The Rise of the “Think Tank” Model in SaaS Marketing
In an era when “thought leadership” can feel more like AI-spam than insight, Amy Konary, SVP of Zuora’s Subscribed Institute, is telling B2B SaaS marketers on a recent episode of SaaS Half Full how to leverage their own system or platform data to build genuine authority and connection in their market.
Konary’s approach? Build trust, not hype. “Every SaaS company has data,” she says. “It can be usage data, transaction data, or even sales metrics…but when you anonymize and aggregate it, it becomes your most credible storytelling tool.”
Building Zuora’s Subscribed Institute
When Konary joined Zuora, she identified two key challenges: customers required more effective guidance on recurring revenue models, and Zuora needed a way to connect with executives beyond the billing system. Her answer was to create the Subscribed Institute, a think tank that uses Zuora’s proprietary B2B SaaS data to help companies build and optimize their subscription businesses.
By turning anonymized insights into actionable frameworks, the Institute has become both a customer resource and a business growth engine, influencing over half a billion dollars in pipeline for Zuora. Not bad for a “content marketing experiment.”
Trust, Data, and Real People
The magic of the model comes from three things:
- Data: Proprietary, aggregated, anonymized, and trustworthy.
- Case Studies: Featuring people, not products. “We showcase the decision-makers and the strategies they’ve executed,” Konary says.
- Community: Through dinners and small events that bring executives together around big, timely topics like AI monetization.
“The objective isn’t just to build brand affinity,” she says. “It’s to further people’s thinking.”
From Data to Dialogue
What started as a single dataset evolved into an ecosystem, featuring academic partnerships, co-research with McKinsey and BCG, and a community of over 1,600 executives. The Subscribed Institute is proof that the most effective thought leadership doesn’t talk at people. Instead, it brings them together.
And the best part? You don’t need a massive budget or team to start. “Find your internal advocates,” Konary says. “Start small. Use your data to supercharge your content strategy, and then evolve it into something bigger.”
Listen to the full episode with Amy Konary here on SaaS Half Full.