Uplift Content

Category: Video

Content Marketing for Brand Awareness—And How to Measure ROI

You know that strategic content marketing drives brand awareness and revenue, but can you prove it? Learn the 4 steps to measuring brand awareness ROI—and see what measurement framework we use with our customers.

Updated March 2023: You know that excellent B2B SaaS content drives brand awareness and revenue, but can you prove it? Show your boss that you understand how to use content marketing for brand awareness by tracking 5 key metrics—and check out the brand awareness ROI measurement framework we use with our customers.

Need a hand writing your B2B SaaS marketing content? Check out our content writing services.

High-quality, actionable B2B SaaS content is the best way to educate customers and foster strong brand awareness. In fact, 80% of B2B marketers say that building brand awareness is the top goal achieved through content marketing.

While it’s clear that using content marketing for brand awareness is an important factor in driving sales, its overall effect on revenue can be hard to pinpoint. 

At Uplift Content, we understand what SaaS businesses need to elevate their brand awareness—and the answer is content. Need a hand writing your B2B SaaS marketing content? Check out our content writing services.

In this post, we’ll discuss why you should use content marketing to increase brand awareness, and also cover how to approach calculating the ROI of your content marketing efforts.

Topics:

  1. What is brand awareness?
  2. What are the 4 levels of brand awareness?
  3. Different ways to achieve brand awareness
  4. How to use content marketing to increase brand awareness
  5. How does content marketing increase brand awareness?
  6. What is brand awareness ROI?
  7. How to calculate brand awareness ROI
  8. How we track content marketing for brand awareness at Uplift Content

What is brand awareness?

Brand awareness is the extent to which your target audience is familiar with your company and its products or services. It measures the degree to which your target audience recognizes and recalls your company name or logo, and the level of association they have with your brand.

Brand awareness is an important metric for SaaS companies to track since your target audience is more likely to purchase a product or service from a brand they are familiar with and have positive associations with. 

For this reason, companies must invest in marketing and advertising efforts, including content marketing, to increase brand awareness, build a strong brand identity and attract new customers. 

What are the 4 levels of brand awareness?

To understand how brand awareness affects a customer’s journey, we’ll need to explore the different stages of brand awareness.

This model is based on David Aaker’s brand loyalty pyramid but has been adapted to demonstrate the brand awareness journey of a modern brand. 

4 Levels of Brand Awareness

Starting at the bottom and working our way up, here are the 4 stages of brand awareness: 

1. No awareness

Your target audience has no knowledge of your brand at this stage. This is where all new brands start out. Here, you’ll need to focus on marketing channels that get your name out to a wide range of people—we’ll discuss how later on!

2. Brand recognition

Your audience recognizes your brand when they see it. They may not know anything about your brand or what you do, but they’re aware of your logo, name, color scheme or other key visual cues.

3. Brand recall

If your audience thinks of your brand when they need a product or service you offer, this is known as brand recall. For instance, you may think of Zoom or Google Meet when you’re thinking about video conferencing. In SaaS, achieving brand recall means you’ve established the trust needed to convince B2B customers to trust your product with their business operations.


4. Top-of-mind

This is the stage where a brand is the first one that comes to mind when a consumer thinks about a particular product or service category. Top-of-mind is achieved when your brand is established as a thought leader in your field or has successfully marketed your product as the best-in-class. 

Different ways to achieve brand awareness

In this post, we’ll discuss in detail how to use content marketing to increase brand awareness, but there are a few other ways of achieving it as well. These include: 

Paid advertising

This is the oldest trick in the book. You can use advertising to get your brand and its products in front of a wider audience. This can either be through traditional means—such as TV, radio, print ads etc.—or through digital advertising. Online advertising can often help you reach your target audience more efficiently. 

Social media marketing

Social media platforms offer companies a unique way to connect with potential customers. Viral marketing campaigns help expose your brand to new audiences, while you can use other forms of social media content to educate your existing audience on the products or services you provide. 

Public relations

This involves generating media coverage and positive publicity for the brand through various channels, including press releases, media pitches and influencer marketing.

How to use content marketing to increase brand awareness

As we touched on previously, customers need to know that your SaaS company exists before they can buy your products or services. Creating content full of rich stories is an essential part of driving brand awareness. 

