Keeping people coming back to your blog or website is one thing, getting them to subscribe or identify themselves is a whole other kettle of fish. That’s why it’s important you take the time to create quality content to build your audiences’ trust/confidence in your expert status. Once they have seen the value in what you provide, you can take your content marketing to the next level and ask for their contact details in exchange for access to your valuable content.
While in-person events hold the top spot for content marketing effectiveness, to drive lead capture, there are other ways to connect with your audience. Here are the three top-ranked content marketing tactics that can help you build your audience/customer base.
Source: 2016 B2B Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs
- Webinars
Webinars have a high success rate at producing warm, targeted customer leads. Of course, the success of a webinar will depend on whether it offers anything of real value to people. Make sure your topic is relevant to your audience and you have a strong presenter. The last thing you want is your attendees multitasking or taking a break from the session. Also, record your webinar, this is instant video content you can use for people who couldn’t attend. Surveys after the event are also a good way to create collect feedback and build engagement. Ask what they want to hear about next and use this feedback for your future content marketing efforts.
- Case Studies
Case studies can tell stories, good stories. It can be a success story of a product or service, or a solution (or solutions) to a particular problem encountered by customers, complete with the steps to fix the issue. Although many marketers have an aversion to case studies, they are invaluable in turning plain readers into buying customers.
- White Papers and Guides
While this format of presenting information has been around since before the content marketing craze, it still works. To create a successful white paper, it’s important to have strong content (not a sales pitch), sound research and sources, relevant and timely information and the added ingredient of your expert point of view, which demonstrates you are a go-to resource. With the right strategy you can gate your whitepapers, using them as a lead capture.
There are many ways to use content to generate leads. Take the time to determine what benchmarks you will use to measure your success, but ultimately what matters most is that your content drives your audience to action.
