How Manufacturers Shape Content for Successful Lead Generation

The key to any successful digital marketing strategy lies within the content you and your organization are able to create. Your content is a virtual representation of who you are as an organization and should reflect that you are a thought leader in your industry. It’s important to remember that you are not selling features with your blogs or whitepapers, but rather selling the quality of expertise your company holds. This distinction will help you avoid writing content that is all about you and your products/services.

With the bulk of purchasing decisions primarily occurring online, portraying yourself and your company as experts is paramount. The first step in this process is uncovering what exactly it is that your prospects are looking for. Generally, there will be common pain points between your clients and target audience - this is what you want to address with your digital marketing. Once these topics are determined, content can be refined in order to attract the right prospects for you and your business.

Determining the Type of Content You Need to Write

Content can be broken down into two categories; urgent and enduring. Urgent content speaks to an immediate risk your prospects and clients are faced with that needs to be addressed as soon as possible. Enduring content, often referred to as evergreen, is relevant to your target audience’s needs over a longer period of time. Typically, urgent content is shorter and practical, while enduring content is visionary, strategic, and educational. Once you’ve sorted your clients’ pain points into the appropriate content buckets, you need to determine the best vessel to communicate your expertise on the subject matter.

Identifying the Best Vehicle(s) for Your Message

There are a variety of tactics you can use to get your message to your target audience. Some examples include:

• Blogs
• Case Studies
• eBooks
• eNewsletters
• Infographics
• Webinars
• Whitepapers

The vehicle you choose will be highly dependent on the content topic you are discussing. Books and whitepapers should be used for more enduring content, while blogs and eNewsletters can be a great way to get content in front of prospects quickly.

Telling Your Story to Generate Leads

Now that you have determined the appropriate topic and vehicle combination, it’s time to start drafting your story. Start with a headline that will not only hook your target audience, but also give your website a SEO-boost by adding a relevant keyword. Then, try to speak to your prospects’ unconsidered needs. These are needs that are either:

• Undervalued - amplify size and speed of the potential threat
• Unmet - prospects thinks they’ve solved the problem, but they haven’t
• Unknown - customer didn’t see this coming, but needs to react now

By leading with an unconsidered need, you will create urgency. People have 2-3x stronger preferences to change if it is to avoid a potential loss vs acquiring a gain, so try to speak to the loss aversion emotion your prospects have with your content.

Remember, content should never be self-serving and should instead meet relevant needs that your prospects will immediately recognize.

Do you have any other tips for creating successful content in order to grow your manufacturing firm’s pipeline? Tell us about them in the comments!