Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
How to generate leads through content marketing @Scoopit
How to generate leads through content marketing
A guide to convince you that content marketing is vital to generate leads, help you find the right format and measure the results of your efforts, and more.
an eBook by
How to generate leads through content marketing @Scoopit 2
Table of contents
1Content marketing is the fuel of your lead generation machine
2Which content marketing format performs best: long-form or short-form content?
3How to measure the impact of content marketing on lead generation
4Why content curation can help you generate more leads
3
Content marketing is the fuel of your lead generation machine
How to generate leads through content marketing @Scoopit
Image by Kim Seng
How to generate leads through content marketing @Scoopit 4
Why content marketing helps lead generation: experts’ opinions
The key to content marketing success is building a loyal audience over time (subscribers).
Once subscribers are built, that becomes amazingly fertile ground
for lead generation. Actually, it may be the best way.
Joe Pulizzi Founder of Content Marketing Institute
Winner of the 2014 John Caldwell Lifetime Achievement Award
@JoePulizzi
“
Content marketing is the foundation of modern online marketing campaigns and lead generation. Great content
builds brands, increases conversion rates, drives qualified leads, fuels social
media campaigns, and earns inbound links, improving SEO.
Jayson DeMers Founder & CEO of AudienceBloom, a content marketing & SEO agency.
Writer for Forbes, HuffingtonPost, Inc.com, entrepreneur.com and
more
@JaysondeMers
“
How to generate leads through content marketing @Scoopit 5
54%+ Inbound marketing delivers 54% more leads into the marketing funnel than traditional outbound marketing.
2 data points to convince you to invest in content marketing for lead generation purposes
758xYou have 758x more chances of closing
an inbound lead (that came to you through your content) than an
outbound lead (that you went to get with telemarketing, cold calling, etc.)
Source: State of Inbound 2014
How to generate leads through content marketing @Scoopit 6
If you don’t believe industry experts, try your industry peers
2014 2015
74%83%
Source: Content Marketing Benchmarks study for 2015 and 2014 by CMI and Marketing Profs.
% of marketers saying lead generation is a key objective of their content marketing
How to generate leads through content marketing @Scoopit 7
80% of your content should be focused on helping others
80%20%interesting content
about others
promotional content about your brand
You need to have content for your audience, distribute it well, and
optimize your lead generation process to convert visitors into leads.
How to generate leads through content marketing @Scoopit 8
But 100% of your content should be optimized for conversion
Content Hub meant to delight your
audience
created content curated content
contributors’ content
Distribution
social media email newsletter
other blogs content platforms
Landing pages
gated high value content (offered for
contact info) product landing pages
with detailed pitch
posting scheduling
repurposing
click-through
CTA to landing pages
How to generate leads through content marketing @Scoopit 9
13 forms of content you can start with today!
webinar
powerpoint/ keynote
slideshare infographic
video tutorial
survey
curated content 3rd-party blog Quora Q&A statistics tweets …
internal data case study
podcast
newsletter
eBook/white paper
blog post
visual content text content
How to generate leads through content marketing @Scoopit 10
And 15 efficient ideas to repurpose content for Marketing ROI
webinar
powerpoint/ keynote
slideshare infographic
video tutorial
survey
curated content 3rd-party blog Quora Q&A statistics tweets …
internal data case study
podcast
newsletter
eBook/white paper
blog post
visual content text content
11
Which content marketing format performs best:
long-form or short-form content?
How to generate leads through content marketing @Scoopit
Image by Official U.S. Navy Page
How to generate leads through content marketing @Scoopit 12
We didn’t know which format to focus on, so we analyzed the ROI of our content produced from Q1’14 to Q1’15.
If you have limited resources, you’re
unlikely to be good at covering all these formats and many content marketing experts like Joe Pulizzi
recommend focusing on one or a few formats that work best for you.
Looking at ROI is a great way to decide on which format to focus. With lead generation being the
main measure of returns for B2B marketers, we’ve heard various
arguments on the topic can be summarized as follows:
➡ Long form content is more costly,
but generates more leads per piece of content since it can be gated and has a longer lasting
impact.
➡Short form content is more
ephemeral but generates leads on an ongoing basis.
So the question is: is it better to
generate a few leads every day through a dynamic blog or to
generate a massive amount of leads every month or quarter through a solid white paper or ebook?
