Building trust through content: content marketing for lead generation
In this episode of Process to Profitability, I dive into the topic of building trust and generating leads through content marketing. I discuss why businesses may be resistant to content marketing, emphasizing that it is a long-term strategy with lasting impact. I highlight the importance of bringing people to your website through content marketing, where you have control over what you present and cover. I also explore how content marketing builds relationships, educates your audience, and positions you as an authority. I dispel the myth that content marketing has to be lengthy and provide tips on creating compelling and valuable content. Overall, this episode provides insights and strategies to leverage content marketing for lead generation and business growth.
Timestamps:
[00:00:22] Why many business owners are resistant to Content Marketing
[00:01:51] The benefits of Content Marketing for lead generation
[00:04:08] How to use Content Marketing in your own business
[00:05:09] Choosing your Content Marketing platform
[00:07:52] Choose the content you want to create
[00:08:54] Using AI to help with content research
[00:11:03] Nurturing leads through your content
[00:13:32] Showcase your work and social proof
Key Takeaways:
Why people are resistant to content marketing
The long-term strategy of content marketing
How content marketing drives people to your website
Building relationships and trust through content marketing
Positioning yourself as an authority through content marketing
The benefits of longer-form content in content marketing
The importance of answering people's questions in content marketing
Different types of content to use in content marketing (blogs, videos, podcasts)
Using show notes and transcripts to optimize content for SEO
Choosing the right type of content for your audience
Making content compelling and valuable
Writing engaging and authentic content
Using AI to generate topic ideas for content marketing
[00:00:00] Samantha Mabe: As we continue this series of lead generation, I want to cover a topic that many businesses think that they need to start incorporating, but that they really are resistant to: Content Marketing. So let's talk about building trust and lead generation through Content Marketing today.
Why many business owners are resistant to Content Marketing
[00:00:22] Samantha Mabe: First, I wanna talk about why I think people are resistant to Content Marketing, and I have been there, so do not think you're alone in this. But what I have thought about as I think about Content Marketing is that we feel so inundated by all the things we should do or have to do that we just want to push all of that to the side, and most of us want to focus on client work. We want to serve the clients that we already have.
[00:00:55] What Content Marketing does and why I think it's so important, especially compared to a lot of the other marketing efforts that people see as easier to do or more effective, is Content Marketing is a long-term strategy for your business. So we're gonna talk about that in this episode, but what I want you to think about is Content Marketing means that you are creating content that is going to live on forever. Nothing ever truly goes away and it lasts and has a much greater impact than an Instagram post or a TikTok video or a reel that you've created, even if it goes viral. And so it keeps coming back around. Content Marketing is a long-term strategy that is going to last for years to come.
The benefits of Content Marketing for lead generation
[00:01:51] Samantha Mabe: One of the key reasons that I love this as one of our lead generation strategies is because it gets people to your actual website. If you're doing all your Content Marketing through social media, the goal of that platform is to keep people on that platform. And so they don't want you to use your content to get people to go sign up for your email newsletter or to apply to work with you. They want people to follow you, like your posts, and then continue to scroll through to more of your posts or somebody else's. They don't want people to leave.
[00:02:28] And when we actually want to build leads, we need them to leave that platform to take action. And so Content Marketing is a way that we are actually bringing people to our website, to something that we control, where we can decide exactly what we want to present and cover, and that is going to be a lot more effective as a lead generation strategy.
[00:02:53] Beyond just being long term, it builds a relationship. So somebody is going to continue to come back and learn from you. They're going to get a real glimpse into your personality and into your education and your approach to how you do things.
[00:03:09] It's also going to educate your audience. So if you are a naturopathic doctor and you are talking a lot about hormones and fatigue, you are going to be educating your audience about those things, but also about you, how you do things, and what questions they might need to be asking. Maybe you've given them a quick way that they can improve their health now. And so they trust you, and that's the next piece of building trust through content.
[00:03:42] You position yourself as an authority. You are creating content that is going to include a lot of information. It's going to showcase all of your knowledge, your expertise, the things that you have learned, the clients that you have worked with, because you are creating all of this in a way that gives people a chance to actually see you at work.
