A SaaS company that doubled its ARR while we ran its content engineContent strategy, distribution, sales alignment and a LinkedIn formula that opened investor doors.

Where UserGuiding stood

UserGuiding was a Turkish startup that had raised $193K in seed money before we met. The founders had already made three big decisions: start a podcast, rebrand the company completely, and go all in on content. They wanted people to know them for education as much as for the software.

They were also honest about the hard part. In our opening questionnaire they told us there was no clear USP, so they tried to stand out on ease of use, brand and support. The real opponent was not another tool. It was the developer who says onboarding is cheaper to build in-house. Their customers were people running web apps and SaaS products who grow the business by keeping the customers they already have.

The plan: a few channels and one goal

We wrote a three-month plan in phases, with one goal at the top: increase revenue. The first phase was the foundation: the questionnaire, fixing the social media basics, activating the people on LinkedIn through posting, commenting and connecting, and researching the right audience. Above all, it meant looking at who signs up for the trial and who converts, where they come from and why, and then putting fuel on what already worked.

The second phase added more content, case studies, social proof, research and video, and the team started sending welcome messages to new connections. The third was about following results, optimizing and closing customers. The fourth was to repeat. Two principles held the whole plan together: go all in on a few channels, and be consistent.

The foundation: website and profiles

We started by reviewing the website. Overall it was in great shape, and making the free trial the main call to action was the right choice. Two calls to action sat too close together, so we suggested more space between them or a recorded demo. Internal linking on the blog was weak, with anchors of one to three words, and we recommended natural anchors of three or four words or more and three to five internal links per article. We also picked the strongest articles to repurpose as LinkedIn posts.

Then we audited every social profile. For the company page we proposed a new tagline that said plainly what the product does: helping SaaS companies increase product adoption and retention through smooth user onboarding. The LinkedIn product page had never been claimed, so we recommended claiming it and asking customers for reviews. For each person we mapped a target audience and the articles that fit it, and set one shared framework: the same cover, the same headline style, an About section with expertise, something personal, the product and a call to action, and daily posting.

The content engine

The engine ran on two pillars, the blog and the podcast, and every piece had a planned route. Blog posts went to the website, Medium, Zest and the team's personal LinkedIn profiles. Each podcast episode went to YouTube as video, onto the website as an article, out on Zest and Twitter, and as audio to every podcast platform, with three to five short clips or audiograms cut from it. We wrote more than ten pieces of content a month.

The company page was built around other people: podcast guests, quotes, video interviews, testimonials, research, statistics and stories from the team. The personal profiles talked about the work, hit the customer's pain points directly and told personal stories. The aim was a steady stream that brings revenue and speaks to every step of the buyer's journey.

LinkedIn: the company page and five people

Five people from the team posted on a shared publishing calendar alongside the company page. Each had daily tasks: add connections who fit the ideal customer profile, comment on one to three relevant posts, reply to every comment, check who viewed the profile and mention the company page. Once a month they sent welcome messages to new connections, with no selling in them.

Not everything went up in a straight line. Our April analytics showed that the numbers were still growing compared with February, but some of them had dropped within April itself. The reason was engagement: not everyone was active. We asked the whole group to get involved again and to start using polls while they were getting traction. Over time the LinkedIn work grew the team's visibility and put them in direct contact with relevant people, and that is also how they found an investor.

Demand, sales and measurement

Around the content and LinkedIn work we reviewed every process and the system as a whole, and checked in weekly to go through campaign results. The full scope of what we did together:

• A demand generation strategy for the product and the company, and over time for the brand
• Conversion work on the website, and basic email marketing workflows
• A content strategy covering creation and distribution per channel, with templates, visuals, copy and video and audio editing
• More than ten pieces of content a month
• LinkedIn for the company page and five people: profiles, content, daily tasks and training for the team
• Advice on aligning marketing and sales, and on optimizing and improving advertising
• Marketing attribution and KPI tracking, with a monthly progress report and key insights