SaaS Marketing Weekly

Ryan James
  • 5.0 (3)
  • Marketing
  • Updated Weekly

Actionable SaaS marketing strategies and campaign ideas for you to implement in your company to rocket your growth.

  1. 7h ago

    #109: Why top-of-funnel content is crucial to building pipeline

    In this episode, Ryan sits down with Sam Gocher, Head of Content at Rocket SaaS, to make the case for top-of-funnel (TOFU) content: the kind that grows pipeline by reaching the 95% of your market who aren’t ready to buy yet. Ryan credits top-of-funnel content as arguably the single biggest reason Rocket SaaS scaled from $1 million to $7 million ARR in two years, and yet it’s the part of the funnel most businesses under-invest in. Sam and Ryan break down where to start (your ICP and the problem that keeps them up at night), how to decide what you want to be known for, and how to find your topics by mining your own sales calls. If your growth relies too heavily on the 5% ready-to-buy-today audience, this episode shows you how to widen the top. Takeaways: • Top-of-funnel content targets the 95% of your market who aren’t in-market yet, so that when they are ready to buy, they already know you, like you and trust you. • Ryan credits top-of-funnel content as arguably the biggest driver behind Rocket SaaS scaling to $7 million ARR in two years. • It all starts with your ICP: if you don’t know who they are and the problems they’re facing, you can’t create content that resonates • Decide what you want to be known for and tie it back to your offering, without ever pushing your product at the top of the funnel • Build ‘big rock’ campaigns: one deeply-researched pillar asset and then repurpos it into video, social clips, blogs, events and posts that all link back • Don’t gate your top-of-funnel content: gating drags it down to bottom-of-funnel. Top of funnel is about giving, not extracting • Find your topics by mining demand: survey your audience, add top-of-funnel questions to sales calls, then use AI to transcribe and an LLM to surface the common themes • A podcast is one of the best top-of-funnel investments you can make • CEOs often resist top-of-funnel because it doesn’t attribute leads immediately, but a wide top of funnel is how you scale pipeline fast

  2. Aug 18

    #108: Why consistent posting beats big campaigns EVERY time

    In this episode, Ryan makes the case for content frequency over the one big campaign that you think makes an impact. He used to spend months building towards a single webinar, guide or exhibition, hoping it would deliver a wave of leads. Now he knows that it’s the weekly rhythm that makes those big campaigns work at all. The simple saying of ‘consistency is key’ is a true testament to your marketing. Your content needs to be going out there everyday and help lead up to the one big campaign. Ryan walks through how to build that rhythm, from the six-month content calendar and the thought leaders who feed it, to the data that tells you what to double down on. Don’t just wait for the one big win. Compound your work every week and see constant results. Takeaways: • Frequency beats intensity. One brilliant session a month gets you nowhere, but showing up every week compounds. • Quality will dip when you first raise the output, and that’s fine. Expect around ten run-throughs before it feels slick, and get your thought leader critiquing every piece • Build a six-month content calendar rather than a twelve-month one. One main topic per month with four subtopics gives you a fresh topic to work with every week • Find those topics in your sales calls transcripts, conversations with clients, feed them to an LLM and draw out the pain points. • Assign a thought leader to each topic. It can be someone internal, a partner or even a paid influencer, but get their buy-in on the topics before you start • Find your golden egg of content. Take that 15-minute interview, or podcast episode and turn it into various content pieces. Social clips and posts, blogs, newsletters. • Let the data choose your big campaigns.Get your most popular podcast, turn it into a webinar, the best webinar into a guide, and the best guide into a live event • Put ad budget behind it. Organic-only rarely works for B2B SaaS brands without a large following

