How do you generate leads effectively through valuable and shareable content? It’s a question asked by most of our members here in our NoLimits community. This guide covers the core eight considerations of; research, buyer personas, content planning, lead magnets, 10x content, repurposing strategies, and SEO optimisation. Plus, to get you started in the right direction, I have also included a plan with the main actions and timings.
Building the Foundation - Research, Persona, and Channels
Research extensively about your niche
Before embarking on the journey of creating valuable and shareable content, the first step is to deeply understand your business niche. Extensive research about your specific market is vital in forming a content strategy that works for you and your potential leads.
Start by identifying the needs and problems of people in your niche. What are they struggling with? What kind of information are they looking for? What topics are they most interested in?
Additionally, look at what your competitors are doing in terms of content. What topics are they covering? How is their content being received by their audience? You don’t need to copy them, but you can learn from their successes and mistakes.
To find this information, you can use tools such as Google Trends, Google Keyword Planner, BuzzSumo, and SEMRush, to name just a few. These tools can give you insight into popular keywords, trending topics, and the types of content that perform best in your niche.
Identify your buyer persona
Understanding your audience is crucial in creating valuable and shareable content. This is where creating a buyer persona comes into play.
A buyer persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customer. This should be based on real data about your existing customers, supplemented with market research.
When creating your buyer persona, consider demographic details such as age, location, and occupation. However, it’s equally important to delve into their personal characteristics. What are their interests and hobbies? What motivates them? What are their goals, challenges, and pain points?
Having a clear image of your buyer persona allows you to tailor your content to speak directly to them, thereby increasing its relevance and shareability.
Analyse channels your audience frequently visits
Understanding where your audience spends most of their time online is crucial in determining where to share your content. Are they mostly on Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram or Twitter? Do they frequently visit certain forums or websites?
To find this out, you can use social media analytics, online surveys, or simply ask your existing customers. For instance, Google Analytics can show you where your website traffic is coming from, and tools like Hootsuite or Sprout Social can provide insights into your social media engagement.
Knowing where your audience hangs out online not only informs you where to promote your content, but also can give you insights into the type of content they prefer. For instance, Instagram users might prefer visually engaging content, while LinkedIn users may value more professional, in-depth articles.
Crafting Your Strategy - Setting a Smart Content Plan and Creating Engaging Lead Magnets
Set a smart content plan
With your thorough research and detailed buyer persona in hand, you’re now ready to map out a content plan. A content plan is a strategic roadmap for your content creation, distribution, and measurement activities. It not only outlines what you’re going to create but also why, when, and where you’ll share it.
Begin by setting clear, measurable goals. What do you want your content to achieve? This could range from increasing website traffic, improving search engine rankings, generating leads, to growing your social media followers.
Then, based on your buyer persona and channel analysis, determine the type of content that will most effectively reach your audience and achieve your goals. This could include blog posts, videos, infographics, podcasts, or social media updates.
Afterwards, establish a content calendar. This should include the dates and times you plan to publish on each platform, a title or topic for each content piece, and who’s responsible for creating it. Tools such as Google Calendar, Asana, or Trello can help you organise this.
Lastly, consider how you will measure success. Which metrics are important to your goals? These might include website visits, social media shares, leads generated, or conversion rates.
Create engaging lead magnets
Lead magnets are content pieces offered to potential leads in exchange for their contact information, usually their email address. They’re a powerful way to build your email list and nurture leads towards making a purchase.
The key to an effective lead magnet is that it must be valuable and relevant to your audience. It should address a specific problem your audience faces and offer a solution. This could take many forms such as eBooks, white papers, free trials, webinars, or exclusive video content.
For instance, if your business is in digital marketing, a valuable lead magnet could be an eBook titled “The Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing for Small Businesses.”
Once you have your lead magnet, promote it prominently on your website, social media channels, and any other platforms your audience visits. Make sure the process of obtaining the lead magnet is easy and clear – a complicated process may deter potential leads.
Join the NoLimits Business Community
Are you a business owner looking to take your business to the next level? Join our innovative community of like-minded professionals and gain access to a wealth of valuable resources, including a community portal to chat with other business owners, ebooks, business development software, and growth events that will transform the way you do business. Best of all, these resources are completely free and will be available to you forever.
But the benefits of joining our NoLimits business community don’t stop there. By becoming part of our community, you’ll have the opportunity to connect with other business owners, share insights and ideas, and build valuable relationships that will help your business thrive. Don’t miss out on this amazing opportunity to supercharge your business and join us today!
Maximising Your Content’s Potential - Creating 10x Content, Repurposing, and Optimising for SEO
Create 10x content
Coined by Rand Fishkin of Moz, ’10x content’ refers to content that is ten times better than the best result that can currently be found in the search results for a given keyword or topic. The purpose of creating 10x content is to provide exceptional value to your audience that outshines your competitors.
Creating 10x content requires a deep understanding of your audience’s needs and an innovative approach to addressing those needs. This could involve in-depth research, unique insights, high-quality writing, or engaging visuals.
For example, if there are many basic guides on social media marketing, you could create a comprehensive, step-by-step eBook with real-life case studies and tips from industry experts. By providing a higher level of value, you are more likely to draw in and engage potential leads.
