Lately, I’ve been on a quest to find some really great marketing blogs focused on SaaS. While there’s no shortage of blogs that talk about marketing, ones that focus on SaaS are a rare breed indeed.
Though there are many SaaS blogs, it’s hard to find ones that have substantial content about marketing this type of business. I guess that’s to be expected. There are a lot of parts involved in running a successful SaaS business, and founders who blog about it, have a lot of ground to cover.
Here are 15 of the best SaaS blogs that offer considerable marketing content written by those with a substantial involvement in SaaS. For each entry, I’ve provided some background on the blog, why you should follow it, my favorite post and three additional posts worth reading.
All in all, that’s a good 40 pieces of content for your reading and listening pleasure, whether you’re a startup or an old pro. For this reason, I decided to keep the list small and focused.
SaaStr
Why you should follow this blog: According to their site, SaaStr is “the largest community of SaaS founders and entrepreneurs, with over 3M views per month and 30 million+ views on Quora, and events hosted throughout the year.” There’s tons of information, and they’ve done a great job of organizing all their articles according to company stage; early, growth, scale, and exit. You can also explore by category if you wish, and further refine your search based on stage.
Favorite post: “How Much Can You Really Spend on Marketing? (And The “Problem” With The S+M=ACV Axiom)” Jason Lemkin’s experience and knowledge come through in this detailed post that offers a detailed method of calculating your budget. On a practical level, he also suggests that “If you think you can make even $0.50 off that marketing program that costs $1 … I say … go for it. It will pay off.”
More content to enjoy:
SaaStr Podcast #079: Seth Besmertnik, Founder & CEO @ Conductor On Where to Start With a B2B SaaS Content Roadmap
Why CAC is Usually Irrelevant in Early-ish Stage SaaS Companies (vs. B2C Where It’s Critical)
SaaStr Podcast #115: David Rodnitzky (CEO, 3Q Digital) + Loretta Jones (VP Marketing, Delighted) On Why Not All Companies Should Invest in SEM
OpenView Labs
Why you should follow this blog: OpenView, an expansion stage venture capital firm, run this site which has “thousands of in-depth articles on sales, marketing, customer success, finance, leadership, product development, HR and much more.” They usually publish between one and four posts a month for their marketing section.
Favorite post: “An Essential Guide to Building Out Your Marketing Tech Stack” With 5,381 solutions available, Mike Ward, VP of Demand Generation, Marketing at Workfront lays out a robust approach that avoids the shiny-object syndrome. It may seem counterintuitive, but a new product isn’t always the best solution.
More content to enjoy:
The State of SaaS Marketing Peek Inside Hubspot’s Multi-Million Dollar SaaS Growth Strategy Pitch Stakes Not Pain: Transcending the Doctor-Patient Approach to Sales and Marketing Why you should follow this blog: SaasGenius, a directory of thousands of SaaS companies, maintains a blog heavily focused on SaaS marketing tech. They publish sparingly, about once a month, but their posts are thoroughly written. Favorite post: “The Growth Hacker’s Guide To Stealing Hundreds Of Your Competitors Customers.” Competing in a crowded market is always challenging. This three-step process of searching, stacking and selling how to break in and get your fair share. More content to enjoy: The Top 4 Saas Marketing Challenges And How To Overcome Them The Illusion Of Product/Market Fit For Saas Companies 21 Content Marketing Tools For Smart Saas Marketers Why you should follow this blog: Brian seriously knows his stuff. He’s currently the Founder/CEO at Reforge and before that was VP of Growth at Hubspot working on new product initiatives like HubSpot Sales products. Brian shares his wealth of experience in his monthly in-depth blog posts that you won’t find anywhere else. Favorite post: “Product Channel Fit Will Make or Break Your Growth Strategy” Most people focus on product/market fit and then try to find a channel that works. In this post, Brian lays out a different approach that goes beyond product/market fit and shows how companies need to build products to fit channels and continually test for new ones. More content to enjoy: How You Battle the “Data Wheel of Death” in Growth The