{"id":142282,"date":"2020-10-29T17:59:55","date_gmt":"2020-10-29T17:59:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.searchenginewatch.com\/?p=142282"},"modified":"2020-10-29T17:59:55","modified_gmt":"2020-10-29T17:59:55","slug":"how-to-immediately-profit-from-your-next-piece-of-content","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2020\/10\/29\/how-to-immediately-profit-from-your-next-piece-of-content\/","title":{"rendered":"How to immediately profit from your next piece of content"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"well\">\n<h3>30-second summary:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Most content marketers focus on creating blog posts and writing guest posts to improve SEO rankings. This approach overlooks the value of insightful content as a sales resource, especially for B2B firms.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What type of content works best for sales prospecting. Examples of content and an overview of how to create your outreach list.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An overview of two campaigns where blog content was used to generate leads for an SEO agency. Included in the overview are email templates and campaign outcomes.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How to review and optimize your content marketing outreach campaigns to generate more leads for your business.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Significant business resources are invested in creating content that is never engaged with, writing guest posts that are never read, and sharing content that is never seen. It\u2019s a reality that most of us choose to ignore because we are fixated on inbound marketing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While inbound marketing is effective, it\u2019s not without problems:<\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Most of the visitors who engage with your content will never return. It\u2019s generally agreed that somewhere in the region of 2%-6% of first-time visitors return to a website.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You have little control over who visits, and most visitors do not fit the profile of your customer persona (you\u2019ll be doing very well if you convert even 0.3% of site visitors into customers).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are only so many spaces on the front page of Google. Truthfully, most of us will be fighting and failing to achieve our <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2020\/01\/10\/improve-website-ranking-in-2020\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">desired SERP rankings<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Outbound marketing sidesteps two of those three issues.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When you create a list of companies that fit your target demographic and then send emails to the relevant people in that company, you gain a degree of control over who consumes your content. Where you sit in the search rankings will not impact the outcome of your campaign.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While most sales teams use outbound marketing, few companies coordinate their content marketing efforts with outbound sales initiatives.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I believe that this is an oversight. I&#8217;ve secured several new customers for my agency in the last three months by coordinating my sales and content marketing efforts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This guide will share an approach that I believe can help all businesses, but especially small to medium-sized businesses, that operate in the B2B space acquire new customers. It&#8217;s a strategy that relies upon creating a small amount of really great content, then actively promoting that content to the right people. Let&#8217;s dive in.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>1. Consider the goals of your customer<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ideally, your outbound marketing strategy should neatly fit into your long term content marketing goals. For me, an optimal content campaign that aligns with sales should look something like this.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-142286\" src=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Graphic.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"728\" height=\"255\" srcset=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Graphic.png 728w, https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Graphic-300x105.png 300w, https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Graphic-768x269.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 728px) 100vw, 728px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the start of the campaign, you need to identify relevant keywords to target.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2016\/08\/25\/five-common-keyword-research-mistakes-you-need-to-avoid\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">keywords you pick<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> should align with your ideal customer&#8217;s pain points and the solution that you offer either through your product or service. For example, at my company, we help businesses in the SaaS niche secure guest posts on relevant sites. I decided that the initial outreach campaign would be based around my guide on how to guest post.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You can see how the topic aligns with the solution.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you&#8217;re going to run an outreach campaign that utilizes content from your site, you must use informative content that offers value. After all, the article will be the first impression that you leave with a potential customer interacting with your business.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You can create multiple pieces of content around your product or service offering. However, I recommend you start with one piece of cornerstone content.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>2. Create a customer outreach list<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is a good chance that you already have a strategy in place to promote new content. Often, that involves creating a list of sites that have linked to a competing piece of content. You then find the contact details of the author and send them a message asking for a link.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A sales outreach campaign based around a piece of content is just as straightforward. However, the goal and who you target is different.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I&#8217;ll assume you have a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2013\/01\/10\/the-quick-guide-to-developing-customer-personas\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">customer persona<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. You know what type of companies buy your products or services. You need to create a list of suitable companies. You can use resources like Google My Business, the Inc 5,000, and other business roundups to quickly create a list of suitable companies to contact.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once you&#8217;ve created your shortlist, you need to find the details of the person in charge of purchasing decisions at each company. For an SEO agency, that person typically has a job title like &#8216;Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)&#8217;.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I generally use a combination of LinkedIn and an email finder to get their contact details. