Tag Archives: Lead Generation

How to generate more leads with strategic content writing?

Strategic content writing to generate hot leads

Strategic content writing to generate hot leads.

You publish content to generate new leads.

Leads can manifest in multiple forms. There are hot leads and cold leads.

Hot leads are those people who contact you for the purpose of buying from you or hiring you.

For example, if someone submits my contact form for the purpose of hiring my content writing services, that person is a hot lead.

But if someone subscribes to my newsletter, he or she is a cold lead. Or if someone shows interest in my content writing services on a social media platform but right now doesn’t hire me, he or she is a cold lead.

When you are writing and publishing content to generate more leads, you need to be careful of what type of content you are publishing.

When I had a web design website – in my previous life – I ended up attracting the wrong traffic because although I was writing and publishing lots of content and consequently, generating lots of traffic, the traffic never converted. I was not generating the right leads.

Back then I was smitten by educational content. I didn’t put my energies into explaining my services as a web designer. All my content writing consisted of teaching people how to achieve things using HTML, ASP and JavaScript (back then I didn’t know PHP, which I know now).

How to strategize content writing to generate hot leads?

You need to find out why people are searching for you, when they are searching for you.

Obviously, people who are looking to buy something, or hire someone, or use a software service, are not looking for educational content, at least not knowingly.

For example, if you are looking for someone who can help you improve your search engine rankings and you are not aware that optimized content writing can help you improve your SEO, my blog post titled 5 reasons why content writing is important for SEO can reveal something that you  don’t know.

For that matter, even a blog post like 10 SEO content writing tips for your small business can be quite helpful.

You may ask, if all I am doing is teaching people why content writing is important for SEO or how you can write content for your small business to improve your SEO by yourself, how am I generating hot leads for my own business?

Even if your writing is seemingly instructional content, you need to write in such a manner that the central message – your open for business – shouldn’t be lost.

To generate hot leads, you need to create precise web pages, landing pages and blog posts. There shouldn’t be any ambiguity. You shouldn’t club multiple messages under the same web page. When you club multiple messages, the central objective of your content is diluted and people end up getting confused.

Seriously consider search intent to generate hot leads

Not all type of search intent gets you hot leads but writing and publishing content keeping search intent in mind can definitely improve the number of hot leads your content generates.

What is search intent? You may like to read What is search intent and how knowing it improves your SEO.

Most of the information about search intent that I have published on my website and blog is about improving your search engine rankings, but writing your content centered around the appropriate search intent can also help you generate more leads.

Writing content for searcher intent helps you be with your customers and clients throughout their buyer journey.

Again I will give you my own example.

Someone is researching for ways to improve search engine rankings and comes across my blog that talks about how content writing can help you improve your search engine rankings. The person has been informed.

The search intent here is informational. The person isn’t looking for someone to hire. He or she simply needs information that can help him or her improve his or her search engine rankings.

Once a person has read my blog post on how content writing can help improve search engine rankings, he or she finds out that I provide such content writing services, through another web page or blog post. The other web page or blog post has been written keeping “commercial intent” in mind.

These days I’m getting lots of traffic for “content writer for accounting services” or “content writer for life coaching services”. These searches are carried out with commercial intent.

Accountants or accounting companies are looking for a content writer. People providing life coaching services are looking for a content writer. The intent is clear. Search traffic generates hot leads for me

On a related note: do hot leads always convert?

Not necessarily. Hot leads are people who are ready to do business with you but they haven’t yet committed.

Maybe they won’t like my samples. Maybe they won’t find my rates acceptable. Maybe after contacting me, they come across someone else who they think is a better match. There are multiple reasons why even a hot lead may not convert, but that’s a different matter.

How to generate more leads with content writing

How to generate more leads with content writing

How to generate more leads with content writing

In this post I’m going to throw some light on how you can generate more leads with content writing consistently.

Every business wants to generate more leads. A lead is when a prospective customer or client approaches you (through your contact form, through a phone call, through an email, through an advertisement or whatever mode of communication) and shows interest in your product or service.

Leads may have different meanings for different business models. Generating leads doesn’t necessarily mean people coming to you to buy your product or service. A lead can also be when someone subscribes to your email newsletter. A lead can also be a casual inquiry.

