Content Marketing Myth 3

No, more content does not mean more leads. Your content needs to be funnel-focussed to do that!

If you thought publishing a lot of content was going to get you results, bummer!

Traffic, yes – maybe.

Leads? No.

If I gave you 20 content pieces to read in a week, out of the blue, would you consider converting on my email popup? A popup that promises to send you more such pieces in the coming week?

No.

You’d rather take your time to go through those first 20 content pieces to decide if subscribing to my content is even worth it. And I totally understand because no one wants yet another email choking their inbox space!

PS. I know how stupid it sounds. But I recently figured out that the Social and Promotions folders in my Gmail inbox actually eat into my space. I started getting prompts to ‘buy more storage’ to be able to even send and receive emails. Don’t worry, your girl did not pay a single dollar; instead she spent almost an hour deleting 1Lakh+ emails from each of those folders! Hah.

But coming back to the point.

It’s a proven fact that companies creating content generate 69% more leads than those that don’t. But it’s also a fact that almost 20% of marketers out there don’t find the tactic as effective for their organization!

There are two reasons for this. One, that these organizations do not have a well-documented strategy. Yes, there are only 40% of marketers that admit having spent their time creating a documented content marketing plan.

Two, these organizations made the mistake of thinking about content marketing as just about publishing anything without setting the right goals or understanding what their audience wanted.

Oh, and here’s a BONUS – Three – The definition of what a ‘lead’ is to you, is not defined.

For instance, a lead could be someone who subscribes to your content. A lead could also be someone who engages with your content in some way like commenting on it. Similarly, a lead could also be someone who ends up following you on social media after reading your content.

So please, do not associate ‘leads’ with just a ‘book a demo’ request from a small hyperlink that you inserted towards the end of your content piece.

But if you have been consistently publishing content and it just doesn’t seem to convert your traffic in any way of a lead, these could be the reasons:

  • Your content isn’t relevant to your audience (going back to my point on not publishing just about anything on your site)

  • You’re not leading your readers to the right place (heck, you don’t even know what you’d like them to do next after reading your content)
  • You haven’t included a call to action or any link in your content (how do you expect a reader to observe that little call to action you inserted in the form of a hyperlink in a 2k+ words content piece)
  • Your engagement path isn’t relevant to the initial entry point (not being able to understand what led a reader to your content piece is a bummer – you really don’t want to be listed in some searches)
  • Your content does not match the user’s stage in the buyer’s journey (yo, where that funnel at – more about this after)
  • Your site’s UX (user experience) just plain sucks (right from the page load time, to the font to the formatting and more, it’s just not readable – ouch)

The only way to generate leads out of your content? Offer value and make sure you follow the content funnel approach.

Content marketing funnel – saving you from wasting your (and the reader’s) time on another thousand words.

A content marketing funnel is a system that introduces new leads to your business through different types of content, across different channels. These leads are then converted into potential customers by progressively nurturing or funneling them through more types of content.

Simply put, you attract your ideal customer by using a TOFU (top of the funnel) content piece that taps into something of their interest. Then after you have hooked their attention, you feel them with a MOFU (middle of the funnel) content piece that brings them slightly closer to the product/ service you offer. After that, you nurture them with a BOFU (bottom of the funnel) content piece that helps them see the value in your product/ service and even consider purchasing or subscribing to it.

It’s like me asking you to start a healthy life by simply sharing my transformation story and not pushing you to act on it. Then sharing all about the diet I followed, highlighting how easy it was and slowly nudging you towards giving it a shot for a week.

See what I did there? I convinced you to try something you didn’t know you needed by nurturing you with content.

On a side note, I hate diets and I think you can eat anything as long as you can keep the total calories in check and are making sure you workout every day. But anyway, here’s what the above funnel looks like and the different types of content you can create for each stage:

Come to think of it, a content funnel is simply how your journey to buying a gym membership would like. So why treat your audience any differently?

Now if you’re wondering what kind of content should feature more in your content marketing strategy and which one you could sideline in the next month, think about your goals. Go back to the board and see what you’re trying to achieve in the month.

Is it brand awareness? You need TOFU. Is it lead generation? You need MOFU. Is it converting the leads you have generated so far into customers? You clearly need to focus on BOFU.

As a scaling business, you will always need a repository of content pieces under each level of the content funnel.

But by repository, I certainly do not mean creating thousands of content pieces just for the heck of it. If you were thinking about this, go back to the myth busting on why more content isn’t the answer to making content work.

Here’s the funda behind a content marketing funnel and why it has proven to be so effective:

“With traditional marketing, you tell people that you’re a rockstar.
With content marketing, you show them you’re a rockstar.”
Content Marketing Institute

Now haven’t we all heard (or read) why show and tell is way better than overpromising words?

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