Every roman­tic rela­tion­ship expert knows that the ear­ly stages are like thin ice. Demand too much atten­tion too ear­ly, or get too anx­ious about com­mit­ment, and it may break.

The best way to estab­lish long-term con­nec­tions is by gen­er­at­ing organ­ic inter­est and let­ting oth­ers engage in their own time and terms. If you are won­der­ing what all this has to do with effec­tive dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing, the answer is: quite a bit!

Poten­tial leads are con­stant­ly being bom­bard­ed by pop-ups and ads, fos­ter­ing resis­tance and even resent­ment. Most prospects now ignore these intru­sive ads, or even grow to dis­like the brands that harass them for attention.

All in all, out­bound mar­ket­ing is not what it once was. Obnox­ious, in-your-face ads have lost effec­tive­ness in less-inva­sive approaches.

So, to estab­lish long-last­ing rela­tion­ships and gen­er­ate more leads, you need to organ­i­cal­ly build inter­est among your tar­get cus­tomers.  Here are sev­er­al types of con­tent that can help you do just that.

Explainer Videos

Video mar­ket­ing is valu­able through­out the sales fun­nel. Among the dif­fer­ent types of mar­ket­ing videos, well-made explain­er videos can be effec­tive at mul­ti­ple stages.

No oth­er type of con­tent enables you to deliv­er as much infor­ma­tion, as quick­ly, and with such a high lev­el of engage­ment. This not only helps your mar­ket­ing efforts direct­ly by con­vey­ing your mes­sage but also indi­rect­ly by gen­er­at­ing pos­i­tive expe­ri­ences with prospects.

Explain­er videos fol­low a fair­ly straight­for­ward struc­ture: start by focus­ing on the view­ers’ pain-point, then pro­vide a step-by-step solu­tion to their prob­lem (and com­mu­ni­cate your brand’s val­ue propo­si­tion) using sto­ry­telling. Ide­al­ly, each video takes your prospects on a brief, fun, and enter­tain­ing journey.

Explain­er videos can be pro­duced in dif­fer­ent ways, from unique ani­mat­ed styles like white­board and motion graph­ics to live-action. But the key to con­vert­ing with them lies in key ele­ments of their composition.

Sto­ry­telling is a big one. Audi­ences today don’t want to sit around long enough to hear your sales pitch (sub­tle or oth­er­wise.) So, you need to give them a rea­son to watch—and a clever, engag­ing sto­ry is usu­al­ly the ticket.

Cus­tomiza­tion is anoth­er impor­tant ele­ment. Any­one can pro­duce a gener­ic, broad piece try­ing to cov­er as many pos­si­ble prospects as pos­si­ble. But when it comes to gen­er­at­ing con­ver­sions, tai­lor­ing your explain­er to your spe­cif­ic per­sona or demo­graph­ic is key. That includes cre­at­ing char­ac­ters, choos­ing nar­ra­tors, and pre­sent­ing sit­u­a­tions that reflect the expe­ri­ences of your audience.

Final­ly, you need to include a com­pelling call to action to opti­mize your video’s con­ver­sion rate and expand your leads. Adding a con­tact form at some point in the video can be great prac­tice with some audiences.

Explainer Videos

eBooks and Downloadable Written Material

There’s a big dif­fer­ence between an eBook that’s over­ly pro­mo­tion­al and one that’s more like­ly to get atten­tion and gen­er­ate leads. The lat­ter focus­es on the pain-points your prod­uct or ser­vice can solve. The aim is to edu­cate and engage the audi­ence on those issues, cre­at­ing inter­est and inspir­ing action.

The infor­ma­tion pro­vid­ed should be rel­e­vant and detailed but not easy to find else­where. Prospec­tive buy­ers appre­ci­ate orig­i­nal con­tent com­ing from inten­sive research, inter­views, and sur­veys con­duct­ed or com­piled by your company.

The writ­ing style and visu­al design should res­onate with your tar­get audi­ence and reflect the essence of your brand. Keep the data eas­i­ly digestible, with an attrac­tive lay­out and cre­ative imagery to sup­port it.

This type of mate­r­i­al can be gat­ed to gen­er­ate lead con­ver­sions for fol­low-up on ongo­ing nurturing.