Basically, whenever someone shows interest in your business for the sake of buying one of your products or using one of your services, he or she is a lead.

Businesses eagerly pay for leads. There are many websites that sell you qualified leads – people leave their requirement on the website and then the website contacts you telling you that someone needs your product or service. Then it is up to you whether you make use of that lead and do business, or squander it away.

Why generating leads are important for your business?

It’s easier to sell to people who are interested in buying from you, compared to those who are not interested. Hence, there is a greater chance of a lead turning into your customer or client, if you strategically lead your lead to the ultimate point of making the purchase. Leads are easier to convert.

It is very difficult to get noticed on the Internet these days. For every business there are thousands of contenders. If you use advertising, your competitors can too. If you think you can improve your search engine rankings there are thousands of others who think on similar lines and may even outrank you in a matter of a few weeks or a few days.

Hence, there is a constant cat-and-mouse game going on and the more businesses try to vie for attention, the more noise they create, and the more noise they create, less it becomes possible for prospective customers and clients to understand their marketing messages and even if they can understand, it becomes difficult to distinguish one business from another.

A lead immediately changes the scene. You’re not vying for the attention of your customer or client – he or she is already interested in you. Your business or your brand has got his or her attention despite all the noise. This is a major gain. It’s like in a crowded party full of strangers someone has walked up to you and have started a conversation.

Content writing and how the process of generating leads has changed

I specifically mention content writing because this is what I provide – content via writing. For your case, content can exist in any form. It can be videos, it can be images, it can be infographics, it can be slideshows, it can be Instagram posts, whatever works for you. So, when I see content writing, you can call it video publishing or email marketing, or whatever comes to your mind.

Marketing and lead generation have changed

Marketing and lead generation have changed

In the olden days, marketing was all about telling people how great your business is and what they stand to lose if they don’t use your product or service. Advertising and marketing was unscientific. It was like throwing lots of gooey mud on the wall expecting that some of that goo would stick.

Marketing these days, especially after the advent of the Internet, is more customer-centric. Through your content writing, you don’t promote your interest, you promote your customer’s interest.

Amazing writer

Amazing writer

For example, when you’re reading about my content writing services, do you want to know what an awesome writer I am, or do you want to know how I’m going to help you generate more leads and consequently, more sales? Obviously the latter.

You couldn’t care less if I have written books or if I have earned citations for my pros. Yes, it may reassure you that I know a thing or two about writing, but your primary concern is, whether I can help you generate more leads and grow your business.

So, when I write, I’m constantly addressing your concerns. If you’re reading this blog post, you want to generate more leads. You don’t want traffic, you want people on your website who would buy from you or subscribe to your newsletter or do something that makes you money. Can I do it? This is what you want to know.

This has changed across the board. No matter how big a business you are, if you don’t impress your customers, they’re not going to give you a second glance.

So, how does content writing help you generate more leads?

You want to be a part of your customers’ lives. This can be achieved by providing highly useful and high quality content on an ongoing basis using the channels your prospective customers and clients use. You cannot simply tell them to do business with you because one, there are many choices available these days and two, there is always this other business that is more eager to engage, interact and provide a meaningful relationship rather than always wanting to sell.

It’s very logical.

If you have a business, you don’t need to repeatedly tell people that you have a business, your customers and clients know it. If you have a product or service to sell, provided there is no ambiguity in your messaging, everybody knows that you have a product or service to sell. You don’t need to repeatedly tell people how great your furniture is, how exceptional your web designing is, what an awesome make-up artist you are or what a prodigal content writer you are.

I’m not saying you should never tell people what a great business you are running, but you don’t need to do it constantly.

But if you don’t do it constantly, you fear losing your customers and clients to your competitors. What you do then?

You publish content that is useful to your prospective customers and clients. This way, they want to hear from you rather than you wanting to talk to them.

People who positively receive your content are also your leads. They may not buy from you immediately, but if you constantly engage them, if you provide them value through high-quality content writing, then when they eventually need the products or services that you provide, they’re going to come to you.

Another benefit of content writing is that it improves your search engine rankings. Search engines are continuously looking for new content to index and rank. As their crawlers find new content, they push the older content down and if the newer content is good, they push it higher. This is an ongoing churning that is happening every second.

