How Can You Attract More Leads Using Nothing But Content Marketing?
If you’re a time-crunched, money-conscious marketer trying to maximize the ROI on your content marketing efforts and become a content-creation rockstar… You’ve arrived at the right article.
Data frequently tells a fascinating tale about content marketing.
What’s the TL;DR?
Content marketing is effective. In fact, according to a recent survey, 92 percent of marketers see content as a genuine business asset.
So, how can businesses capitalize on the potential of content marketing? And, more crucially, how can you use content marketing to acquire perfect leads?
That’s a complicated question, so I simplified it down for you. In this post, we will discuss:
Setting SMART content marketing objectives
Finding your niche
Choosing your target market
How to Pick Content Marketing Channels
How to Develop a Successful Content Strategy
Repurposing Content Email marketing content
Best practices for syndication
Analytics, automation, and more…
It’s going to be easy to comprehend. Trust me. Now buckle up!
Setting SMART content marketing objectives
We’re pretty sure no one appreciates a good acronym more than marketers. The acronym SMART for content marketing is no exception.
To be successful with content marketing, you must first understand what success entails. That is why it is critical to create goals before embarking on your content marketing journey, so you can track your progress and continue to improve your plan.
What the acronym S-M-A-R-T stands for SMART content marketing goals:
Specific — What is your content’s specific goal? In other words, what is the one metric you want to track for a particular piece of content? Is it a matter of opinion? Engagement? Comments? Establish a precise aim for each piece of content you create.
Measurable — This is similar to specific, but is your aim numerically measurable? A goal of “I want people to laugh who read this” is not a quantifiable goal; however, “I want 10% engagement on this piece of content” is.
Achievable — The letter of A can also stand for aspirational. Although even aspirational aims must be reasonably attainable.
Relevant — Is the content you’re creating relevant to the audience for whom it’s intended? In the following part, we’ll go over this in greater detail.
Time-bound — Setting a deadline for when you want your material to achieve the goals you set for it is what time-bound means. (For instance, ‘I need 10 comments on this social media post until next Monday.’)
Applying these principles to your content will ensure that you don’t waste time creating material that doesn’t have a point, doesn’t work, or doesn’t resonate.
So, now that you know what objectives to set for your content, how do you decide what to write? Let’s have a look at how to pick a niche:
Picking your content marketing niche
There is no debate that content marketing is a saturated sector in the majority of large businesses. The vast majority of online businesses practices it.
But don’t allow the amount of stuff available to deter you from joining the game. Everyone and every business have a unique story to tell and a voice, which is also unique.
It’s not as difficult as you may think to figure out what that is! Consider the following questions:
What is your company’s area of expertise? Don’t just say “your industry” as an answer. Drill down deep here. Examine what your organization performs both internally and outside.
What distinguishes your company from the competition? Is it a cultural thing?
Is there something in your value proposition that I should be aware of?
Who is your ideal client? (Think beyond personalities and consider an actual ideal customer you currently have.) What is the voice of your brand? If you haven’t already selected and defined one, return to step one and do so first!
What queries do my ideal clients have? Is there a recurring theme?
Examine the answers to your questions and perform some research. Utilize a tool like Google Trends to determine what type of material currently exists in your market and what you can write about that is unique. Examine your clients’ or customers’ social media inquires and questions. What exactly do they want to know? What is a common set of inquiries you get regarding your industry? Begin there!
Identify who you want to talk to and when
So, once you’ve decided on your target audience and specialty, think about the actual individuals you’re attempting to reach and what you want to say to them.
Content marketing aims to deliver the appropriate message to the right customer at the right moment. This entails comprehending the queries that a consumer or buyer may have at each customer journey stage.
The following is an example of a typical customer journey:
Awareness: I’m having some problems, but I’m not sure what’s causing them.
Consideration: I’ve identified the source of my problem and am now looking for answers.
Decision: I’ve determined the solution I want to execute, and I’m now looking for firms and solutions that can help me solve my problem.
The various types of material you employ to meet each stage of the client journey should be connected to the queries they may have at that stage.
Consider the following example. Assume you own a construction company, and your target market is people who want to refurbish their basement.
When your customer first becomes aware of their problem (the desire or need for extra room in their home), they may have inquiries such as, “Should I complete my basement or add on to my home?” “What is the return on investment for finishing a basement?”
When they’ve concluded they understand the problem and want to look for answers, they might use a search engine to look for questions like “What is the schedule for a basement remodeling project?” or “Will completing my basement be difficult?”
Assume they’ve concluded it won’t be a hassle after all because your content was so convincing, and they’re excited to get started on their remodel. They will reach the ‘decision’ stage of their journey and will most likely be thinking, “Who is the greatest basement remodel firm in my area?”
Let’s imagine you’ve decided on a handful of outstanding content subjects in your chosen niche that address all stages of the client journey — where should you put them?
Your channels should be cherry-picked
Have you ever heard the expression “fish where the fish are”? It’s an excellent analogy for content marketing.
You want to ensure that your ideal audience is present wherever you upload material written for that audience. For example, if you’re a B2C company with a target audience of young adults, posting your material on LinkedIn is generally not going to help you much.
This will necessitate some investigation on your part. Since you’ve previously determined your target audience in the preceding sections, use that knowledge to determine where that audience spends their time online.
