‘Give Them Back Something of Value’: How to Start Your Lead Generation Program

‘Give Them Back Something of Value’: How to Start Your Lead Generation Program

“The time your audience spends with your content is really a transaction,” said Tomas Kellner, editor-in-chief of GE Reports. If the content becomes too promotional, too self-serving, you will lose your audience very quickly.” GE has managed to take brand awareness to the next level, turning its distinct point of view into something that every company wants: leads. Chances are your company already has a newsletter or some e-books. But like brand awareness, lead generation requires a comprehensive plan. Taking the lead In our first playbook for marketers, we covered how brands should develop a content strategy to build awareness and establish thought leadership. You don’t want to lose them on the next click.” [Full disclosure: athenahealth is a Contently customer.] The content carries a helpful tone, breaking down complex topics into blog posts that fall under 1,000 words. For lead gen content, other members of Fox’s team work on webinars and longer whitepapers that run upwards of 10 or 20 pages. According to Kellner, that’s one of the key reasons the GE audience comes back for more. But the day is still only twenty-four hours.” This is an excerpt from The Content Marketer’s Playbook: Lead Generation.

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Every week, more than 100,000 people receive The GE Brief. The digest arrives in their inboxes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, offering subscribers in-depth stories about NASA wind turbines, power plants in Iraq, immortal machines, and more.

The fact that 100,000 people voluntarily signed up for a brand newsletter may surprise some. For GE, however, it’s the culmination of a decade-long commitment to content marketing. The company sits at the intersection of some of our most crucial sectors, like technology, energy, and transportation. As a result, the brief brims with journalistic rigor, pulling in stories from GE Reports, the brand’s main content hub, where employees across the globe explain new research and innovations by focusing on ideas instead of products. But the newsletter also contains worthwhile content from around the web that has nothing to do with the brand.

In other words, spam this is not.

“The time your audience spends with your content is really a transaction,” said Tomas Kellner, editor-in-chief of GE Reports. “You have to give them back something of value. If the content becomes too promotional, too self-serving, you will lose your audience very quickly.”

GE has managed to take brand awareness to the next level, turning its distinct point of view into something that every company wants: leads.

Building a database of 100,000 people doesn’t happen by accident. Chances are your company already has a newsletter or some e-books. But like brand awareness, lead generation requires a comprehensive plan. You can’t just slap a form on your website and expect thousands of potential customers to fill it out.

As the stakes increase, the value your content provides needs to rise as well. A great blog post can establish trust, but is it really worth someone’s contact information? Probably not. Inspiring your audience to take action calls for more substantial content.

Taking the lead

In our first playbook for marketers, we covered how brands should develop a content strategy to build awareness and establish thought leadership. We also went over the top of the marketing…

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