Many businesses and lead generation specialists fail at the beginning of their lead generation journey. Because they don’t have the proper knowledge about how to sustain the lead generation process and engage prospects effectively. Some of the potential reasons that lead to poor lead generation strategy include:
- Poor understanding of lead generation funnel and marketing strategies.
- Ineffective approach to drive prospects from the awareness stage into the consideration stage.
- A misconception of telling prospects to buy from them eventually led to a sale.
But your prospects aren’t going to buy from you unless you engage them in the right way. One effective way to attract and engage leads is by offering valuable and informative content.
Your prospects deem your products or services as potential solutions to their problems. Prove your authority and optimism by providing relevant and high-quality educational content such as how-to blogs, purchase guides, product comparisons, recommendations, and hacks they can use to eliminate hurdles.
Prove that you understand their problems or conflicts well and offer them a solution, so your prospects start investing their trust in your brand which is the main focus of generating leads through content marketing.
Source – Visme
7 Actionable Ways to Generate Leads Using Content Marketing
- Create a buyer persona
- SEO
- Content Upgrades
- Webinar
- Produce an eBook
- Content Syndication
- Gamification
1- Create a buyer persona
Engaging the wrong prospects directly translates as having no leads. In fact, it’s potentially worse because you will end up wasting your time and effort on a lead that’s not going to convert.
Therefore, If we talk about generating leads, it means generating high-value leads. To filter the unnecessary audience, you need to specify the prospects that possess enough potential to become a lead. This is where the buyer persona joins the stage.
A buyer persona possesses all the necessary attributes of your ideal customer. Some of these attributes include:
- Name
- Age
- Niche
- Gender
- Country/Region
- Knowledge
- Interests
This buyer persona should contain all the demographic attributes and other necessary information to help you generate leads using content marketing.
2- SEO to generate leads using content marketing
Search Engine Optimisation is the practice to make necessary changes in different aspects or segments of your website. These changes or updates are intended to improve the search engine ranking of a webpage or site to improve visibility across different search engines including Google and Bing.
SEO allows you to focus on improving your business website to claim your online dominance and rank among the top search engines results like Google. Ranking at the top and 1st page of google means approaching more people looking for the services you are offering. More SEO engagement means more content leads, which ensures better conversion rates.
The number of high-value prospects engaging with your website primarily depends on how easily people can find your brand’s site. Ranking among the top search results ensures that you’re one of the first brands individuals can choose from.
SEO includes different techniques, among which content marketing for lead generation is the fundamental one. Using the right content marketing strategy, you’re leveraging some high-value keywords of your niche.
Keep in mind it is mandatory to add relevant & keywords rich content on your lead generation landing page (also known as lead capture page).
All you have to do is perform intensive keyword research to find the most critical keywords in your niche and geographic domain. After choosing the right keywords, you need to integrate them seamlessly into your content. You can use online keyword research tools by Ahrefs and Seemrush or content strategy tools by Hubspot.
Using valuable keywords in your content can improve your ranking in google search results.
Another aspect of SEO is to ensure that your blog page is interactive and informative. Google ranks websites with original and informative content based on relevance to any given keyword. It leads to another significant parameter which is user experience.
A great UX means an easy-to-use navigation interface, several visuals and graphs, and other interactive features. With all these necessary ingredients, it’s evident that your blog or webpage will rank among the top search results due to high-value and informative content with the right keywords. As over 90% of online experiences begin with online searches, we can see why SEO has become one of the most efficient ways to engage more prospects, boost RoI, and ensure progress.
In fact, over 55% of B2B marketers generate leads using content marketing. By leveraging the right SEO strategy for content marketing lead generation, you can turn your website into one of the most impactful lead magnets.
3- Content upgrades
Another powerful and practical approach to generating hot content leads is the content upgrade. Content upgrades are the additional content offered to a page visitor that must be relevant to the page content.
Technically, they serve as a lead magnet. But they allow you to generate leads using content marketing more effectively because of its relevance to what the prospect is currently reading.
In most cases, content upgrades could just be a PDF copy of the page with additional information and statistics that readers can keep as notes for reference.
Using content upgrades as content marketing for lead generation, you can achieve over a 200% increase in conversions within a month.
4- Webinar for effective lead generation through content marketing
Source – Visme
Every B2B lead generation strategy involves a well-planned webinar campaign to generate high-quality content leads. The following webinar lead generation statistics reveal the true potential of having an effective webinar campaign to generate leads using content marketing.
