What I Worked On: August 2026
In July, I worked on a lot of content that talked about what happens after a payments program launches.
August pushed that idea one step further: if payments are an ongoing business discipline, what do companies need to keep building so the program can grow with them?
That question showed up across a lot of my work this month. Our latest Payment Pulse episodes covered how to build a stronger launch process, meet changing customer expectations at checkout, and think more strategically about where vertical SaaS companies should invest next. I also refreshed existing payments content while continuing to build out our vertical and trade show campaigns.
And after generating zero MQLs in July, seeing MQLs come back again in August was a huge sigh of relief!
Here’s what stood out this month.
The Privilege of Refreshing Existing Content
After spending over two years consistently creating content for the Xplor Pay blog, and now that ISV side of the marketing team is fully staffed, the time was right to start refreshing some of our older blog content.
This month, I refreshed an existing Xplor Pay article on what vertical SaaS companies should look for in a payments partner. The initial post provided a very high-level overview, but now that we had new concepts and resources (such as our Flex Framework and go-to-market payments playbook), I was able to expand the article to include:
Launch readiness
Merchant adoption and activation
Go-to-market support
Flexible payments economics
Measuring program growth
Choosing a payments model that can adapt alongside the business
Making the effort to refresh old content reminded me that the passage of time can work in our favor. Our point of view has matured, and we’ve developed new supporting content, giving us the opportunity to update pieces with a clearer connection to current priorities.
Building More Vertical-Specific Outreach
My bread-and-butter trade show outreach finally started to pick up this month.
I worked on campaigns connected to audiences across pet services, public works, parking, and healthcare revenue cycle management.
The industries were very different, but the work reinforced something I’ve been learning throughout the year: specificity makes outbound stronger.
Saying that a software company could “improve payments” doesn’t give someone much reason to keep reading.
Speaking vertical-specific language (think: recurring memberships, utility payments, parking reservations, patient payments) gives the prospect a clearer way to picture where the payments conversation fits into their own product.
The campaigns I’m building increasingly combine email, phone outreach, useful content, and social promotion rather than expecting a single channel to create the entire conversation.
That’s particularly important around trade shows.
There’s a limited window before an event when everyone is competing for attention. Email can introduce the message, a call can create a more direct conversation, social content can reinforce visibility, and post-show outreach gives us another chance to reconnect once everyone has returned to normal life.
I’ve spent a lot of this year refining that system, and August gave me more reps across very different audiences.
The more verticals I work with, the more fluent I become in spotting which payments problems are universal and which ones require a much more industry-specific story.
And Yes, the MQLs Came Back!
I can’t write an August recap without mentioning this one.
After finishing July with zero MQLs, I’m back to generating MQLs again this month! 🥳
July was perplexing because I had meaningful campaigns in progress but still didn’t get the results I expected. I spent a lot of time reviewing the inputs: seasonality, audience size, messaging, and the number of ongoing campaigns.
Demand generation can be frustrating because the work and the outcome don’t always happen in the same month. A prospect who receives an email today may not become an MQL for another month. A trade show campaign may require several follow-ups after initial conversations in order to keep moving prospects down the funnel. A nurture program builds familiarity long before someone raises their hand, so it’s not the most reliable option for MQLs.
While July gave me a disappointing result to investigate, August gave me more data points that I’m happy to keep in my arsenal.
What August Taught Me
A few things I’m taking with me from this month:
The payments story keeps getting bigger. Launching a program, choosing a model, and thinking about long-term SaaS growth all connect. The more I understand those relationships, the easier it becomes to build messaging around the business rather than a single feature.
Vertical context makes complex messaging easier to understand. Knowing how payments show up in an actual workflow gives me much more useful language than starting with generic product benefits.
Existing content can grow with your point of view. Refreshing an older article reminded me that content doesn’t have to be finished forever once it’s published. Sometimes your thinking catches up to a piece months or years later.
One month doesn’t tell the whole performance story. July’s zero MQLs were disappointing. August’s results were reassuring. Both months gave me information I can use to make my future campaigns stronger.
On to September!