Content marketing is one of the most essential elements of B2B digital marketing. It can help you generate leads without running paid campaigns and subsequently, boost your business profits. Some of the important metrics that relate to content marketing are :

• Companies generate 62% more leads when taking the content marketing way.
• Leads generated by content marketing convert 6x better than traditional methods.
• Most marketers believe that content marketing is much more effective than PR and email.

In the above infographic, we have explained how to use content in a structured fashion to generate leads for your business.

Here is a glimpse of how to execute the same:

#1 Using Educational Content for Marketing

Understanding the type of problems your target audience faces is crucial. The next step is to build content that solves this problem.

You should be looking forward to adding value to your customer’s life by solving their problems with your content. The best types of educational content are

• “How to” blog posts and guides.
• Ebooks
• Webinars and cheat sheets.
• Training material/courses

#2 Create Free Resources

Free content resources act as great lead magnets. You could publish an eBook, a whitepaper, a presentation or an analysis and let your site visitors have the same in lieu of their contact info. This would get users on the top of your funnel from where you can nurture them further.

#3 Publish Case Studies as Stories

Publishing case studies as stories are one of the most effective ways to convince people.

Simply put, people trust other people more than ads or company promises. You should take advantage of this by publishing case studies as stories which can show the problems your clients/customers faced, how you stepped in, what you did and the results.

A testimonial with the above would be as good as icing on the cake!

#4 Build Irresistible Lead Magnets

Lead magnets are nothing but tools/resources/ways to get your audience interested and get them at the top of your funnel.

At Marketing Masala, we publish a lot of marketing eBooks to make sure people get hooked on our site and get some value every time they download something.

All we ask is for is their contact info in return including some details about their company. Analysing this data, we know whom to target and how.

#5 Nurture with email workflows

Email is still one of the most effective methods to convince people online. Once you have looped people in at the top of your funnel (using content resources and lead magnets), you should be sending regular emails to people based on what they signed up for.

For example, if you provide businesses with an accounting tool, and someone downloads a guide to small business accounting, you should be forwarding them more advice in emails which revolves around running a small business better.

This would build a healthy engagement with the user as you are sending content that is relevant to them.

# 6 Amplify With Social Media

Social media marketing is no surprise. However, doing it right is important. In the B2B industry, content can get boring and sharing all your posts on Facebook will not bear any fruit. With B2B content you need to,

• Prioritise your social networks. LinkedIn and Twitter would be more important than Facebook and Instagram.
• Build relationships with influencers who can further share your content with their vast audience.
• Engage in conversations where your content would matter. The best example is LinkedIn groups and Quora answers.

# 7 Funnel Marketing For Your Content

When it comes to content, most marketers are talking only about likes, re-tweets, and shares. While that is important, you need to always know how content will add value to your marketing funnel.

Always have an eye out for how users are interacting with your content, what tempts them to signup for your content, how does their journey once they have signed and finally, how does content turn into $$ for you 🙂

Those were our 7 B2B lead generation strategies using the content. Have we missed anything? Feel free to let us know in the comments.