Companies that offer intentional and strategic lead nurturing content generate 50% more sales at 33% lower costs. Learn how to get the same results.

Nudging prospects down the sales funnel requires tactfully engaging and educating them through a process called lead nurturing.

By using various types of lead nurturing content to educate consumers on products and services, they highlight the advantages of the company. Successful organizations also offer support and value at each stage of the sales funnel.

When value is provided via education and support that is tailored to a prospect’s needs, the likelihood that they’ll choose your company is significantly increased.

In fact, nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than unnurtured ones.

In this article, you’ll learn how to utilize various types of content to leverage across your sales and marketing efforts to increase your conversion rates. And discover how different types of content aids in establishing a connection at every stage of a consumer’s buying journey.

Suggested Reading: What is Lead Nurturing Content? And How to Leverage Digital Content Marketing for Nurturing Your Leads

1. AWARENESS—Promotional Content

Nurturing Engagement

The very first step in customer acquisition is awareness. Lead-nurturing content is key to establishing familiarity with your brand values and the advantages you offer over your competitors.

Promotional content tells consumers how you can solve their problems and serves as a precursor to growing engagement and building relationships.

Social Media Marketing

A social media trends report shows that one of the top three reasons users engage in various social media channels is to find and follow information about products and companies.

The current number of social media users globally sits at 4.62 billion. This presents a remarkable opportunity for brands to create awareness and nurture interest.

Although it can be tempting to be on every social channel available, it’s not a realistic strategy. Each channel has its select target demographic and appeals to users in different ways. As a result, using the same content across the board won’t be an effective way to achieve your goals.

Be selective about the platforms you use to get your audience’s attention and establish your brand masterfully on those key channels. To be successful on your chosen channels, you need to stand out from the crowd. The best way to do this is by publishing lead-nurturing content of value that establishes you as an industry leader.

Social channels uniquely allow you to tell a story that resonates with your audience and draws them in.

Blog Articles—How To’s and Listicles

Getting through life both professionally and personally involves a lot of Googling how to do things. Providing easily accessible foundational-level content that features the how-to’s your audience is searching for is a winning formula.

When customers know they can turn to you for answers, expert advice, and even free templates, they will keep coming back.

The solutions you provide must be realistic, relatable, consistent, and current.

Your blog should also create awareness about how your company can help solve your audience’s problems.

Suggested Reading: How to Write Lead Nurturing Content [5 Best Practices for Writing Lead Nurturing Content]

Webinar Presentations

With the popularity of online video content, webinars are an ideal way to establish your brand and your industry expertise. It’s essential to first establish the pressing needs of your audience. Once you know this, address those topics to optimize webinars as a tool for nurturing leads.

Partnering with industry experts will set you up as a trusted leading brand that sets trends rather than follows them. Webinar lead nurturing content can be live, on-demand, or automated.

Live webinars give you the opportunity to answer questions from participants in real time. On the other hand, on-demand webinars allow participants to access the content at any time it suits them. This is especially helpful across different time zones. Automated webinars allow you to pre-record content and enhance it with additional features.

2. EVALUATION—Educational and Informative Content

Nurturing Favor

Once you have presented your brand to consumers through promotional content, build upon their awareness by allowing them to engage deeper and in a way that benefits them.

Lead-nurturing content during this stage includes educational and highly informative material that strengthens the prospect’s perception of your brand.

Helpful Reader-Focused Blog Articles

High-quality blog content is essential to building upon the likeness of businesses while inching prospects closer to the desired buying decision.

This type of lead nurturing content is very industry-specific, useful, and reliable. Even though other organizations might cover similar topics, a company’s blogs should encapsulate a unique vantage point that reflects a unique selling proposition (USP).

Ensure that your content sets you apart as a preferred partner and trusted information source.

Comprehensive Guides and eBooks

While prospects can read blogs in a few minutes, guides and eBooks are a lot more in-depth.

Guides offer step-by-step instructions on how to do things—like use a product or get the most out of a specific service—and can vary in length and content type. They answer relevant questions and can include images, graphs, and tutorials.

Ebooks are longer form content and can span a wide range of sub-topics and related content. They are time-consuming to curate and compile yet can serve as an incredible resource for consumers. Ebooks also play a powerful role in establishing your brand as a credible industry leader. Ebook access usually requires the user to download or follow a link after submitting their email address.

Both guides and eBooks should offer accurate content that spans beyond common knowledge. Customers, come to you because you are the expert. They don’t need you to tell them what they already know. Customers need you to solve their problems and answer their questions in a way that’s easy to understand and follow.

Whitepapers

Whitepapers are more formal than most other lead nurturing content types. They are persuasive, data-backed documents, often directed at a very specific audience or buyer persona.

