Letter #62: The secret to creating high-converting product-led content
Hint: Try using the tool yourself.
Heyya friend!
How’s winter treating you?
I’ve been working from a cave of blankets — trying out different coffee shops whenever the cold isn’t, well, too cold to tolerate.
At one of these places, I explained my preference and asked for a coffee recommendation. The reaction? This:
The lanky guy looked at his average-height-average-built colleague across the counter — his fingers pretending to type something as he said, “you tell.”
Meanwhile, the second dude wore a blank face, obviously unsure of what to suggest.
And I looked on. Completely unimpressed. Thinking, ‘how on earth do you not know — you’re both behind a coffee counter, bruh!’
Then I came across The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. Again, I went in. Explained my preferences.
The reaction: the dude instantly got what I wanted and served the best coffee I’ve tasted yet.
So you now know where I’m regularly stopping for coffee, right? All because the staff knows what they sell so well.
There’s a lesson for SaaS marketers here, really: understand the tool you’re marketing.
When you don’t know it all too well, product-led content translates to posts with occasional, forced-into-feature mentions. And you’re forever stuck with top funnel content with hardly any conversions.
If you’re serious about driving leads with useful product-led content marketing though, you need to:
1. Dive beyond the product demo
Sure you learned what the tool does when you joined the team.
As a stellar marketer though, a strong grip on content marketing means a strong grip on the product you’re creating content on.
And trust me when I say, wayyy too many content strategists and managers have an average-ish grip on their tool’s full potential. Lots even completely rely on input from the product team, which isn’t wrong (and even needed in several cases) but it develops a dependency — stalling your drafts in their first stages.
So go on, log into the tool and play with it. If it’s the sort that you can incorporate into your workflow, do it. In fact, do it today.
2. Go deeper than the knowledge base
This one’s for SaaS tools that are beyond your use — say it’s a sales tool and you can’t really hop in and explore.
In that case, go to the internal team that uses the tool and take a behind-the-shoulder peep at how they’re using it.
The key here is to talk to people using the tool. Watch them include it in their workflow. Understand when and how they’re using it. Make notes on feature use cases.
And don’t stop there. Regularly catch up with these folks to learn about the new ways they’re using the product.
3. Document your learnings
This is important for two reasons:
It gives you clarity on how each feature works and its use cases. This clarity literally shows in the content you create.
Documenting helps you communicate and share your understanding of the product with internal and freelance writers on your team = reduced edits and better product-led content.
Two important ways to document product know-how:
A product cheat sheet featuring a summary of what your tool does, briefly explaining each feature and linking to the relevant knowledge base article and tutorial, and a short trailer on how to talk about your product in your content.
Bite-sized feature tutorials with transcripts. Show how to achieve something with the feature in these videos.
Some of you may even already be creating screen-recorded videos explaining how features work. If so, it’s time you compile all of them in a library so you can save time by easily pulling out the needed videos rather than unknowingly remaking them now and then.
Also, standardize all the tutorials you create to make them easier to digest. Here’s how: make sure all short videos answer the 4Ws and 1H:
Who can use this feature?
When should they include it in their workflow?
What it can do for them (how it’ll help them)?
Why should they bother using it?
How to use it including its various use cases?
When you do all this, you’ll find yourself coming up with topic ideas for bottom-of-the-funnel content.
Example: Asana created content on How Asana Uses Asana, which is next-level thought leadership with a slice of behind-the-scenes. Content like this also tells readers you find your tool so valuable that you use it yourself. Which grows social proof, leading to conversions 💲💲
You’ll also save yourself from feature bloat product-led content (content overloaded with feature mentions) as you realize each feature’s potential and give it the showtime it deserves.
That’s all for today folks.
Let me know if there’s unique documentation or ways you’re learning and sharing about the product(s) you’re marketing.
Ciao,
Masooma
Coffee Bean employees have been more conversational in my experience. Thanks for the insightful look at why it's so important to go beneath the surface.
This is a tremendous piece! I am sharing it with my circle. Thank you so much for this.