Every business would love to reach more potential customers and turn them into raving fans, and one of the best ways to do this is with content marketing. Great content that’s perfectly targeted to your audience has the power to attract your ideal customers, help them through the ‘know, like, and trust’ phase, and move them into the ‘ready to buy from you’ phase. But what is lead-generating content marketing?
Let’s start with some definitions:
1) What is a lead?
A lead is simply someone who is interested in buying the type of service you offer. They may not yet be interested in buying from you in particular, but with the right content marketing, you can get them there.
2) What is lead generation?
From Hubspot (https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/beginner-inbound-lead-generation-guide-ht,) “Lead generation is the process of attracting prospects to your business and increasing their interest through nurturing, all with the end goal of converting them into a customer. Some ways to generate leads are through job applications, blog posts, coupons, live events, and online content.”
Note that they define it as a process. It’s not a single act that you do, and then you’re done. It’s an ongoing progression.
3) What is content marketing?
From Mailchimp (https://mailchimp.com/marketing-glossary/content-marketing/,) “Content marketing is a marketing strategy used to attract, engage, and retain an audience by creating and sharing relevant articles, videos, podcasts, and other media. This approach establishes expertise, promotes brand awareness, and keeps your business top of mind when it’s time to buy what you sell.”
Again, this isn’t just one thing to do but a series of planned actions with a focused objective in mind.
It’s the combination of lead generation and content marketing that’s so powerful. Content marketing for the sake of it will have some impact. You’ll produce good content with the right keywords, and you will get the attention of some people who might be interested in what you have to offer, but with a properly targeted content marketing strategy that’s specifically targeted to generate leads, you can work wonders!
What is lead-generating content marketing strategy?
Well, it all sounds good so far, but how do you actually create a lead-generating content marketing strategy?
As usual, with any kind of strategy or plan, you start with where you are right now. How good is your current lead generation strategy? Do you have something in place, and is it working? What results are you getting, and how good is your conversion from stranger to customer?
Sit down and work through your current state of affairs and be honest!
Next, look at where you want to go. How many leads do you need for your business to be either in profit, if you’re a startup, or to get to your next income level for growing businesses?
Now you have what you’re aiming for, and you can work out a plan for how to get there.
Here’s what a lead generation process using content marketing looks like:
- Someone finds you via your website, on social media, or even better, by word of mouth.
- You have a targeted Call to Action (CTA), and they’re intrigued enough by your content to click on that.
- Your CTA leads them to a landing page. A landing page is a highly targeted page that’s designed to get your visitor to do just one thing. There are no links to other pages, no ads or distractions, just great copy designed to get them to take the action you want them to take.
- Once they’ve read your fantastic content, your visitor fills in a form and signs up for your lead magnet (a valuable, targeted freebie you give away to attract your ideal customers), and they’re on your newsletter list so you can continue to market to them. They’re now a good lead.
Notice how much of that depends on content? Your new visitor must be interested enough in your content to look at your CTA. Your CTA must be compelling enough to get them to click, and your landing page must have equally compelling content to get them to sign up. Basically, your landing page content is a sales page for your lead magnet. Then, of course, your lead magnet must be something they want that’s valuable, well-written, and helps them with the problem they have that your service can solve. It must give them enough of an answer that they know you can help but not enough that they then don’t need you.
Let’s look at the components of that process:
-
Your potential lead has to find you
I could write a whole book on how you get people to notice your company, especially with literally billions of other websites out there, but, yet again, we’re back to content.
You need great content on your website that’s well-keyworded and targeted to your ideal customer. You need means to funnel people toward your website, which may be Google ads, Facebook ads, guest posts on related sites, social media posts, and more.
All of that is content. It simply isn’t possible to generate leads without content.
-
They have to want to stick around and click your CTA
Why do they want to stick around? Because your content is compelling enough that they are entertained and intrigued, and they feel welcome and recognized, like they could get the answer to the problem they have.
Why will they click your CTA? Because it’s well written enough and attention-grabbing enough to spark their curiosity.
-
They have to want to read your landing page
You know what I’m going to say here. It’s all about your content. Right the way through this process. Your landing page and your offer (your lead magnet) have to be good enough that your visitor wants to take action and fill in your form.
What is lead-generating content marketing? Put simply, absolutely nothing without the content marketing bit that does the vital work of attracting, intriguing, and persuading your ideal customers to become leads, then warm leads, and then buyers.
For more on how content marketing can help you with lead generation, check out Lean Labs excellent Ultimate Guide to Lead Generation Through Content Marketing (https://www.lean-labs.com/blog/lead-generation-through-content-marketi