Guest Post by Jordie van Rijn
Have you ever written an article for a blog or another type of publication, where you thought, “I have really put time and effort into it (and it turned out as quality material) – I should be using this for more than just a one-time article”? Actually, you are right. Good content can get more mileage. Re-purpose it – preferably for lead generation using it as an incentive to entice people to sign up.
Repurposing is a great way to extend the life and reach of your content and gather quality leads and email opt-ins. It works by setting up the content as a part of a gated campaign. This encourages people to sign up and receive the content (reformatted as a downloadable PDF, for instance) via email in exchange for an opt-in.
Here are some ideas for types of content that are especially fit for lead gen. I’ll also share just how you can repurpose each content type into a lead generation incentive that’s equally as awesome as the original – but only requiring a fraction of the work to implement.
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Overview of statistics or examples
Statistics can make for an amazing resource for the right audience. Those that provide insight into your client’s own target market can go on to shape their strategic direction and marketing efforts, and in the process, you become a much respected expert in the industry. Take, for instance, my post on marketing automation statistics. It did take me many, many hours to gather all of those, but keeping it up to date takes less as an on-going effort.
Specific uses:
This type of content can be reformatted as a benchmarking report. You will be likely to find people who are researching the topic gravitating to the content, and those leads can be especially valuable.
Statistics can also be made into visual content. You can use free tools like Pikochart to make bite-sized, infographics without directly needing a designer. Infographics and charts can also be made interactive with free online tools such as Visually.
Immediately start the inbox conversation
To deliver these assets to your converted audience members, you could link from the signup thank you page, but I’d suggest you consider delivering them via email only, so that people check their emails before downloading.
As with any new lead, it sets a good precedent to connect in their mailbox directly, allowing you to monitor their email engagement activity, start an email campaign and, later on, start manually sending the right types of follow-up emails to your sales-ready leads.
Frame it to attract your ideal audience
The trick to make optimal use is to frame it right. By appealing to the right part of your audience, you are paving the road to higher forms of email marketing segmentation. For example, giving your email a title like “The Benchmark Statistics You Need for Crafting a Great X, Y or Z Strategy”), you can create a better defined audience (people who are working on their X, Y or Z strategies).
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Deep dive that requires a tool
Another lead generation idea is to create an Excel sheet as a companion to a long-form deep dive article. Well-crafted spreadsheets (calculators, checklists, directories of contacts, etc.) can go beyond being a useful resource for your clients and can actually serve as a tool in their day-to-day work.
For example, an article that discusses the ways in which business should be analyzing their sales growth could be accompanied by an Excel sheet that makes visual analysis more accessible, with formulas and structures for graphs and charts.
Claim authority and promote the incentive
Instead of leaving it at that, the deep dive article can be broken up into several shorter blogposts, that refer to each other and the main cornerstone article. This way you are building up authority around the topic. Assets we created, like the excel based incentive can then also be used as a hook in all those blog
posts or ones where you explore similar topics.
- Case studies
Case studies make for perfect marketing material, so you want to showcase those on your site. They build a brand, increase trust and show, rather than tell, what you are capable of. It is powerful to include quotes directly from clients, so that your case studies double as endorsements.
Specific uses: Case studies can be used as gated content with access contingent on signing up. Setting up an event-driven email series with a case study included can be pretty straight forward, assuming you’re using modern email marketing and marketing automation tools.
Score touchpoints for incentive promotion
To serve acquisition purposes, promote your case study or other at every turn (touchpoint). Well not every turn, it is wise to make a list of your touchpoints and score them to focus on the most promising opportunities. You can download a copy of my excel email marketing list growth template that outlines just how this scoring works.
Pre-qualify during download
It is a mistake to assume the downloader is in the same industry or has interest in the product that was discussed in the case study. Be sure to start lead scoring / qualifying right away by asking some of these questions at time of download, the answers in turn, can also be used to better route the follow up campaign.
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An introduction to your business topic
Introductions to relevant business issues, or those within the wider industry in which you and your clients operate, is a seriously versatile form of content.
Specific uses: An introduction to a business topic can go on to become a series of useful blog articles. Throughout the series, a focus should be maintained upon providing enough information to be useful, but holding back enough to incentivise your readers to register for the “premium” version. You can apply the generous yet scarce principle to this content.
Switching to video content
Some of your audience members might prefer video over articles. You can repurpose the content as a series of webinars, which can afterwards serve as on-demand viewable content. A number of topical webinars could become a course that people register for, receiving one video every couple of days, through an automated drip campaign.
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Audience captivating material
Blog articles that provide step-by-step instructions can perform extremely well and can lend themselves well to promoting an advanced guide. Be very specific when choosing the topics for your step-by-step, keeping in mind the buyer’s journey / pipeline stage the people are in that would be interesting to attract as well as their place in the DMU.
Many B2B companies are actually creating content that they didn’t see as marketing materials from the start. If you are giving a presentation and create a slide deck especially for an audience, you could only publish it on Slideshare, certainly. But rather than that, also use it to get / stay in touch and turn the people into part of your addressable market. The presentation was meant for a certain audience, so it should appeal to them from the start.
Favor evergreen content; accelerate your acquisition efforts.
Ideally, content should be evergreen. Evergreen content doesn’t show its age and continues to be valuable and relevant over time, without needing constant updates. With each new publication, add a step to the process step to evaluate / brainstorm how to make it work harder. Re-use and repurpose your work to accelerate your acquisition efforts.
Jordie van Rijn is an independent consultant and influencer with a focus on email marketing, marketing automation and MarTech. You can read his blogs at Email Monday.
