In post #2 of 5, I introduced – 7 Must Have Elements of Every Small Business Website Today we tackle Step #3 – How to Use Content to Generate a Steady Flow of Leads If you are tired of hearing you must produce content to compete in the world of marketing today, I have good news and bad news. Here’s the system in 3 steps Create a list of just 6 of the most useful content ideas for your ideal customer Build a lead generating content upgrade for each piece Start promoting each piece in advertising and social media (We’ll cover this tomorrow) That’s it – execute on this over the next six months, and you’ll start generating leads. Through your knowledge and by using keyword tools like Google Keyword Tool or Wordtracker, develop a list of core content topics and assign one to each month for the next six months. After you click the button the page will reload and you can continue reading - we will email the ebook Step 2: Create Some Content Upgrades The notion of getting someone to your website, landing page or content of some sort and enticing them to exchange their email address and other contact information to get something they are looking for is pretty much standard marketing fare these days. The basic idea behind a content upgrade is this – Write a really great, useful blog post and then when people show up to read it offer them an “upgrade” to the content in the form of a checklist, video, or case study relevant to the topic in exchange for content details. Less content, more value Brian Dean of Backlinko told me that when he discovered the power of the content upgrade, he started producing content less frequently while focusing on creating posts so full of great content they couldn’t be ignored. In this post on Dean’s site Google’s 200 Ranking Factors: The Complete List you’ll find a link to download a handy checklist of the top factors. If I happened to have a course or ebook on SEO, I could easily capture highly targeted leads by adding a content upgrade to that page. (Similar to Backlinko post above) Create a list of tools related to a particular type of advice – I could easily add the top 10 tools to use in creating content upgrades to this post on content upgrades Compile a list of links from around the web telling people how to do something based on the tool they use – set up lead nurturing in Infusionsoft, Act-On, Aweber, etc. I think it’s time to make content upgrades a big part of your content marketing and lead capture game plan.
In this post – 5 Steps to Restart, Recharge and Revive Your Marketing Right Now! – I introduced an aggressive initiative to help any business owner struggling to stay on plan with their marketing for the year. The idea is to take the mid-point of the year and get a fresh restart.
In post #2 of 5, I introduced – 7 Must Have Elements of Every Small Business Website
Today we tackle Step #3 – How to Use Content to Generate a Steady Flow of Leads
If you are tired of hearing you must produce content to compete in the world of marketing today, I have good news and bad news.
First the bad news
As content continues to grow in importance in the marketing mix, it must take on an elevated place in your strategy and planning. The use of high quality, education based content has become an essential ingredient in creating awareness, building trust, converting leads, serving customers and generating referrals.
I’ve said this many times over the last few years, but marketers these days have a lot in common with publishers and it’s time to embrace this reality fully – content is air
Now for the good news – you don’t need as much content as you think.
The days of pumping out thin blog posts day after day are over.
For your ReStart program, here’s all you need to do. Consider writing just six blog posts for the rest of this year, but put a month’s worth of blood, sweat, and tears into each one. Deal?
Below the complete system for turning content into leads.
Here’s the system in 3 steps
- Create a list of just 6 of the most useful content ideas for your ideal customer
- Build a lead generating content upgrade for each piece
- Start promoting each piece in advertising and social media (We’ll cover this tomorrow)
That’s it – execute on this over the next six months, and you’ll start generating leads.
Step 1 – What content should you produce?
For a few years, I’ve been promoting something I call the Total Content SystemTM This is simply an approach that allows you to plan, delegate, curate, create, collaborate, repurpose and get far more out of every piece of content you produce. Once your system is in place, it will build momentum with each passing month and begin to multiply in value to your organization.
This is the approach we are going to take to develop your key content.
Through your knowledge and by using keyword tools like Google Keyword Tool or Wordtracker, develop a list of core content topics and assign one to each month for the next six months. (I’ve written a great deal about how to do keyword research, and you can even get an ebook on it below.)
Each theme should be a substantial topic related to your business or industry and represent an important keyword search term. It might be helpful to think about it as a book. Each month might represent a chapter in what will ultimately make up an important body of work by the end of this year.
You can also designate terms that you know you would like to rank higher for, but currently, have little or no content that leads people online or off to you.
Check out my complete guide to keyword research here
Yes – this is an example of a content upgrade in action, but it’s also a crucial step to using content for lead generation purposes.
After you click the button the page will reload and you can continue reading – we will email the ebook
Step 2: Create Some Content Upgrades
The notion of getting someone to your website, landing page or content of some sort and enticing them to exchange their email address and other contact information to get something they are looking for is pretty much standard marketing fare these days.
The idea of bait for lead capture has certainly evolved, though. There was a time when all you needed was a lead capture form and message that asked people to sign up to capture an email, but then people got very tired of all the email this generated.
Smart marketers realized that they needed to offer something valuable in exchange – an ebook, webinar or free trial of some sort.
Even so, visitors started getting harder to convert as more and more sites featured pop-up, slide in and scrolling calls to sign up and download.
Today, and who knows how long really, marketers…
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