10 Content Marketing Tips to Turbocharge Sales Lead Generation

Content marketing has become a cornerstone strategy used by B2B companies to both attract new sales leads and nurture existing sales leads into customers. By publishing high-quality content that's aligned with the interests of your B2B company's target audience, you'll experience greater success for generating sales leads. But there's a right way and a wrong way to perform content marketing. For the best performance, consider the 10 following content marketing tips, all of which help your B2B company succeed.

#1) Publish Content Regularly

You can't expect a single piece of content to generate any meaningful amount of sales leads. According to a report by eMarketer, over half of all marketers publish new content on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. If you only publish a single article or blog post, you'll struggle to connect with your company's target audience.

#2) Optimize for Search Rankings

To attract more marketing views with your content, optimize it for search rankings. Known as search engine optimization (SEO), it complements content marketing by connecting your content with its target audience of leads, prospects and other potential buyers. When your content ranks high on Google and Bing, it will naturally reach more potential sales leads and sales prospects, resulting in a higher level of performance.

#3) Include Visuals

Don't forget to include visuals in your content marketing strategy. Research shows the human brain responds to visuals, including images and videos, 60,000 times faster than text. Be sure to include visuals to compliment your marketing content, or even develop content that is only a visual!

#4) Share on Social Media

You'll achieve better results with your content marketing efforts by sharing your content on social media. Regardless of what your B2B company sells, your target audience probably uses social media even if it's only on occasion. After all, most business professionals have a LinkedIn profile account.

#5) Publish at the Right Times

In addition to publishing new content regularly, you should also publish it at the right times. Generally speaking, B2B companies should publish content during the early morning hours on Monday through Friday. This is when most corporate executives, as well as other high-level professionals, are working. As a result, they may stumble upon your content if you publish it during these hours.

#6) Use Email to Share Content

Even if you publish a piece of great content on your company's website, you can still share it via email. This is a great way to maximize your marketing content efforts to the most target audience. Here are a few ideas where you can share your marketing content:

1. Send subscribers an email newsletter with you marketing content

2. Send an email to the identified project contacts. This can be the first contact with the sales lead contacts. Be sure to align with sales, so the sales rep can reach out and connect with the contact person from SalesLeads' identified projects or sales leads.

#7) Include Your Company's Name in Content

Why should you include your B2B company's name in your content? Well, other people may share your marketing content, especially if it's high-quality content. By mentioning your B2B company's name, you'll create "branded" content that offers long-term value. Whether your marketing content is shared on a social media profile or another company's blog, it will help your B2B company achieve increased brand recognition, which may drive new sales leads and even sales in the future.

#8) Publish 'How-to" Content

How-to content has become increasingly common in recent years -- and for good reason. It's able to answer a user's question while providing him or her with valuable information in the process. If a sales lead wants to know how a product sold by your B2B company works, he or she may search for how-to content about the product online. Therefore, you should include how-to content in your content marketing strategy. Whether it's an article, blog post, video, PDF guide or even a podcast, how-to content is most often searched.

#9) Avoid Overly Promotional Content

There's nothing wrong with mentioning your B2B company's product or service in marketing content, but you should avoid creating overly promotional content. If an article or blog post -- or any other piece of content -- sounds too promotional, it may deter sales leads and prospects from reading it. You can still promote your B2B company's products or services in content; just try to focus on creating informational content that's valuable to sales leads and prospects.

#10) Track Performance Metrics

Don't forget to track performance metrics to measure the effectiveness of your content marketing strategy. Without tracking performance metrics, you won't know whether your content is working, nor will you be able to optimize your content marketing strategy for better performance. Some of the most important performance metrics to track include views, time on page, social shares and comments.

It's estimated that over nine in 10 B2B companies use content marketing, according to CMI. Not everyone is successful because they don't practice the 10 content marketing tips we just discussed.