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When it comes to sourcing more clients, it's all about quality over quantity. But how can you entice these kinds of quality leads? Content marketing is a pretty good place to start.
A recent survey of more than 450 CEO’s and Senior Executives revealed that more than half of them shared a top priority: growth.
If you’re involved in the marketing or sales functions for your company, this might make you sweat a little.
As the primary roles responsible for company growth, the weight of this priority sits pretty squarely on your shoulders. And when being pressured to drive growth, it can be a knee-jerk reaction to ‘just try and get as many new leads and clients as possible’.
But the real key to successful growth is actually not growing as quickly and exponentially as possible. As the saying goes: fast growing trees die young. And you want your company to be a strong steady Oak, not a weak or easily destroyed Poplar!
It’s steady, strong, quality growth you need to aim for.
And how do you achieve that type of growth? Content marketing.
Let us explain:
Content marketing clients: quality over quantity
Say you run a great, catchy ad in your region's largest paper. It brings in 10,000 leads. They don’t know much about your company from the small amount of copy on the ad, and they aren’t really your target market. But they thought your ad was interesting and so they decided to get in touch.
Now, imagine you invest in a content marketing strategy. You build an audience of about 1,000 who steadily learn more about you. They consume your information and learn all about your company's values, the ins and outs of your service or product, and become familiar with your pricing. Then, they decide to get in touch.
Which leads do you feel will be more qualified? Which leads will your sales team need to spend more time with? Which leads are probably going to become repeat customers?
This is why content marketing works. It helps you to connect with and qualify leads before they even speak to a member of your team.
Basically, it’s every marketer or business owner’s dream — if you know how to do it!
In this article, we’ve picked our top 5 hacks for creating a content marketing strategy that attracts more (and qualified) clients and customers.
Hack #1: Concentrate first on your SEO
SEO is the backbone of any content marketing strategy. Afterall, there’s really no point in generating amazing content if no one can find it. We know that SEO can seem intimidating, but grasping the basics can be pretty simple.
When using SEO to help attract more clients and generate leads, there are a few important steps to take:
First, know your target customer. You want to be able to identify their exact needs, wants, pain points and possible search queries.
Next, do your keyword research. What are these customers really searching for?
There are a bunch of great free tools out there that can help you find these keywords. Give QuestionDB or AlsoAsked a go.
Third, write quality, long-form content around your keywords that directly answers your customer’s most common search queries.
And lastly — track and optimize whatever is working (getting click-throughs, engagement, comments, etc.). Keep creating more of that type of content, and ditch whatever seems to fall flat.
Of course you can get a lot more advanced with SEO, but if you’re starting out it’s good to begin with the essentials. Once you’ve identified what type of content is driving traffic to your site, you can delve into more advanced SEO techniques.
Hack #2: Create long-form content
It’s true that attention spans for humans are getting shorter, but the same cannot be said for search engine algorithms. In fact, longer and more in-depth content gets higher search rankings, more backlinks, and more social shares. But remember to not go overboard with the length and keep your reader’s attention threshold in mind.
But more importantly (and the reason it’s getting its own section in this article) is because it also generates higher click-through rates. And higher click-through rates = more qualified leads in your pipeline.
The people who click-through to your website from long-form content have most likely just read a lot about your company’s expertise and still want to learn more.
These are the leads you want!
(We do understand writing long-form content takes a lot of time and resources, so don’t be afraid to repurpose your content or look into bringing on some additional help)!
Hack #3: Be generous with your content
Generosity is an admirable trait — and it can also be a lucrative one!
If you’ve ever had somebody do something really nice for you, you may have experienced a deep desire to return the favor. The same psychology works with content marketing and giving away valuable information or resources to your audience.
While it sometimes takes a while to reap the benefits of generosity with your content (aka, giving away free guides, webinars, white papers, studies, videos, etc.) the payback can be tenfold. If prospects have ingested enough information from you that has somehow made their lives easier, they'll likely turn to you when they're ready to buy.
What you can and should ask for when giving away great content, is an email address...
Hack #4: Stay in touch
As you may know, it takes some customers around seven interactions with a new company before they’ll consider buying from them (or becoming a client). This means, if your content is attracting an audience, but then you lose their attention after one blog, you’re likely going to lose their business, too.
You can combat this lead-loss by creating a targeted, personalized email lead nurturing campaign. This basically consists of sending your leads consistent (yet well timed) emails that anticipate and help alleviate any of their hesitations.
In your email series, you’ll want to speak to why you’re the best solution for this client and how your business can dramatically improve their life or business.
And you don’t need to stop at seven emails. Send as many as you need to in order to clearly communicate your value proposition. But make double sure they’re adding value for your reader and that it’s easy for people to unsubscribe if they’re no longer interested.
Hack #5: Capitalize on trends
You know what’s easier than starting a conversation? Joining a conversation. (Helpful hint: this is true of cocktail parties and attracting content marketing clients).
Oftentimes, marketers and business owners are so focused on preaching their own message that they forget there are millions of conversations going on around them.
The great news is, you can really capitalize on all this chatter.
Instead of always trying to create your own virality with content, you can often get great traction just jumping on the bandwagon of the latest hot topic. This is especially effective when there’s a topic directly affecting your target customer base.
For example, let’s say you were trying to reach small business owners during a certain pandemic (that shall not be named). You could write a blog about how your other small business clients are weathering the storm, or how your company is helping them do it.
Of course with this strategy you want to be helpful, but you also want to be relevant and top of mind for your readers. (There are plenty of tools available that can help you identify trending conversations going on in your industry to make this a little easier.)
Start making your content marketing work for you
We understand that using content marketing to attract clients can seem like a lot of work. But as you now know, the payoff is worth it for better, more qualified leads and steady, efficient growth.
If you’re ready to be the Oak tree, our team at Scribly can help you implement a content marketing strategy to achieve your goals!
