Content will contribute to lead generation

Content marketing is one of today’s most powerful digital marketing strategies for businesses of all sizes. However, when developing your content marketing strategy, it can be challenging to decide which types of content marketing will best suit your business and help you grow. Around 88% of B2B companies use content marketing as part of their integrated marketing strategy.

Once you’ve decided what content you are going to create, no matter how great it is, it might never be seen if its not promoted and shared. Creating content can be time consuming, which means promotion is critical to the success of every piece you create as well as the contribution it makes to your overall business growth and lead generation.

The more views your content has, the more likely you are to engage with the reader, and get one step closer to making a sale. To make sure your content gets seen and has a real chance of generating leads for your business, here are some tactics that won’t cost you a penny.

1. Share content via email campaigns

Email campaigns are still top of the pile when it comes to promoting your content and getting engagement.  Use your list of email subscribers to share content, but do consider your target audience and make sure what you are sending them is relevant to them. Email is the 3rd most influential source of information for B2B audiences according to Wordstream.

Email subscribers are three times more likely to share content on social media than leads who have come in through other channels, according to QuickSprout. The clickthrough rate of your content is also likely to be significantly higher than through other channels such as twitter.

Once you have created your new piece of content, paste a snippet of it into your email and add a link to read more. Include a subject line with an interesting statistic or quick fact from your content, and use A/B testing to see which email versions achieve more opens, reads and clickthrough’s.

2. Post on LinkedIn, Twitter and other social channels

LinkedIn remains a key channel to promote B2B content, with 94% of B2B marketers using LinkedIn to distribute B2B content, according to stats from LinkedIn. They also suggest that the average decision maker reads 10 pieces of content before finalising their purchase decision.

Do the same on twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and other social channels which are appropriate for both B2B and B2C promotion, dependent on your target audience.

These are free routes, but of course you can further promote content with paid promotions.

social sharing

Content sharing

3. Create an infographic to go with your content

Visual content really does works because our brains process visuals 60,000 times faster than text. Infographics are relatively easy to make and they can immediately boost your content. They can increase traffic by 12%, according to Demand Gen Report, and they are shared and liked on social media three times more than any other types of content.

4. Include a link in a popup box on your site

When people visit your website, prompt them to click on your content through a popup. Why not use a question to entice visitors to click on it. Control the pop-up appearance and frequency as you don’t want to affect your visitors impression Include a question about your content that will entice people to click on it.

A popup must be eye-catching to be valuable. There are a variety of options and plug-ins you can use to create different types of popups, including entry popups, which show up when someone enters your site; scrolling popups, which appear when people start scrolling down your page; and exit popups, which appear when visitors are about to leave your page. Experiment and see what works.

5. Ask employees to share

When you promote content, you’re likely to be sharing on LinkedIn or on twitter via your company’s page. To maximize the content’s reach, ask your employees to share it. Make it easy for your staff and sales team to get involved by sending out a link to the content and encourage sharing. Perhaps make some suggestions of what they can say.

6. Create interesting graphics and memes

Many of us are time poor, so make it easy for people who are too busy to read text content, or maybe they’re just visual learners. To appeal to a broader audience, produce engaging graphics and memes based on your content, then share them on visual social media platforms, such as Instagram and Pinterest.

Repeat…

Creating content can take time, so don’t forget to re-use and repurpose your content by continuing to promote and share it to maximise the results over a longer period. Review and revisit your content on a regular basis, and don’t be afraid to update a piece or turn it into something your produce annually.

It isn’t enough to simply just create great content to bring traffic to your site, you have to promote your content. The internet is a crowded place and while your content might be amazing there’s a lot of competition and content out there waiting to be discovered.

These 6 easy promotional tactics will help ensure your audience see your content and help you maximise the  return on investment (ROI) from the content you have created. If you need some help getting the most from your content get in touch hello@intelligentmarketing.uk.com