Content marketing is the killer application when it comes to sustainable lead generation. Guest author Sascha Tobias von Hirschfeld Here he offers practical tips for startups that want (or need) to quickly acquire new customers.
One of the key challenges in the startup phase keeps many founders like you awake at night: You need a critical mass of customers, a proof of concept for your business, in a short time. Otherwise, money will run out, and everything will have been for nothing.
But where will the customers come from if you don’t have a large budget for marketing?
Content marketing is the right approach
Content marketing is a technique that allows you to acquire customers by engaging your target audience with content that provides technical value rather than primarily advertising your product. The goal is usually to help potential customers make the right decision during the purchasing process.
"What is the best solution to our problem?" That's the question a potential buyer asks. Your reflexive response would be, "Our solution is the best!" Your competitors are sure to say the same. As a content marketer, you respond smartly with, "I'll help you figure out which solution is best for you!" — That makes all the difference.
Companies that classic marketing sell themselves and their products. Companies that engage in content marketing position themselves as partners and experts.
That doesn't mean you're not selling. Quite the opposite: you have to sell, and you have to sell fast. However, you sell differently, more subtly, and with more value. This is especially advantageous if, from the customer's perspective, your product is barely distinguishable from others on the market. The more interchangeable your product is (from the customer's perspective), the more important it is to score with content.
Finding the right topics
Have you understood the principle of content marketing and want to use it to win customers?
The good news: You're on the right track! The bad news: Your competitors probably already had this idea and are busy producing content. So, this isn't a unique selling point per se. You need a strategy to
- to find the right topics for your target group and
- Getting your content to where you can reach your target audience.
Founders have difficulty with both because they often know too little about their target group.
A thorough analysis using the Value Proposition Canvas helps you find topics and content that resonate with your target customers. It works just like product development: What pain points and gains can you address with your content? How can you make your target customers' lives easier? Good content starts right here.
Don't die in reserve
Content that resonates with your target audience is inherently magnetic. It captures attention because it addresses the right topics. That's the theory... In practice, much of the content companies produce goes unnoticed. There's simply too much of it, so a single piece of content risks getting lost in the flood of content.
What to do? To reach your target audience, you need to bring your content to them and promote it, just like you do in product marketing. The easiest way to do this is with paid online advertising. This has two key advantages:
- You can address your target group specifically, keyword 'targeting'.
- You will significantly accelerate your content marketing and achieve results faster.
Regarding the second point, it's worth briefly clearing up a common misconception that's hinted at in the title of this article: Content marketing takes a very long time (in my experience, 12 to 18 months) to unfold its full effect. This is especially true if your goal is to achieve lasting online visibility. Google or LinkedIn's algorithms can't be convinced overnight. It takes time (which you, as a founder, don't have).
If you want to quickly attract interested parties to your offering, you should accelerate your lead generation with content through paid ads. Do this where your target audience is and where it's easy to start a conversation: on social platforms.
Get started now in five easy steps
More good news: You can generate leads on social platforms with little content and a small budget. Here's how:
- Find topics for your content with the Value Proposition Canvas
- Publish three short articles of 3,000 characters each on various topics in the blog
- Teaser the articles in your company page in Xing, Linkedin, Facebook and promote them
- Contact prospects who respond to your content or visit your blog
- Host a webinar on the topic that worked best.
The trick is to achieve as much as possible with small measures, or to learn as much as possible about your target audience. Therefore, start with short articles and concentrate on marketing them as best as possible ('laser focused'). Once you have a feel for which topics work, you can offer larger content pieces like white papers or videos.
You may be familiar with this principle from lean startups or agile development. It's especially useful if you don't yet know exactly which topics you can use to reach potential customers. Keep in mind that your target audiences are at different stages of the customer journey, each requiring different content. Therefore, start with three articles: one for the beginning, the middle, and the end of the funnel.
Finally, I'd like to invite you to a little experiment that will help you find topics for your content marketing: Try not talking about your product for a longer period of time, say six months, and observe what happens...
