How to Double Your Leads from Content Marketing

Why are so many brands raving about content marketing? Well, because it works. Or, more accurately, it can work.

But is it working for your team? Or are you crafting quality content, investing time and resources into the distribution of that content and then falling short of your lead and revenue goals?

Chances are you’re not leveraging all of content marketing’s wonders, which can be a powerful way to grow your pipeline. Let’s dig in.

Getting The Most Out of Your Content

A great blog post is a great blog post, but that only covers the “content” piece of “content marketing.” The other equally important piece of content marketing, which so many marketers fall short on, is distributing the content. This is critical to drive traffic to your content and begin converting leads.

In addition to creating excellent content and investing in the promotion and distribution of that content, you need to optimize your blog for conversions. Without a piece of content that resonates with your audience, proper promotion, and an effective CTA, your content will likely fall flat in terms of all-around performance.

Dynamic CTAs with Downloadable Content

One of the most effective ways to convert a visitor to a subscriber or lead is to offer a compelling piece of gated content. In doing so, you require visitors to use their contact information to unlock that particular piece of content. It’s even better if you tailor this offer to your visitor. That’s what we call a dynamic call-to-action.

HubSpot, for example, does this by delivering content based both on the blog post topic and if the visitor is a subscriber, customer or neither. That way they can effectively market to and nurture each type of lead or customer, driving new business and creating more informed customers, both of which positively affect their revenues.

For example, when I signed into HubSpot as a customer, this is CTA I saw on a particular blog post:

HubSpot’s dynamic CTA recognized me as a customer, and they offered up an academy class o improve my landing page creation and optimization skills with HubSpot. The purpose for this is that the more value and information they provide on their product, the more stickiness they’ll create and eventually they’ll boost upgrades and renewals.

However, when I wasn’t signed in and used an incognito tab to pull up the same blog post at the same time, this is the image I saw:

It’s a more broadly appealing CTA. I’m clearly interested in conversion optimization since it was the theme of the blog post. And since I wasn’t signed in as a customer, HubSpot’s CTA is designed to draw me in as a subscriber and add value through their content and nurtures.

 Linking to Webinars Directly in Your Content

Webinars are an excellent form of lead generation and lead nurturing, but the problems most companies have is that they simply do not generate the kind of traction that they’d like with their webinars. One way to boost webinar attendees and in turn increase your lead generation efforts is to link to the webinar directly in your content.

This way, it’s relevant and right in front of your visitors when you already have their attention.

Uberflip is a perfect example of a company that does this well.

When applicable, they’ll link to a landing page such as the one above to drive webinar registrations. They’ve also inserted various other CTAs in blog posts, such as demo requests and newsletter opt-ins.

There are quite a few different ways to do this, along with a few different landing pages and CTAs to link to. The important part is realizing the relevance of it and making sure your CTA fits in with your topic and that you’re not being overly sales-y about it.

Another good trick to use with webinar landing pages is to convert them to the webinar recording landing page after the webinar has happened. This way the blog post linking to the webinar registration can drive leads for a long time.

 Use Google As Your Login

One of the most undervalued components of our social world is the convenience it brings to us across the web. Since our information is stored on trusted sites such as Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, and Twitter, marketers can create a more seamless signup flow.

In addition to making your signup flow and onboarding more efficient, you used this to collect emails as well?

Neil Patel, internet entrepreneur and blogger at Quicksprout seems to have cracked the code on this.

If you want to use QuickSprout’s free SEO and social media analysis tool, you need to provide your website, of course, but then you also need to sign into Google. The social media analysis tool allows QuickSprout to have a complete picture of you and your business, boosting their email subscription and lead generation efforts.

Since QuickSprout over-delivered on creating a free tool, it’s certainly reasonable to ask for this information.

Takeaway

Creating great content is one of the best ways to build a brand and drive new business, but guiding your visitors to take the next action is just as important.

Think of it this way: how can you be a great salesman if you don’t add value to your prospective clients and then guide them through the next step? The answer is that you can’t. Great content marketers provide more than their fair share of value up front, and then offer additional value in exchange for an action from their visitor.

No business creates content just to create content – there’s always a business result that drives that action.

What other tactics do you rely on to turn your visitors into subscribers and leads?

This article first appeared on the Effin Amazing Blog.

About the Author

Dan McGaw is a serial entrepreneur who has a passion for making everything around him better. As the Founder and CEO of Effin Amazing, an Analytics and CRO consultancy, he oversees marketing, analytics and growth hacking for the company’s clients. He previously founded Fuelzee, Starter Studio and Bootstrap Academy, to name a few. He was instrumental in the immense growth of Code School (which was recently acquired) as well as KISSmetrics. In his spare time, he likes to hang out with his wife and three sons, coming up with new businesses and doing laundry.