There are so many content marketing formats that it can be hard to decide which to focus on. Each format has its merits but they don’t come at the same cost. On one hand you have long form,
epic content that can take days/weeks to produce. On the other you have short form content such as
blog posts or curated content for which production cost can be a few
hours or even a few minutes.
How to generate leads through content marketing @Scoopit 13
Formats used and cost per format in hours
Here is our cost breakdown per form of content we produced:
volume cost per piece (hours)
total cost (hours)
blog posts 121 4 484
curated content posts 798 0.33 263
white papers 3 120 360
eBooks 1 180 180
Blog posts: typically 500-1500 word pieces, focused on giving actionable recommendations to our readers. They usually require some research work which consists of curating experience from other marketers’ or influencers’ insights or collecting data to support our points.
Curated content posts: we add our own insight to the articles we curate to give context to our audience. Our insights are typically 200 words, much shorter than our blog posts but we also regularly turn a curated piece of content into a full blown post by adding a longer insight of 500 words or more.
White papers: we surveyed SMBs business owners and marketers by either tapping in our user base (more than 2 million users) or using services like Ask Your Target Market to reach out beyond our user base. Then we added our own analysis and design work to end up with a typical white paper of a dozen pages.
eBook: counting 88 pages, it’s probably bigger than most eBooks marketers typically publish but it probably cost the same as we were able to repurpose a lot of content and also were lucky to have 15 of the best content marketing experts contribute and help (thanks, friends!).
NOTE we also produced videos and
slideshares and decided not to include them in this study because
although they definitely had a role in our content strategy and indirectly contributed to generating leads,
there was no easy way to measure their ROI.
Explanation of each form of content:
How to generate leads through content marketing @Scoopit 14
Traffic comes mostly from short form content
cost in hours
42%58%
short form (blog posts & curated content)long form (white papers & eBooks)
traffic
15%
85%
46% more traffic per hour invested
How to generate leads through content marketing @Scoopit 15
Qualified leads come mostly from short form content
leads = contacts
46%54%
short form (blog posts & curated content)long form (white papers & eBooks)
qualified leads = demo
19%
81%
Long form content generates of course a lot more leads as it’s gated behind a form. But as leads are not qualified leads, it’s interesting to look at the qualified lead split (lead that converted into a demo)
How to generate leads through content marketing @Scoopit 16
Conclusion: qualified leads per hour of producing content
Long form content Short form content
3x
Blog posts and curated posts generated 3x more leads per hour invested. “ Blog posts outperform white papers and eBooks every time. They have
a more powerful ability to drive traffic and fill the funnel. Why?
• Posts are more likely to rank in search engines, because they contain metadata (titles, descriptions) and they have a specific URL.
• Posts are more easily shared. • Analytics are easier: since you can’t track how much time a visitor
spends on an ebook (or other Pdf document), you'll never get data
on which content contributed the most to lead generation.
You can be very successful in content marketing without longer form
of content, but I don't know of any content marketers who succeed without blogging.
Andy Crestodina Principal, Strategic Director, Orbit Media
@crestodina
How to generate leads through content marketing @Scoopit 17
What to consider before choosing between long and short form
• What is your priority in the coming months: top of the funnel generation or activation and nurturing of existing leads?
• Long form content can be gated but it needs to be solid and unique. Blog posts are easier to get started for a lot of marketers.
• For most marketers where finding even 4 hours to create a blog post is difficult, content curation provides a much easier way to maintain a content hub, which – in our case – is the most efficient at generating leads.
• Keeping track of your time when producing content is important: approximations are ok, having measures will help you experiment and learn from them.
• Measuring results is critical: make sure you use analytics that help you connect content traffic and leads.
These results highlight the following key factors to be considered when making a decision:
“ Blogs are the best way to generate leads.
While ebooks and white papers also play a
role in lead generation, blogs are by far more effective for one reason. You post them more
often. They have a cumulative effect. The more you post, the more traffic you get. The more
traffic you get, the more people you have to
convert to leads. Just make sure your opt-in forms are clear and abundant.
Stephanie Frasco Clegg VP of Social Media, ConvertWithContent
@stephaniefrasco
18
How to measure the impact of content marketing on lead
generation
How to generate leads through content marketing @Scoopit
Image by Therese Tjernström
How to generate leads through content marketing @Scoopit 19
3 tools with each pros and cons
For a detailed step-by-step methodology to build your reports for each tool and the explanation of each pros and cons, read the full article here.
