Increase Qualified Leads with Quality & Relevant Content
For many businesses, online marketing success hinges on the ability to bring in leads, preferably qualified leads. Despite that fact, or perhaps even because of it, 63% of marketers point to lead generation as one of their most challenging issues.
What’s even more challenging, or frustrating, is that many business owners are doing what they think they should:
- Create a solid web page UX
- Limit the number of fields required to capture the lead
- Optimize their pages for the keywords they want to rank for
- Create a strong social media presence.
Each of the aforementioned represents important pieces in a lead-gen strategy, but there is one unifying piece missing: quality content.
At a fundamental level, lead generation is based on the notion that a customer has a problem and is seeking a company or organization that has the knowledge to solve that problem.
Buried in that statement is a basic marketing concept: in order to sell something, you need to identify consumer problems and prove your product or service can solve those problems. But there’s something that’s much more important to our discussion – knowledge.
The pursuit of knowledge is what drives a consumer to return to a website and ultimately share their information. According to Curata, 74% of companies report that content marketing has increased both the quantity and quality of leads. The better your content strategy, the better your lead conversion.
Want to give your lead gen strategy a healthy boost with content? Here are a few things to consider:
Create Different Types of Content
This means creating simple blog posts, videos, etc., that address basic questions, with the goal of capturing a potential client as they gather information. This content acts to anchor your brand as a knowledge source.
However, advanced content in the form of published articles, webinars, ebooks, and case studies are also important in lead generation. These items require research and a firm understanding of the industry – they showcase a brand’s depth of knowledge.
Together, these two types of content increase a potential client’s willingness to share their information in exchange for your knowledge.
Optimize. Optimize. Optimize.
Your efforts are only visible to others if they find their way to your website. It’s imperative that you understand your audience and what they’re searching for, and to do that you must build your content around SEO principles. Everything from keyword research to site architecture will vital role in how easy, or how difficult, it is for someone to find your site.
SEO should be a vital part of your marketing plan, and that’s especially true for lead generation. Not only will it increase traffic, but it will allow you to further your understanding of your target audience. Why do they come to my site? Why do they leave? What are my competitors doing differently? What problems do I need to solve? If you can’t answer these questions, then you won’t be able to successfully increase leads.
Use Lead Bait
The term “bait” carries some sour undertones, largely because it’s associated with clickbait tactics that drive users to useless pages which do little more than host ads. But at the end of the day, you need to convince site users to share their information, and so “lead bait” is essential.
It may be as simple as asking them to sign up to your newsletter for additional great info. Or, you may find it best to exchange those bigger content pieces, like webinars and case studies, for their information. Perhaps a delicate balance of both will fit the bill. Test it. Find out what works for you. But always make it easy and enticing for the visitor to submit their information.
Don’t Cut Corners
Most companies are operating on a budget and that often means cutting corners where possible. Content creation is NOT the place you want to do that. Great content can keep users coming back. Poor content will severe that tie for good.
If you really want to see quality leads filter in, you need to use the right tools to build the bridge. That means identifying and bringing on individuals who know how to write, how to optimize a site, and how to sell a product.
The quality content that will bring in leads needs to be carefully curated, especially when it comes to those more informative, research-based pieces. If you want to convince a potential client that you’re the one for the job, you need to convince them that you’re the expert for the job.
Concluding Thoughts
Lead generation is a multi-faceted process, but when it comes to successfully obtaining quailed leads, there is no better solution than content. Content, when well-crafted, puts your company’s credibility on center stage by highlighting the depth of your knowledge and capabilities. In today’s invasive online world, consumers keep their information close to their chest, only sharing it with those companies that prove themselves from the very start.