- Over 80% of individuals agree to share information in exchange for an informative webinar session.
- Over 60% of marketers have hosted a webinar session, and around 90% of these marketers consider it to be a highly impactful marketing strategy specifically for B2B businesses.
You need to evaluate which stage of the lead generation funnel your target prospects are. It’s an essential aspect to optimize your webinar lead generation process. Do not overestimate your audience. Attending your B2B webinar doesn’t mean they’re ready to become your customer.
That’s why it’s necessary to design and plan your webinar content to target those who are qualified enough to become a customer. Keep a strict check on your prospects’ pain points. Then, plan your webinar session accordingly and showcase your product as an effective solution to their conflict.
Once you decide on your webinar topic and which pain points, you will target, it’s easier to engage your ideal prospects. Better engagement and relevant content mean a higher conversion rate.
Below are three types of practical webinar content domains you can opt for:
- Educational Webinars
- Customer Case Studies
- Product Demos
5- Produce an eBook
Offering free courses, eBooks, tips, user guides, etc., is another impactful way to generate leads.
Consider an example below:
Source: The Landing Factory
Of course, not everyone wants to be a digital nomad and make money while traveling across the continents or sitting at a beach resort. It means this lead magnet won’t attract everyone.
But that’s the bright side of using eBooks as an effective lead magnet.
The primary reason for offering an eBook is to engage the prospects interested in your products or offers.
By offering free courses or eBooks in return for a subscription, you target two aims simultaneously — you ensure the engagement of the right prospects, and you can develop a trustworthy relationship with your prospects.
Some of the notable benefits of using eBooks as an effective lead magnet include:
Relevant & Informative content
A well-articulated eBook must offer valuable and informative content for readers who are eager to find detailed answers to some particular questions.
The eBook generally is the primary medium between you and the reader. Therefore, you must offer the promised content or information on the promotion page or newsletter. Else, you’ll end up ruining your brand image.
Show what you know
Do you want to show your experience or expertise regarding a particular niche? You need to transform your idea into an eBook. Unlike blogs, an e-book allows you to discuss a subject in detail. The deeper you dive into the topic, the more value you will provide to your prospects. It will significantly improve your content.
Your prospects will start perceiving you and your brand as an authentic source of information and re-engage further to get more knowledge as they slip down the sale funnels.
Capture leads in the sales funnel
Indeed, the most underrated aspect of an eBook is that it lets you gather your lead’s email addresses and other information. The impact of this phase is determined by the quality and relevance of content on your landing page. This is where your prospects decide whether to provide their contact information or not.
6- Content Syndication
Undoubtedly, offering informative and engaging content is an effective way to generate leads. But what if you have just started publishing blogs and not getting any visitors?
One way to engage content leads is by incorporating content syndication in your strategy.
Content syndication involves uploading your content to third-party websites. The host site must be optimized and performing enough to engage many website visitors. When you syndicate your content on such a platform, you will start attracting tons of leads to your blogs.
To avoid having issues like plagiarised content or facing strikes from Google, don’t forget to use canonical tags to inform search engines that a particular URL represents the master copy. It will help you prevent penalties caused by plagiarised content listed under different URLs.
Some of the renowned platforms that offer content syndication include:
- Medium
- Slideshare
- Quora
- Outbrain
- Taboola
- Facebook Business
- Tumblr
7- Gamification
Gamification for lead generation means turning a conventional engagement process into more fun-oriented activity. Lead generation has become a mainstream practice with too many blogs and articles.
Gamifying is a more engaging and modern way to generate content leads. For instance, quizzes, a particular type of gamification strategy.
Quizzes are one of the most effective tools to generate quality leads. Quizzes generate content leads by engaging with your prospects via a series of questions and then asking for an email address in exchange for displaying the quiz results. According to the statistics, Quizzes ensure a conversion rate of over 50%, meaning that half of your prospects who attend a quiz will eventually become a lead by sharing their email address (even with an optional “skip” button).
Mainstream lead generation forms require information before any kind of engagement. It sounds like asking your customers to purchase something from your shop before coming inside. Quizzes enable you to engage customers in a more fun-oriented way before asking for any sort of information. It offers a seamless conversation without asking for anything and makes your prospect more comfortable sharing their information and trusting your brand.
Conclusion
If you are going to map your lead generation campaign, it is recommended for you to consider the steps mentioned earlier and ensure maximum RoI. It will allow you to generate more leads, boost conversion rates, and skyrocket your RoI.
