Value added content is exclusive content that your audience cannot get anywhere else.
Perhaps you have a blog and you’ve even been expanding into other forms of value added content. Yet you still are not generating the leads you want with that content.
Value added content is the core of any robust inbound marketing strategy but you still need to leverage it. Merely publishing your content won’t (usually) earn you customers.
So here are 12 ways to use your value added content to generate leads:
1. Genuinely Help Your Readers
Your content is not “value added” unless it is adding value to your readers. Your first goal with every piece of content you publish should be to help your readers – add value to their lives and businesses.
Your potential customers can usually sense self-serving and useless content within seconds of loading your page. And when they sense this they “bounce” to another website.
Keep your bounce rate low and generate more leads by genuinely helping your readers.
2. Build Trust in Your Brand
Trust is an important part of any sales process. A purchase is an act of trust. Your customer is trusting that your service or product is going to solve a problem, improve his life, or help him reach his goals. A purchase is an act of faith in you, your business, and what you offer your customer.
You need to build this trust early. Value added content is the perfect vehicle for building that trust.
As you genuinely help your readers you build trust with them. Help them whether they buy from you or not and, paradoxically, they will be more likely to buy.
3. Invite Subscribers
Email marketing still has a better return on investment (ROI) than social media marketing. According to Campaign Monitor, for every $1 spent, email marketing generates $38 in ROI.
You can’t afford to neglect you email list. You can use your value added content to invite readers to become subscribers. Email subscribers are more likely to visit your site again. If it makes sense to invite a reader to subscribe – do it.
4. Plug Your Product/Service
As you genuinely help your readers through your value added content you may have opportunities to plug your product or service.
But you don’t need to develop your content with that as the goal! If you are publishing genuinely helpful content on topics that matter to your core business you will find yourself with opportunities to invite your readers to become customers without being pushy or annoying about it.
For example, this post is intended to help you leverage your value added content and generate more leads than ever before – even if you never work with us! Even so, we offer professional Copywriting Services that can help you meet your content marketing goals. See how that worked?
5. Invite Subscribers to Become Customers
If you are accomplishing the first four items on this list you are posed to invite your subscribers to become customers!
Your email subscribers trust you to some degree, they have found your content helpful, and they have graciously given you a space in their crowded inbox (be thankful for this!).
Use your email list to point subscribers to content that matters to them and may help guide them toward your product or service. Don’t email blast your entire list with a request to “buy now!”.
Rather, leverage your value added content. Send them content that they will find genuinely helpful and will build upon content they have already engaged with. As you do this you continue to build trust, continue to help your subscribers, and continue to remind them of your products and services.
6. Place Your Brand in Social Media Topical Searches
Every social network is different yet some principles are overarching. Almost every social network has a means for users to do topical searches. This is especially useful on Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
Pinterest users search the network for pins that will give them new ideas, answer their questions, reveal the best recipe, and more.
LinkedIn users search the network for inside info, educated business opinions, and potential hires.
Twitter users browse popular hashtags to stay in the loop with the news and stay entertained.
You can place your brand in these searches. Learn how users are searching for content on these networks. Then share value added content that would be genuinely helpful to these users using the keywords and hashtags that they are searching for.
You may nab some new readers, new subscribers, and yes, new customers.
7. Share Helpful Content in Facebook Groups
Although Facebook users can do topical searches and the network incorporated hashtags, Facebook users still tend to stick to scrolling their Newsfeeds. You can place your brand in users’ Newsfeeds by inviting them to like your Facebook page but Facebook launched a new algorithm in 2018 that has resulted in brand page posts getting less organic views than ever before.
That’s where Facebook groups come in! Find groups that your potential customers are engaging in, ask to join, and begin liking and commenting on content in a helpful and friendly manner (because you are genuinely helpful and friendly, right?). After you have had some time to build credibility within the group you can occasionally share your value added content in comments and posts when it makes sense to do so. This can push your brand into Facebook users’ Newsfeeds at a time when brand posts are having trouble doing so without paying for ads.
8. Grow Your Organic Search Traffic
As you publish content based on topics that your business is an authority on you have the potential to grow your organic search traffic. There are a lot of ranking factors that matter but having regularly updated content that is readable and relevant goes a long way.
You can increase your organic search rankings by publishing content on related ideas within a larger topic and linking related pages together.
For example, if you run a non-profit that helps inner city children get on their feet publish content on education, economics, culture, and passions related to your demographic in a way that your donors can resonate with. As you write on these interrelated topics you will build authority – and search rankings – for your core landing pages as well.
9. Earn Quality Backlinks
Backlinks are sorely neglected in most search engine optimization (SEO) strategies.
Search engines look at your hrefs (links to your website) and the quality of the sites they are found on to help determine your ranking. Most websites publish content and hope that someone picks it up and links back to it.
Don’t leave your backlinks to chance. Leverage your value added content to request quality backlinks!
Have a piece of content that is way better than a competing piece already getting backlinks throughout your industry? Contact a slew of websites linking to this similar content notifying them that you have published something even more helpful that would be valuable to their readers and ask for a backlink. Even a handful of quality backlinks can skyrocket your rankings and your traffic.
10. Offer Readers Additional Value (Before They Leave)
Someone clicked on your link to read your value added content and they are about to bounce to another website.
Wait!
They may have found this content helpful and this is your last chance to generate a lead before they bounce.
You can use non-intrusive popups to invite readers to subscribe, offer them a discount, or lead them to similar value added content just before they leave your website.
If you need help making this happen on your website contact us or check out the excellent software from Sumo.
11. Supercharge Your Ad Campaign
Sure, you can run ads directly for your products and services. However, those aren’t the only ads you can run!
If your content is genuinely helpful and leads your readers to your products and services it may be beneficial to run ads for this free content.
Running ads to your value added content will increase your traffic and, if you are doing the first four things on this list, build your subscriber list, generate leads, and close sales.
12. Follow Up on Your Leads
Finally, you can use your value added content to follow up on existing leads. Those who have previously expressed interest in your products and services are probably interested in genuinely helpful free content from you.
Send it their way with a personal note applying that content to them. This keeps all those leads you generated engaged.
This will go a long way to nurturing your leads. In most fields over 75% of leads become customers when nurtured. Use your value added content to nurture your leads after you have generated them.
