How does content marketing generate leads?

There are many ways to generate leads for your business, but content marketing is one of the most effective. If you’re looking for a strategy that can help your company grow, take a look at this article to find out how it works and why it’s so successful.

How does content marketing generate leads? Table of contents

1. The definition of content marketing
2. Why content marketing is used 
   i. Loyalty
   ii. Sales
   iii. Costs
3. Tips and tricks
   i. Buyer personas
   ii. Facebook ads
   iii. Content syndication
   iv. Surveys
4. Optimising SEO

How does content marketing generate leads? The definition of content marketing

The Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as…

‘A strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.’

The benefits of this strategy include more visitors to your website, improved rankings in search engines and ultimately more business.

Many people wonder how content marketing actually generates leads for their business. The best way to answer this question is by explaining what content marketing is and why it works so well as a lead generation tool. We’ll also take a look at the difference between quality and quantity of keywords, and provide some tips and tricks on how you can identify your target market and ultimately generate leads. Read on to find out more…

How does content marketing generate leads? Why content marketing is used

Often thought to be the future of marketing strategies, content marketing is used to generate leads by some of the world’s biggest organisations. That’s not all – small businesses are also utilising quality content in all forms of marketing, including social media marketing, SEO, PR, inbound marketing and more. This is for three predominant reasons:

• To increase sales
• To save on costs
• To encourage loyalty of customers

Content marketing has been used by big names such as Coca-Cola, Nike and Apple for several years. They have realised that the best way to build customer loyalty is through the provision of quality content, which educates their customers and builds trust in the company. It has led to higher customer retention rates, better relationships with current customers, and increased sales due to improved exposure to Google. In other words, the importance of quality content can’t be overstated.

You can find out more about SEO, inbound marketing and social media on the Copify blog!

How does content marketing generate leads? Tips and tricks

Lead generation is integral for businesses, as the aim is to ultimately convert leads into customers/sales. Below, we have provided some of our best tips and tricks for encouraging leads, identifying your ideal target market, and assessing your business prospects.

Tailor your content to your ideal customer by creating a buyer persona

While it’s important to encourage as many leads as possible, it has to be the right leads for your business. You want to avoid wasting resources – that’s why it’s useful to create a buyer persona. A buyer persona is a profile of your ideal customer, including information such as demographics and interests. You should use this information to tailor the content you produce and maximise the number of leads it generates. For example, if you’re targeting females aged 25-34, consider using research on topics that they’re interested in or provide value. Your buyer persona might include:

• Name
• Age
• Income
• Gender
• Solutions

If you need some assistance, the Facebook Audience Insights tool can be a great way to identify who your ideal target market may be.

Use Facebook ads

Thanks to Facebook, attracting targeted leads has never been easier. Similar to a buyer persona, Facebook will use its advanced technology to predict and understand its users’ buying habits. Luckily for you, this means they also know your target leads’ preferences and needs. We recommend utilising this insight by running advertising campaigns. It’s important to do this the right way – if you need some help, check out Hubspot’s step by step guide to running Facebook ads.

Make use of content syndication

Content syndication is…

‘The process of having your content on third-party sites that are more popular than yours and reach a much bigger audience.’

It’s a win-win – your content gets exposed to an ideal audience, and the third-party website receives free content. If you use something like Netline your lead generation is even performance-based, so you’ll only be charged for the leads that are generated.

You may also want to consider guest blogging. This way, you are still collaborating with other sites that may attract attention from your potential audience. Start by doing your research – find out who produces popular podcasts or blogs within your target market. Then, you can reach out with your ideas. As long as your guest blogger sees a mutual benefit, there’s a good chance they’ll be happy to work alongside your business.

Create surveys or quizzes

As we have established above, there’s no point in trying to generate leads until you understand your market. Surveys and quizzes are a fun, simple and effective way to learn everything you need to know about your leads. You can also use this opportunity to assess any issues with your business prospects.

How does content market generate leads? Optimising SEO

If your aim is absolute online success, you’ll need to optimise SEO as well as content marketing strategies – in fact, these always go hand in hand. Keyword research is essential for SEO, and it’s important to make use of these throughout your content, ensuring your website will rank higher on Google and other search engines. However, you must find a balance! Nobody wants to read content that is overwhelmed with keywords – never over-optimise, and always make sure you are producing quality and engaging content to attract your leads.

If you require some SEO training, we’ve got you covered! Find some of the top SEO courses in our SEO training for copywriters blog.

Hire a professional for effective content marketing

How does content marketing generate leads? Well, the easiest way to produce quality content and effectively generate leads is to hire an industry professional.

✏️ At Copify, we deliver exceptional content written by qualified and approved copywriters, from blog posts to generate your initial leads to web pages designed to drive your sales.

Header image: Campaign Creators

Embedded images: Glenn Carstens-Peters, Melanie Deziel, Stephen Phillips