How to write your first B2B SaaS blog post [w/ template]

Many of us have heard Bill Gate’s famous quote “Content is king,” but few realize why it’s become such a critical element of B2B Inbound strategy. 

At its very core, content is an educational asset for your readers, yourself, and your company. When you blog, you're making an effort to educate your industry peers or your ideal customer profile (ICP), previewing a solution that addresses the pains, fears and dreams of your market. 

Because blog content can be short-form or long-form, net-new or revised and republished thought leadership, tutorials or user guides, or even videos with supporting materials, a blog’s capabilities and form are only constrained by your creativity.

Hubspot praises blogging for a few different reasons, the primary being a way to connect with your audiences and build trust. B2B Blog content attracts and guides your customers through the buyer’s journey by creating valuable content and experiences tailored toward them, thus solving problems they already have.  

Let’s delve into the benefits of B2B blogging: 

Connecting with prospects

Posting blogs helps you achieve customer visibility. You get the opportunity to connect with your ideal audience and educate them on their problems (and how to solve them). By providing helpful, engaging content, you can gain the trust of your B2B audience and become their “trusted guide” throughout their buyer’s journey as they select solutions and make shortlists. 

Documenting industry knowledge

Share what you know with industry experts, use jargon (or not), or even make your interns a “guide” for how you work. The more you document your own knowledge, the more you can progress the industry as a whole, your co-workers, the people you manage, and even your clients. 

Promoting innovation 

Thought leadership is another essential part of marketing. By definition, thought leadership is: 

“A method of marketing that solidifies you as an expert and authority within your leadership...with the goal of providing an entry point to your business by branding yourself as an expert.”

- Outbrain

A critical aspect of having a voice, being a thought leader drives website traffic, nurtures and converts leads, builds your brand’s authority, and creates a strong reputation within your industry. 

As you begin to blog and promote your own content, you’re adding value to your industry’s vast database of educational digital resources. 

Convinced you need to start writing?

Here’s how to kick off your very own blog: 

1. Brainstorm different blog topics

The first step towards writing an effective piece of content marketing is understanding what you want to write about. 

When brainstorming content about your work, ask yourself the following questions to identify potential topics: 

• What did I do today? Why is it important? To who? 
• How would I describe my work responsibilities and duties to a new employee?
• What failures have I learned from? How has it impacted my career? 
• What do I wish I knew 6 months ago? 2 years ago? 10 years ago? 
• How has my industry, sector or vertical changed since I began working?

If you’re reading these questions and still don’t know where to get started, it’s also helpful to think about the unique processes, systems or workflows you’ve developed as a guideline for your work. By summarizing and describing these actions, you can synthesize an engaging, actionable blog for your readers.

2. Research competitor and internal SEO data

With every industry comes different challenges (and opportunities) for your strategy. While some of your competitors may not have a blogging strategy, you can still understand current conversations and industry solutions that are top-of-mind for your audience. 

Often, webinars, longer guides or whitepapers, and other website information can provide a clear picture into competitor conversations and what people are currently interested in within your sector and industry. 

If your company has an SEO plan and has defined top keywords and other KPIs for your long-term progress, you might already have topic clusters and keyword data to reference and guide your content. However, if your company has no SEO research for blogging, you can use free or paid keyword research tools to identify what keywords your target personas might be interested in learning about. 

You can access the following keyword research tools and explore your own industry’s SEO data if you’re interested in learning more about this:  

• Moz Pro 30-day free trial
• Neil Patel’s Uber Suggest
• SEMrush 7-day free trial 
• Wordstream free keyword tool

3. Update your company content calendar

If this is your first piece of content, you may or may not already have a content marketing strategy and content marketing calendar outlined. If you don’t, that’s ok -- your content can still make an impact with the right positioning, even if it’s the only blog on your site. 

But when you decide on your blog topic, you should inform your fellow co-workers and managers about your topic. This is an essential step for a few reasons: if you’ve never created blog content before, this will show your co-workers that anyone can blog and how straightforward it can be. If you do have content for your website, letting your peers know about your topic will help you avoid repeat topics, better align your overall strategy, and improve your SEO. 

