Content Marketing needs to convert to leads

I have a lot of clients who get really excited about the content marketing piece of their online marketing strategy. What’s not to get excited about? Hopefully, you’re passionate about what you are doing!

Content Marketing can work, but just creating content to create content, isn’t the best way to market your product or services. It’s not good for your personal or company brand either… most people would rather get fewer high-value nuggets of great content, versus daily floods of marginally interesting tweets.

Here’s a quick Content Marketing Success Map that I use for deciding what content and topics to publish about:

1. Before you go off writing that masterpiece Ebook, or Video series, take a moment to find out exactly what issues, problems, or questions your ideal prospect is trying to solve. You can do this on LinkedIn, by reviewing the discussions in highly targeted LinkedIn groups (the groups that your ideal prospect is a member of and engaged in). Find the topics that get a lot of comments. Read through the comments. What are the issues? What can you help with? Can you add value to the conversation? If so… then add that topic to your Content Marketing plan.

2. Create a blog post, and if it’s a video, embed it in a blog post. The idea is to provide your content on a site where you can capture leads, most probably through email with programs like Aweber.com or Mailchimp.com. In an SMB or Enterprise, tools like HubSpot, Marketo, Eloqua, and Act-on can help manage the process.

3. In the blog post, acknowledge the pain of the issue. Then, provide a partial solution. (This isn’t about giving away the house, but it’s got to be short and sweet.) Think 90 second video, and 250 words. If you did provide value to your prospects, and they felt more confidence in themselves to take the next step, they’ll willingly subscribe for more info or part II.

4. Now you have them in your Lead Nurturing system… continue delivering small tips that will move your prospect closer to their goals.