We first started to use Google Analytics which is a great and powerful tool if you know how to use it.
We’re also using HubSpot which has great reporting capabilities.
Eventually we decided to build lead generation analytics in Scoop.it Content Director as we felt something easier and more directly connected to content was needed.
20How to generate leads through content marketing @Scoopit
pros cons
free time to set-up
flexibility attribution model complexity
no granular data
21How to generate leads through content marketing @Scoopit
pros cons
Choice of attribution models Cost
Ready-made reports No easy way to zoom in on content
Conversion is tracked over multiple sessions Not that flexible
Granular data per contact
22How to generate leads through content marketing @Scoopit
pros cons
Simplicity No granular data
Content-centric No custom reports
Conversion is tracked over multiple sessions
A simple (but fair and powerful) attribution model
23
Why content curation can help you generate more leads
How to generate leads through content marketing @Scoopit
Image by Steffen Voß
How to generate leads through content marketing @Scoopit 24
Your content is 4x to 7x less trusted than third-party content
This study from the CMO Council proves that using third-party content intelligently becomes critical to win over prospects.
What types of content do you most trust and value?% of
respondents
Professional association research reports/white papers
67%
Industry group research reports/white papers 50%
Customer case study 48%
Analyst reports/white papers 44%
Independant product reviews 40%
Vendor-created content (white papers, etc.) 9%
Source: CMO Council - Better Lead Yield in the Content Marketing Field
How to generate leads through content marketing @Scoopit 25
Content curation is something you’ve been doing all your life
Content curation not only alleviates the
pressure of having to devote valuable time to creating original content, but it
also adds credibility and third party
validations to your efforts.
Jason Miller Senior Content Marketing Manager, LinkedIn
@jasonmillerca
“ You’ve basically been doing content curation all your life: you find out something on a topic you care about - either reading about it,
hearing about it, seeing on tv, etc.
At some point, you will either quote the
source of your information to strengthen your argument during a debate, or simply use the information
as a starting point for a discussion.
In any case, you might add your
insight to the information: develop a part, add more data from other sources, debate on the subject, etc.
That’s content curation.
In my case, I read articles everyday because I want to know what’s going
on in my field.
When I like an article, sometimes I’ll
find myself thinking “hey, I have something I’d like to add to this piece“, or “Hmm, I’d love to develop
this part of the article“.
In practice, it looks like this: start your
blog post by quoting a sentence or a paragraph of the article you’re curating, attribute the source and then put your
insight. You can write as little as 200 words and as much a 2,000 if you
have a lot to say.
How to generate leads through content marketing @Scoopit 26
Extract the most meaningful quote from the original piece and link to it in a visible way.
It’s a visual Web: start telling the story from the image by adding a text overlay. Curated content shared with an image on social media generates 88% more clicks.
Add Call-to-Actions to your posts to convert your readers into subscribers or leads.
Use a title that will make your target audience want to click. Present the curated piece in the right context for them.
The 7 attributes of highly efficient curated posts
Make it easy for your readers to re-share your curated posts.
Show thought leadership by annotating the curated piece with your own insight. This added context will drive engagement and SEO (~40% of traffic to Scoop.it pages come from Google Search).
Categorize your curated posts to make them easier to index and archived.
3
How to generate leads through content marketing @Scoopit 27
Curated posts can even rank higher than original contentG
oogl
e Ra
nkin
gs
102nd result
1st result
10th result
curated links with auto-generated
summaries
curated links with 200 word annotation
curated links with excerpt of the original article and 200 word
annotation.
Source: SEO-Friendly content curation in a post-wanda world
Ranking of curated posts vs the original post for the same keyword
1
10
4th result
original post
How to generate leads through content marketing @Scoopit 28
50% more leads with content curation for $1 spent
Our comparative study of 550 SMBs using a mix of content creation and curation showed that the same dollar invested in content curation generated 50% more leads than when invested in content creation.
How to generate leads through content marketing @Scoopit 29
3,000+ SMBs use Scoop.it Content Director to blog consistently in less than 30 minutes per day
BOOK A DEMO NOW!
So if you too would like to learn how you can blog consistently in less
than 30 minutes per day using Scoop it Content Director,
