Content is Far More than Lead Generation
"I always thought of content as a means to generate leads. I never realized all of the other benefits."
Those are the words from a recent business owner I was speaking with about content marketing. In his mind, content marketing was always just a form of lead generation.
Yet as you will see throughout this article, content marketing is much more. Often, leads are a small by-product of many of the other benefits you receive from content.
Why Looking at Content for Lead Generation is a Bad Idea
While content marketing can and will generate leads for your business, it's often a bad idea to start a content marketing initiative with leads as your primary motivation.
The reason is that content marketing can take a long time to generate leads for your business. Let's look a bit closer at why.
How Content Generates "New Leads"
Content generates leads in a few ways:
Organic Reach - Sharing content on social media or to your network with a hope that others reshare. The number of people who have seen your post either through you or through the prospects who have re-shared it.
Search Engine Traffic - This is when your article begins to rank on Google and drives new leads such as the case as when one of the articles we wrote generated $500k of new revenue through search traffic.
Referrals - Someone reads your content and as a result you are top of mind. They see an opportunity to refer you to someone in their network which results in a new lead.
At the core, most "new leads" that result from content come from one of these three buckets.
The problem is that each of these three buckets is outside of your control.
You cannot control the organic reshares of your content. All you can do is produce great content and hope that it resonates with your audience.
You cannot force search engine traffic. Even when you get to the point of receiving search engine traffic, it often takes 6-12 months before you begin to see rankings.
You cannot demand referrals from readers. This instead happens organically when your article keeps you top of mind and that overlaps with a need in someone's network.
As you can see, the ways in which content generates leads is very unpredictable and amorphous. While new leads will come from content, it often happens haphazardously.
This means that if you are starting a content initiative with the pure motivation of lead generation, then you will most likely be disappointed.
If your only motivation is leads, then you may want to consider a lead generation company to help you with a specific lead generation campaign.
Rethinking Content, the Value Beyond New Leads
If content marketing isn't just about lead generation, then what is the point? The value of content marketing goes much deeper:
Increase Referrals and Word of Mouth by Staying Top of Mind
Referrals and word of mouth are the core of almost all businesses. Many build their entire marketing pipeline on these channels alone. Content is a natural amplifier to these channels.
When you begin publishing content regularly, it helps you stay top of mind with your network. It also gives you a reason to reach out in a valuable way. This is much more powerful than "just checking in."
The first leads you receive from content will most likely come from people who are in your network. They may be past prospects or leads who have gone cold, or referrals from people who know you.
Referrals and word of mouth. You know that they work, and content will amplify what is already working.
Building Trust
The #1 value that you will immediately see from content is it's ability to build trust. This is particularly useful with prospective customers. Your content becomes a tool that you can send to prospects to demonstrate your expertise. They no longer "have to take your word for it."
To demonstrate this point, think of the last time you were browsing prospective vendor's websites. Do you gravitate toward the vendors with thin websites lacking substance? Or do you gravitate toward those who have a large amount of content and resources on their site?
Improve Sales Conversions
Do you have a topic that often comes up on sales calls? Imagine if you wrote an answer to that topic in the form of an article. You would then be able to send that article to prospects after every sales call.
In fact, this article you are reading right now is a response to the common misconception we experience on sales calls that "content is just for leads". After trying to explain this paradigm to prospects over and over again, we wrote this article to dive deep and share our viewpoint.
Your quickest win with creating content is to build materials that will immediately support you in your sales process. This will help you generate an ROI from content fast.
Become a Thought Leader
"Being an industry thought leader is like cheating at business." This is a quote I have shared countless times as it is so true.
For years, I ran companies without any sort of thought leadership or content behind me. It was hard, and everything was an uphill battle. Once you reach a status of being a thought leader with a platform, everything gets easier.
Prospects trust you more, it's easier to create strategic partnerships, sales conversions go up, and business rises along with your status as a thought leader.
Being an industry thought leader takes time to build, but it is a major competitive advantage.
Land Speaking and Exposure Opportunities
Another value of publishing content and rising as a thought leader is the opportunity to land speaking engagements or exposure opportunities.
Many times articles are foundational pieces that can become presentations at industry conferences. Relationships with other strategic influencers in your niche can lead to exposure or publication opportunities.
By putting your own ideas into the world, you are increasing the chance that others will want to share that message with their audience, book you for a speaking engagement, or interview you.
No one interviews the unrecognized individual. Instead, they interview the person who is publishing and sharing their expertise.
Where to Start with Content
Now that you understand that content is much more than just lead generation, you are probably wondering "Where do I start?"
The most important thing is simply to start. Below are a few quick tactical angles for how to approach your first content pieces.
Create Content to Support your Sales Initiatives
Another quick win for content marketing is to focus on building content pieces that will support your sales initiatives.
Imagine you are wanting to run a campaign toward a specific industry vertical that you have expertise in. Then focus your early content efforts on creating case studies of past success stories, or niche articles about topics that industry faces.
Alternatively, maybe you are going after the specific pain points of a certain title or decision-maker? Create content that speaks specifically to the pain points you know they are having.
The buzz word for this type of content is "Sales Enablement". These are content pieces that support you or your team in your sales efforts so that you can increase conversion and close more deals.
Create “Land and Expand” Content
It is easier to sell more to an existing customer than it is to win a new customer. That is why “land and expand” content is one of the highest value types of content most companies can create.
This content approach is focused around tackling topics that will strategically help you enter into new departments, or win new business from existing customers.
As an example of this, one of our clients recently saw a large amount of up and coming M&A activity within their existing clients. They wanted their firm to get involved in these M&A deals. To do this, we created niche articles around how to handle the firms area of expertise during an M&A.
This became a sales asset that they were able to use strategically within their existing clients to be seen as a potential partner for the up and coming M&A initiatives.
Create Content in Response to your Sales Conversations
One of the best sources of new content ideas is your sales calls. What questions, objections, or misconceptions do your customers bring up on sales calls that you have to convince them of?
Look toward your sales calls and ask yourself "What could I create that would serve my clients and support them in this sales process?"
Create Case Studies
Finally, one of the easiest ways to see value from content is to create case studies. These are pieces that you will be able to use forever to support you in your sales process.
As Robert Cialdini points out in his famous book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, social proof is one of the most powerful forms of influence.
Case studies are one of the quickest easiest and most straight-forward pieces of content you can create that are guaranteed to have a positive impact on your business.
Creating content can only help your business
As you have seen through this article, there are a lot of benefits to content that go much bigger than the initial ideas of lead generation.
The most important thing is to simply get started. Even if you only create a few pieces to start, those content pieces could amplify for your business for years to come if you think through them strategically.