Who hasn’t been scrolling through a website, only to stop every few seconds to close out of an obnoxious pop-up? This type of ad only seems to become more prominent as time goes on, filling the screen and making it difficult to scroll—let alone read.
From a consumer’s perspective, an ad blocker makes sense. It prevents annoying pop-ups and auto-playing videos from interrupting your online scrolling. And consumers take advantage of this little web browser extension; 763 million people worldwide use ad blockers.
On the other hand, ad blockers cause problems for marketers—throwing off your data and potentially bloating your advertising budget. And while worldwide digital advertising is increasing (378.16 billion U.S. dollars in 2020), it’s estimated that online advertisers lose roughly 12 billion U.S. dollars a year to ad blockers.
That’s more than a 30% loss, and if you’re in B2B SaaS, this isn’t a good look. Sure, you might not serve invasive ads, but you’re still suffering from their effects as more consumers download ad blockers.
So, how do you get around it?
This is where your organic content strategy will play a big part. With the right strategy, you can use organic content to your advantage as you set up your ads.
Using organic content to reach your audience
Outside of being invasive, why don’t consumers like ads? Often, it’s because they’re not relevant and don’t answer their questions. Luckily, that’s something a strong organic content strategy can tackle and help you overcome.
Organic content is a versatile medium; it includes:
- Blogs
- Website pages
- White papers
- eBooks
- Social media posts
- Videos
- Newsletters
- Nurture sequences
- One-pagers
- Podcasts
- Webinars
…and more! Basically, if there’s writing and your prospects are reading it, you can thank organic content to some degree. And compared to your outbound tactics, content marketing will cost you 62% less but generate three times as many leads. That’s not a number you can ignore.
The takeaway here: you want organic content that is relevant to your audience, tackles their stage in the funnel, and encourages them to complete an action.
Creating content for different funnel stages
If you're looking for a crash course on content marketing, check out our Ultimate Guide to B2B SaaS Content Marketing: Tips, Tricks and Topics. There’s a section that dives into funnel stages for anyone who is looking to build a foundation.
If you’d rather get the rundown on content for funnel stages, here’s the TL;DR:
Awareness
Brand awareness content and an opportunity to position yourself as “the one with all the answers.” The goal is to convince your audience they should make a change using educational content such as:
- Blogs
- Social posts
- Whitepapers
- Checklists
- How-to
- Ebooks
- Education webinars
Consideration
This is the content for those in your buyer’s journey who have covered their education bases. Your content should answer the question: “why you?”, which is possible using:
- Comparison guides
- Case study
- Testimonial
- Thought leadership
- Nurture sequences
- Blogs
- eBooks
- Webinars
Decision
Your prospects are considering a change, they’re convinced it should be you, and now you need to tell them why they should change right now. Create the following content to help:
- Demo
- Free trial
- Consultation
- Discount
- Webinars
- Guides
- Blogs
At the end of the day, your organic content should naturally nurture prospects through the funnel, from the awareness stage all the way to the decision stage. One way to help with this is to use the pain-claim-gain model.
Adopting the pain-claim-gain strategy
Good organic is not trying to be sales-y or in your face. Instead, it should guide your prospects to solve their problems and answer their questions. It should cover the following: Why should I change, why should I change because of you, and why should I do it now?
Your goal here is to become a trusted guide by offering relevant and timely information. Consumers don’t want fluff; they want to be able to skim your content to get the information they need.
In fact, according to HubSpot, only 19% of B2B buyers want to connect with a salesperson during the first stages of their buyer’s journey. They aren’t looking for things to interrupt their day. They have the questions; it’s just your job to meet them halfway with the answers they need in order to convert.
SERP rankings
53% of all your website traffic comes from organic search. This means it is valuable for you to know what your prospects are searching for to create content that ranks for relevant short and long-tail keywords.
It’s important to note that 75% of people never leave Google’s first search results page. By showing up in the top 10 search results, you’ll be able to get more traffic to your website without relying on paid ads. The best way to do this is by having a strong SEO strategy and getting your organic content ranking well.
This way, even if your potential prospects do have an ad blocker, they’ll still find your content just by searching their question.
Leveraging organic content for paid ads
Once you have valuable content that answers your prospect's questions, it’s time to compliment your paid ads strategy. For example, advertise a landing page that offers your prospects an audit, template, or eBook in exchange for their contact information.
You can continue to nurture your contacts with other relevant content, moving them down the funnel towards the decision phase. The biggest takeaway here is to advertise content you know your prospects want.
The future of ad blockers and digital marketing
There’s a time and a place for loud ads, but don’t oversaturate your prospects. Ad blockers are not going to go away. However, people will continue to ask questions and look for content that is relevant, valuable, and provides them with answers.
Keep answering questions and offering up benefits in your content to both allow prospects to find you and repurpose content for paid ads.
Check out our additional resources to learn more about content creation, paid ad strategy, and more:
