As far as marketing on the World Wide Web is concerned, it’s safe to
say that the most important aspect of it right now is inbound marketing.
As opposed to shoving your service or product down your customers’
throat and sounding like a used car salesman (“For you, my friend, I
make special price!”), and doing so through paid campaigns, spam, or
online ads, you need to be more focused on providing high-quality
content, such as blogs, ebooks, or webinars potential customers can
actually use, before they decide to pick your product as a solution to
their problem.
Providing informative content establishes you as an authority in the
field, and instills trust into your reader’s minds, which are then more
likely to make a purchase, because you went the extra mile to help them.
This approach works because it’s organic, and it’s here to stay.
That being said, inbound marketing does require a lot of work, and
you need to have a skill set that is broad enough in order to produce
versatile, high-quality content. This is the reason behind our list,
which contains 12 simple, yet effective tools you will go crazy over,
and which will help you create amazing content.
One of the key aspects of inbound and content marketing is
consistency, which means you should make the effort to publish new posts
several times a week, which can be challenging, especially if you are
doing it alone. Hubstop’s Blog Topic Generator
is a helpful tool which allows you to enter up to three keywords, after
which it will create topics based around those same keywords.
In order to make your blog or website more visible for search
engines, you need to make sure that your content features some carefully
selected keywords that are pertinent to your niche. Übersuggest
makes this process a lot simpler. All you have to do is submit a term,
and it will generate useful keywords for you. Easy as pie.
Gravity is an
immensely powerful personalization engine which enables you to practice
targeted advertising and suggest content for each reader based on their
personal preferences, location, age, and plenty of other factors.
Because it collaborates with 50 of the most powerful companies on the
Web, you can rest assured your content will be able to attract the right
type of audience.
As a content creator, there are at least two strong reasons for you to use ZenPen.
First of all, there is its minimalistic interface that helps you battle
distractions and really focus on creating crisp written content. Second
of all, you can save your work in HTML, as well as plain text, which
means it will be ready for implementation on your blog or website with
no need for complicated conversions.
Keep in mind that your websites, blogs, newsletters, and ebooks are
the face of your company or business, and as such, they need to be
perfect, which means there is no room for poor grammar and spelling. To
help you polish your content, as well as improve your grammar skills,
check out Ginger, one of the most accurate grammar-checking apps on the market today.
If you prefer to have human editors go over your text, get in touch with EduGeeksClub,
where you can receive professional feedback from both writers and
editors on how you can improve your work. Apart from proofreading, their
writers can also help you in creating fresh high-quality content your
readers won’t be able to resist and which will keep them hungry for
more.
PlaceIt is
probably the best app anyone running an online business could ask for.
It allows you to create high-quality images featuring your app or
product being used in real life. All you have to do is upload a
screenshot of your product and let the tool do its magic. It will save
you countless hours, because it does this automatically for you, which
would otherwise take hours of work in Photoshop.
Share as Image
enables you to create some potent eye candy for your blog. You can turn
any sort of text or image into attractive and shareable content in
minutes, thanks to a wide variety of fonts, high-quality photos, and
filters offered by the app itself. Nothing like some custom images to
help you dazzle your audience.
BeFunky is a
multi-functional image editor which allows you to produce beautiful
visual content, even if image-editing and graphic design aren’t one of
your stronger suits. Its functionality is not limited to just creating
images, though. You can come up with striking collages and your very own
custom graphic designs. Best of all, it is browser-based, so you can
access it anywhere, anytime.
Everybody loves infographics, and so do we, but if you have ever
tried to set out and create one, you would know how complicated it can
be. However, things can be a lot simpler if you decide to check out Easel.ly,
an online infographics editor which enables you to create stunning
infographics with very little effort, thanks to its large selection of
pre-made, customizable templates.
Podcasts are another powerful, yet somewhat underrated method of
inbound marketing that provides potential customers with an incredible
amount of useful data. Djpod
is a podcasting tool you can use to both create and host your podcasts,
and its features allow you to share them throughout social networks or
iTunes. You also get unlimited storage and access to detailed
statistics.
