Artificial Intelligence for Life

There are masses of articles and books written by experts explaining the importance of using effective content as part of your marketing strategy.

86% of B2B marketers use content marketing, but only 38% believe they are good at it. Most of the content marketing guides are very educational and impactful. However they don’t necessarily focus on the entire process of converting content into revenue.

Having compelling and relevant content is indeed very important but that is only part of the picture. The big picture is how to generate high quality leads that are ready to buy from you.

Six steps to generating more leads with content:

Step 1 – Profiling and segmentation.

Before you spend any time and money writing its important to figure our who you are targeting and why.

• What does your ideal customer look like?
• What are their typical pain points?
• What value do you bring to your ideal customer by addressing these pains?

Step 2  – Type of content.

Now that you have identified who you are marketing to, its time to decide what content to provide them. What message will attract your ideal customer.  7/10 customers like custom content. Keep content original and fresh.  Use key words that your target audience can relate to.

Struggling for ideas try some of the following:

• 50 content marketing ideas for your website or blog.
• Content marketing articles (Mashable).

NB: Content marketing is not a sales pitch. You want to attract potential customers not scare them away with in your face sales tactics.

Step 3 – Call to action.

Behind every successful sales and marketing communication there is a call to action. Without it, you might as well go home because you wont have any leads calling you in the meantime.

Give something of value to your prospect and they will give you information about themselves. Asking for too much information can deter potential readers from submitting a web form. Not asking for any information in exchange for your content will leave you without valuable leads.

NB: 77% of customers understand that the company is selling something. This is fine as long as the information is valuable.

Step 4 –  Content distribution.

Your content marketing campaign should at least take advantage of some of the channels your target customers are using such as,

• Email marketing.
• SEO.
• Pay per Click (PPC) advertising.
• Social media marketing.

Step 5 – Turn conversions into customers.

This is when CRM and marketing automation becomes invaluable. Tools like lead scoring and nurture programs can help you target the right prospect and convert them into customers.

Nurture programs that fully automated can develop leads in the background while your sales team spends time and energy only on the leads that are ready to buy. If a lead begins to show interest through interactions with your emails, a salesperson can then get involved and contact the lead directly.

Step 6 – Analytics and optimisation.

You should have a method for easily analysing the results of your content strategy and be able to attribute success and adapt for optimisation.

With so many options for creating and distributing your ideas, content marketing can be one of your most valuable and cost effective strategies in your marketing toolbox.

Tools like Microsoft Dynamics CRM with integrated marketing automation will help you execute your content marketing strategy and evaluate your results against the marketing criteria.