Companies want to get qualified sales leads faster and at lower cost. Unfortunately, traditional marketing and sales processes are not working as well. People use caller ID to avoid sales calls, emails from unknown people go into the email SPAM bin and creating high-value content such as white papers, guides and other media can be costly and take a long time to create. A great solution is to do pre-content marketing.
Pre-content marketing uses descriptions of high-value content to attract and motivate qualified and interested prospects to submit their contact information. This can be descriptions of white papers (early stage sales), case studies (sales justification stage) or other media related to the customer sales journey.
Each pre-content marketing item should have its own web page (URL), searchable title and value description – a few paragraphs, a notification message that the item is in development and not available yet and a simple form (name and email) that allows the reader to request to be alerted when it is released.
Key Benefits:
– Get Leads Faster – Before Creating Content
– Use Requestor Feedback to Create Content
– Lower Cost – Only Create Content that Works!
Pre-Content Sales & Marketing Process:
Sales Lead Content List – Create a list of the 5-10 key topics (or more) your customers need and are searching for. existing and desired papers you want to publish.
Sales Lead Content Title – include key search words and phrases along with key motivator words.
Sales Lead Content Summary – 1 to 3 paragraphs max – Paragraph 1 – the first line should be the problem statement – closely match what your audience wants help with. This should be followed by a shocking factoid – a surprising related information fact or statistic that amplifies the reader’s emotional need. Include 3 pain points (what happens if they do nothing). End with a solution promise sentence – “this paper will help you to discover ways to…”.
“Not Available Yet” Alert Message – after the summary, include this statement:
“This Paper is Not Available Yet. If you would like to be alerted when it becomes available, enter your name and email below.” Our tests have shown that 4x the number of people register for white papers when they are not available – fear factor. Note – this is a true shocking factoid!
Sales Lead Content Web Page – for each media item, create a web page on your company website or another site that is related to your white paper topic (blog, magazine, association, etc). The URL should include key words that are separated by hyphens to allow the search engines to easily separate the keywords. Include the name and email request on the white paper summary page or include a link to the white paper alert registration form.
Alert Request Registration Form – use an email list service such as Mailchimp. Only ask for the name and email. You can get additional qualifying information in followup emails. Adding any additional contact detail requirements (such as phone number, type of company, etc) is likely to reduce your submission rate by 80% or more.
Registration Followup – respond with a thank you for requesting the white paper message between 1 to 5 days (not immediate) along with a request they tell you the top 1 to 3 things they are looking for in the white paper. You can use these requests to help create a better white paper and the communication you have with the person who registered for the white paper will help to develop your relationship value (solution helper).
Sales Lead Content Promotion – after you have created your content web page(s), you can publish many media posts with links to them over several months or years to keep your visitors and leads coming. To quickly create Tweets, Blog Posts, Discussion Topics, and other media posts, you can rewrite your title and summary into many formats, focus, and use alternative words and phrases.
Sales Lead Content Publishing – after white papers are completed, alert the people who registered and offer to help them with additional questions they may have (be a solution coach).
Sales Lead Content Cancellation – If you decide not to publish the paper, you can remove the web page. You can send messages to anyone who had registered for the cancelled media item informing them that the paper will not be completed and offer to directly help them with their information request. If your content has been online for several months or longer, very few people (probably none) will remember that they registered to receive an alert message for your paper.
Tech Marketing & Business Development Projects – I specialize in helping companies to develop more effective marketing and sales programs – new ways to attract more qualified leads in less time and at lower cost.
If you would like help to with rapid business development or to create or promote your content (white papers, case studies, etc), please contact me at LHarte@LawrenceHarte.com