By providing potential customers with educational information on relevant topics and pain points, you establish your company as a trusted expert in the field, and boost the awareness of your SaaS product.

How does content marketing increase brand awareness?

Content marketing done right means you present your brand as a trusted authority in the pain points and problems your product solves for. 

Let’s look at an example. If your company has an all-in-one marketing platform for real estate companies, you can publish blog posts  that educate real estate companies on marketing best practices for real estate. Your target audience will find your posts when searching for tips on how to up their marketing game—and will learn about your brand at the same time.  

This valuable information about relevant problems that your target audience is experiencing is key to presenting your brand and its products as the solution to their pain point—driving interest and ultimately sales. 

And consistently producing and sharing high-quality content that is aligned with a company’s brand values and messaging can help to reinforce the brand image and increase brand awareness.


You may even be able to build a regular readership from the content you publish. Semrush launched their online blog to rank well in SEO-related search queries, but many founders and SEOs regularly read their blog posts for new insights. Building a loyal audience like this can help drive repeat business and word-of-mouth referrals.

That’s why we recommend using content marketing for brand awareness. High quality content keeps your audience coming back, which further increases your brand awareness ROI. 

What is brand awareness ROI?

Brand awareness ROI is how you demonstrate the value of your brand awareness activities and how those activities impact opportunities and  sales. 

Building brand awareness and educating your target audience on your brand and what it represents will make other marketing and acquisition channels more cost-effective. For instance, a business owner is more likely to click on a display ad for a CRM tool like HubSpot if they’re already aware of the brand’s position as a market leader. 

How to calculate brand awareness ROI

Quantifying and calculating the ROI of brand awareness is sometimes easier said than done. The impact of increased brand awareness may not be immediately measurable or directly tied to a specific revenue stream. 

The key to measuring brand awareness ROI is figuring out the number of potential customers who were exposed to your brand thanks to a piece of content you created, and how that exposure influenced opportunities and sales. 

How to Calculate Brand Awareness ROI

Here’s how to calculate brand awareness ROI:

1. Track key metrics

Brand awareness can influence a wide range of KPIs and metrics. With this in mind, here are 5 metrics you can track to demonstrate how you use content marketing to increase brand awareness:

  • direct traffic to your website
  • earned media hits
  • external links to your website
  • blog shares
  • social media engagement
  • search volume

2. Put the metrics/data to work

Use your favorite analytics tool to create goals, and track conversions and opportunities that resulted from your website’s direct traffic.

3. Track goals for referral traffic

Set up and track goals for your referral traffic to determine the effectiveness of your earned media hits and external links.

4. Track social engagements

Use a social attribution platform to track how your social engagement drives conversions. 

How we track content marketing for brand awareness at Uplift Content

Our measurement framework has a section specific to brand awareness ROI. Here’s what it looks like:

Measurement Framework that Uplift Content uses with it's customers

We’ve broken down our goal of increasing brand awareness into 3 KPIs:

  • organic search
  • social media
  • referrals

For each KPI, we track a series of content marketing metrics. Here are 3 few examples:

1. Organic search

We measure the number of organic search sessions, lead gen from organic search, non-branded keyword clicks and click-through rate per page.

2. Social media

We measure the number of social sessions, lead gen from social and number of shares.

3. Referrals

We measure referral sessions, lead gen from referrals and the number of inbound links. 

Every 3 months, we analyze this data to see what changes we need to make as we use content marketing to increase brand awareness.

Boost brand awareness with better content

Want help creating content for brand awareness? Check out our content writing services.

Which KPI Is Most Likely to Be a Vanity Metric?

Are you patting yourself on the back because you just landed 500 new social media followers? Are you pleased about thousands of pageviews? What about 100 new subscribers in a week? Not so fast! Find out which KPI is most likely to be a vanity metric.

Updated January 2023: Are you patting yourself on the back because you just landed 500 new social media followers? Are you pleased about thousands of pageviews? What about 100 new subscribers in a week? 

As a B2B SaaS marketer, it’s crucial that you understand which KPI is most likely to be a vanity metric and which KPI is the real deal so you can use meaningful content marketing metrics to grow your business. 

In this video, we’ll walk through 3 examples of KPI vanity metrics to ditch, and we’ll cover which KPIs to use instead. 