All content marketing calendars are different, and here at Kalungi, we like to identify the following for every piece of content on our content marketing calendars: 

• Title
• Topic cluster
• Category
• Author
• Persona
• Keyword focus
• Funnel stage
• Content type

4. Outline your blog structure

When planning your blog’s format, flow and topics, it’s important to incorporate the foundation you’ve already established in steps 1-3. 

Remember to reference your company’s keyword research, topic gaps, and company personas and their fears and dreams. A great rule of thumb for creating compelling brand messaging is to clearly communicate the pains, claims, and gains of your audience. 

If you’re still intimidated by writing a professional blog, the best way to familiarize yourself with this skill is to read other blogs in your industry.

A template for writing your first B2B blog 

Make a copy of the Kalungi Blog template to: 

• Structure and organize your information
• Develop compelling, clear transitions and CTAs
• Coordinate your meta title and text, URL, CTA and Alt Tags in one place
  
  

5. Start writing! 

Now that you’ve done the hard planning and outlining, writing your blog should be easy. Don’t overthink it -- write like you’re talking to your coworker about your day at work, , because at the end of the day, blogging is about sharing knowledge in an engaging, helpful manner.  

Here are the best practices for blog writing (as determined by the Kalungi team): 

Keep it simple, silly! (KISS)

• Make sentences straightforward and direct.
• Remove unnecessary words. Keep only what’s crucial to the meaning.
• Paragraphs should be 2-4 sentences long.
• Use headings and subheadings - make it easy for someone to understand just by skimming.

Use a casual, conversational tone 

• Use contractions: “Don’t” rather than “do not.”
• Use first and second-person: “You” or “we” rather than “one” or other third-person pronouns.

Use examples generously

• If you’re writing about something you’ve done before, use your real-life experience to illustrate your points! If you're telling stories from past clients, you can change the names or remove details to protect anonymity. 
• For actionable blogs, use screenshots or images to guide your readers through a more guided experience.

Optimize for search

• Keep your eta title less than 160 characters or it’ll be cut off in search results.
• Add a meta description with optimized keywords and familiar language that will affirm your content is the right content for your reader’s questions.

Align your CTA

• Your CTA is the most important piece of every content. Because you’re writing to attract customers into your marketing funnel, you should always set up a form or button that will further engage with your readers. 
• This might include an invitation to leave comments below, set up a call and learn more, sign up for an email list, request specific marketing assets or collateral, enter a contest -- the possibilities are limitless. 

Incorporate media

• Add interest to your content piece by incorporating images, videos, soundbites, or any other media types.
• Having a variety of media on your page adds variety and makes for easy skimming for your readers.
• Incorporating images (with relevant, optimized alt text) is also a great way to get your blog ranking in image searches as well.

6. Edit, revise, repeat 

Before you send the blog to anyone else, read it out loud and pay attention to any sentences, words, or phrases that stick out or sound wrong. 

Then, you can send this to your coworker, blog editor, manager or partner for extra eyes on your writing and an outside perspective with a different background. It shouldn’t be confusing to non-industry experts, so if you’re writing something that is very technical or uses jargon, consider how you can break it down even more and use the most simple terms. 

Remember to explain the features, functions, and benefits: features are the literal tool names, functions are what the tool does, and benefits are what it does for you—why it’s important and why you could have a better life because of it. This golden triangle of messaging will guide you through many confusing conversations or presentations because we all have humanity in common. Solving problems is in our human nature so the correct positioning of the solution will ensure success. 

This process might take 3-4 revisions, but that’s ok! It’ll get easier over time & a little effort will go a long way :)

Miss your B2B blog template earlier? 

Make a copy of the Kalungi Blog template to: 

• Structure and organize your information
• Develop compelling, clear transitions and CTAs
• Coordinate your meta title and text, URL, CTA, and alt tags in one place