Custom animated videos and presentations are another effective way of
making your content more unique, which should help you have the edge
over your competitors. We recommend that you use PowToon, which is not only easy to use, but it produces professional results. You will be amazed at what it’s able to create.
Content creation is a demanding industry which requires you to wear
many hats. These 12 incredible tools should be your digital Swiss Army
knife when it comes to inbound marketing. If you take the time to master
each one of them, you will soon realize the benefits.
http://socialmouths.com/2015/12/10/content-creation-tools/
Lead magnets
- often called content offers - are something we've all seen. From free
eBooks, to templates, to other gated content that's offered alongside
blog articles, they've become a standard part of social media
marketing. If a website visitor clicks and gives you their email
address, they become a lead, and you have the opportunity to move to
more personal email conversations.
The issue is, with the sea of content that's out there, there's also a
sea of content offers. So how do you make yours stand out?
And if that problem weren't hard enough, you also need to do more
than just get the click. You want that content offer to resonate, you
want that lead to see your expertise, and the value you offer so that
they'll want to come back for more - either more content, or for a
conversation in email, or for a meeting.
Good lead magnets have to draw visitors in and get that click, entice
them to download, then sell them on your value while helping them solve
their problems. It's not easy.
In this post, we'll break down how we design lead magnets that win clicks and influence customers.
Barry Feldman recently wrote and article in
which he covered some good fundamentals about lead magnets, and
provided some great examples of lead magnets that compel action.
To summarize Barry's list, lead magnets should:
- Be specific - Be absolutely clear what people are going to get, and, to take it a step further, what problem the lead magnet helps solve.
- Provide results - Tell them how you're going to solve the problem and what result they will see.
- Provide instant gratification - When prospects consume the content, they should be able to use the information immediately to solve the problem.
- Build authority - The quality of what your offering
and the information included should be valuable to your audience and,
therefore, improve your brand's standing as a strong resource and
thought leader.
- Provide value - By addressing issues and helping
solve problems. As Barry stated, it should be something people would be
willing to pay for. More on that later.
To drive more clicks and conversions, we focus a lot of time on
the results and value pieces of the equation. That's what we're going to
talk about in this post.
You Have to Know Your Buyer's Journey
To provide the best value, you have to have a detailed understanding of your prospects buyer's journey.
Content, as well as the lead magnets near the content, should be
specific to each stage of your buyer's journey. For a better
understanding of this, see this article by Rochana Rapkins on 6 Different Types of Buyer Journey Maps, and see our article How to Create the Right Content for each Stage of your Inbound Sales Funnel.
Content Near Lead Magnet Calls to Action Is Key
Lead magnets are included near, or are embedded in some form within,
your content. They might be call-to-action buttons on your website.
They might be calls-to-action on your blog.
They might be links in an email message that's part of a longer,
ongoing nurturing stream conversation a salesperson is having with a
lead, trying to turn them into an opportunity.
The key point here is that the right content offers need to be associated with the right content.
If you're doing your inbound marketing job well, you've defined the
stages of your buyer's journey and are creating content specific to each
stage. Make sure that you're identifying which stage each of your lead
magnets applies to as well so that marketers and salespeople can include
the right offers with the right content (see this article from Hubspot on customizing content for each stage of the buyer's journey).
Winning Clicks and Influencing Customers
We know that lead magnets have two jobs - they have to compel
visitors to click and download them, and then they have to provide real
value to move leads down the funnel and keep them coming back. We also
know that lead magnets should be customized for each stage of the
buyer's journey.
Let's look at some examples of what lead magnets might look like during each stage of the buyer's journey:
Retail product
- Awareness stage (top of the funnel) - Remember,
at this stage, people are looking for answers and seeking education and
insight. You should be educating them and positioning your brand as
both a useful resource for content and as a thought leader. A retail
product might provide a checklist - for example, a generator
manufacturer might offer a listing of key features that generators
should have for use with RVs, at worksites, and during power outages.
This eBook is likely broadly promoted on websites, blogs, and through
social media and search advertising.
