Three content pieces to help generate leads

Lead generation is a common challenge for most marketers today as they work to help the brands they represent creatively cut through a noisy market to attract quality attention from potential customers or clients.

But there are simple ways to engage your audience effectively which will organically support search engine optimisation, while generating quality leads.

1. Produce an e-Book

e-Books (electronic book) are a great interactive content piece that can encourage and generate engagement and leads from your audience. They are created as a digestible downloadable booklet, typically four - six pages long.

The information provided should be helpful by covering a topic that’s relevant to your audience, such as a solution to a problem. Don’t think you always have to ‘reinvent the wheel’ for eBooks – these can be created by repurposing blogs, news or social media content.

Considering an e-Book as ‘gated content’ is also a great way to generate leads. Downloading the e-Book is free to readers, but to access it, they must enter contact information. This is helping you to generate quality leads because people are only going to download the eBook if they are interested or invested in your offering. Once you’ve captured these details, you can effectively put them into your sales funnel.

Remember to cross-promote your e-Book across your own channels by creating a dedicated landing page or pop-up on your website (which helps search engine optimisation), then share it via social media (the downloadable nature lends itself to social media with the ‘click through’ user interaction) and an email marketing campaign (EDM).

2. Host a webinar

Webinars can be an interactive content marketing tactic that generates warm leads through registrants.

It’s vital that the topic discussed adds real value to the audience which will influence sign-ups; be it hands-on training, expert advice, real-life application, that audiences can enjoy from the comfort of their own home or office. This comes hand-in-hand with the speaker or speakers of choice. It’s important to engage a speaker who is an expert on the topic, is presentable and charismatic so the topic can be communicated and brought to life through a screen.

To ensure true value to your attendees, consider adding a questionnaire on the registration page to gauge an understanding of what participants want to learn during the webinar, which you can integrate into the sessions. A quality webinar will add credibility to your brand and can encourage not only return registrants but also your audience to broaden through attendees sharing their experience.

It is always worthwhile sending a survey post webinar to get feedback from attendees to help shape future webinars or content marketing approaches.

The added bonus of a webinar is it can be captured and turned into videos that can be shared across other digital channels including your website and social media. Video marketing is one of the most popular engagement tools with web users now spending more time than ever watching videos.

3. White papers

While e-Books are typically short, design heavy content pieces, a white paper is a more in-depth, persuasive academic writing piece on a topic usually in response to a problem which then offers a solution. White papers are great for business to business leads.

People download white papers because they are detailed, authoritative and comprehensive, offering credible insight into a topic of relevance which helps to gain trust of your brand.

As with all content developed and shared by a brand, it needs to be relevant to your industry, to appeal to your target audience. Due to the comprehensive nature of white papers, this content requires research and time to develop but can work wonders in positioning your brand as thought-leaders in your industry.

The content needs to be informative and supported by evidence including graphs, data and references to credible sources. To add further credibility to your brand, consider incorporating case studies so it demonstrates your work in the field.

Once compiled, the paper can be shared across multiple platforms including via email marketing, on your website, social media and across third-party sites for users to download.
Building a strong and creative content strategy, incorporating alternative content pieces which are interesting and interactive, can boost organic search as well as generate sales leads.

If you’re interested in finding out how Elevate can support you with content creation and lead generation, get in touch today!