Higher search engine rankings can bring you practically unlimited leads.

To generate qualified leads, you may decide to focus on the following channels:

  • Your business blog and content marketing through it
  • Website optimization and usability improvement
  • Search engine optimization
  • Social media marketing
  • Email marketing
  • Press releases

Content writing plays a pivotal role in every channel. You need well-written content for your website so that you can clearly communicate your message, people can understand it, and then decide to do business with you.

Search engine optimization is not possible without well-written, optimized, relevant and quality content.

Even if you write just 2 sentences, your social media marketing is incomplete without good content writing.

Email marketing and press releases solely depend on high-quality content writing.

All these are lead generation channels.

As you can see in the above image, unlike the older ways, you don’t go to your customers and clients and urge them to buy from you.

Annoying way of marketing for lead generation

You create funnels through high-quality content that you disseminate using the channels your prospective customers and clients use.

Whether it is personal branding or business branding, your brand should be familiar to them and they should respect your brand. They should value your content. They should be able to use your content to improve their business and enrich their lives.

Many of my clients think that this is a long shot but it is not. It is a sure shot way of generating more leads following a well-defined path. Give them value through quality content writing and content marketing and they will buy from you.

Increase lead generation with effective content writing

Lead generation with effective content writing

Lead generation is very important for every business. Effective content writing can help you increase leads on your website.

What is lead generation?

What are different lead generation methods?

Leads are people who haven’t yet become your customers, but they have shown interest in your product and they have also left their contact information with you.

You can get leads from your own website or blog.

You can also purchase them from websites that sell leads.

You can randomly collect them using various means at hand.

The most effective way of getting leads is from your own website or blog because then people are actually looking for your product or service.

Additionally, since they have visited your website or blog, they already know that you provide that particular product or service.

But how do you generate leads from your website?

How do you make people either contact you or subscribe to your mailing list so that you can keep in touch with them and send them your offers?

It can be done with effective content writing.

B2B lead generation especially depends on high-quality content writing.

Direct relationship between effective content writing and lead generation

More leads with effective content writing

When people don’t want to buy immediately, they’re looking for information.

They want information that can help them decide.

Sometimes they don’t even know what they are looking for: they simply know that they have a problem. They know they need a solution, but they don’t know what is the right solution.

Looking for a solution, they come to your website. They find a solution.

If they were looking for an answer, they find it on your website.

This is how effective content writing works.

They haven’t yet made up their minds, but they really like the content that you have published on your website. They get the idea that you know your stuff.

They would like to keep in touch. They would even like to contact you for more details about how they can use your product or service or how your product or service can solve their problem. They become your leads.

This, is where your content writing plays a very crucial role.

Read How to improve your content writing by properly understanding your customers.

When someone comes to your website, published words do all the talking.

Whether you have written a single word, a single sentence, a single paragraph or 1500 words explaining why the visitor should do business with you, it is your writing, your text, that is solely responsible for generating leads and getting you new customers.

If your content writing doesn’t impress your visitors, they go away without reading even a single sentence.

Your entire lead generation process goes for a toss.

If your writing is not good – if the style is uninspiring and there are lots of grammar and spelling mistakes – they think you are unprofessional and hence, shouldn’t be trusted with their business.

If your writing is good but it doesn’t provide what your visitors are looking for, they go somewhere else.

If your content misleads them into visiting your website, they leave immediately, making a note that they never come back, and also warn the others.

Again, it’s your content writing that keeps them on your website, and communicates to them your intent.

Generate more leads with quality content writing

How to write effectively to generate more leads?

How does effective content writing help you generate leads?

The entire purpose of having text on your website is to provide solutions to people’s problems.

When your prospective customers or clients come to your website, they expect that you

  • Understand their problem
  • Have a solution to their problem

Your writing shouldn’t act as your advocate.

Your writing should act as your  prospective customers’ and clients’ advocate.

Address their need. Put them at rest immediately.

Let them know you’ve got the solution to their problem.

Here are a few points to keep in mind when writing content for lead generation.

Define a clear persona

Defining a persona – the ideal person you are writing for – allows you to write for a person you understand.

It’s easy to write in a conversational style when you know whom you are talking to.

Understand what sort of person would like to buy your product or service.

