Chasing after prospects and hunting them down is the hard way to attract new prospects to your brand. Luckily, there is a new, better, and easier way available to you: content marketing.
Creating magnetic, interesting, and valuable content that your prospects seek out during the buyer’s journey is a far more effective way of attracting customers to your brand. People are hungry for information. Content marketing gives them what they want. It isn’t interruptive or annoying. And it’s cost effective, too.
Ditch the cold calling, mailed brochures, and TV commercials. Instead, use these types of content marketing to attract new prospects.
1. Informational, Educational Content
Informational and educational content is an absolute must-use type of content marketing for businesses today. Blog posts, infographics, videos, and ebooks that answer common questions and help prospects become more informed and knowledgeable on the buyer’s journey are considered educational materials.
Educational content also enhances your credibility and thought leadership, as it allows you to share all of your expertise, knowledge, and experience with your prospects. Establishing yourself as an expert in your field also helps you gain trust in the sales process.
2. Guest Posts
Guest posting for different industry websites, journals, or trade magazines can help you attract new prospects in places that you couldn’t reach otherwise. It’s similar to educational content—it’s just shared on different channels. It can help you share your advice and expertise with a whole new audience, which will give you another channel on which to boost website traffic.
If you’ve done well at establishing yourself as a thought leader, then many publications will welcome the opportunity to run your articles or blog posts and share them with their readers.
3. User-Generated Content
User-generating content is the stuff that’s created by your brand’s followers, fans, and customers. This type of content marketing can be especially powerful at attracting and converting prospects. It allows you to humanize your brand, connect with your audience, and generate social proof that will convince others to buy.
People are naturally inclined not to believe what you say about your own brand. They’ll be far more likely to believe what a neutral third party has to say. And using user-generated content is how you get your customers to market and sell for you.
Attract new prospects by including user reviews, testimonials, guests blog posts, and other customer-contributed content to your website. Show your prospects that your past and current customers are satisfied with your brand.
4. Expert Content
Expert content is similar to user-generated content because it’s not coming directly from your brand. You would secure expert content through PR and communications efforts. Reach out to reporters and other experts associated to your field, pitch your story, and hope that they write about your company. “Four out of five dentists recommend” is a perfect example of using expert content for marketing purposes.
5. Curated Content
Curated content isn’t written by your company or necessarily about your company. It’s information that’s already on the internet that you find and then share with your own audiences. Curated content is easy to get and is especially important for newsletters and social media. Using curated content can help attract new prospects because it helps you improve your thought leadership. By sharing news pieces, new statistics, and interesting data about your industry, you can show that you’re up to date and an expert in your field.
6. Images
Did you know that most communication is nonverbal? Don’t focus too strongly on the words you use. Make sure to spend some time finding or creating powerful graphics, illustrations, and photos, too. This can help you amplify your messaging, gain attention, and explain your ideas.
7. Entertainment
Sometimes, the content you create should be for entertainment value alone. Content that entertains has its place in business, too. Though sometimes a prospect will be interested in reading a how-to article, sometimes they’re just going to want to watch a funny video.
Entertaining content has the potential to go viral. It also humanizes your brand and allows for deeper connections with prospects. And it’ll get people to your site—and keep them there. Now that’s valuable.
In order to create a comprehensive content marketing strategy and attract the most prospects to your brand, use a mix of these different types of content.
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