The typical SaaS writer conundrum: Balancing creativity with strategy

Writers can turn constraints like briefs, brand guidelines, and SEO demands into creative leverage if we use frameworks, real examples, and insights from experienced SaaS writers and strategists in our work.

It’s easy to assume SaaS writers spend hours in creative flow. In reality, we spend hours rewriting intros and convincing ourselves the CTA isn’t boring. 

Think about it: You get a brief for a fintech brand, which means you’re writing for CFOs who spend, on average, just 12 minutes a day on thought leadership. Even with clarity on product benefits and positioning, the cursor blinks while you wonder how to write an intro that actually feels alive.

How do you bring out your imagination, voice, and storytelling into content that still needs to serve KPIs and funnels? 

Somewhere between relevance and originality lies that sweet spot we’re all chasing. 

This piece is about finding it.

But, before that...

Why does SaaS writing often feel stuck between rigid strategy and bland creativity?

Risk aversion: It's only natural to want to avoid brand missteps, legal issues, and mis-messaging. To avoid risks, we write content that’s safe and generic with a flattened tone. 

Multiple stakeholders' input: Before a brief lands in your Slack or email, it journeys through product, sales, legal, and marketing teams. Each adds their own edits (“Let’s avoid jargon,” “Let’s include all three features,” “We can’t promise this benefit”). This consensus can strip out unique perspectives, strong voice, and emotional tension. 

Extreme focus on tangible outcomes: SEO, conversion rates, and lead gen numbers dominate, and they hardly care whether the content served the "creative" quotient. Aspects that are harder to measure get deprioritized. 

Weak brand clarity: Do all your clients hand over a solid brief that's well-understood? Not unless you're super lucky. Without a strong brand voice or audience persona, messages are hedged so they "don't miss" someone. (which paradoxically makes the message miss everyone)

Over-guidance from tools: When every piece follows the same format (“hook, pain, solution, CTA”), the content loses flavor. With AI tools in the mix, it’s even easier for unique voices to blur together and disappear into the content black hole. (here’s how not to let that happen!)

Sure, the easier way is to get clear briefs, flexible clients, and defined voices, but that puts control outside the writer’s hands. Writers who thrive in this space find small corners of autonomy. Maybe it’s experimenting with structure, using metaphor, or borrowing storytelling techniques from fiction or journalism.

Let's look at how fellow SaaS writers find their way around the constraints. 

How to turn constraints into creative leverage  

A 2023 study by Tim George & Kaila Lasher found that participants asked to create short sentences under high-constraint conditions (for example, sentences starting with specific letters) produced fewer sentences overall. Still, the ones they did create were rated as more creative.

It showed that imposing constraints (even arbitrary ones) can prompt people to stretch, perhaps forcing them to find unusual associations rather than relying on easy, common ideas.

The ARS framework (Accessibility-Reliability-Specificity) 

Brinda Gulati, a retail and e-commerce writer and editor who’s worked with clients like Jotform and Userpilot, believes creative constraints spark better ideas. She adds that blending creativity with strategy looks different for every client, but she leans on what she calls the ARS framework. 

Accessibility: varying sentence lengths

Relatability: understanding the ICP's pain points and not just using jargon that is typically found in other blog posts 

Specificity: Real-life or hypothetical examples work well. 

She also suggests using news stories as references or examples to hook readers. 

“ So if you're writing a piece on inventory management, can you find a news story that suggests how inventory management went horribly wrong? “ 

By anchoring an idea in the real world, you make even technical topics emotionally relevant.

Ground stories in real experiences 

For Oluwaseun AkilLembola, a SaaS writer, creativity doesn’t mean inventing metaphors out of thin air; it means writing from truth: “When I have lived experiences, I share them because they reflect my voice and unique POV. And when that's not available, I lean on case studies or SME insights.”

He further emphasizes how it's more persuasive to discuss, say, the "benefits of X product" through an actual success or failure story than pure imagination. And it still serves KPIs by building trust and authority.

Build creative freedom into strategy 

Jason Fiore, a B2B content strategist, believes the responsibility for creative yet strategic writing starts with content managers.

His team doesn’t brief writers using generic personas or keyword spreadsheets.

“We use real customer support tickets and sales call transcripts,” he says. “That way, we focus on searches people make at moments of frustration instead of random, high-volume keywords.”

His team noticed fewer total readers but 280% more qualified leads as the writing spoke directly to decision-makers with active problems. Jason adds that the real balance between creativity and performance comes not from clever hooks, but from empathetic research.

Challenge unhelpful rules 

Some content managers agree that writers who challenge ineffective guidelines produce the most resonant work. “Writers who question unhelpful rules create more powerful prose than those who follow every instruction at face value,” one manager noted. 

“Voice can survive corporate constraints when writers understand the strategic intent behind a rule, and suggest smarter alternatives that achieve the same goal differently.”

Treat constraints as a creative canvas 

Jacob Elbon, a creative B2B strategist, shares how structure becomes the creative avenue for writers. 

“A comparative post framed like a courtroom case, or a technical tutorial framed like a diagnosis, meets both search intent and long-term memory equally.”

Constraints are guardrails 

Instead of diluting content into something forgettable, you can play with what’s given, to dig deeper, and to express solutions with clarity and creativity. 

Here’s a quick checklist to help you spot whether your content balances strategy and creativity:

• Accessibility: Does your content flow like a human wrote it?

• Relatability: Are you talking to your reader, not at them?

• Specificity: Are you using real or relevant examples?

• Empathy over keywords: Before optimizing for search volume, ask: What was the user feeling when they searched this?

• Structure as play: experiment with format while serving the same goal

• Understand the ‘why’ behind brand constraints.

What’s one rule you’ve learned to bend to make your content better? Organization is the root of written creativity, and I’d love to hear how you strike that balance! 

If this helped you, make sure to let Parita know with a comment. Alternatively, find her on LinkedIn and Instagram.