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Want to know why people say "content is king" when they talk about marketing? It's estimated that 95% of consumers look for a business online before making a purchasing decision. Your online content is the first thing they'll see, well, hopefully it's your content and not a competitor's.
New homepage content or a fresh blog post could be exactly what you need to get in front of your prospects and generate new leads online. Leads are always great, but making them convert into sales will require a mastery of content.
Simply having content online isn't enough to generate leads though. You need to have the right kind of content to attract serious buyers. Let's take a look at our five content secrets to help you generate leads online.
Go Beyond Blogs
Blog posts are one of the most popular ways for businesses to publish content online. Blogs are a great way to get new content out, but they're not the only way.
EBooks, white papers, infographics, and other forms of high value content can engage customers in different ways. Long form informational pieces can go in-depth into topics far more than a short blog could. These high value pieces of content can (and should) be hidden behind a form to help you collect information about your new lead.
Visual content like infographics and videos can be great tools get getting leads online. People love visual content and are more likely to engage with it in some way.
Be Topical
What are people talking about today? Knowing the answer to that simple question can help you create content that generates new visits to your website, and more importantly, more leads.
Staying current and commenting on popular topics is a great way to get more clicks on your content. Stay abreast of industry news and general current events to see if you can tie them into your business.
Don't Focus on Selling
It may seem strange to not focus on selling when you're trying to generate leads, but content that's too sales-driven can drive people away. Content, at least most of it, should be geared towards being helpful, educational, and solving problems for your readers. It's not a good platform to shove products or services down their throat.
People, in general, don't like to feel like they're being sold to. Content that tries to encourage people to buy every sentence is going to turn them off.
Instead of focusing on sales, focus on being informative and offering value to the reader. Teach your customer base something useful and become a thought-leader in their eyes.
Lose the Business Speak
Formally written jargon-heavy content may work in the office space, but it won't generate leads online.
Jargon is difficult to understand unless you're intimately familiar with the subject. People reading your content may not be able to understand what you're talking about and if you confuse a prospect, you'll lose that prospect.
Formal writing doesn't work online because the internet isn't a formal space. People want content that's simple to understand and to the point.
Keep your tone conversational when you're writing for an online audience. Remember that conversational doesn't mean ill-informed. You can have simple to understand content that can still teach the reader something. Try to boil your language and topics down to a digestible and still relevant level that your target persona(s) can easily understand.
Generate Leads Online with Smart Forms
You'll undoubtedly end up with multiple pieces of high value content that you'll hide behind forms throughout your website. Creating smart forms that understand who is downloading the content and what information you already have for them can make the process of getting additional information from your leads that much easier.
The easier we make the process for visitors to convert into leads and even when we're hoping to collect additional information from our current leads, the more likely it will happen. Be sure to only ask for relevant and vital information from your prospects to download the content. The forms should align with the value of the content. Ask for too much information and you'll see your conversion rates plummet. Ask for too little and you're missing out on valuable information that can be used to close a sale.
Smart forms should be used in order to only ask for information that you don't already have on your leads. Say a lead already filled out a form that captured their name, email, and phone number. The next piece of content that they go to download wouldn't ask for those pieces again, making the process easier.
Next Steps
Inbound marketing and content marketing are built around the process of generating visits, leads, and customers online, but in order to actually do so, you've got to have an air-tight strategy. That's exactly what the HIVE GrowthPlan is. We work directly with you to develop a comprehensive and actionable strategy to grow your business. No hypotheticals, no theories, not "what-ifs", just an evaluation of your current and past marketing, competitors, and plan to reach your goals moving forward. Ready to start developing a GrowthPlan for your business? Learn more now!
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