How Your Content is Sabotaging Your Lead Generation Strategy

You work tirelessly to set up a lead generation campaign that is sure to appeal to your target audience. You launch in all excitement and can’t wait to see it generating precious leads. You feel confident and happy that you’ve finally got a handle on this whole lead generation game.

Now imagine your surprise when you check your analytics and discover that your sure-to-work campaign generated only a handful of leads.

Did you target the wrong keywords? Was the offer not compelling enough?

Who is to blame for this defeat?

More often than not, small business owners don’t realize that they are sabotaging their lead generation campaign by using the wrong type of content. In a rush to launch these campaigns, businesses often repurpose content from product marketing or sales enablement, creating an inconsistency between the offer and what their target audience wants.

• Mind the Content Gap

Too many small business owners fail to understand that they need to adjust their message based on where their target audience is in the sales funnel. While it’s true that content marketing is one of the best ways to supercharge your lead generation machine, you can’t complete a transaction if you don’t address every stage of the funnel with the right content. Just like salt and pepper – one can’t go without the other.

Lead generation campaigns focus on getting contact information from prospects. Lead nurturing campaigns, on the other hand, are meant for prospects who are already familiar with your small business but aren’t quite ready to make a decision.

By repurposing sales enablement content in your lead generation campaign, you are missing the opportunity to reach your audience effectively. Instead of using the opportunity to offer them content that is relevant to their needs at that particular stage in the buying cycling, you get lazy, or simply believe that repurposing content won’t do any harm.

• Spotting the Gaps

Here’s a simple way to identify any content gaps.

Create a spreadsheet that includes your lead generation campaign in one column, the offer in another and the type of content you are using in a third column. Highlight campaigns where the offer is not particularly relevant to your target audience or your keywords. For instance, case studies, webinars, or data sheets don’t work very well in top-of-the-funnel lead generation campaigns.

Once you start recording this information, it will be easier to ensure the success of your lead generation strategy. For instance, if a campaign is underperforming, then it might be a good indicator of a content gap.

• Fill the Gap with New Content

If you notice that your content doesn’t match one of your offers, the best thing to do is to replace it. Once you understand where your lead generation campaign is in the sales funnel process, you can start brainstorming content ideas.

Pay attention to your audience needs – it goes without saying that content should be helpful and relevant to them. Make sure that the new content adds value to their lives by considering their buyer persona.

As much as it would be nice to repurpose content, this action might, in fact, sabotage your lead generation efforts. So make sure to create relevant content that matches your compelling offers.