Why software companies build media companies
A SaaS media company is a set of shows, newsletters, podcasts, research or books that people follow for their own sake, owned by a software company. It isn't the blog with a new name. The test is simple: would people subscribe to it if your logo weren't on it?
The reason to do it is timing. At any moment only a small share of your market is buying. Ads and sales reach that share. Media reaches everyone else, every week, so when they do need a tool they already know and trust one.
HubSpot said this out loud when it bought The Hustle in 2021. Its SVP of marketing, Kieran Flanagan, said that 'for many customers, their first introduction to HubSpot is through our educational blog, Academy, and YouTube content', not the software. The deal brought a daily email with more than 1.5 million readers, a paid research product (Trends) and the podcast My First Million.
Three things make media different from content marketing:
- It has a format and a schedule. A named show or newsletter that people expect, not a stream of posts.
- It has a point of view or a personality. People subscribe to people and to opinions, not to keyword coverage.
- It is judged on audience, not on leads. Subscribers, listeners, brand search. Pipeline follows, but slowly.
Build, buy or borrow
There are three ways in, and the right one depends on cash and time.
Build. Slow and cheap in money, expensive in time. Wistia Studios makes original series. Its documentary 'One, Ten, One Hundred', which follows an agency making ads for Wistia on budgets of $1,000, $10,000 and $100,000, permanently lifted Wistia's brand search by 11%. Ramp Economics Lab has economists publish a monthly AI Index from the spending of 85,000+ businesses, and the press cites it. Stripe Press publishes books.
Buy. Fast and expensive. You get an audience, a team that knows how to serve it, and often search traffic. Semrush bought Backlinko in January 2022, adding about 500K monthly visits, then the education community Traffic Think Tank in 2023. HubSpot bought The Hustle. Zapier bought the no-code education site Makerpad in 2021.
Borrow. Cheapest and fastest. Sponsor the creators your buyers already follow, or pay them to make a show with you. You rent attention instead of owning it, which is fine as a test before you build. See newsletter sponsorships.
The pattern among the companies that stuck with it: build around something only you have. Ramp has spend data, Wistia has video skills, Stripe has a view on progress and the money to wait. A media brand that anyone could have made is easy to cut in the next budget review.
