B2B leads are being generated more and more with content marketing strategies, according to a new report produced by Starfleet Media (download required).
What I found interesting when reading over an executive summary is generating leads - and better leads - ranks much higher than wanting to improve search engine rankings and educating the target audience.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing, since attracting more highly focused, targeted leads is a better, more specific goal than simply setting up a KPI or goal to "increase traffic to our site" or "get more video views."
Raising brand visibility awareness is also cited as an important reason to do content marketing for B2B leads. Most of us are comfortable going to established brands, whether they're widely known or highly thought of regionally or locally.
The types of content used are also interesting. The majority of those surveyed use case studies and client success stories as the basis of their content marketing strategy. Much further down the list are third party webinar events and other videos, as well as buyer's guides, and coming in at the bottom, infographics.
This tells me that long-form, written content that goes in-depth to demonstrate expertise while not selling directly is still the way to go for developing your content marketing strategy with pure lead generation in mind.
On the downside, very few marketers (18%) say their content marketing has been very successful. 27% report no success.
It's not enough to brainstorm a topic and write about it; the key is to understand your marketing persona(s). Do you know who needs your services and products the most? Can you tell someone right now, these demographics about your preferred client:
- Gender
- Age
- Company Position
- Geographic Location
- Years Experience In Position/Industry
If you don't know these factors, along with any others that are important to your specific business, trying to generate B2B leads with content that's just written for the sake of creating and publishing content in your industry will fall short.
Measured Results Marketing knows how to develop the marketing personas you need to target, as well as proven content marketing strategies that resonate with your prospect's pain points. We also can guide you through the lead scoring process, so that you can line up the right marketing qualified lead with your content to pass along to your sales staff.
Call us at 571-606-3106 or look at our other services for improving your marketing and sales programs.
