Documentation for your SaaS products is more than necessary. As you dwell in the subscription economy, you regularly interact with your customers. You might have had some experience in working with product documentations in the beginning, however, it is time to rev up your documents and take to another level. if that is what you have been wondering off late to know how to create a killer SaaS documentation or a product documentation for your customers, you are definitely on the right track. Without any further ado, let us dive right into the topic.
Table of Contents
- What is Product Documentation?
- Benefits of Product documentation
- How to create product documentation
- Study your Target Audience in and out
- Make it Easily Searchable
- Add Multimedia to keep the users engaged
- Add Content-based information in your Document
- Continuously iterate/improve your documentation
What is Product Documentation?
Product documentation regales you with information related to the anatomy of your product, along with the product features, the associated risks with the product. Not just that, it also walks you through the steps of instructions needed by you to use the product. When you have a product documentation at place, you make it easier for your customers to have a centralized access point for them. To under product documentation better, it is essential to know the benefits of product documentation in detail. Let’s get to that.
Benefits of Product documentation
- A well-documented product documentation has the ability to create a positive brand perception. When done right, it gives your customers to have an exceptional customer experience with your product as they have understood the product well.
- Your product could be too technical. You product could be too complicated too. The job of the product documentation here is to make it easier for your end users to understand your products in simple language. Refraining from any technical jargons, or super technical specifications is a necessity here.
- An easily understandable document reduces the chances of any raising tickets. In a way, it works in the favor of the company.
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How to create product documentation?
Study your Target Audience in and out
Before starting out on documenting, make it a point to research your target audience well enough. Know whether or not your audience come from large business owners, small enterprises, or is it just restricted to your internal employees. Once you have that information, it becomes easier for you to define your document and pull in all the relevant content possible.
Make it Easily Searchable
Make sure that your SaaS product documentation is easily searchable and has the ability to provide instant results as soon as a customer types in a question. The more is the ease with which your customers get to find your document and receive help from its content – is all what should matter to you in the end of the day.
It is not just the quality of the content that you document that matters, it is also how your aesthetically present it. How you present it to your customers carve a huge difference. For starters, you can start by changing the fonts, colors, and themes of your document and try to make it more aesthetically appealing. On top of that, you can add multimedia to keep the users engaged and to augment the impact of the content. This will also make sure that your readers stay engaged till the end of the document.
Source: Content Marketing Institute
Add Context-based information in your Document
End users of your product will be relying on you to supply all of the necessary context for your documentation. This means no guesswork – users must understand immediately whether they have found the right content or not. It is no point drafting a document that cannot satisfy the queries or requirements of an end user. Therefore, make it a point that what you write adds value and context to the end users.
Continuously iterate/improve your documentation
Although it is easier said than done, creating a documentation is no cakewalk and certainly not a one-time task. Augmenting your SaaS product documentation is essential for many reasons. To begin with, it provides the end users with the most updated and relevant information as and when they require. Further, it also ensures that the worth of your document does not go obsolete. Steer clear of failed searches, poorly rated articles, broken or missing links and low ranking keywords as well. Because when you include any of these, you stand the chances of an unhelpful document and that is no good.
Parting Thoughts
Know that your Product or SaaS documentation is the key to your business that can’t be seen explicitly, however, it does play a great role in meeting the ever-evolving expectations of customers for seamless support. Not only that, a good document helps you provide customers what they seek the most – convenience, speed, and flawless services.
Once you start to create quality product documentation, you tend to set pace for a growth-focused initiative that you can take for betterment and goodness of your company. It not only ensures that customers get a holistic understanding of your offerings but also does the heavy lifting when it comes to solving customer questions. We hope that with these five easy steps, you now know that the process of creating a document is pretty simple. All you need to do is study your Target Audience in and out, make your document easily searchable, add multimedia to keep the users engaged, add context-based information in your document, and continuously iterate/improve your documentation.
Highly accomplished, motivated, and adaptable sales and operations professional with a track record of successful leadership. Known for an empathetic and consultative approach that consistently exceeds growth and revenue goals.
Published September 20, 2021, Updated June 07, 2023