Need help with your content? Check out our content writing services for SaaS.

Which KPI Is Most Likely to Be a Vanity Metric? (Transcript)

Hi SaaS marketers! Emily Amos here from Uplift Content.

It’s no secret that brands face stiff competition nowadays, and it may be tempting to tout how many followers your company has on social media—but that doesn’t necessarily help your business. In this video, we’ll talk about which KPI is most likely to be a vanity metric, and which KPIs you should be measuring instead.

What is a KPI, anyway?

KPIs, or key performance indicators, measure successes and areas for improvement. KPIs enable companies to set their content strategy, allocate budget, analyze competition and demonstrate accountability. As a B2B SaaS marketer, it’s crucial that you understand which KPI is most likely to be a vanity metric and which KPI is the real deal so you can use helpful data to grow your business.

Find out which KPI is most likely to be a vanity metric

Vanity metrics may make your company look good, but they don’t move you closer to your goals. Relying on these stats can call your credibility into question and distract from strategic priorities that truly benefit your bottom line. Here are 3 examples that demonstrate which KPI is most likely to be a vanity metric.

Vanity Metric Example #1: Social media followers

You may have an impressive number of followers, but does it mean they’re engaging with your content? 

In addition to lack of engagement from your followers, HubSpot says there are over 95 million bots on Instagram, which account for nearly 10% of Instagram’s total user base. This means that a significant number of your followers may never convert into sales. 

So instead of using social media followers to measure success, track how many people are clicking, commenting on and sharing your content—that’s where the real value lies.

Go Beyond Vanity Metrics: Content Marketing Metrics That Matter.

Vanity Metric Example #2: Blog post pageviews

It may make your boss happy to hear that your blog is getting tons of visitors, but measuring pageviews on its own—with no context—is a vanity metric that just makes you feel popular. 

Much more useful would be to focus on who is visiting your site and whether they’re converting into sales. You can also look at where your website visitors are coming from, what devices they’re using, how long they’re staying on the site and how many pages they’re visiting. 

These metrics will give you actionable insights and allow you to make strategic decisions. You’ll also want to up your SEO game, so check out these SaaS SEO tips.

Vanity Metric Example #3: Newsletter subscribers

A classic vanity metric is the number of total subscribers on your mailing list. The number will go up over time but it doesn’t provide any meaningful information on how engaged your subscribers are or whether they’re driving any revenue. 

Instead, think about measuring KPIs like click-through rate (percentage of people who clicked on a link in the newsletter that took them to your website) and conversion rate (percentage of people who took the action you wanted them to take).  

You can also measure monthly opt-ins (how many people sign up for the newsletter each month) and opt-in rates (percentage of people that land on your website and opt-in to your newsletter).

Focus on actionable metrics

Now that you know which KPI is most likely to be a vanity metric, you can focus your time and effort on useful benchmarks that drive results. 

What does this mean? It means you need to take action on the metrics you’ve collected by optimizing and improving your content. 

Thanks for joining me SaaS marketers. Until next time!

Content Brief Template: 13 Essential Elements You Need to Include

Having a robust content brief template is the only way you’ll get the high quality content you need to knock it out of the park every time. Download the content brief template Uplift Content uses.

Updated July 2022: You need to knock it out of the park with every piece of B2B SaaS marketing content you create. The best way to get the results you want is to kick off each project by filling out a content brief template that covers all of the standard elements, but also includes a few things you may not have considered before.

Here’s what we cover in this post:


Here’s the content brief template we use with our customers. Make a copy and tweak it for your own needs.


What is a content brief?

A content brief is a document that outlines all of the expectations, requirements and suggestions for a writer as they set out to write a piece of content. It typically includes basic information like word count, topic and keywords to use, but it can also include more in-depth information like the goal of the content, who the audience is and a rough outline.

Unlike a quick conversation or messy meeting notes, a content brief is important because it provides a written record of what is expected from the content. It helps ensure everyone on your team is on the same page—especially if you’re working with an extended team via an agency or freelance writers.


What is a content brief template? 

A content brief template is a reusable document that has predetermined sections outlining all of the pieces of information you need to include when creating a content brief. Having a template for your content brief will not only save you time, but it will also ensure you don’t forget to include any important elements.


Who should use a content brief template?