Repurpose your content
Content repurposing involves taking existing content and transforming it into a different format or adjusting it to appeal to a different audience. It’s a powerful strategy that can help you reach a larger audience and get more mileage out of your content.
For example, a blog post could be repurposed into a video tutorial, infographic, podcast episode, or a series of social media posts. Conversely, a collection of related blog posts could be combined into an in-depth eBook or guide.
When repurposing content, always consider your audience. Each piece should be tailored to the platform it will be shared on and the preferences of its users.
Optimise your content for SEO
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is the process of enhancing your content to improve its visibility in search engine results. The higher your content ranks, the more visibility it has and the more likely it is to be found by potential leads.
Optimising your content for SEO involves several elements. This includes using relevant keywords in your content and meta tags, ensuring your website is mobile-friendly, having fast load times, and securing quality inbound links to your content.
Tools such as Google’s Keyword Planner or Moz’s Keyword Explorer can help you find relevant keywords. For technical SEO aspects, Google’s Search Console and PageSpeed Insights can be invaluable.
Remember, SEO isn’t just about attracting more traffic, it’s about attracting the right traffic. By targeting keywords related to your buyer persona’s needs and interests, you can draw in potential leads who are more likely to find your content valuable and shareable.
Join the NoLimits Business Community
Are you a business owner looking to take your business to the next level? Join our innovative community of like-minded professionals and gain access to a wealth of valuable resources, including a community portal to chat with other business owners, ebooks, business development software, and growth events that will transform the way you do business. Best of all, these resources are completely free and will be available to you forever.
But the benefits of joining our NoLimits business community don’t stop there. By becoming part of our community, you’ll have the opportunity to connect with other business owners, share insights and ideas, and build valuable relationships that will help your business thrive. Don’t miss out on this amazing opportunity to supercharge your business and join us today!
So now you have all the details what would that look like for your planning. Well to help out I’ve included below a schedule of how you can implement this in to your business without becoming overwhelmed.
Sure, Here Is A Suggested Action Plan With Timings:
Week 1-2: Research extensively about your niche.
- Day 1-3: Conduct market research on your business niche, identifying key problems, interests, and information gaps.
- Day 4-7: Analyse competitors’ content strategies and identify possible opportunities.
- Day 8-14: Use SEO and trend analysis tools to determine popular topics and keywords within your niche.
Week 3-4: Identify your buyer persona.
- Day 15-21: Collect and analyse demographic data and behavioural information about your current customers.
- Day 22-28: Construct detailed buyer persona profiles based on your findings, identifying their motivations, goals, and pain points.
Week 5: Analyse channels your audience frequently visits.
- Day 29-35: Use analytics tools to identify the most frequently visited channels by your audience. Identify the types of content that perform best on these channels.
Week 6-8: Set a smart content plan.
- Day 36-38: Define clear, measurable content goals.
- Day 39-42: Based on your buyer personas and channel analysis, decide on the types of content to create.
- Day 43-50: Establish a content calendar with publishing dates, content topics, and assigned responsibilities.
- Day 51-56: Set key performance metrics to measure the success of your content plan.
Week 9-11: Create engaging lead magnets.
- Day 57-65: Develop a valuable and relevant lead magnet that solves a specific problem for your audience.
- Day 66-70: Set up the lead magnet on your website and other relevant platforms with a clear and easy process for obtaining it.
- Day 71-77: Promote your lead magnet across all identified channels.
Week 12-14: Create 10x content.
- Day 78-84: Develop an in-depth piece of content that provides significantly higher value than existing content on the same topic.
- Day 85-98: Promote the 10x content across all relevant channels.
Week 15-16: Repurpose your content.
- Day 99-105: Identify a piece of existing content for repurposing and decide on the new format(s).
- Day 106-112: Repurpose the content, tailor it for each platform, and distribute it across all relevant channels.
Week 17-19: Optimise your content for SEO.
- Day 113-119: Perform keyword research and incorporate relevant keywords into your content and meta tags.
- Day 120-126: Conduct technical SEO optimisation (e.g., improving website speed, mobile optimisation).
- Day 127-133: Work on securing quality inbound links to your content.
This action plan spans approximately 19 weeks. Depending on your resources and the complexity of your project, you may need to adjust these timings accordingly.
This concludes my blog of creating valuable and shareable content for lead generation. Remember, the key to successful content marketing lies in knowing your audience, delivering exceptional value, and strategically promoting and optimising your content.
If you would like more specific guidance with understanding this or any management tools why not look at our NoLimits Community – become a member at any level and join our community.
By Jeremy Graham-Clare
Join the NoLimits Business Community
Are you a business owner looking to take your business to the next level? Join our innovative community of like-minded professionals and gain access to a wealth of valuable resources, including a community portal to chat with other business owners, ebooks, business development software, and growth events that will transform the way you do business. Best of all, these resources are completely free and will be available to you forever.
But the benefits of joining our NoLimits business community don’t stop there. By becoming part of our community, you’ll have the opportunity to connect with other business owners, share insights and ideas, and build valuable relationships that will help your business thrive. Don’t miss out on this amazing opportunity to supercharge your business and join us today!