When was the last time you talked to a telemarketer on the phone and listened to their sales pitch? Now think about the last time you read an infographic. Customers don’t wait for a business to come to them with what they need; they are out searching for that information. It’s true for B2C businesses, and it’s true for B2B businesses. In the past, B2B lead generation efforts depended on outbound marketing tactics, like cold calling or having a salesperson drop by. No longer. While those can still be part of your marketing strategy, it’s also essential that you focus on inbound B2B demand generation marketing tactics. Content marketing, including infographics, ebooks, and social media, are all essential for B2B lead generation.
Content Marketing Is Key For B2B Lead Generation
6 Types of Content That Drive Lead Generation
Content quality matters when it comes to effective B2B demand and lead generation. Before you even begin creating content, you need to develop a content strategy with a specific buyer persona in mind. It’s essential to develop topics that are lead magnets to your specific audience. By knowing and understanding your buyer persona, you will be able to align your content marketing with all of your other marketing goals.
B2B Content Marketing Success Formula
Step 1: Talk to customers and find out what they really care about. Ask about their goals/challenges/obstacles; what’s working/not working
Step 2: Take what you learn and figure out the details for these issues at a level your customers don’t have time to do on their own; and give it back to them.
Now that’s valuable content your prospects will love!
Once you have developed your content strategy, you can start working on creating content that offers value to your audience. Consider these types of content that drive lead generation:
- Authoritative Blog Posts – In what topics does your company have expertise? Write authoritative posts covering these topics.
- How-to’s – How can your product or service solve a reader’s problem? Through how-to content pieces, you can share tips and tutorials that demonstrate how your business will address a specific problem.
- Original Research Reports – Create high-quality, highly-informative research reports that establish your business as a trusted resource.
- Videos – One type of video content is a webinar. Webinars are a great form of content that allows face-to-face interaction with prospects and customers.
- Infographics – Turn your most popular information into something visual. Break down what you have to offer into bite-sized bits of information.
- Trending content – What topics are trending? Can you relate something your business offers to one of those topics? From memes
How Can I Convert Higher Quality Leads?
The goal of all content marketing is generating demand for your business. However, by including gated content, you have the opportunity to convert higher quality leads. Person-number-one who comes to your website and reads an article is a lead, but person-number-two who fills out a form to download your white paper is going to be a quality lead. Not only did this second person visit your website, but they found it so helpful they took the time to provide contact information to get more of your content. The trick is to give them just enough information to make them want more.
For this gated content to be successful, you need to give them just enough information to grab their attention. You should present this information in a way that can be articulated in just a few words. It needs to be simple enough for viewers to quickly grasp the concept of your content. At the same time, you also need to convey that the content behind the gate is more than just common sense. Make sure to enrich your strong content with graphics like product images, charts, and box quotes. Graphics break up chunks of text, quickly convey a point, and even add credibility.
While setting up your gated content, you can take things a step further and ask your leads to answer one or two questions to hone in on the quality leads. For example, you might ask how many employees work at their companies, or what their roles are at their companies. These questions, if answered, further separate high-quality leads from other leads, and give you more information for providing content they will find useful.
Nurture Prospects Through Content Marketing
It’s important that your content marketing has reasonable goals. For example, a video alone isn’t likely to move a prospect from awareness to a decision all at once. The B2B sales pipeline is a long one, with the journey taking weeks or even months. It’s exactly this reason that makes it critical for B2B marketers to nurture a prospect with relevant content through the buying journey. Tailor information and content types to be relevant to customers at a range of specific points along the customer journey and at the same time, keep your company at the forefront of a lead’s mind. Having a content library ready to go will streamline this nurturing process.
Seek to provide a mix of content types as well as you work to reach different sections of your audience. Remember that you can repurpose content from format to format; each piece of content doesn’t need to be entirely new information.
Content marketing is key for B2B lead generation. Content marketing allows B2B companies to demonstrate their expertise and highly engage their target audience. Remember that no matter what type of content you create, whether it be a how-to or an infographic, good content marketing should make a reader stop, think, and respond.
How Can We Help?
Does your business need a hand creating a content strategy? We offer strategic planning, persona development, and content marketing services that can help. If you are ready to develop a story building trust and motivation, then sign up for a complimentary initial consultation/discovery meeting. Schedule yours today, and let’s see if we can help.
Key Takeaways
- Content quality matters when it comes to effective B2B lead generation.
- It’s important that your content marketing has reasonable goals.
- Remember that no matter what type of content you create, whether it be a how-to or an infographic, good content marketing should make a reader stop, think, and respond.
- Content marketing is also a great way to improve your SEO.