In the 19th century, the term whitepaper referred to legislative documents presenting a summary of information that would influence the way parliament voted on certain issues. In terms of your content, you are essentially presenting a case to influence your consumers’ vote for your brand.

It’s not uncommon for whitepapers to name their ideal audience in the title. For example, a whitepaper with a heading such as “How CEOs can become better leaders,” is more likely to draw a CEO’s attention than something titled “How to become a better leader.”

Although white papers are not entirely unbiased and have a clear purpose in mind, they are written with fact-based research to boost credibility. This helps consumers feel like they are making a well-informed decision.

Courses

Offering short courses on topics of interest may sound like a labor-intensive way to generate leads, but there are many benefits. For one, educational courses establish you as a source of expertise to learn from. They also create the impression that you have a genuine interest in the growth, development, and success of your consumers as opposed to only wanting their money.

Regardless of whether you gain business immediately, offering a course can benefit the company in the long run. Consumers might refer you to peers who eventually convert. They are also more likely to remember what they gained from your course and return when they are in a better position to commit. A course is much more memorable than a social media post or blog since it requires more engagement from the user.

In addition, most users are willing to fill out a survey in exchange for a free course. This can be instrumental in helping you gain a better understanding of your core audience. As a result, you’ll be able to target them more effectively at a lower cost.

Videos

Videos are an effective way to nurture consumer trust. They allow you to tell a story about your brand and appeal to consumers on an emotional level. Testimonials, video adverts, FAQ videos, and tutorials are all types of video content you can optimize to drive consumer engagement.

A video marketing statistics report revealed that 96% of consumers watch explainer videos to learn more about a brand’s products or services. In addition, 88% have been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a company’s video, and 73% said they prefer video content over reading text to gain product or brand information.

Podcasts

Podcasts can be formal, informal, or educational. What makes podcasts popular is the fact that you can listen to them while driving, commuting, lying in bed, or even waiting for a doctor’s appointment.

Podcasts often include interviews with industry experts and are an effective way to establish yourself as a credible authority.

When podcasts are consistent, they can grow a brand following and allow you to address your follower’s needs through FAQ episodes.

3. Purchase—Features & Benefits

Nurturing Trust

Once a follower actively engages with your content and considers a purchase, the most effective lead nurturing content to offer them is purchase intent-oriented subject matter.

Testimonials, product feature profiles, and case studies can all solidify their purchase decision.

Email Marketing

Customers who attend webinars, sign up for courses, or download eBooks are the perfect targets for email marketing campaigns. Personalize campaigns and keep them relevant to individual areas of interest to prevent them from ending up in the spam folder.

Newsletters can keep prospects updated on the latest product or service developments, industry news, and specials on a first-to-know basis.

Case Studies and Testimonials

Case studies and testimonials present compelling ways to promote trust. They reassure the prospect that you deliver what you promote. These types of content prove that previous customers or businesses have experienced great success with your brand.

They can even evoke a sense of FOMO, showing prospects they may lag behind if they don’t get on board with your brand’s innovative solutions soon.

Blogs—Product or Service Focused

Where initial blogs aim to present unbiased information and subtle nudges toward your products or services, blogs at this purchase decision stage call for strong calls to action (CTAs), expert reviews, and strategically placed product or service marketing throughout the text.

Toward the bottom of the sales funnel, a blog in a product or service-based series may feature the company’s range of products or services associated with each section of content.

Additionally, user-generated content from previous customer success stories and images of them using the products is a great strategy to stretch outside the comfort zone of any marketing campaign.

Product and Service Focused Website Pages

Link your product marketing blogs and strong CTAs directly to your website’s product and service pages.

These should provide a summary as well as comprehensive information about product and service features and costs.

Make it as easy as possible for prospects to get all the information they need with clear, honest, and unambiguous information. After working this hard to convert the sale, the last thing you want is to have the product returned or a bad public review posted because the details were vague.

So, be specific—murky descriptions will lead to unrealistic product or service expectations.

Suggested Reading: How to Build a Content Roadmap for an Effective Lead Nurturing Strategy

Partner With WriteForMe for Your Lead Nurturing Content

Lead nurturing is about creating and organizing content and campaigns that will increase the conversion rates in your sales cycle.

First, promotional and engaging content is essential to create awareness about your brand. This is followed by educational and informative content to build favor with your brand. Finally, once a prospect has decided they like what you have to offer, lead-nurturing content should focus on solidifying trust with success stories and product or service benefits.

Essentially, lead-nurturing content considers the most important factor in the buyer’s decision process: the buyer.

WriteForMe focuses on your buyer’s needs and preferences to promote brand awareness, engagement, favor, and trust. Our expert content marketing team crafts personalized and targeted content that will help you develop your lead-nurturing campaigns, boost your sales, and increase your customer base.

Contact WriteForMe today to get started with a roadmap for your lead-nurturing content and request your FREE content marketing playbook.

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