A particular persona may have the following attributes:

  • Income
  • Age
  • Gender
  • Nationality/region
  • Occupation/business/designation
  • Marital status
  • Language comfort
  • Other specifics related to your business

Having a persona is like the person is sitting in front of you and you are talking to him or her.

When you write in a conversational style, your visitors feel as if you are talking to them.

They become more comfortable.

They are more amenable to absorbing your message, paying attention to it, and responding to it.

Even your messaging is more targeted when you write for a pre-defined persona.

Keep your web pages and blog posts narrowly focused.

If possible, provide one solution, one answer per link.

Don’t try to cram multiple issues into one URL.

For multiple topics create multiple web pages or blog posts. If those web pages or blog posts already exist, link to them.

When you focus on a single topic your readers feel contented.

They come looking for a particular answer, a particular solution, and they find that solution on that link.

If you handle multiple topics in one go, it confuses people.

In confusion, or when they are overwhelmed, they leave your website.

On many web pages and blog posts I’ve observed, just to be able to create very long pieces of content, writers and publishers cram lots of information on a single link.

They will have charts and graphs and scores of paragraphs and they go on and on until the reader is exasperated.

If I want to improve my search engine rankings, I don’t want to see 15 charts and graphs of how many people want to improve their search engine rankings. Just give me the damn information if you have it.

This is why, it is very important to clearly define the propose of the web page or the blog post you are about to create.

What do you want your visitor to achieve by the time he or she has gone through this particular piece of content.?

For example, once you have read this blog post, I want you to learn how to generate more leads on your website or blog with effective content writing.

Convince your visitors that high-quality content publishing on your website is an ongoing thing

Why would people leave their contact details if they don’t expect to hear from you again?

I don’t say leave them hanging, but whenever you are solving problems for them, tell them that you can solve more problems and hence, you should be able to keep in touch with them.

At every opportunity let them know that you publish quality content regularly and they shouldn’t miss any of it.

Tell them that you send out offers that shouldn’t be missed.

Let it be known to them the benefits enjoyed by your other mailing list subscribers.

There should be multiple call-to-action elements prompting your visitors to either contact you or subscribe to your mailing list.

Write in a language people use to seek you out

A nice way to know what language and expressions people use is to track your traffic using some analytics software.

You can use the Google Search Console (previously known as Google’s Webmasters Tools) to track what keywords and search terms bring people to your website.

Then you use these keywords and search terms to create more content on your website or blog.

People respond better if they find content that is written in a language they are comfortable in.

Avoid jargons and very difficult words that people don’t use in their day-to day lives.

So, basically, these are the traits of effective content writing for enhanced lead generation:

  • Conversational writing style
  • Using language used by your visitors
  • Providing precise answers to precise questions
  • Solving people’s problems without trusting your business agenda down their throats
  • Using call to action at appropriate places

Please remember that effective content writing for lead generation is not a one-off activity.

Stick to quality content writing.

5 reasons writing or creating content is far better than making a business phone call

What happens when you make a business call? You have to choose the right time. There is a great possibility that the person on the other side isn’t eager to receive your call or doesn’t have time. Maybe there is lots of action going on on your side or on the other side? You have to make sure that you don’t forget the important facts. The information that is sought by the other person should be immediately at hand. If there is additional information required you have to verbally communicate it. If there is some diagram or an image you have to explain it to the person on the other side.

Image with text 5 reasons writing content is better than making a business phone call

This Marketing Think blog post has an interesting take on why publishing content on your website or blog is far better than making business phone calls. These are the 5 reasons the author has cited:

  1. The content that you have written is available 24 x 7. The time constraint is not there and your content can be accessed from any time zone from anywhere.
  2. You can decide how much you want to say. You can decide whether you want to be brief or you want to expand your point of view.
  3. In case you need to share an infographic or a Slideshare or a video it is not possible to do it over telephone.
  4. In case extra research is needed it cannot be done over the phone.
  5. Your written content connects to your customers and clients on their own terms rather than you deciding when they should have the conversation with you and what sort of conversation they should have.

My personal take is, there is a positive and a negative side to every communication channel. The telephonic conversation is instant and the emotion that you can convey through a telephone call is difficult to convey through text that is mostly one-sided. But then, being a content writer, I have more faith in written word than spoken word.

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