There are numerous data tools and statistics available to assist you in this (Google Analytics, SEMRush, Hubspot), but you can easily begin by discovering how your current customers or clients (ideally your best ones) found you, where they hang out, and what social networks they use. Birds of a feather gather together, so chances are there are more fish in those waters primed and ready to take your bate. #wildlifemetaphors
If you haven’t been gathering this information from the beginning, consider sending out a survey or engaging in some covert strategic stalking on social media.
Develop your content strategy
So, we know your target audience, we have ideas for themes, and we know where we want to post them. Now comes the exciting part: assisting others in locating it!
It would be a lovely world if we could all publish our fantastic stuff to the appropriate channels and be confident that it is being seen, but that is not the case.
The good news is that there are things you can do to boost the chances that your article, blog, or video will be read or seen.
Enter SEO:
On search engines, content is typically located by using keywords and keyword phrases. It would help if you employed keywords and keyword phrases strategically in order for your content to be found. To begin developing a content strategy that can assist you in prioritizing your material and identifying your most potentially profitable topics, consider the following:
What keywords/topics would I like to be found for? Once you’ve made your decision, incorporate those keywords into your content, titles, subtitles, and meta descriptions. The goal here is to incorporate them as naturally as possible; otherwise, you risk being penalized for keyword stuffing.
What keywords or phrases are my competitors utilizing right now? This is where things start to get pretty strategic. If someone searches for your company’s solution, you want to be the first result that comes up. That implies you must outperform your competitors’ content in practically every category. Perform Google searches or use a service like SEMRush to determine which keywords and phrases your competitors are performing highly for.
How can I create better content than my competition while still using the same keywords? When you’ve determined the keywords or phrases, you’ll need to outperform your competitors, create content around those keywords and phrases and make it more appealing to search engines by:
Adding amazing research and outbound connections to your content to make it lengthier and more in-depth.
Making sure your content considers the user experience (because search engines do!)
Find opportunities to answer unanswered queries in the form of featured snippets in search engines.
Including visuals in your postings, as well as proper formatting and labeling images
To summarize, your goal is to analyze what type of material your competitors are providing and create content that is better suited for your clients at each stage of their journey.
Don’t be shy away from repurposing your content
Repurposing is beneficial to your content in the same way that recycling is beneficial to the environment. Don’t be hesitant to repurpose and reuse your excellent content that is blowing your competitors out of the water!
There are numerous methods to repurpose information and breathe new life into it.
Did you create an amazing blog that is resonating well with your audience? Make a video or a series of social media postings out of it!
Have a vault of all your best-performing prior content and set a deadline for revisiting it. We enjoy Gary Vaynerchuk’s guidance on how to create 64 pieces of content per day through repurposing. Even if you aren’t looking for a lot of volumes, there are some wonderful ideas to get you thinking about new ways to recycle.
Don’t publish your content only on your website
Similar to repurposing, the purpose of syndicating your material on different sites is to maximize the ROI on the content you spend time developing.
Did you know that if you typically post content on your corporate blog, you can use a canonical link to repost that same content on sites like Medium and Linkedin?
This will prevent you from being penalized by search engines while yet allowing you to reach a larger audience. It’s a true win-win situation.
Take advantage of Cold Email
Email marketing is still alive and well. In fact, according to a recent survey, email marketing is the major lead generation channel for 89 percent of marketers. Newsletters, case studies, films, and special announcements have historically performed exceptionally well for email audiences.
However, if you want to distribute your material by email, there are some best practices to follow to ensure that you are, once again, reaching the right person, at the right time, with the correct message:
Segment your mailing list — It is critical that you segment your list so that you know what type of consumer or lead is on each list. It refers back to the previous part, “know who you’re talking to.” The two most effective email marketing tactics are list segmentation and customization.
Offer them material that is relevant to their stage of the customer journey — you don’t want to send ‘decision’ content to a lead who is still in the ‘awareness’ phase!
Automate everything you can
As you’ve certainly discovered by now, inbound content marketing to attract leads requires a significant amount of time, which most marketers do not have. That is why it is critical to automate as much as possible. By automating some tasks, you will have more time to create outstanding content, which is the key to it all!
Some tasks are quite simple to automate. Automating social network postings that promote your material, as well as automating the publication of your content at regular intervals, is a simple task using free tools like WordPress, Hootsuite, or Buffer.
Here are some amazing automation tools to look at to help you get started with automation.
Learn from your existing content
A marketer’s best buddy is ALWAYS data. To successfully attract leads through content marketing, you must first determine what is working and what is not.
Once you’ve established your content strategy, keep an eye on what kind of material (what subjects, what channels, what mediums) are performing the best, and keep doing that! On the other hand, look at what isn’t doing well, figure out why, and either search for methods to enhance it or let it go entirely.
You will create the ideal content plan for yourself, so track, optimize, and revise.
Lastly, never give up!
Don’t be disheartened if you don’t notice immediate results!
Attracting leads with content marketing takes time, as does developing outstanding content and getting ranked in search engines.
However, if you persist with it and start routinely producing fantastic content that outperforms your competition while informing, educating, and entertaining your target audience, you will undoubtedly find success in time.