How to use Content Marketing in your own business
[00:04:08] Samantha Mabe: So why can we do this? Why can we build authority and educate our audience? It's because Content Marketing is generally longer form content. And I know that might sound scary. You're thinking, okay, I have seen those blogs where people write 2000 words and it's about their life. Or I've gone to a recipe blog and I've had to read the whole story of how they bought every single ingredient. That's not exactly what we're talking about here.
[00:04:33] Yes, good Content Marketing comes through blog posts, videos, and through podcasts. Those are the best platforms and it is longer form content, but there are no rules as far as how much you have to write or how many words it has to be.
[00:04:50] What you're really trying to do is create things that are gonna answer people's questions. So my former guest and friend Brittany Herzberg says that SEO is the way that you get to be the answer to the question on Google, and content is the way that you build up that SEO.
Choosing your Content Marketing platform
[00:05:09] Samantha Mabe: The type of content that you choose to create is going to depend on your audience, their needs, and their preferences. But what we really want to do is have that content live on your website so that they can be directed back there to learn more about working with you.
[00:05:32] Blogs are the easiest way to do this. Obviously, your website would host your blog. You would have the blog post there, and that's super simple, right? You click on the blog link, you can read all that information. Google sees that you've created all of these blog posts, and so it helps to benefit your SEO.
[00:05:49] But videos and podcasts can do the same thing. So what I always recommend if you do videos or podcasts as your main form of Content Marketing is that instead of letting that live on another platform, you want it to still live on your website. I tell people, and you can see this as an example on my website, set up another blog. So I have a blog with regular blog posts, and then I have a podcast and all of my podcast show notes live in a blog on my website. And so each episode has its own post. It has an introduction, it has show notes, it has images just like I would for a blog post. And then I also embed the audio feed or the video feed, whichever one people would want to listen to.
[00:06:41] And for videos and podcasts, I always include the entire transcript because that is the best way that you can help people to have that audio or visual format, be more accessible so people who cannot or do not want to watch or listen, can read. And it helps with SEO. So Google cannot yet listen to or watch videos and so you have to tell your search engines what is in there. And a transcript is the easiest way to do that because it's literally word for word what it is you're saying in the video. And by default, that is going to include all of the keywords on that topic because you're going to just naturally be including them as you talk through that topic.
[00:07:33] So when you start thinking about Content Marketing, I want you to decide, do you wanna blog? Do you wanna create videos? Do you want to host a podcast? Think about what your audience is going to respond best to, what they might want to listen to or read, and then find a place for that to live on your website.
Choose the content you want to create
[00:07:52] Samantha Mabe: Now, once we start creating that content, we actually want to make sure that it's compelling and valuable. We don't want it to just be living on your website, but not doing anything for you. So what I want you to do is think about what topics are going to be most relevant to your audience about your type of service, and start there as far as brainstorming topics you could talk about. Conduct a little bit of research. And then you can figure out, okay, I wanna cover these specific topics.
[00:08:28] Now I need to write that out. And we want it to be written in an engaging and authentic manner. We don't need to try to sound like a robot or stuff things with keywords. Search engines are smart and so they will be able to figure out if your post is an answer to somebody's question. So we want it to be really fun and engaging for people to read when they come to your website.
Using AI to help with content research
[00:08:54] Samantha Mabe: I love doing my research piece of this through AI. So when I was thinking about topics to cover for the lead generation miniseries of this podcast, what I did was I went to ChatGPT, I typed in my audience, my business type, my podcast information, and I said, "okay. Give me some ideas for topics about lead generation." And it gave me a whole bunch of different topics that I could then talk about on the podcast. I went through those and I picked out the ones that made the most sense from my perspective as a website designer to you as a listener.