High-qual­i­ty eBooks can earn your com­pa­ny a rep­u­ta­tion for exper­tise in your field, and cre­ate a last­ing pos­i­tive impres­sion on prospects.

Sweepstakes and Contests

For cre­at­ing quick buzz around some­thing, few incen­tives can match the appeal of free stuff! This is where con­tests and sweep­stakes come in.

They give you an ide­al plat­form to gen­er­ate leads in exchange for par­tic­i­pa­tion, and with the increas­ing use of social media, they are eas­i­er to orga­nize than ever while remain­ing quite cost-efficient.

Con­tests are an excel­lent tac­tic for encour­ag­ing audi­ence engage­ment. They also a fan­tas­tic way to gath­er leads data and widen your online pres­ence. They help accom­plish these mar­ket­ing goals by requir­ing peo­ple to share a post, com­ment, tag friends, fol­low your account, pro­vide an email, and par­tic­i­pate in the quiz or contest.

Keep in mind that prompt­ing your audi­ence to share and spread the word about the con­test is crit­i­cal. Peo­ple are aware that their chances of win­ning increase when there are few­er par­tic­i­pants, so they might try to keep it qui­et, defeat­ing the pur­pose of the strategy.

But mere­ly ask­ing to tag a friend or fol­low your account may be insuf­fi­cient for your ends, and less engag­ing to your audi­ence. Always include an inter­ac­tive ele­ment into your sweep­stakes, ask­ing par­tic­i­pants why they want the prize, or who they would share it with. Done right, you can even use ques­tions like these to sep­a­rate qual­i­fied leads and give your tar­get­ing bet­ter focus

Final­ly, for strate­gies like these to work, your prize needs to be on-point; some­thing inter­est­ing and valu­able enough to your tar­get audi­ence to gen­uine­ly cap­ture atten­tion. You can use high-val­ue grand prizes for spe­cial occa­sions like a com­pa­ny anniver­sary. But you can run reg­u­lar, small­er-scale sweep­stakes as well, turn­ing them into a long-term lead gen­er­a­tion strategy.

Social Media Promotions and Offers

If you are a B2C mar­keter look­ing for a quick turn­around while mak­ing a great first impres­sion, social media pro­mo­tions and offers are the way to go.

These strate­gies involve offer­ing dis­counts for a lim­it­ed amount of time, announced only on social media plat­forms. For instance, add flash deals or dis­count codes to your sto­ries periodically.

This works won­ders for strength­en­ing your dig­i­tal pres­ence while rais­ing your brand aware­ness and expand­ing your demand. Social net­works are fast and low-cost means of communication.

To get the most out of this approach, first, deter­mine which plat­form works best for engag­ing your tar­get audi­ence and focus your efforts there. Test­ing is always helpful.

Your post or sto­ry will reach a broad­er range of peo­ple if you use paid pro­mo­tion. This enables you to direct your con­tent to those users who fit your tar­get per­sona or profile.

Take a page from some of the most skilled video com­pa­nies’ play­books, and com­bine video con­tent with pro­mo­tion for a two-punch com­bo. Cap­ture atten­tion with a video, and keep them engaged by pro­mot­ing com­pelling offers.

Social Media Promotions and Offers

Wrapping Up

The ear­ly stages of the buyer’s jour­ney can be the hard­est to address. But pow­er­ful inbound mar­ket­ing tools com­bined with the right video and social media strat­e­gy will make your lead-gen­er­a­tion efforts here much more successful.

Be authen­tic when engag­ing with poten­tial cus­tomers on social media. Even in B2B mar­ket­ing, peo­ple buy from people.

But even if some tac­tics and con­tent for­mats seem to work bet­ter than oth­ers, don’t stick with just one. Dif­fer­ent prospects will engage with dif­fer­ent con­tent and offers. To max­i­mize your lead gen­er­a­tion, use a diverse mix of posts. 

The results can be huge­ly reward­ing. Estab­lish­ing cred­i­bil­i­ty and trust with your prospec­tive buy­ers helps build fruit­ful and last­ing rela­tion­ships. Once you have earned that trust, main­tain­ing and nur­tur­ing the rela­tion­ship are sim­pler challenges.

SOURCE: Web­biq­ui­ty