A content creation brief template is an invaluable tool for anyone involved in content creation. From the product marketer tasked with writing a post on the newest functionality to the vice president of marketing charged with creating an entire content strategy, content writing brief templates are useful at any level of your B2B SaaS business. Here are two roles that typically fill out content brief templates:

Marketing strategists

Marketing strategists are well-versed in keyword research, content strategy and planning. But their real superpower is understanding how to connect all the pieces of the content puzzle together to achieve specific business goals.

Using a content brief template allows marketing strategists to communicate all of their insights to the writer in a way that is easily digestible and actionable. It also provides the writer with a better understanding of how this particular piece of content fits into the broader strategy.

With a detailed and fully completed content marketing brief template to work from, the writer can create content that aligns with the content marketing strategy, performs better and requires less back-and-forth time with the editor.

Writers

Sometimes content projects don’t have dedicated strategists. And sometimes the only information provided to the writer is high-level information like “we need a blog post on the benefits of our product.”

In these cases, the writer should fill out the content marketing brief template and run the brief past the stakeholders to ensure everyone’s on the same page. Content brief templates also help set clear expectations for the piece of content and save a lot of time (and headaches) down the road.


Why are content brief templates so important?

Jumping into a content project without a fully fleshed out content brief template is a bit like baking a cake with no recipe. You might get lucky and end up with a great tasting cake, or you may end up with a hot mess.

Filling out a content writing brief template is critical to the content’s success for 3 reasons:

1. Prevent rewrites and reduce revisions

Content briefs help the whole content team align on what’s important. With a completed content marketing brief template, everyone can clearly see what’s expected, which is crucial for avoiding rewrites and multiple rounds of revisions, as well as getting approvals quickly.

2. Ensure all requirements are met

A content creation brief template acts as checklist for the content you’ll be creating, ensuring the writer doesn’t forget to include anything that’s needed for a comprehensive and useful piece of content.

3. Save time

With email, Slack, Trello, meetings and Google Docs, we have so many ways of communicating about our next piece of content that it can be difficult and time-consuming to find a specific piece of information. By collecting all the information into a content brief template, the entire team knows where to easily and quickly find the information.


How do content brief templates fit into content marketing workflows?

The content marketing workflow is cyclical, and the content writing brief template is arguably at the center of it all. Here’s a typical workflow:

1. Research

Conduct research to figure out the content strategy and how content fits into the big picture.

2. Mapping

Map out how specific pieces of content fit into the content plan and editorial calendar.

3. Content brief template

Fill out a template for every content item in your content calendar. The brief is the critical link between your research and planning—and the actual content creation.

4. Writing

Refer to the content brief continually while executing on the content.

5. Editing

Use the content brief as a checklist when reviewing the content to make sure all critical information is included.

6. Publishing

Keep an eye on the content brief when publishing the content to ensure that the keywords are fully optimized.


What should you include in a content brief template?

A content brief template should include all the elements necessary to produce great content. Here are 8 basic components every content creation brief needs:

1. Title

Provide a working title for the piece of content so everyone knows how to refer to the project.

2. Deadlines

When is the draft due and when will the content be published?

3. Goal

What is the goal of the content? What are you hoping this content will achieve?

4. Buyer’s journey

What stage in the buyer’s journey is our reader? Awareness, consideration, decision?

5. Audience

Who is your target audience? Why would they want to read this content? What’s in it for them?

6. Topic

Clearly describe the topic you’d like the piece to cover. Are there any specific angles you’d like the writer to explore?

7. Specifications

What type of content is it? For example, blog post or ebook? What’s the word count? Any specific formatting considerations?

8. Resources

Provide any templates, style guides, key messaging documents or background information that could be helpful to the writer.

What are some lesser known elements to include in a content brief template?

Take your content from basic to brilliant by adding these 5 unexpected elements to your content creation brief:

1. Emotional outcome

As a B2B SaaS marketer, you already know the aim of your content, but do you know how you want people to feel after they read one of your blog posts? How about relief or excitement that they finally have a solution to a problem that’s been nagging them? This is the emotional outcome. Get clear on this in your content creation brief and you’ll forge a strong connection with your audience.

2. Big picture

Craft your content brief with your company’s greater purpose in mind.

The well known example from author Simon Sinek explains how Apple markets its products—not as user-friendly computers or smartphones, but as part of a bigger picture that centers around challenging the status quo.

For many SaaS companies, their ‘why’ could involve disrupting old patterns and breaking down barriers so people can work more efficiently and with greater impact. Make sure your content creation brief reflects your company’s ‘why’.

3. Competitive analysis

Include a few links to your competitors’ content in your writer’s brief to give a sense of what other companies in your industry are doing well—and not so well—in their blog posts and ebooks. This is one of the best ways to ensure your content stays sharp and fills in any missing gaps in information.

4. Storytelling

The most engaging and effective content tells a story. So, when developing a content brief, plot out the story that you want the content to tell. Like any good narrative, it should have a beginning, middle and end. For example, highlight a problem and describe how it’s challenging an industry. Then provide thought leadership on how to solve the problem.

5. Performance expectations

The content brief isn’t just a way to outline what information the content should include. It’s also a chance to share your enthusiasm and ambition for the content—and inspire the writer. Is the goal to publish the definitive guide to a subject? Spell that out. Let the writer know you’re confident that you can achieve this together.

Here’s the content brief template we use with our customers. Make a copy and tweak it for your own needs.


How should you fill out a content brief template?

Now that you know what sections to include in your content marketing brief template, you’re ready to fill it out. Here are 4 things to keep in mind as you fill out a content brief template:

1. Be clear and concise

The goal of the content brief is to provide clear instructions to the writer so that they can produce content that meets your expectations. For this to happen, you need to be as specific as possible about what you want—and just as importantly, what you don’t want.

2. Know your audience

Your target audience should be at the front of your mind when you’re filling out the content brief template. Every decision you make, from the topic to the tone of voice, should be based on what will resonate with them.

3. Set realistic expectations

It’s important to set realistic expectations for both you and the writer. If you’re unrealistic about deadlines, word counts or the level of detail you expect in the final piece, it will only lead to frustration on both sides.

4. Be flexible

While it’s important to be specific about what you want, it’s also important to be open to new ideas and perspectives. The best content is often the result of a collaborative effort between you and the writer, so be prepared to put your own preconceptions aside and let the writer take the lead.

Start using content brief templates for your next project

Having a clear and concise content brief will save you time and frustration in the long run—and ensure that the final product is exactly what your team wants. Once you’ve created a content brief template that works for your team, you can use it over and over again for all your future projects. Fill in the blanks with the specific details of each project, and you’ll be well on your way to producing great content that achieves your goals every time.

This is the sixth post in a 7-part series on how to find and work successfully with your next SaaS writer.

Need a hand writing your blog posts?

Creating a content brief template that strategically positions your SaaS brand and resonates with your target audience is just the first step in the content marketing process.

If you need a hand writing high-quality posts that drive traffic and conversions, check out our blog writing service.

Originally published March 3, 2020. Updated July 5, 2022.

19 Copywriter Interview Questions to Help You Hire the Best SaaS Writer

Excellent B2B SaaS writers are hard to find—and reviewing a couple of writing samples is just not going to cut it. Learn the interview process Uplift Content uses to ensure you find your next rockstar copywriter (and not a dud).

In the past couple of years, we’ve interviewed over 50 writers and reviewed writing samples from hundreds. During this time, we’ve narrowed in on the top copywriter interview questions you need to ask if you’re serious about finding your next writing partner.

Whether you’re looking for an in-house writer, an agency or a freelancer, you need to know how to interview a copywriter effectively. The biggest factor in conducting a successful interview is knowing precisely what questions to ask a copywriter.

In this post, we’re going to outline exactly what copywriter interview questions you need to ask writers during the interview process. We’re also going to explain the robust interview process we use here at Uplift Content. [Hint: it includes a writing exercise.] 

This is the fourth post in a 7-part series on how to find your next B2B SaaS writer and work with them successfully.

The top copywriter interview questions you need to ask

The most effective questions to ask a copywriter can be divided into 4 categories:

1. Introductions and icebreakers

Before asking any copywriter interview questions, we take time at Uplift to introduce ourselves and the company. Then we start with a few icebreakers:

  • In a minute or two, tell me a little bit about yourself.
  • How did you hear about this opportunity?
  • What’s your motivation to work with us?

