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Not all success stories need to be flashy to prove a point. Sometimes, the best case study is the one quietly doing its job, month after month, year after year.
About five years ago, I was hired by a small but growing educational SaaS company. Thanks to pandemic-era funding, they had some extra budget available and needed to quickly ramp up their marketing efforts without having to guess what would work.
They had no real marketing system. They had a sales team already on board, but each rep was doing things their own way with no structure, no consistency, and certainly no marketing strategy to support demand generation or long-term growth. They attended conferences but even then things were haphazard and what I like to call “accidental marketing”. And of course, during the pandemic things like in-person conferences and conventions were cancelled, and they didn’t have other marketing plans in place (and you never want over-reliance on only one strategy).
The only person even remotely touching marketing regularly? A graphic designer, who was also overseeing way too many unrelated things. He was overloaded, hyper-focused on design perfection, and—unsurprisingly—a major bottleneck. It was taking him over a month to approve a single piece of content. When you need to move fast, a month for what should otherwise be a fast and easy approval doesn’t cut it. As I’ve stated before, focusing so much on the minutia of design perfection rarely increases ROI unless you’re specifically a design company, so his worry about how many pixels were between different graphic elements was doing nothing but delaying work getting done.
They selected my most comprehensive plan—one designed to function as a holistic SaaS marketing strategy. It included integrated tactics across email, content, SEO, paid media, and CRM automation. Every piece was built to support both awareness and lead generation, with systems that could scale as their team grew.
We focused on streamlining communication, segmenting audiences effectively, building authority through consistent, high-value content, and reinforcing credibility in the education space. The strategy also incorporated ways to amplify reach—through both organic and paid channels—while ensuring the internal team could execute without burnout or confusion.
A few examples of the specific strategies included:
Structuring PPC campaigns with tight audience targeting and a cleaned-up negative keyword list to avoid wasted ad spend.
Launching evergreen webinar content repurposed from existing live trainings, supported by automated email sequences.
Mapping user-generated content into a podcast-style interview framework for scalable distribution across YouTube, audio platforms, and social.
One standout component was the emphasis on community-driven and user-contributed content. This not only expanded their organic footprint but created lasting trust signals that were incredibly valuable in their space.
Together, these elements formed a cohesive, scalable plan—optimized for long-term SaaS growth and designed to keep working, even as the market and team evolved.
User-generated content isn’t just nice-to-have—it’s powerful for SaaS companies. We built a scalable podcast-style series structure featuring interviews with school tech directors and users of the product. These videos were edited for YouTube, podcast platforms like iTunes and Spotify, and promoted across social channels—then syndicated across 50+ relevant platforms. It amplified their reach, built trust, and created incredible SEO-friendly backlinks as their guests shared the content across school district networks.
Once implemented, the plan simplified everyone’s role. Salespeople no longer had to make one-off marketing materials from scratch since we created a filterable and searchable repository of all types of content – from emails to videos to social media posts. Most importantly, the content and messaging were aligned.
The internal team had clear processes. And that overloaded designer? Freed up to focus only where design was critical.
Results showed up fast:
And here’s the kicker: the last time I checked? They’re still using the exact plan I built for them.
Five years later.
That alone tells you that the plan was strong.
Yes, some staff have changed in that time. Yes, the market has evolved. But because the SaaS marketing plan was built to be easy to follow, aligned with their team’s real workflows, and sustainable long-term, it’s still working.
They didn’t need to keep me on a retainer for years. They didn’t need to hire a full-time strategist. They got expert input for a few months, invested in getting it right, and they’ve been leveraging that system ever since. And by the way, it cost them less than hiring a full-time marketing employee for just one year.
This business already had a team on board, but if you’re a solo entrepreneur, the lesson is exactly the same: entrepreneurs often think hiring a VA is the first move to get some of the work off their plate. But unless that VA has high-level marketing strategy experience, it’s often a waste of time and money. A VA can execute. But only if they’re executing a good plan.
This company had already tried piecing things together before they found me. The results were messy. Inconsistent messaging. Misaligned materials. Missed opportunities. The plan I gave them didn’t just fix those problems, it helped prevent future ones.
Whether you’re a SaaS founder doing it all yourself, or a small team trying to grow without chaos, here’s the truth:
A well-built SaaS marketing plan isn’t just a one-time project expense. It’s a long-term asset.
One that can keep working—five years and counting.
A VA or marketing assistant can be great for execution—but they need a solid plan to follow. Without a high-level strategy tailored to your business, you risk wasting time and budget on scattered tasks that don’t move the needle.
You can expect clearer messaging, stronger lead generation, higher engagement, and better internal alignment between teams. In this case, the company saw consistent traffic growth, better-qualified leads, and has used the same plan for over five years.
It should be detailed enough to hand off to new hires without confusion—but simple enough that your current team can start executing immediately. Think: structured phases, repeatable workflows, and tactics matched to your business model.
User-generated content builds credibility, improves SEO, and creates scalable engagement. It’s especially powerful when your customers share their experience with your product—turning them into advocates and expanding your reach organically.
No. The power comes from using the right mix, tailored to your current resources and goals. A good strategist helps you prioritize and layer tactics in phases so you’re not overwhelmed and you see ROI sooner.
Not at all. While this example comes from the SaaS/EdTech space, the structure and strategy can be adapted to any business that needs scalable, sustainable marketing—especially those with small teams or a founder still wearing multiple hats.
Let’s build the version of your marketing that actually works.
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