[00:09:38] And then I actually had ChatGPT help me outline these episodes as well. I said, "okay, this is my audience. This is what I do in the podcast. This is the topic that I want to cover, and I want these episodes to be 10 to 15 minutes long." And so what ChatGPT then did was created an outline for some main points that I should cover, and I am then able to use those to actually record this episode. So it does not develop a script for me. It is not telling me exactly what to cover, but it creates an outline that I can follow so that I don't miss anything and sometimes it off actually creates points that I can cover that I might not have thought of on my own, and so it just makes that process a whole lot faster.
[00:10:25] You can actually write your content through AI, but I don't recommend doing that unless you are going to then go through the entire thing and make sure that it reflects your expertise, that make sure that it reflects the voice of your brand. And it sounds like you, instead of sounding like AI wrote it.
[00:10:47] People are smart. Search engines are smart. And so we don't want to simply rely on tools to write our content for us, but we can use them to brainstorm and give us a starting point.
Nurturing leads through your content
[00:11:03] Samantha Mabe: All right, so we've created a lot of valuable content and now we want to actually nurture our leads through that content. So the best ways to do this are through consistency in our content creation and then leveraging that content to get people to move through the customer journey.
[00:11:22] Decide on a schedule in which you want to release content, whether that's once a week, once a month, however, it works for your life and your business. But being consistent is going to be a whole lot better than putting out five posts this month and nothing for the next five months. If you have to, you can write them all ahead of time and schedule them out.
[00:11:42] And then we also want to leverage that content to guide leads through the customer journey. So we're starting by building awareness of the problem that they're having, building awareness of our solution, building awareness of us as an expert. Then we are moving them into considering working together and making sure their questions are answered, that they feel comfortable and finally converting them into clients.
[00:12:07] The best way to do this through your content is to cover a wide variety of topics related to your service. So you are not only doing kind of an intro to what is it that I do and how can I solve this particular issue. But then you can also offer posts about this is how I, in my business approach something.
[00:12:32] So you want to think about how you can build awareness, build connection, and that is eventually going to convert people into clients. And I also want you to remember that on every post that you create, you should have some kind of call to action other than reading that post.
[00:12:51] What I like to do is at the bottom I have some related posts so that they can continue to read more if they want to do that. And then I also have a call to action button. In my case, it's to sign up for my email newsletter.
[00:13:04] It could be for you to schedule a free consultation call, especially if you are talking really specifically about ways that they can apply some of your strategies in their life right now. Maybe they read through that and they go, oh, I can do all of this and now I know that I want to work further with this person.
[00:13:23] Give them a really simple way to right there click on that call to action and schedule a consultation or apply to work with you.
Showcase your work and social proof
[00:13:32] Samantha Mabe: And then the last thing that I want you to consider with Content Marketing, and this is one I didn't start doing until more recently, was showcasing social proof and showcasing your expertise. Use your Content Marketing platform to showcase things like client testimonials, case studies, success stories. You want to reinforce the trust and authority that you have in your industry, and a great way to do that is through other people's words and through showcasing those journeys.
[00:14:03] You'll see that I have interviews with some of my previous clients where we're talking through the entire process and I am having them show you what it is that they really loved about working together. And then on my blog, I actually have detailed case studies on there for each of my clients where I'm showcasing: here's what it was like before. Here's what we did, here's what it looks like. Now here's what they said. And I have created a way that I can share that social proof through what I've done for my clients.
[00:14:36] Other people who are coming to my blog and maybe they're reading about how to customize a button on Squarespace, they could then find a post that says, 'oh, here is a design that you might like to look at.' They can see that design and they can go, 'oh, I really want to learn from her. I really want to hire her as my website designer.' And that just continues to build trust and showcase my expertise as a designer. And you can do the same thing by sharing testimonials, sharing case studies of your clients through your Content Marketing.
[00:15:09] So as we wrap up, I want you to remember that it is important to create content that is going to last that is valuable for your readers, and that nurtures leads to get them to convert. Think about the best Content M arketing platform for you and find a way to get that hosted on your actual website. And then start creating content that answers people's questions, that highlights your client success stories and gets people to stay in your orbit, learn from you, build trust, and eventually get those people onto your client calendar.