First Step To Building A Growth Machine Why Product Market Fit Isn’t Enough Why you should follow this blog: This growth marketing consultant has been featured in many well-known publications including Entrepreneur, Forbes and The Next Web. Although he publishes occasionally, about once a month, this is one of the few blogs that is focused on SaaS marketing. Favorite post: “Why Companies are Failing to Implement Growth Processes” Using an abundance of examples, Pierre shows how growth shouldn’t be relegated to just the Growth and Product teams. Marketing, Support and Customer Success all have a unique perspective that they can bring to the table. More content to enjoy: Interview With the Head of Growth at Typeform 6 Mistakes that will kill your B2B SaaS Startup Tracking Customer Acquisition in SaaS Why you should follow this blog: Tomasz is a venture capitalist and partner at Redpoint. He writes data-driven posts on critical questions facing startups nearly every other day. There’s a wealth of material devoted to SaaS marketing and content marketing. Favorite post: “How Much Should A SaaS Startup Invest In Sales & Marketing?” Tomasz put together a downloadable worksheet where you can test out different conditions and assumptions. The sheet, along with with the benchmarks provided in the post, will help determine your sales and marketing spend as your SaaS grows. More content to enjoy: Creating Tension In Your Startup’s Marketing Positioning The Best Content Marketers In The World Customer Operations – An Idea For Maximizing Efficient Growth In SaaS Companies Why you should follow this blog: Lincoln has been at the forefront, driving the evolution of customer success. What’s this have to do with marketing? Everything. Because you need to keep your customers if you want a viable long-term business. Plus, you’ll find a ton of stuff directly related to marketing on his site. Favorite post: “Customer Success: The Definitive Guide” Whenever I hear those three words- “the definitive guide” my B.S. detector goes on high alert. But Lincoln really knows his stuff and lays it all out in this well-organized guide. If you’re not familiar with customer success, and even if you are, read this post. More content to enjoy: 9 Things Customer Success is Not The Cost of Bad Fit Customers: The $1.2M Churn and Burn to Learn Mistake The 5 Fatal Flaws of Most Customer Journey Maps Why you should follow this blog: Hiten has started three companies, Crazy Egg, KISSmetrics, and Quick Sprout, all of which are well known in their market. He’s a smart guy and a good writer. My only complaint is that he doesn’t publish often enough on his own blog. Still, you won’t want to miss the next time he posts something. Hiten, if you’re listening, we’re still waiting! Favorite post: “How to Focus When You’re Overwhelmed By Marketing Options” There’s no shortage of marketing tactics from which you can choose, and that is a problem. In this post, Hiten provides a framework for figuring out what to improve, and then a process to make it work. More content to enjoy: Growth Hacking Was Invented With a Mint Julep and Two Beers The 3-Step Startup Marketing Framework We Created to Grow KISSmetrics How Amazon Web Services (AWS) Achieved an $11.5B Run Rate by Working Backwards Why you should follow this blog: Gregory was the first marketing hire at Help Scout, where he helped grow their company blog to over 4 million readers per year. Gregory doesn’t publish frequently, but when he does, his posts are in-depth. Favorite post: “Content Promotion is About Meeting Readers Where They Live“ Unlike most advice on content promotion, this comprehensive post focuses on high-impact tactics that are scaleable. More content to enjoy: Getting Your Entire Company to Write Creates More Value Than You Think How to Publish More Content Without Dropping Your Standards To Create a Culture of Writing at Your Company, Start by Providing Incentive Why you should follow this blog: Their startup journey blog really took off a few years ago when they pivoted to documenting their learnings as they grow towards $10M in annual revenue. Initially, the amount was far lower, but they had to revise it a few times as they continually met their goals. Good solid advice from those who have been there, done that. Favorite post: “How We Differentiated Our Brand to Build a $5M Business” in a Crowded Market” Eventually every market becomes crowded. This post documents how Groove founds its