  3. Aug 11

    #107: How to turn existing website traffic into leads without a costly rebuild

    In this episode, Ryan sits down with Director of Strategy, Jamie, to talk about website CRO’s, conversion rate optimization and how to get more leads from the traffic you already have, without a costly rebuild. Most B2B SaaS companies pour budget into the next campaign, the next funnel, the next ad, and completely overlook the shopfront every prospect actually lands on. Ryan and Jamie break down how to diagnose whether your site is a problem, the handful of pages that move the needle most, and the specifics that turn browsers into booked demos. If you’re getting the right traffic but not enough leads, this episode shows you where to start. Takeaways: Don’t rebuild, optimise: unless your site is a genuine disaster, CRO beats a £20–30k, 4–5 month rebuild you probably don’t needDiagnose first: if you’re getting the right ICP traffic but few conversions, CRO is the fastest, most organic route to more leads (use Google Analytics, Lead Forensics and your LinkedIn ads data to check)Your hero headline is the most important real estate on the site: ten words or less covering who you are, what you do and the benefit — spend hours on it and test multiple versionsMessaging beats design: cut the buzzwords and say plainly what you do, who it’s for and the problem you solve (frameworks like Fletcher’s or April Dunford’s help)Write headings that tell the whole story on their own, because people skim and read the headers first — validated with heat-mapping tools like HotjarMake the product shine: don’t dump raw UI screenshots — strip out detail, enlarge the fonts and use short looping animations (Slack’s site is the gold standard)Social proof needs numbers: case studies with hard stats and percentages convert far better than vague testimonialsLook beyond the home page: your pricing page (anchoring and tiering), mobile experience, niche use-case pages and book-a-demo page are all high-leverage CRO winsRule of thumb: if your website CRO isn’t at least a 7/10, fix it before you spend a penny on ads

  4. Aug 4

    #106: Need more leads? Fix your funnel from the bottom up

    In this episode, Ryan tackles the problem most businesses come to him with: “We are not getting enough leads.” His advice is to stop reacting to the noise and look at the business as a simple funnel, then fix it backwards. Most advice in the market says that you should start at the top of the funnel with awareness and brand building. Ryan starts at the bottom, because the 5% of your market who are ready to buy today skip all of that and land straight on your website, your demo page and your sales deck. If they do not convert with your bottom of the funnel assets, nothing you do at the top will save you. Ryan walks through a simple framework on exactly what to fix and in what order. Takeaways: Treat the business as one simple funnel: top, middle and bottomFix it backwards. The 5% who are ready to buy skip straight to the bottom, so if that does not convert, nothing above it mattersStart with messaging: get people to read your homepage and to tell you what they think you do and who your business serves. If they get it wrong, that’s your first problem to fixThen work on the rest: dated design, thin social proof, vague case studies, and demo page that is just a form instead of selling the demoDo not overlook the sales deck. Redesigning, rewording and restructuring it lifts sales on its ownOnly turn on your Google Ads if all of your bottom of the funnel assets have been fixed. Then the leads should flow. If not, check on your pricingMiddle of the funnel is case studies and lead magnets.Top of the funnel comes last, and only pays off once you have somewhere to send potential leads

  5. Jul 28

    #105: How to turn your subject matter experts into a lead-generating content machine

    In this episode, Ryan sits down with Sam Gocher, Head of Content at Rocket SaaS, to talk about subject matter experts, or SMEs, and how to turn the experts already sitting inside your business into a content engine. Most of your competitors are pumping out generic AI slop that nobody engages with. The advantage goes to the brands whose real experts show up and share genuine thought leadership. Sam breaks down who your SMEs should be, how to actually get busy senior people into a posting rhythm, what to do when they go quiet, and exactly what they should be posting about. If your content relies entirely on the founder, this episode shows you how to widen it out. Takeaways: Your subject matter experts are already in the business: the founder, head of sales, head of product, senior marketers and any real expert with useful knowledge in their headAn SME does not need to be charismatic or great on camera. They just need genuine expertise. Your job is to extract it and turn it into contentA recurring project management task (Rocket SaaS uses Asana) plus a clear SOP is how you turn good intentions into a consistent posting rhythmBusy senior people have two or three minutes a day, so give them everything: the topic, the transcript, the templates, the examples. Lead the horse to waterGhost writing tends to strip out authenticity, so it is usually better to enable people to write in their own voice than to write for themIf free methods fail, incentives can work: paying per post, or running a competition for the most engaged post that monthSell it to your team on career growth, not just company benefit. A strong LinkedIn presence is one of the best things anyone can build for themselvesFollow the 80/20 rule: 80% helpful, educational, top-of-funnel content and only 20% bottom-of-funnel promotion

