Content marketing is the creation of online materials that have value to your customers but don’t explicitly sell your products or services. It is an established way to put your brand in front of potential customers, exhibit thought leadership, and increase your web presence.
Like all marketing, content marketing works best with a strategy. To fully realize the benefits of increased web traffic and lead generation that can translate into new business opportunities, make sure to have a well-thought-out plan.
Content Marketing For Lead Generation
When it comes to lead generation, content marketing is powerful: it generates over three times as many leads as outbound marketing and costs 62% less. (Bloggingwizard.com) A standard marketing practice is to designate 25-30% of your total marketing budget to content marketing. (ActualTech)
To produce high-quality content, consider your target audience and their common questions, needs, challenges, and preferences. Using your content to address their pain points and interests will gain their trust, potentially turning a first-time visitor to your website into a lead. Sharing your expertise begins a relationship with that potential customer and encourages them to turn to you for guidance or services.
The more your audience engages with your content, the more educated they become about your brand and how it differentiates you from competitors.
Content Marketing for Increased Web Traffic Needs SEO Strategy
When potential clients search for information, your company should appear high in the search results. Search engines like Google favor fresh, relevant, and high-quality content, so by regularly producing that, your website’s search engine rankings will improve. Yet to rank high in these searches, good Search Engine Optimization (SEO) practices are a must.
Good SEO means your content is written with strong use of relevant keywords in the title and again in subheadings and text. Use compelling meta descriptions, and ensure your content is easy to share. The easier it is for people to find you, the more traffic will be organically directed to your website.
In fact, distribution of your content should be taking just as much—or more—of your time and energy as content creation. The digital landscape is incredibly crowded, so your content should be widely available across your website, ads, social media, email newsletters, and other channels.
Sharing Content on Social Media Increases Web Traffic
Get your content circulating by sharing it on the social media platforms where your audience is active. Don’t limit yourself to blog posts. Use a mix of formats, such as videos, ebooks, infographics, photos, and podcasts. If appropriate, host webinars or online workshops to showcase your expertise and engage with your audience in real-time. These can live on YouTube and be shared again in emails or on social media. One of our clients regularly posts short videos of helpful information on their social media, and it has been a very successful driver of engagement.
Interactive content is very shareable, so try some quizzes, surveys, polls, or assessments to engage your audience and collect valuable information. Posting your content—or small snippets of your content—regularly can help reach new customers, particularly if that content gets shared.
Think about which social channels work best for your business and study what works on those platforms. TikTok requires a very different kind of post than what might work well on LinkedIn.
Optimize Your Website to Capture the Leads
Once your content has brought a potential customer to your website, make it easy for them to take action or convert. To do this, your website needs easy-to-glean information, clear and compelling calls to action (CTAs), and minimized form fields. You can use pop-ups or sidebars with forms to tempt the visitor with some valuable gated content such as discounts, downloadable guides, checklists, exclusive reports, or templates, in exchange for their contact information. This is a great way to nurture leads and build a database of potential clients who are interested in your services.
Content Marketing That Nurtures Leads
These leads will be a good base for ongoing email campaigns. You can serve the leads even more valuable and relevant content, and then encourage them through your strategic sales funnel. Segment your email campaign to target leads with personalized content that is curated just for their interests.
Refine Your Content for Increased Website Traffic and Lead Generation
The success of your content marketing can be measured by tracking website visits, analyzing user behavior, and assessing the effectiveness of different types of content. Email marketing analytics will give you useful information about which content types and topics generate the most leads. Based on the findings, your strategy can be adjusted accordingly.
Improve Your Content Marketing with Trillion
To increase your web traffic and generate leads, consistently publish all types of valuable content and successfully employ SEO and social media channels to ensure it finds its audience. This is a simple strategy but not always an easy one! If you need help creating or promoting your content, reach out to Trillion. Our creative team of writers, designers and marketers can help get you started on a successful path of growing your customer base through content marketing. Contact us or call 908.219.4703 to get started.
