The Engagement Trap: SaaS Content That Gets Likes but No Sales Calls

Photo by NanoBananana

Your LinkedIn post just hit 10,000 impressions and 200 likes, but your sales calendar is still empty. This is the engagement trap. Despite 93% of B2B tech marketers finding LinkedIn effective for content distribution, B2B SaaS landing pages convert at just 1.1% in 2025. The daily posts and educational threads that feel productive are often the exact tactics repelling qualified buyers.

I interviewed 12 SaaS founders and marketing leaders to understand why content attracts reactions but not revenue. Their insights answer three questions that separate attention from actual sales conversations:

• What type of high-engagement content pushes qualified buyers away?
• Which positioning mistakes sound strong but quietly kill conversion?
• What do buyers need to know before booking calls, and what messaging approach actually gets them there?

The gap between viral content and booked meetings isn’t about posting less. It’s about understanding what qualified buyers actually need to hear.

1. What Type of High-Engagement Content Pushes Qualified Buyers Away? High-engagement LinkedIn posts often look like a win, but they usually attract the wrong audience.

Viral Content That Attracts the Wrong Audience The ‘hot takes’ posts that get tons of likes are a formula for engagement, but the people liking them are almost never your target customer, mostly other marketers, sales folks, or engagement hunters warming up your account for their ABM, according to Eric Do Couto, Head of Marketing at Visualping. Motivational and founder-driven content creates the same issue. Aleksandr Adamenko, Co-founder of Winday.co, notes that “endless motivational posts, memes and human stories of founders collect reactions, but qualified buyers think: ‘Ok, how does your product solve my problem?’” Karina Tymchenko, Founder of Brandualist, adds: “Founder quotes produce applause, but not interest. Serious buyers want clarity in messaging, not charisma.”

Trend-focused content is another trap. Amit Shingala, CEO of Motadata, notes: “We had posts on IT automation trends go viral, but our inbound demo requests remained flat.” Across formats, the pattern is the same. Viral content brings visibility, but it rarely brings buyers.

Company-Page Posts and Vanity Engagement Signals Company-page content is another quiet contributor to the engagement trap. Chris Rodgers, CEO of CSP Agency, shares: “When we ran an audit for a SaaS client with a 19k+ follower company page, they had fewer than 60 engagements on average per post, and 100 percent were from people who would never buy. Buyers want to buy from a person not a logo.”

Jason Patterson, Founder of Jewel Content Marketing Agency, captures the entire engagement trap in one sentence: “Fans engage publicly. Customers lurk silently.” The metrics might look impressive, but your actual buyers are quietly watching while the wrong audience reacts the loudest.

2. Which Positioning Mistakes Sound Strong But Quietly Kill Conversion? A common positioning mistake in SaaS is emphasizing breadth instead of depth. Amit Shingala, CEO of Motadata, puts it clearly: “Buyers want confidence that a platform excels at solving their specific problem, not a laundry list of features.”

Positioning becomes even weaker when benefits are presented without real context. Eric Turney, President of The Monterey Company, explains: “Talking benefits without naming the exact job you replace, who owns it, and the before/after metrics feels inspiring but kills intent.” Without specificity, buyers cannot visualize how the product fits into their workflow.

Some SaaS messaging sounds strong but is ultimately meaningless. Kevin Heimlich of The Ad Firm notes that “positioning errors occur when companies make vague claims about being innovative or fast.” These claims blur you into a crowded field rather than differentiating you.

Many teams compound this by trying to appeal to everyone at once. Eric Do Couto, Head of Marketing at Visualping, calls this the biggest mistake: “The number one sin is trying to message or position yourself to cover too many bases for too many market segments or niches.”

Finally, positioning that compares you to competitors without any categorical difference is equally damaging. Taras Tymoshchuk, CEO of Geniusee, warns that “positioning around ‘we are the same as our competitors, only cheaper or faster’ looks like classic communication. In fact, it is an absolute conversion killer.” When messaging lacks unique value, buyers default to price instead of evaluating your actual advantages.

3. What Do Buyers Need to Know Before Booking Calls, and What Messaging Approach Actually Gets Them There?

Before buyers ever consider buying, they want clarity, not more features or inspiration, but concrete answers about effort, fit, workflow impact, and whether you truly understand their day-to-day problems.

Implementation Reality and Time-to-Value Buyers first want clarity on implementation effort. Amit Shingala, CEO of Motadata, explains: “Buyers want to know: How quickly will I realize value? How disruptive is onboarding? Will my team need to change processes radically?” The same gap appears across SaaS. Aleksandr Adamenko, Co-founder of Winday.co, adds they ask “What risks do I take and how quickly will I see the result?” Before anything else, they need to know if the solution fits their context.

Real Workflow Visualization Buyers won’t book a call unless they can picture the product improving their daily work. Vlad Lastovsky, CEO of InAppStory, explains: “They need a picture of the product in their real workflow… ‘How will it work in my product? Who will use it? How fast can we implement it?’ If they can’t imagine using it, they won’t book a call.”

Chris Sorensen, CEO of PhoneBurner and ArmorHQ, notes his team asks similar questions when evaluating solutions: “How does this change my day-to-day for the better? What will it actually replace? Does it resolve a clear pain point immediately? Conversion comes from naming exact jobs-to-be-done, exact symptoms, and exact stakes.”

Taras Tymoshchuk, CEO of Geniusee, adds that buyers want to know “what will change in the work of their team in the first month.” Baruch Labunski, Founder of RankSecure, notes that content often misses the mark: “The content focuses on talking about the product but ignores the buyers’ challenges and daily routine.”

Proof You Understand Their Problems Buyers expect to see their current frustrations reflected back to them. Kevin Heimlich of The Ad Firm notes they want “a clear understanding of what breaks inside their existing systems.” Karina Tymchenko, Founder of Brandualist, explains they need “at least one short, descriptive example that illustrates the problems they currently face.”

Messaging That Works Meeting those buyer needs requires a different messaging approach. The experts identified several approaches that work, not because they’re more creative or better optimized, but because they directly address buyer priorities before the call.

The Path from Engagement to Revenue The gap between engagement and revenue in SaaS isn’t caused by a lack of content. It’s caused by posting content that doesn’t help buyers evaluate you. Buyers don’t reward vague positioning, polished thought leadership, or viral posts that never address their workflow, risks, or time-to-value. They reward clarity, specificity, and messaging that reflects their real world, not marketing theory. A simple buyer-readiness check can shift your content into revenue-generating territory:

• Does it speak to a real problem buyers are facing today?
• Does it show what changes in their workflow if they adopt your solution?
• Does it reduce uncertainty around effort, risk, or time-to-value?
• Does it help them compare options, not just promote you?
• Does it give them a clear next step if they want to go deeper?

Content that answers these questions builds trust and accelerates decisions, even if it never goes viral.

Read the full article here: https://medium.com/write-a-catalyst/the-engagement-trap-saas-content-that-gets-likes-but-no-sales-calls-7b8f281975e5