one word of advice, or help with a single pain point, or tell one amusing anecdote from last weekend—you need to know who you’re talking to. Think of it this way, would you tell that story the same way if you were talking to your grandma as when you’re talking to your co-founder? Or the VC? Or your kids? Every audience has it’s unique impact on how you weave your narrative, so starting with a deep understand of who you’re targeting is key. If you’re going to write a guide to addressing a pain point you know your product can help with (a common goal of Content Marketing for many SaaS platforms), you need to be sure you haven’t been targeting other SaaS execs, because they probably don’t care. On the other hand, if your blog is mostly about sharing your experiences in raising funds in today’s tight startup market, but you’ve been targeting those prospects…again, why would they care? Before you ask, yes, it’s perfectly fine for a blog to target multiple segments of an audience, just be sure you’re using tags, titles, etc appropriately so your audience can find the content that will resonate with them. Which brings us to the next thing to know…How. (I’ll be diving further into logistics like blog titles, categories, and the like in the future, so stay tuned if that’s something you’d like further guidance on.) Know Your How This one’s actually two-pronged. First you have to know how to write, duh. I’m glossing over that one for right now as it’s quite literally something I could write a book on (now there’s an idea…). For this intro piece I want to look at the How of posting your articles. Are you blogging? For yourself, or your company? What about starting a newsletter? Or maybe you’re looking to elevate your personal brand and become known as a thought leader on LinkedIn? Wherever you intend to post these essays/articles/ramblings, there are a handful of things you’re going to want to be sure you don’t overlook, which in the interest of time I’ve kept to my top three: SEO I put this first because I know

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