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/hunter.io\/blog\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hunter<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.voilanorbert.com\/blog\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Voila Norbert<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> both offer 50 free searches, which is enough for an initial campaign.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pull all of that information you collect into a Google Sheet.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>3. Run your outreach campaign<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are numerous types of sales outreach campaigns you can run that incorporate blog content. For example, I collected the details of everyone who left a comment on the Backlinko blog. I removed individuals and companies that didn&#8217;t fit my customer persona and sent them all an email.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Below is a screenshot of the email template I used alongside one of the responses.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-142283\" src=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Screen-Shot-2020-10-07-at-13.27.23.png\" alt=\"Piece of content - Profit from it by email outreach - Example 1\" width=\"627\" height=\"629\" srcset=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Screen-Shot-2020-10-07-at-13.27.23.png 627w, https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Screen-Shot-2020-10-07-at-13.27.23-300x300.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 627px) 100vw, 627px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You can see this is a soft sell. The only reference to the service I offer is my email signature that links to a sales page. The primary resource in the email was <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/launchspace.net\/blog\/how-to-guest-post\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">this blog post<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I wanted to start a conversation with prospective customers not generate an instant sale.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This particular outreach campaign, which was sent to around 200 people, generated two leads. In addition, I was asked to appear on a podcast and was offered a couple of guest post opportunities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You can be more direct. Here is an example from another campaign.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-142284\" src=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Screen-Shot-2020-10-07-at-13.41.57.png\" alt=\"Piece of content - Profit from it by email outreach\" width=\"627\" height=\"546\" srcset=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Screen-Shot-2020-10-07-at-13.41.57.png 627w, https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Screen-Shot-2020-10-07-at-13.41.57-300x261.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 627px) 100vw, 627px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We leveraged the credibility of Sumo for this sales campaign. The company has more brand recognition than Launch Space, a site that few people would recognize.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The primary resource used for the Sumo sales campaign was <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/sumo.com\/stories\/online-networking\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">this article<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. The guest post fits the criteria of a cornerstone piece of content. It\u2019s actionable, insightful, and relevant to the needs of prospective customers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You might have noticed that I adapted my email signature for the campaign. We generated two leads from our first 100 emails.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>4. Review the results<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If this is your first campaign, I recommend you send outreach emails to between 100-200 companies. Send your emails, then a week or two later, review the results.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The first campaign we ran had a 1% conversion rate. I sent 100 emails and got one customer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The math was simple.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I didn\u2019t use any marketing tools for the campaign. You might choose to start the same way.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To improve the results of any marketing campaign, you need to track relevant metrics. There are plenty of affordable email tracking tools that provide insights like email opens, link clicks, and other statistics.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Good email tracking tools will allow you to split test your copy. You\u2019ll also gather information on when people open your email and who opened your message multiple times but didn\u2019t respond. You can use this data to improve your campaign results, for example, by scheduling your emails for the optimal time or day of the week or deciding on who to send multiple emails to.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Wrapping up<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In this guide, I outlined how you can include blog posts and guest posts in your cold outreach to generate leads for your business. It&#8217;s a strategy that I&#8217;ve used to consistently land fresh clients, which has, in turn, helped me grow my business.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you&#8217;re a B2B company selling a product or service with a high-profit margin, outbound marketing will normally provide you with a positive Return On Investment (ROI). It&#8217;s logical to utilize blog content as a sales resource, especially if you presume that the content will eventually generate leads through inbound marketing. Most companies don&#8217;t do this; I hope this article has provided you with the impetus to try.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nico Prins is an online marketer and the founder of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/launchspace.net\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Launch Space<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. He helps companies develop their digital marketing strategies. He\u2019s worked with everyone from Fortune 500 companies to startups helping them develop content marketing strategies that align with their business goals. Follow him on Twitter <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/nhdprins\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">@nhdprins<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You don\u2019t need to wait for people to find your site to make sales. Learn how B2B businesses are using blog content in outreach campaigns to generate leads.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1092,"featured_media":142288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[182,27977,75,118,27976,27726,369,291],"content_type":[],"class_list":["post-142282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-content","tag-blog","tag-blog-content","tag-content-2","tag-content-marketing","tag-customer-outreach","tag-digital-marketing-tips","tag-evergreen-content","tag-keyword-research"],"acf":{"tad_independentcommercial":false,"tad_content_format":false},"post_info":{"name":"idris.nagri@blenheimchalcot.com idris.nagri@blenheimchalcot.com","title":"","thumbnail_url":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/How-to-immediately-profit-from-your-next-piece-of-content.png","category":"Content","timeago":"5y"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1092"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142282"},{"taxonomy":"content_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content_type?post=142282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}