No matter who you are or what you’re selling, your business always has a need for lead generation. Aside from bringing awareness to your brand, your lead generation efforts help you nurture your prospects and provide your sales team with qualified contacts — and ultimately, it’s one of the most important tactics for consistently achieving your revenue goals.

But time is money, and if you’re spending time creating content, it better be bringing in the desired results. So often we go about a strategy thinking we know exactly what we’re doing, only to find out that the methods we’re utilizing aren’t actually correct for driving the results we need. That’s why it’s important that you use the right content to generate leads, and that prospects at all stages of the buyer’s journey have access to content that answers their questions and nudges them closer to a sale.

Below, we’ll share three types of content that are specifically driven to help you improve your lead generation efforts, plus the essential tools for maximizing their performance.

3 Types of Lead Generation Content

Not all content is geared toward the same purpose. And while any piece of content that you create has the potential to draw in more leads, some formats serve that purpose better than others. Here are three types of content that work wonders when it comes to lead generation, and which should definitely be incorporated into your lead strategy.

1. Gated Content

Gated content refers to any content that requires the sharing of information before it can be accessed. For the purposes of lead generation, that’s usually a name, an email address, and sometimes a phone number, as well as an opt-in to receive email marketing.

The purpose of gated content — which can be whitepapers, ebooks, infographics, guides, checklists, tutorials, webinars, or anything else that requires information to access — is to exchange valuable information for a contact. The topics you cover in your gated content should be specifically geared toward high-quality leads and should provide more value than the content you share for free through other channels. It’s a mutually beneficial tradeoff between brand and consumer, with very real benefits for engagement and sales.

2. Landing Pages

A landing page is a standalone page driven toward a specific purpose. It’s distinct from your homepage and other main pages, and may not even be on the same domain — though it’s branded effectively to convey your identity and purpose.

Landing pages are essentially the gate to your gated content. They’re also the entry points for other types of lead generating activities, like contests and special offers. It’s also vital to include a form where people can provide their information before moving on to the content or promotion they came for.

Using landing page best practices ensures you’re optimizing their capabilities and generating as many leads as possible. Be sure that there’s something on the other side of the form that merits a prospect sharing their contact information with you, and that can’t be accessed in some other way. Don’t forget to include an opt-in box too for your email marketing, since you don’t want to turn leads off by contacting them without first getting their express permission.

3. Pop-Ups

Lead generation is all about making it as easy as possible for potential customers to connect with you. This is where pop-ups come in handy. When used during key touchpoints on your site, pop-ups grab attention at just the right time and ask for contact information.  It could be a prompt to sign-up for your e-newsletter or schedule a demo or a portal to a landing page. Whatever your intention with your pop-up, the main goal is always the same: get eyes on the prize at the right moment, and turn a casual visitor into a lead.

Getting The Most Out Of Your Content

The right content is nothing without the right tools to enable it. Are you putting these essentials to work for your lead generation efforts?

  • CRM. A CRM helps you track and log information that you gather about your prospects and use it to create more targeted content and deliver more qualified leads to your sales team. Integrate it with the rest of your marketing tools to learn everything you need to know to consistently increase your lead flow.
  • Marketing automation. Automate your marketing efforts to better segment your prospects and send leads down the funnel in the most efficient way possible. You’ll end up with more engaged leads, plus less time wasted trying the wrong tactics with certain audience segments.

Content is integral to any lead generation strategy. Make sure you’re doing everything you can to get the most out of it, and then sit back and watch the leads roll in.

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by Benchmark Team