How to Incentivize Content Partners to Promote Your B2B SAAS Product
Marketing B2B Saas products isn't easy, lead streams are drying up, and advertising costs are increasing daily. According to a study conducted by before.ai, on average, every single SaaS company is spending between 15-25% of their ARR on digital advertising. (not just marketing activities, but advertising) these activities will cut down your margins and affect your bottom line.
What would be a more reliable and efficient way of getting leads at his juncture?
Writing good content
Getting people to write good positive, benefit-oriented content for your company
Writing “collaborative” pieces
The idea stems from (and also seems somewhat similar to) influencer marketing. Influencers are generally people who would talk about or use your SaaS product and promote it to people. But it's difficult to find influencers who are technologically capable and have influence over people within a niche. Hence, you move to micro-influencers. If we distribute micro influencers further, they are your content partners.
Who are content partners?
A content partner is a person that helps you publish positive content about your product online.
For the B2B industry, we could also add some specifics to this definition. For example, people who belong to the niche set of audience, which you and your company would define as the target audience, and are ready to write and/or publish content about your product (which might potentially influence the decision-making of people within the niche target audience segment) are called content partners.
How can you find such content partners?
The easiest way is to use eCairn. - a content creator management platform. All you have to do is
1. Signup to eCairn
2. Add information about the profile you wish to target. It could be based on their job title, company, words they put in their social profiles, words and hashtags they use, or people/ accounts they follow.
3. eCairn gives you a list of Content partners you can collaborate with
4. Talk to them and offer the benefits listed below.
What are the benefits of having content partners?
There are many benefits to having content partners, which is why many businesses choose to work with them.
Content partnerships can help businesses expand their reach, connect with new audiences, and create more engaging content.
Additionally, content partnerships can help businesses learn new skills and share knowledge. As a result, companies can improve their content marketing strategy and grow their business by working with a content partner.
You can gain credibility within your target audience segment. People trust these people.
How can you incentivize content partners to promote your product?
Incentivization is an essential part of this content creation process. However, with B2C companies generally giving out their free product trials, the game for B2B companies is slightly different.
B2B companies not only need to give the product as a free trial but also need to get the content creator value from the product they are giving.
Here are some ways B2B software can incentivize their content partners
Give access to pre-launched features
B2B software is ever-evolving, and almost everyone is always excited about the new features that get launched. As they belong to your target audience niche, these content partners would be excited about these new features. If you give them these free features for free or an additional trial period, they will try it; they would also help you find if they would be adopted well in the market and would be happy to try them first.
2. Give them a free upgrade.
SaaS softwares generally operates on a freemium model, with multiple pricing tiers. Providing them with a free upgrade will allow them to use features of a higher tier at the price of a lower tier; you can decide the time until you will offer them this price.
3. Sponsor them to attend an event
Let's say you organize an event, or there is an event your audience is interested in. Get them to attend that event. E.g. If you run Shopify apps, your target audience is Shopify sellers. Thus, they would be happy to produce content about your brand.
4. Feature them in your brand video
People love it when the brand they admire gets them featured as a user on their website or within their brand video. They love the publicity. The new Facebook campaign also targets convincing new eCommerce sellers to try the Facebook marketplace platform.
What are the best practices for working with content partners?
There are a few critical best practices to keep in mind when working with content partners:
1. Establish clear expectations upfront. Set clear expectations with your content partners about what you're looking for, what kind of content you're hoping to receive, and how often you'd like to receive it. This will help avoid any misunderstandings down the road.
2. Provide feedback. When you do receive content from your content partners, be sure to give them feedback on what you liked and didn't like. This will help them improve their content and ensure it's tailored to your needs.
3. Keep communication open. Maintaining an available line of communication with your content partners is crucial to keep them up to date on any changes or updates to your software. This will help ensure they're always on the same page as you.
How can you measure the success of your content partner program?
Measuring the success of a content partner program can be difficult. There are several factors to consider, and it can be tough to isolate the program's impact from other marketing activities. However, there are a few key metrics that can help you gauge the success of your program.
The first step is measuring the number of leads and conversions the content partners generate. This can be done by tracking the number of leads that come from the content partners' sites and the number of conversions that result from those leads.
You can also look at the quality of the leads that the partners generate and the amount of time it takes for leads from the partners to convert into customers.
Another important metric is the traffic the content partners send to your site. You can track the number of unique visitors the partners send and the amount of traffic they send overall. This can help you determine the impact of content partners on your site's traffic levels.
Finally, you can measure the overall engagement that the content partners generate. This can be done by tracking the number of pageviews and time on site that the partners generate. This can help you determine whether or not the partners are providing valuable content that engages your audience.
Some success stories where B2B partners incentivized their content partners and got them to produce some great content.