Content marketing is a proven commodity in 2022, but if you wanted to make something in an afternoon, what would be your go to option. Good question. There's no shortage of options, but there are a few commonalities to evaluate before deciding how to press forward.
The Object In the Offer
So you want to write an eBook - great. You put together an in-depth overview of a topic, with beautiful design and compelling graphics. You spend 80 hours on it, over 4-5 months. You get it published, you get some ads up to bring in traffic, but you're getting a super low (less than 5%) conversion rate. This means only 5 out of a 100 page visitors left their information to get your offer.
Now your cost per lead is $175 when your cost per acquired customer was supposed to be $350. Unless you have a 50% lead-to-closed-won rate, you need a solution.
Time-to-Value of Your Offer
You can sit down to write an eBook. But is the time to value there? What is the time expected to find value you're implicitly or explicitly communicating with your prospect? In a day filled with 101 pressing issues, finding time to review an eBook from a company whom your prospect may not be all that familiar with, can unfortunately be asking a lot.
This is why I advocate using Checklists instead of eBooks. You are going to be able to generate the same quality of lead or better with a shorter lead magnet. But it's not the shortness that's the real value - it's the perception from the prospect's mind - Do I want to read a book to get help with a problem I'm experiencing, or do I want to review a checklist in a 15-20 minutes and reach a resolution in a (perceived) much shorter time.
Injection of an Element of FOMO
Everyone is concerned about missing out on a trend. If you take pride in your work as a professional, you go to great lengths to ensure that you're up to speed on all the latest and best ways to execute on your area of expertise.
This want and desire to stay on top of everything is your opportunity as a B2B Lead Generation marketer. As you position your offer, do so with by injecting the notion that the prospect may or could have left some best practices on the table; that there's something to still be captured.
By introducing the notion that there's a stone left unturned, you create desire for the prospect to alleviate the feeling of having overlooked something. For the B2B prospect who's built a reputable career via a reputation for diligence and executional excellence, this is a painful itch that will need to be scratched.
Optimize for Ease of Consumption of your Content
You can have great content - but even if you work in a buttoned-up, formal industry, your content needs to have flavor - the flavor of good design and font sizes that are easy on the eyes. Odds are your prospect did not convert on your offer to read an academic research paper (unless they did), So, avoid delivering your helpful guide in a white background, 12 point font, Times New Roman delivery.
Important to also consider is that, your reader may be reading on their mobile device. They may be killing time waiting to pick their kids up from school. They may be hoping to get guidance on an issue quickly - which means making your content skimmable.
- Use big headlines.
- Use bullet points.
- Avoid long paragraphs.
- Break a medium paragraph up into
- several small paragraphs
- or multiple bullet points
- (Do you see what I did there?)
Skimmability means the reader can get the gist of your point of view, define you in their mind as an expert on said topic.
Can it be said in a PowerPoint slide?
You don't have to necessarily publish a presentation deck as a lead magnet (though this can work too). The way in which text is generally presented on a slide though can be a guide for how you present text on a page of your content offer.
- Larger font
- Short and to the point statements
- Graphics that make sense and that are on brand
What's Routine for You Can be Groundbreakingly Insightful for Someone Else
After you develop an expertise in a subject matter, what's now mundane for you may be extremely interesting and insightful for a novice, or someone who would hire you to execute said task.
Don't overlook your own expertise.
You didn't always know what you now do. Look for ways to bring those insights out into the public forum. You are probably sitting on a golden field of content. You just need to harvest your crop.
