How to Use Content Marketing to Drive Leads

Content marketing is among the most cost-effective marketing strategies since it drives 3 times more leads than outbound marketing while being 62% cheaper. However, this stat applies only to superb content which adds value to its readers. In other words, by generating subpar content, you’ll fail to drive leads, not to mention that your reputation and authority will be damaged. The thing is that creating useful content which will attract your audience and send it to your website isn’t exactly easy. So, here are a couple of tips on how to craft blog posts and articles which will bring you quality traffic.

Avoid grammar and spelling mistakes

Maybe this seems like a completely redundant piece of advice, but grammar, spelling, and style mistakes in blog posts and articles are more common than you think. Sometimes people just don’t spot errors in their blog posts mainly because they proofread the content immediately after completing it. Besides that, a Cambridge University research study has shown that the human brain can understand the meaning of a word even if the letters inside of it are jumbled. It’s enough that the first and the last letter are correct, which means that the chances are you won’t be able to identify your every spelling mistake.  But, luckily there are tools such as Writer and Ginger that can help you make your content impeccable.

Running your content through Writer’s free online grammar check is so helpful and easy, it’s guaranteed to become a part of your writing process. Simply open your web browser and copy and paste your work into the text box provided. The advanced AI will pick up any mistakes your own brain may have missed. The best thing about this tool is that it is free to use on your web browser and does not require you to download any software. The tool won’t just edit what you have already written, it will also suggest ways in which you can improve the content. It does this by proposing words and phrases that could be more suitable than the ones you are using and by highlighting where to include sentence breaks for enhanced readability. No matter how good of a writer you consider yourself to be, these tools will give you a much-needed advantage in this competitive content marketing space. 

Find out who your target audience is

Before you create your content marketing strategy, you first need to establish who you will be talking to. This means that you need to create your ideal customer profile. This fictionalized representation of your ideal customer will help you understand your readers and their pain points. In order to find out as much as possible about your target audience, check out industry forums, social media groups, or motivate your existing audience to earn money online by filling out surveys . This way your content will be relevant and interesting as it will address some of the issues your readers are facing and solve them. The only way to drive more leads with your content is to understand your audience and try to help them genuinely.

Take advantage of guest posting

If your blog is still young and you need to spread the word about it and attract visitors, then guest posting is one of the best ways to do so. This practice is excellent for getting backlinks and boosting your SEO rankings. To cut the long story short, when you have your blog post featured on a popular blog, you’ll undoubtedly attract some of the traffic towards your own website. Besides, if your articles are published on respectable, authoritative websites, you’ll build your reputation more easily. Start by researching websites from your niche which aren’t your direct competitors, and offer them some of your finest blog posts.

Craft your headlines carefully

On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. This famous quote by David Ogilvy emphasizes the importance of a well-written headline because if your headline is generic and bland, people won’t even bother to give you a chance and read your article. In order to make your headlines more appealing, use numbers, question words and explain what your reader can expect to find in a blog post or paragraph. Intriguing and provocative headlines work but only if you keep your promise and deliver.

Make your content shareable

Since social media plays an important role in promoting your content and expanding your reach, it’s essential to optimize your every blog post or any other piece of content for it. For example, highlight takeaways and make them easily shareable on social media with just one click. Visually oriented content is the type which draws the most attention, so it’s a good idea to create videos and infographics. The latter are liked and shared three times more than any other content on social media. In order to be shareable, content also needs to be inspirational, helpful, and topical while striving to make a change and improve readers’ lives.

Visual Content

The era of text is dying, online as well as offline. Taking over its place is visual content.

Text-based content will always play an integral part in marketing, but to set yourself apart and to attract and retain the attention of your audience, visual content must play a pivotal role in all your efforts.

The following article includes all types of visual content that you can use in your blog post to make them more engaging and valuable. It includes images, videos, diagrams, infographics, screenshots, gifs, memes, comics, and presentations for creating more engaging blog posts. Also, filled with useful resources and statistics related to visual content.

Use repurposing

The benefits of this tactic are numerous. By repurposing your content you can update and upgrade it, as well as give it some new features and values. For example, you can convert your blog posts into videos or infographics, thus making them more appealing to people who are too busy to read them. Also, after a couple of months or years, your content needs a fresh twist, which is why revisiting your old blog post and discussing the topic from a new perspective is a great idea.

All these methods will help you attract highly qualified traffic to your website and boost your conversion rates.