- Consideration stage (middle of the funnel) - At
this stage prospects understand their problems and opportunities, and
they're researching solutions that will help them best solve those
problems or realize those opportunities. You need to both showcase your
products and services, and differentiate them - and make yourself stand
above the competition. You also want to guide those prospects that are
the best fit for your business further down your funnel. At this stage,
the generator manufacturer might produce a whitepaper detailing the
capabilities, and features of its generators showcasing how they're
designed to be used in specific scenarios. This type of lead magnet may
be included alongside content or might be sent in an email message to
leads that have already opted into a previous offer.
- Decision stage (bottom of the funnel) - At this
stage prospects are looking for the reason to buy, they need something,
internal or external, that will compel that action. For this element,
the generator manufacturer might offer a coupon, free add-ons, free
setup, or some other offer to nudge prospective buyers into action.
Again, this offer likely comes in an email to leads that are already
considered to be at the middle or bottom of the funnel.
Software App
- Awareness stage - A software vendor that sells
proposal creation software might produce an eBook which explains how the
standard back and forth of writing proposals without using such a tool
wastes time and may result in unnecessary churn for every proposal
created, and delivery of rushed or unrefined proposals that may lose
business.
- Consideration stage - The proposal software vendor
may run webinars regularly that allow prospects to see the software in
action, and that show how common issues in proposal creation and
collaboration are addressed by the software. It's important to note the
interactive nature of this activity. While the webinar is likely to be
mostly a canned presentation and demonstration, the webinar format gives
the software vendor a great opportunity to have salespeople interact in
real time with prospective buyers, and follow up with those buyers
after the fact to answer questions, provide clarifications and continue
productive contact.
- Decision stage - To nudge leads into becoming
buyers, the proposal software vendor may offer a free trial of their
software, or, as some software vendors frequently do, offering a
'forever free' version of software with minimal functionality to warm
users up to using a paid version.
Professional service
- Awareness stage - An IT consultancy that
provides security hardware, software, and consulting for intrusion
protection and prevention may also use an eBook in the awareness stage.
In the technology sector, one of our favorite types of eBooks is a
'Notes from the Field' eBook. This kind of eBook would showcase a
variety of real examples of the types of threats that exist, the impact
of network attacks, and the steps needed to secure networks from future
issues.
- Consideration stage - The IT security consultancy
might publish an Expert Guide on Detecting Network Intrusion. The guide
showcases the company's knowledge and expertise and conveys the
complexity of the services they provide. At this stage, leads are often
doing intense research and looking for in-depth knowledge, which is what
this lead magnet provides.
- Awareness stage - The IT security consultancy might
offer a free evaluation of a prospective buyers network. It's important
to note that, with this type of offer, you should clearly state what
prospects will and will not get. In this case, the IT security
consultancy might make it clear that a security engineer will spend two
hours with the client and provide a range of options that may be a good
fit, while a sales associate will provide estimated pricing.
Make Sure Lead Magnets Offer Real Value
As Barry Feldman notes in his post, lead magnets "should be valuable to the point where people would pay for it if asked."
I agree - I even like to take it a step further, since everyone wants
to know time and numbers. For the majority of our clients, we believe a
good lead magnet should be worth 1-2 weeks of paid consulting time, or
$3,000 to $7,000. Obviously, there are a lot of variables in there, but
we find most of our clients wind up in that range.
How do you justify this, especially if you need one lead magnet for each stage?
What's your average sale? What will you make if one client becomes a
customer based on a lead magnet? What will you make if two clients
become customers? When we run those numbers, we often see closed
business generating two or three times the revenue versus the cost of
producing three lead magnets (one for each stage).
For example, if that IT security consultancy creates three lead
magnets for the cost of $21,000, and wins a year-long retainer from a
single client at $5,000 a month, that's $60,000 in revenue of the client
in the first year, or 300% return on investment. That's one client, and
it doesn't account for continued revenue for the lifetime of that
client relationship.
Conclusion
Great lead magnets help your products and services stand out. There's
no secret sauce here - you have to put in the time and effort to
understand what your target audience is looking for, their pain points,
and what opportunities they're seeking, and how they progress through
their buying journey. Once you understand this, you can then create lead
magnets that compel them to click and convert them to customers.
What are your objectives for the lead magnet? How do you create them?
By Bob Carver
http://www.socialmediatoday.com/smt-influencer/how-create-lead-magnets-win-clicks-and-influence-customers
