Four Content Ideas for Driving Inbound Leads

By: Gini Dietrich | August 3, 2011 |

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As some of you know, Marcus Sheridan, of The Sales Lion, did a fantastic job of giving an overview of inbound marketing and how to create content that drives leads.

I’ll be honest. Because of my problem with authority (thanks dad), it’s very rare that I walk away from a webinar, conference, or seminar where I’ve learned something. It’s not the speakers; it’s me. I put up this “I know it all” wall and it’s something I work really hard to overcome.

But that wasn’t the case with Marcus’s webinar that he so willingly helped us host while we have Spin Sucks Pro in private beta.

I was writing stuff down more quickly than I could tweet it. He was entertaining and really knowledgeable.

Four Content Ideas for Driving Inbound Leads

Following are four content ideas he had for driving inbound leads.

Questions people ask. He started off by saying your internal teams are the best content generators. They may not write or produce content, but they have the best ideas for you to use. For example, what are some questions customer service are asked continuously? What questions does the sales team answer when they’re in new business pitches? If you work alone, what kinds of questions do you get from your clients that you can answer via content? This is why we created the Facebook question of the week. I was tired of emailing the same answers to the same questions to people. So, instead, we answer questions via video on the blog and everyone wins.
Cost. This one is interesting and it may make the hair on the back of your neck stand up…like it did mine. He asked webinar attendees what’s the number one thing prospects ask you about? Price, of course. So why are we so afraid to talk about how much things cost with us? Social Fish does a nice job of detailing different projects. Why not do something similar? Then expectations are set even before a phone call is made or a proposal is constructed.
Problems. This one I really like because there are plenty of us who have competition who badmouth us. Marcus says to embrace it. What is your competition saying about you? Blog about it or create a white paper that says, “You may hear this about us. Our side of the story is XYZ.” Then, when people Google “problems with your company,” they’ll find your response as well. I love this one.
Vs. At first I didn’t understand what Marcus meant by versus. And then a light bulb went off. Why not create some content that talks about your company vs. another? For instance, I could easily write a blog post (and will soon) about boutique agencies vs. global PR firms. There are pros and cons to both. Why not spell it out for prospects? I love this one because it qualifies your leads even more. If they’ve decided they want to go with a boutique agency, they’ve read about your prices, and they’ve seen you overcome what the competition is saying…and they still call? That means they’re super qualified by the time they call.

As an aside, because I speak a lot and do various webinars within the industry, I get questions from those engagements that always go unanswered. Writing a blog post (or a series) to answer the ones you didn’t get to not only helps your inbound marketing, but it makes the attendees feel good, too.

Blogging is closest to home for me, from a content standpoint, which is why I talk about it the most. But your content can be newsletters, email campaigns, white papers, podcasts, video series, and more. Don’t think content has to just be a blog. There are lots of opportunities for you to create content that drives inbound leads.

You really should download and watch Marcus’s webinar. It’s $50, but it’s worth every, single penny. Even though he did it for us, I feel like I should pay for it because I’ve watched it several times and have taken away new ideas each time.

He’s doing part two on August 25 so, even if you don’t watch part one, mark your calendars and attend that one!

And speaking of driving inbound leads, Christina Pappas is joining us for a webinar on, well, using webinars to do that very thing. Notice a theme with us? It’s so effective and you don’t have to leave your desk to make it work. Join us on August 11 at 11:00 a.m. CT. This webinar is $50 and you can buy it by clicking here.

Special thanks to Hubspot for the image.