The starting point of all great things is a plan. The same can be said of leads. You are assured to quadruple your leads when you have a plan; in our case, a content marketing plan that has been crafted to best practices. However, most companies don’t have a content marketing plan.
This article will consider how to write a content marketing plan that quadruples your leads as quickly as possible.
Before we get to the gist of this article, we have to define a lead. It could be anything that shows a person has interests in your product or service. This could be:
- An opt in
- Survey completion
- Webinar Registration
- Download
- Phone call
- Text
The objective of content marketing plan should be generating more of these leads. For example, your aim could be to increase the number of people who are making direct calls to ask about your product.
Leads can be measured at certain intervals by use of certain tools. For example, phone calls can be measured by the number of calls per day or week. The measured value is recorded for further reference.
Defining Objectives and Goals
Define your objectives and goals
While crafting a marketing plan that will generate more leads, the initial thing is to come up with its objectives. They may include:
- Creating better support
- Retaining more prospects and clients
- Commanding a greater audience
- Establishing greater authority
Ask yourself what are your aims are for developing the content marketing plan. This will help you greatly in the deducing your objectives and goals which are essential strategies taken to generate more leads.
Identify Your Target Audience
There always has to be a target whenever you are writing content. This has a direct bearing on the success of your marketing strategy. When identifying your audience, there are modalities such as:
- Creating a profile for your audience
- Creating a buyer persona. This person is basically a profile of how a prospective and actual customer will look like. It also encompasses the type of content that these customers relate with and subscribe to. A persona gives a face, a name, and motivations to your customers or target market.
This will help you greatly in addressing the specific target audience. It is important to gather volumes of information about your target audience. Do not miss these aspects:
- What your audience relates to in terms of content. Try and know the source of the content, the length and even the tone at which it is presented
- Where most of the targets spend most of their time. This could either be:
- Blogs
- Social sites
- Web forums
- The best way to reach the target audience. Assuming that you have identified their online habits, you can choose various means of outreach. They may include online adverts and ads, social media posts or email marketing.
Devise a Content Management System (CMS)
Management of content is essential if it is poised to generate more leads. This calls for having a system in place that oversees the following three aspects of content:
- Content creation
- Content publication
- Content analytics
This calls for a content management system that is able to handle all these aspects in a central place. A classic example is of HubSpot. It lets you do the following in one central place:
- Plan
- Produce
- Publish
- Measure
Another popular option is CoSchedule which has a lot of utility in managing content.
Determine the Type of Content You Want to Produce
There are various types of content of which all are equally compelling. They come in various forms and formats. They include:
Blog Posts
A blog post is typically content that has been posted on a website. They are posted on a regular basis so as to attract new visitors. For them to be effective, they ought to be inspiring, interesting and valuable so as to capture the interest of the reader. The reader might also share it over social platforms hence increasing its readership across websites. The more readers it has, the more leads it generates.
However, blog posts should be written with reference to specific guidelines. Check the length/word count. Blog posts with 1000-2000 words in length are better. However, this is not an imperative. You can try longer or shorter lengths to gauge what your audience prefers.
EBooks
They are considered an effective lead generation tool. Prospects get to download them after they have filled a lead form. The prospects usually leave their contact information so as to complete the lead form. As a form of content, EBooks are usually longer. They are in-depth and usually cover more subjects. They are published less often than blog posts. They are the next thing that a prospect will ask for or look for after reading a blog post.
Images and Infographics
Use Images to liven up your content
People respond more favorably to visual data as compared to textual data. In fact, visual data has a far reaching impact than blocks of words. Visual data conveys messages better and is more likely to be remembered than textual data. You can utilize images and infographics in your content to create more leads.
Online Videos
As mentioned earlier, visual data is more attractive and sends more information than mere text. Videos are part of this. They are quite engaging. Their value is that they can be shared across various content mediums and websites. Presently, they can be shared on major social networking sites. Thus, they are best placed to generate leads owing to their appeal and wide outreach. However, they require enormous amounts of time and resources in order for them to have their alluring value.
The Headline Counts
Most people decide whether to read an article or content based on the headline. This is the first thing that the reader meets. In fact, statistics show that 80% of people are likely to read the headline of a piece of content. This is a substantial number from which you could generate positive leads. This calls for better headlines for your content in order to generate more leads. A good headline has some curious element to it. This curiosity will stimulate the readers to find out what your content is about. This might lead to opt-ins to your emails or even downloading your EBooks or even a direct call.
Distribution Plans
You might have some good content, but the reason why it does not generate any leads would be tied to your content distribution plan. You should have a plan to ‘market your marketing’ so to speak. This implies creating a plan of how each type of content can reach the target audience. You can consider the following distribution plans:
- Guest posts
- Paid search
- Paid advertising
- Advocacy programs
For each content, choose a viable strategy. For example, a blog could be promoted via LinkedIn whereas a webinar could be promoted via pay per click ads.
Avenues in Which You Can Get Great Content
Creating lead generating content requires a lot of research. Some sites could be of great utility in getting research content.
Quora
How cool is a tool whereby you run questions and answers just pop out? This is Quora, and you are best placed to get deep insights on content from this site. It works like Yahoo! Answers only that it’s better.
Google is your friend
Google is no doubt a household name. You can literally get all types of content on this site even a thesis statement definition. In order to refine your search for content, make a point of using keywords that relate to your preferred content.
Conclusion
The above aspects are essential in creating a content marketing plan that quadruples your leads. It is indeed a lot of work, but the benefits are immense when you have more leads which result in a larger prospect and client base.