Today, content marketing is one of the best strategies for generating qualified leads for your business. What does this marketing strategy involve and how can you apply it to your company? Discover 7 tips to make your content a powerful source for acquiring leads.
Table of Contents
- Content Marketing: What Is It?
- Content Marketing Figures
- Content Marketing for Lead Generation
- 7 Tips for Effective Lead Generation
- How Can You Measure the Performance of Content Marketing Through ROI?
Content Marketing: What Is It?
Before we get to the tips, let's take a look at what content marketing is.
Content marketing is a method that consists of producing and distributing value content in order to respond to a target audience’s needs.
Distributing useful and relevant content allows you to gain visibility and notoriety, whether it be on search engines or on social media. As it’s much less intrusive than traditional advertising, content marketing is an excellent way to drive traffic to your website.
You can use different types of content to achieve this goal:
- blog posts
- newsletters
- videos
- podcasts
- webinars
- infographics
- white papers
- case studies
Content marketing is a true pillar of any inbound marketing strategy. It can be used to accompany prospects at each stage of their buying journey.
Content Marketing Figures
According to a report from DemandMetric, content marketing produces three times more leads than other more traditional forms of marketing.
Professionals have understood this. A marketing evolution study by HubSpot showed that more than 8 out of 10 companies use content marketing as part of their lead generation strategy.
Similarly, as proof of the value of such a strategy, nearly 70% of marketing departments have invested in optimizing the organic SEO of their website.
Content Marketing for Lead Generation
Content marketing is one of the best ways to generate B2B leads. It’s a strategy that unquestioningly facilitates business development.
It allows you to increase your brand reputation and reinforce your expertise on a given subject by providing your target audience with valuable advice. When they see that you fully understand their needs, your prospects will naturally turn to you.
Content marketing is also ideal for developing your online visibility through organic SEO. By focusing on relevant keywords, you will have every chance of appearing in the top search results on Google.
This will help you attract qualified leads to your website. They will be more likely to be interested in your products and services.
Let's look at some tips on how to make your strategy effective.
7 Tips for Effective Lead Generation
1. Determine your goals
Whether it is sales or marketing, any strategy requires precise goals. This is the first of the seven tips.
You can't skip this step without taking the risk you'll make the wrong decisions. To set your goals, apply the famous SMART method:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Time-Bound
2. Analyze your target audience
To make your content relevant and successful, you need to take the time to understand your prospects' expectations. Studying your own data, in-depth research on social networks or forums and competitor analysis will allow you to identify the topics you should cover.
It is essential to know who your customers are and what their needs are. To achieve this, you will need to create your marketing personas.
3. Choose your keywords
Any content marketing strategy must be based on a selection of relevant queries. This step is crucial as it will allow you to work on your SEO.
Depending on your field, be careful not to try to optimize queries that are too competitive. This could end up being a waste of time. It’s better to optimize your content for more precise and confidential keywords, which is why it is so important to perfectly master the expectations of your future clients.
4. Customize your content
Customizing your content is key for an effective strategy.
Within your target audience, there are likely to be different segments. The more appropriate your content, the more successful you will be at engaging your prospects and creating a unique relationship with each of them.
5. Don’t neglect images
The clarity of your texts is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition to make your content marketing a success.
It is equally as important to use visuals. Images, videos and infographics are a powerful way to communicate effectively with your leads. Video is a must-have, with views that keep increasing from year to year.
6. Use the right distribution channels
Producing quality content is one thing, knowing how to distribute it is another. If you focus all your efforts on the creative process, you may end up with great content that won’t be seen or read by anyone.
To reach your leads, you will have to choose the most appropriate channels for your target audience. Email marketing, for example, is one of the preferred communication channels for companies. 77% of them report a better engagement rate when they use email to connect with their prospects and customers.
7. Constantly improve your image
Rome was not built in a day. No company has ever designed a perfect lead generation strategy from day one. It is a long process that involves making mistakes and starting over until you find the right formula.
One of the best pieces of advice you can receive is to implement a process of continuous improvement and include A/B testing. Test your actions again and again to improve them on a daily basis.
How Can You Measure the Performance of Content Marketing Through ROI?
To evaluate the performance of your strategy, it is fundamental to measure the ROI of your content marketing.
Several performance indicators can help you with this:
- The number of visitors to your website
- The number of page views
- The bounce rate
- Your traffic sources
- Your customer conversion rate
These five KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) will give you an initial overview of the results of your marketing actions. Then, it is up to you to refine the analysis to obtain more precise information.
Keep in mind that, unlike paid advertising, your content marketing strategy will pay off in the long run. Don't expect significant results from your first blog post.
Content marketing is part of an SEO strategy that aims to generate traffic and leads. At VirtualExpo, we are well-versed in SEO techniques, and thanks to our different solutions, we can help you generate traffic, attract qualified buyers and obtain leads.