2. Writing experience

Your copywriter interview questions can get more targeted after the icebreakers. Focus on the copywriter’s professional experience. At Uplift, we refer to their resume and writing samples to ask follow-up questions as well. Consider starting with these:

  • Can you tell me about the type of writing you most frequently do?
  • What do you like the customer to provide you with before you start a writing project?
  • Was there ever a time when you were asked to write about a topic you had no prior knowledge of? If so, what did you enjoy? What did you struggle with?

Pick out one of the samples provided by the candidate and ask: 

  • Tell me about the process you used when writing this piece.
  • Did you know anything about this topic beforehand? If not, how did you tackle it?

For people with a journalism background, be sure to inquire: 

  • What’s the difference between marketing content and journalism and how does that affect how you approach writing a piece of content?

3. Professionalism

Your copywriter will be interacting with your team, and possibly with your customers, so it’s really important that they are professional in how they conduct themselves. To gauge their professionalism, consider asking a few of these copywriter interview questions:

  • Tell me about your communication style. What’s your typical response time for emails?
  • Tell me about a time you missed a deadline. What happened?
  • Tell me about a time recently that you received (constructive) feedback from an editor or customer, and felt a knee-jerk reaction against it. How did you handle it? What did you end up doing? How might you handle it differently in the future?
  • How do you like to receive feedback? 

4. Personality

Our interview questions for copywriters can also give us insights into what it might be like to actually work alongside a candidate. Creating B2B SaaS content often involves collaboration, so we try to learn more about a candidate’s personality with copywriter interview questions like these:

  • How would your friends describe your personality? And your colleagues?
  • Tell me about a situation that has stressed you out recently. What were you feeling? How do you handle it? How might you handle it differently in the future?
  • What do you like to do in your free time?

5. Commitment and longevity

Wrap up with some forward-looking copywriter interview questions to get a read on how keen they are, and whether they think they’ll want to stick around for a while: 

  • Ideally, what would you like our relationship to look like? (In your past experience, who has been your best boss or role model and why?)
  • Where do you see yourself a year or two from now?
  • Is there anything you would like to know about our company or the position?

Asking the right copywriter interview questions is just one step in the overall interview process. As we mentioned at the top of the post, we’ve interviewed over 50 copywriters in the past few years. And we know, for certain, that you can’t only rely on an interview to determine if a writer has what you need to be successful at your company.

In this video, we cover what an expanded copywriter interview process should look like for your SaaS company.

Need a hand writing your B2B SaaS marketing content? Check out our content writing services.

How to Interview a Copywriter for Your B2B SaaS (Transcript)

Hi SaaS marketers! Emily Amos here from Uplift Content.

In the past couple of years, we’ve interviewed over 50 writers and reviewed writing samples from hundreds. There are two key things we’ve learned.

  1. Excellent writers are hard to find. Plenty of good writers mean well and put effort into their work, but good writing simply isn’t enough when you need to drive leads and sales for a high-growth SaaS company.
  2. A few writing samples just won’t cut it. You need to see more than a couple of writing samples to determine whether a writer has the chops to create high performing content.

Learn how to interview a copywriter effectively

Here’s a breakdown of the interview process we’ve developed to help ensure we get the best possible writers on our team:

1. Application stage 

The writer completes a simple application (using Google Forms) with questions about their process for researching, writing and editing. We also ask them to provide links to 5 writing samples that demonstrate their ability with specific topics, styles and content types. We ask that at least 1 of the 5 samples be an unedited version so we can see their work before someone else gets their hands on it. If we like what we see, we move forward.

2. Zoom call 

When thinking about how to interview a copywriter, we always recommend video calls rather than phone calls because they’re so much more personal. During these calls, we try to get to know the writer better. We ask about the samples they sent and we dig into their process. We always like to ask how they handle feedback, as their answers tend to be quite insightful. If they seem like someone we could work with, we’re on to step 3.

3. Writing exercise

At Uplift, we create a lot of SaaS case studies, ebooks and white papers, so we designed an exercise to test the writer’s ability to create a powerful case study. For the exercise, we wrote the entire case study but removed the challenge section for the writer to complete (using an interview transcript that we provide).

This exercise shows us whether a writer has the skills we require, including writing style, attention to deadlines and more.

