CONTENT MARKETING
Use Content to Get Leads
You may be wondering how content marketing can directly
support your bottom line. There are a variety of ways but this chapter will
specifically discuss how you can use it to get leads. Yes, it is entirely
possible to take any of the forms of content and use one of them to generate a
list of warm leads.
This is one of the content marketing avenues. In fact, if
you’re new to content marketing this is one way to become acclimated to it. You
have a clear goal from the beginning and you are creating a strategy to support
that goal. Here’s how you do it.
1. Determine
how many leads you’d like to get over the course of this content marketing
campaign and how long it will last.
It’s important that you begin with the end in mind. You
should know what you’re working towards and how long you’ll be doing it.
Sometimes business owners can launch great ideas and begin campaigns designed
to improve business but if there is no clear end game, the idea can eventually
falter and the campaign can go on forever. You need a clear ending to give you
a deadline to work towards. Don’t worry. You can tweak the number of leads if
your research calls for it but you can’t tweak the length of the campaign.
2. Decide
how you will capture the emails to build your email list
There are email marketing tools you can use that will help
you build your email list. Before you start your campaign or create your
content, you need to know where the information will go. Don’t try to
facilitate this whole process yourself. Trying to keep track of emails can
become overwhelming and tedious. Take advantage of the tools out there to make
it easy for you. Some of them have a free plan or a free trial while others
cost a monthly fee. Take the time to do some research to choose the tool that
will work best for your business. Here are some of the more popular tools to
get you started:
a. Aweber
– http://aweber.com
b. MailChimp
– http://mailchimp.com
c. GetResponse
– http://getresponse.com
d. Constant
Contact – http://constantcontact.com
These are some you can look into to get an idea of how they
work. All of these sources will help you gather emails, manage your email list
and communicate with your list. If you’re not sure which one to go with, try
talking to other business owners in your industry to see which one works for
them. Don’t make your final decision based solely on price. Take some time and
make sure it has the specific features you need to support your business.
3. Set
up your email marketing tool
Don’t dive into this process without setting up your email
marketing funnel first. This is the value in using a tool over trying to do it
yourself. Most tools have the process set up for you. All you have to do is go
in and create the messages you want to send to your customers when they enter
your sales funnel. Take advantage of the tutorials and other how to guides
available showing you how to make the most of the tool. Go through and
familiarize yourself with how it works. You should also make it a point to see
how it handles the distribution of files via email. If you can’t find this
information on the website, send a message to customer service. This will come
in handy later on in this process so check on this now.
4. Create
a piece of content that you are willing to give away for free While it’s
completely understandable that you want to benefit from any piece of content
you create, it’s not always a good idea to charge for it. Sometimes a valuable
piece of content can be used to build up your sales funnel which will turn into
income down the line. It doesn’t have to be a huge piece of content that takes
a lot of time to create. As long as it has a high perceived value, it will be
well received by your audience. Here are some types of content you can use to
give away.
a. eBook
A short but informative eBook is a great piece of content
to give away. It shouldn’t be more than 25 pages long or less than 10. You want
it to have a high perceived value and if it’s too short, that value won’t be
there. If it’s too long, you’ll be less inclined to give it away because you
will have taken a lot of time and effort to create it. Keep it relatively short
but informative without giving away too much information.
b. Coupon
You could offer a coupon for a discount on any products and
services you sell. It has to be a coupon with a high perceived value so it
can’t be 10% off of your least expensive product/service. People have to want
to get the coupon and be willing to provide some information in exchange for
it. But the coupon shouldn’t be so good that you feel ripped off when it’s
redeemed. Look for balance.
c. Free
product
If you have a product that you can easily give away in
bulk, that’s a great thing to give away for free. Yes an eBook is a type of
product but you may have others that you can easily use.
d. Free
consulting session
If you offer consulting services, you could give away a
free session in return for joining your email list. Look for ways to keep the
session manageable. You can do it electronically and offer to answer specific
questions or you can make it a short session. The key is to make sure you
aren’t giving too much of your time with the free session so that it becomes a
burden.
Make it doable.
The point is for you to not put yourself in debt or in a
state of struggle to do this. However, you should definitely have something you
can give people in exchange for them sharing their email address. You also want
to offer something they will find interesting. If the piece of content is of
enough value, you will find people that are truly interested in what your
company has to offer.
5. Make
your content available
Now you have to promote the free piece of content that you
have. You should create a sign up form on your website that people have to
input their email address into gain access to the giveaway. This form should be
prominently featured on your website with a clear call to action directing
people to share their email addresses. You’ll also have to do some promotion
across other networks. This is a great time to make use of social media
advertising. You can either create an advertising campaign through Facebook or
Google Ads. The purpose of the campaign is to let people know about the
giveaway. You have to do something to make your special deal easy to be
discovered. If you already have a presence on social media, use that profile or
page to share your special as well.
Once you’ve made your special deal available, you can start
keeping track of how many email addresses you get. Since this campaign should
have a clear end date, you can start the clock once you’ve made your offer
available to the public. This should give you a concentrated period of time to
let your campaign run while you measure the results.
Aim for at least three months. If this is your first
content marketing campaign, three months will give you some time to see how
things go without committing you to something longer. This will give you the
ability to assess what worked and what didn’t. You also gain great insight into
your ability to execute a campaign when you actually do it.
If you’ve done a campaign in the past and are comfortable
with them, you may want to let it run longer than three months but it shouldn’t
last more than six months total. You don’t want your campaign to go on so long
that it’s virtually never ending. You need time to see how well it works so you
can make any necessary adjustments. In fact, it may be best to stick with the
three month time frame and run the campaign several times, making adjustments
along the way.
While you are collecting the email addresses, create a plan
for how you will move those leads through the sales funnel. You need to have an
idea of how often you plan to communicate with them and what you’re going to
share. It’s important to make sure you don’t inundate their email inboxes with
information. But it’s just as important that you don’t disappear once you have
their information.
These are warm leads that you can target for potential
customers. Make sure you deliver the free content right away and create a
schedule for when you will contact them and how often. It’s best that all of
your communications not be sales solicitations. The same way that you garnered
their interest is the same way you can keep them in your sales funnel.
Provide value while asking for the sale and people won’t
automatically unsubscribe from your email list. You can use this form of
content marketing to consistently build your sales funnel. You can also use it
as a way to become more comfortable with content marketing overall. Once you’ve
done it a few times you can start expanding your use of content.
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