  6. Jul 21

    #104: The LinkedIn thought leader ad trick you're probably missing

    In this episode, Ryan shares one of his favourite LinkedIn tactics: using thought leader ads to boost posts from other people who say genuine, positive things about your brand. A testimonial posted from your own company page gets skipped over. The same praise coming from a real customer with a real voice is far more believable, but it usually dies in the feed because that person only has a few hundred followers. This tactic fixes that, letting you put real budget behind authentic advocacy and get it in front of exactly the right audience. Quick to listen to, easy to apply, and genuinely effective. Takeaways: Thought leader ads let you boost an individual's post to a precisely targeted audience, not just their own followersPraise from a real customer in their own words is far more credible than a testimonial posted by your brandBuild a list of happy customers, partners and advocates, then ask them to post (a small incentive like an Amazon voucher can help)Let people write the post themselves so it sounds genuine, but offer to draft it if they are short on timeAlways get a fact or a stat in there, and keep it snappy rather than a long essayCheck whether people are already tagging you with positive posts, because those are ready to boost right now

  7. Jul 14

    #103: How to create great ads that convert on LinkedIn & Meta

    In this episode, Ryan sits down with Jamie, Rocket SaaS's paid media and strategy lead, for a deep dive into what actually makes a great ad on LinkedIn and Meta. This is not about targeting or budgets (listen back to episodes 63 to 65 for that). This is about the creative: how to research what your buyers are really thinking, how to build ads across the full funnel, which ad formats are worth your time, and what needs to happen after the click. Jamie also ranks every major LinkedIn ad format out of ten in a quickfire round. If you run ads and you are not getting the results you want, this episode will show you where you are going wrong. Takeaways: Great ads start with research, not design. Find the real scenarios and language your buyers use when they talk about the problemUse AI to analyse 100 recorded sales calls and surface the most common pain points, then build ads around exactly what your customers saidMost B2B SaaS brands waste budget by only running bottom-of-funnel ads when they have no brand awareness to support themTop-of-funnel ads are about getting on the radar and building the right associations, not chasing conversionsMiddle-of-funnel ads (case studies, testimonials, comparison content) can work even to cold enterprise audiencesAt the bottom of the funnel, the offer is everything. A free strategy call or audit often beats a straight demo requestKeep creative simple: ten words or less on the header, minimal graphics, and use dark backgrounds to fight the white LinkedIn feedA great ad is useless if the landing page or asset behind it does not convert. Sometimes the problem is the offer, not the ad

  8. Jul 7

    #102: Founder-led sales: why you'll always outsell your own salespeople

    In this episode, Ryan makes the case for founder-led sales and explains why, at $7M ARR and over 60 employees, he is still the primary person doing sales at Rocket SaaS. No SDRs, no AEs, just the founder qualifying leads, running discovery calls and closing deals. It sounds like it shouldn't work at that scale, but Ryan argues it's one of the biggest reasons the business is growing so fast. He breaks down why the founder is almost always the best person to sell, how a strong personal brand makes those sales calls dramatically easier, and why consultative selling beats a traditional sales pitch every time. If your growth has plateaued, this episode might point to the reason why. Takeaways: Until you are past roughly $10M in revenue, the founder should be spending around 50% of their time on sales and marketingFounder-led sales works best for higher-ticket businesses doing a handful of deals a month, not high-volume, low-ticket salesThe strategy only works if the founder also has a strong personal brand, since people buy from people, not logosWhen the founder is front and centre of the marketing and then shows up on the sales call, it creates a seamless chain of trust that a random AE cannot replicateFounder-led sales is closer to consultation than selling. Ask questions, give genuine advice, and lead the dance into the pitch at the endStrong marketing means leads come inbound already 80% sold, rather than chasing people who are not in marketIf you plan to sell the business in the next one to two years, founder-led sales is probably the wrong strategy, since it makes the business too dependent on youIf growth has stalled, log your time, delegate everything that is not sales and marketing, and get back to 50%

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About

Actionable SaaS marketing strategies and campaign ideas for you to implement in your company to rocket your growth.

Information

  • Creator
    Ryan James
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    109
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Rocket SaaS Ltd
  • Show Website
    SaaS Marketing Weekly

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