4. References (don’t skip this step!) 

For our last step on how to interview a copywriter, we call 2 references for a short conversation. This provides a useful perspective on what it’s really like to work with the writer. If the writer has moved through each phase of the interview process with flying colors, we’re ready to welcome the writer to the team.

Start off on the right foot

Working with a new writer is always going to be a bit of a leap of faith, but by learning how to interview a copywriter effectively, you give yourself the best possible chance to find your next hero.

To set up your new B2B SaaS writer for success, you need to give them all the information they need to hit the ground running. Download our customizable onboarding tool to get started.

Originally published May 12, 2020. Updated Dec 21, 2021.

B2B Content Marketing Writer: How to Find One

If you’re buried in case studies, white papers or ebooks, it’s time to find an external content marketing writer who can help you with these important yet time consuming projects. In this video, we’ll walk through how to find a writer who can help you save time and deliver quality content.

Working with an external B2B content marketing writer can save you time—and it can save your sanity when you’re overloaded with projects. It can also be a cost-effective way to help your SaaS company produce quality marketing content. These are just 3 reasons why 84% of B2B marketers are outsourcing their content creation to external writers.

In a world where 79% of B2B marketers use content marketing to connect with their audience, you’ll likely need an extra set of hands at some point to help you create case studies, white papers or ebooks.

In this video, learn how to find a B2B content marketing writer who will be a great fit for your team. This is the third post in a 7-part series on how to find your next B2B SaaS writer and work with them successfully.

B2B Content Marketing Writer: How to Find One (Transcript)

Hi SaaS marketers! Emily Amos here from Uplift Content.

Finding an external B2B content marketing writer doesn’t have to be a chore. In this video, we’ll walk through a few of the key places to start your search.

#1: Word of mouth

The benefit of looking for a B2B marketing writer through word of mouth is that it’s personal. You can ask current and former colleagues for referrals, as well as any of your professional networking groups. They’ll likely give you an honest, reliable recommendation, and you can find out about their experience with the writer.

The drawback here? Well, it’s personal. If your experience with the B2B content marketing writer isn’t as positive as your colleague’s was, you may not want to ask for their recommendation a second time.

#2: LinkedIn

You may be able to find a B2B content marketing writer through LinkedIn by simply posting that you’re looking for one. You can join groups for freelance writers and marketers—and share your requirements there. LinkedIn also allows you to find out more about a writer’s experience by viewing their profile.

The disadvantage of LinkedIn is that not all of its features are free to use, so unless you pay for a premium membership, you’ll miss out on detailed profile insights, and the ability to send In-Mails to other LinkedIn members who aren’t in your network.

#3: Google search

One of the simplest ways to find a B2B content marketing writer is through a quick Google search. The writers you’ll want to work with know their way around SEO and the mystical Google algorithm. As such, they should be showing up on the first couple of pages of the search results.

Think about it: if a content marketing writer appears among your top search results, you can bet they know how to make themselves found. That means they’ll know how to help you get found, too.

#4: Freelance writer websites and job boards

There are lots of places online to post job opportunities or to search for a B2B content marketing writer who’s accepting new work. A few examples include Contently, Scripted, WriterAccess, FreelanceWriting, ProBlogger and Indeed.

One upside to looking for a B2B marketing writer this way is that many of the platforms are free or low cost, and some offer multiple pricing options. Using these websites also allows you to find writers who may not be on LinkedIn. 

The downside here? Some of these websites have pricey subscription fees, such as Contently. On other sites, like Indeed, where anyone can apply for your job posting, the quality of the applicants may be lower than what you’re looking for.

These websites also don’t give you the benefit of a trustworthy personal recommendation. Be sure to ask any writers that you connect with for writing samples. Also interview them and call a few of their references.

Nail the writer interview

Hiring the best in-house writer or freelancer comes down to a successful interview. Find out EXACTLY which questions you need to ask.

Easily onboard your B2B content marketing writer

Now that you know how to find a writer, the next step is to learn how to onboard them quickly and painlessly. Getting this step right is essential to help you avoid ending up with off-brand content, excessive revisions and lacklustre results.

Download our customizable writer onboarding tool to help your new writer hit the ground running—with less hand-holding from you. 

Until next time, SaaS marketers!

Originally published February 18, 2020. Updated December 15, 2021.

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