differentiator, in this content marketing, and what they did once they realized it. More content to enjoy: 3 Ways That We Collect Powerful Customer Testimonials (Including Email Scripts) How to Take Your Content From Good to Great How We Used Content Upgrades to Increase Conversions by 400% Why you should follow this blog: This blog, created by three SaaS cofounders, is solely focused on SaaS with many marketing-related posts. They offer “the latest strategy, tips, and advice from inside the trenches.” Favorite post: “The State Of Saas Content Marketing 2017” This detailed analysis of virtually every aspect of content marketing, across every 250 SaaS companies, provides interesting insight into what’s working right now. Their conclusion; everybody blogs poorly providing an opportunity for those willing to be smarter, more consistent, customer-focused, and inclined to experiment. More content to enjoy: The Ultimate Saas Metrics Guide To Smarter, Faster Growth How To Create Powerful Social Proof With Free Survey Tools The Ultimate Guide To Saas Pricing Models, Strategies & Psychological Hacks Why you should follow this blog: If you’re looking to accomplish more with less, then the agile methodology may be your ticket. This section of the blog is devoted entirely to agile marketing and is an excellent resource for anyone new to this way of working. Favorite post: “Take The First Step On Your Agile Marketing Journey“ The first post in a series devoted to providing agile marketing neophytes with “a monthly step-by-step guide to their first year as an agile marketer.” More content to enjoy: Kanban System For Agile Marketing: A Beginner’s Guide How Does Agile Marketing Work? 5 Tips For More Efficient Marketing Operations: Part Three Why you should follow this blog: No hype, just reliable information from a team that includes two well-known individuals in the field of growth, Brian Balfour and Michael Chen. There are also a number of interesting growth studies that are worth reading. Favorite post: “Casey Winters on Pinterest’s Retention Wins, and Why 90% of SEO Advice is Wrong“ In this interview with Pinterest’s former growth product lead, Casey Winters looks at the metrics that really matter, how to run experiments, handle failures, and why most SEO advice is wrong. More content to enjoy: Thrive Market’s Multi-Channel Content Machine: A Study of Content-Based Growth Zello’s Explosive Growth by Design, and Freemium to Enterprise Ladder TaskRabbit’s Pioneering Marketplace Model & Missed Growth Opportunities Why you should follow this blog: Chock full of articles on customer retention, growth marketing, product launch, user onboarding and more. They usually publish at least a couple of posts per week. Favorite post: “The 21 Growth Strategies Used by Top Growth Teams” These 21 stories about different companies highlights how each used a particular growth tactic to massively expand their business. What can I say? It’s the stories that make ideas most interesting! More content to enjoy: Getting Users Psych’d—User Psychology for Better Onboarding The Ultimate Growth Toolbox: 60 Growth Hacking Tools for Every Area of Your Product The 9 Best Upselling Prompts for B2B SaaS Companies Why you should follow this blog: It’s rated #2 on Forbes list of 100 Best Websites for Entrepreneurs. Plus, as David says, “there are nine years of additional evergreen startup advice.” Favorite post: “SaaS Metrics 2.0 – A Guide to Measuring and Improving what Matters“ This post provides a very detailed look into the key metrics required to optimize a SaaS business. You can’t improve what you don’t measure. That goes for marketing as well. More content to enjoy: Introduction to the Sales and Marketing Machine Marketing Attribution: Creating a Growth Engine at Salesforce, Zendesk, and Slack Optimize Your Funnel By Getting Inside Your Buyer’s Head Who do you turn to for SaaS marketing advice? Anyone I miss who should be on this list? Let me know.SaaSGenius
Brian Balfour
Pierre Lachelle
Tomasz Tunguz
Lincoln Murphy
Hiten Shah
Gregory Ciotti
GrooveHQ
CoBloom
Workfront
Reforge
Appcues
forEntrepreneurs
Thanks for he list, Stephen. A lot of blogs, that I see for the first time and they are really very informative. Definitely, bookmark this page. I think the leadpipe app is also useful: https://goo.gl/WsgjLG. Here the data on more than 5k Saas companies is provided.
Hey Roma! Thanks for letting me know about LeadPipe. It looks very interesting.