Every company faces more pressure than ever to deliver exceptional digital customer experiences. Content such as text, images, videos and more are the core of those digital experiences, so every business needs to get content right. Why not learn from the pioneers of the digital experience, SaaS (software as a service) companies?

Consider why SaaS companies like Intuit and Salesforce excel at content. From day one, successful SaaS companies support end-to-end customer experience through a variety of content ranging from inspirational podcasts to product explainer videos to contextual help. As the former head of content for Mailchimp, I know firsthand that when the customer experience is digital, content is critical. Consider these four content secrets that can benefit any business.

Related: How to create content that generates exposure, loyalty and sales

1. Tell AND communicate your brand's purpose

A meaningful purpose can differentiate a brand from any generation, but especially the new Gen Z. A recent study by Roundel found that 73% of Gen Z participants will only buy from brands they trust.

Adding purpose to a brand starts with defining it. But that cannot be where the purpose ends. A brand must demonstrate its intent or risk coming across as inauthentic or even hypocritical.

Salesforce is a model for showing, not just showing, its purpose through content. From almost day one, Salesforce has said its goal is to “build stronger relationships.”

Recently, the successful SaaS launched a Netflix-like experience called Salesforce+. This streaming service offers on-demand content with very high production value about timely business and marketing topics, often involving Salesforce customers.

I'm not saying every company has to be Netflix. But any business can provide content that brings its purpose to life. For example, The Home Depot offers projects, shopping, and inspiration guides that demonstrate the power of “doing more.” Patagonia's catalog is more like an outdoor magazine with stories that illustrate its commitment to “protecting our home planet.”

Related: Don't just hire – grow talent. 4 ways to position your new employees for growth

2. Go beyond customer service to customer success

Great SaaS has figured out how to handle customer service digitally and enable customer success. Outstanding SaaS delivers content to help customers solve problems and get more value.

Examples of content include, but are by no means limited to

• Microcopy, such as labels, instructions, titles, icons and error messages.
• Wizards or interactive step-by-step guides.
• FAQs that are easily accessible by chat and voice search.
• Contextual help, such as tooltips and notifications.
• Best practices based on the most successful customers.
• Chatbots or copilots powered by FAQs, contextual help, and other content.

A great example of SaaS is Intuit Assist, an AI-powered advisor that runs across all Intuit products — and has earned distinction as a Fortune 50 AI Innovator. Forward-thinking businesses are taking note. For example, Wal-Mart recently launched a copilot that allows customers to search for “Help me plan a Halloween party” and receive relevant product suggestions across all departments.

Not ready for a full AI bot or co-pilot? Your company can leverage the content to help customers and later train an AI bot or copilot.

Related: Why doing the right thing leads to long-term success

3. Promote less, instruct more

Every business faces the challenge of marketing its products or services to drive growth. See how high-growth SaaS makes customers aware of relevant new offerings. Instead of repeatedly blasting ads and sales emails, the best SaaS push customers to try new features, products, or services by suggesting them to customers most likely to benefit at the right time.

For example, during my time at Mailchimp, SaaS grew quickly and added features steadily. So while the engineers built the features, my teams built them content to encourage and supports customers. We found a strong correlation between properly suggesting a helpful article to a new customer trying a feature for the first time, that customer's success, and millions of dollars in revenue.

I'm not saying your company should never run an ad again. But I'm willing to bet that the uptake of your offers will be much higher if you guide customers.

Even a product as simple as an eyeshadow stick, as seen with the wildly successful Thrive Causemetics, includes detailed descriptions, instructions (both text and video), images for different skin types, FAQs, statistics, pro tips from the founder, and more a lot.

4 Put your content in order

This secret is about what happens behind the scenes with the content. There is no content wizard to magically create and manage your content. (No, AI can't do that either!) But there are content operations—the combination of people, processes, and technology that orchestrate content end-to-end. Smart SaaS quickly matures its content operations so it can scale. At Mailchimp, I added modern content roles, defined new processes, and led the adoption of content workflow software.

Recently, Pfizer realized how important content operations are to maintaining and expanding its business. At the Adobe Summit, Jane von Kirchbach, Senior Vice President of Digitalb, said that “during the pandemic, we touched more than a billion lives. This is our time to strengthen the way we engage with our customers, with our patients , with our doctors and hospitals, content is at the heart of that transformation.”

Pfizer transformed its content operations by streamlining the end-to-end content supply chain, automating workflows and using AI to aid content development. These changes reduced content creation time by more than 50%.

So as your business must compete in the digital experience, you can gain an edge by operating as a world-class SaaS. Fill your digital experience with content that demonstrates your purpose and empowers your customers to succeed. And set up appropriate content operations at scale. The better your content business is, the more your business will grow.