Repeat after me: Not all content is created equal. As the first ingredient of the lead generation recipe, it’s essential to get it right — but not enough on it’s own. Mixing all the ingredients of marketing together can be a subtle art: one our guest is willing to share with us.
Darryl Praill, CRO at VanillaSoft, shares his experience in marketing and tactics to beat out the competition.
What we discuss:
- Discussing content myths
- Investing fears & content mistakes
- Building reputation how-tos
- Creating contagious content
- Future trends for content
Discussing content myths
So you’ve made some content… congratulations! Oh, but customers don’t seem to be interested. What should you do?
Make more!
…that didn’t work either? Have you tried making even more?
Marketers and sales representatives tend to assume content is content — that pushing out a lot, good or bad, is the secret to generating leads and sales.
This is a resounding myth; it has to be exceptional.
”The content needs to be good. It needs to be relevant. It needs to be consumable, it needs to be keyword optimized up the wazoo. But more than anything, the content needs to be promoted.” — Darryl Praill
The whole recipe
So now you’ve got content in your crosshairs: “The secret to lead generation wasn’t content. The secret is great content!”
Not quite…
A lot of the time, marketers will make great content; but when the sales reps receive it, they either don’t use it or don’t realize what they have. Content is a necessary ingredient in the lead generation process but definitely not the only ingredient.
Investing fears & content mistakes
Two pizzerias in town compete for customers. Pizzeria 1 seems to always bring in more customers. Pizzeria 2 brings in the runoff and scratches their collective head trying to figure out what Pizzeria 1 has that they don’t.
Better pizza.
For brand investors, they think of content as Pizzeria 2’s deep dish — pizza is pizza; why invest in expensive ingredients when cheap ones do the trick? Educating investors on how important great content is to driving the sales machine is imperative to standing out from competition.
“People are just scared of going that extra mile because they don’t understand it.” — Darryl Praill
Building reputation how-tos
You’re trying to choose a name for your newborn. Do you seek advice from your spouse or your 5th grade crush? For information to be accepted, it has to come from a person you know and trust. So, when trying to propel a brand forward using content, the voice that’s delivering the information has to be accepted by the community.
Once you have that dedicated voice, you can start promoting. Those loyal customers will be a huge chunk of where leads and sales originate — they love your brand and want to buy more of what you have to offer.
How to build reputation
Darryl shares 3 tips on how to become that voice for your brand:
1. Figure out the lay of the land in your industry; who does everyone refer to as an influence? This is how you find your community.
2. Come out with content that speaks to that community; spark conversation.
3. Find your voice: are you a storyteller? A colorful speaker? You must express yourself.
”When did your content really start taking off? Before you started putting yourself out there? Or after you started putting yourself out there?” — Darryl Praill
Creating contagious content
We’ve talked a lot about great content and how to usher that content to the right community. But how exactly is great content made?
Relevance & relatability
One of the best ways to make great content is pairing your individual content with current events—look for ways to grab the attention of the audience with the latest news and then dive into what you are trying to sell.
”There’s lots of different ways, but if you make it relatable, and personal and relevant, top of mind, that’s what makes us stand out from the crowd. Otherwise, it screams product pitch.” — Darryl Praill
Future trends for content
Looking to what comes next, Darryl shares what he thinks the future of content will look like.
- Community: In a post-COVID world, social media presence is a must. Without a doubt, content will focus heavily on online media. More online communities are emerging on platforms such as Clubhouse — a new social media platform where you can listen and interact with leaders from around the world.
“That’s going to be really, really big. You can establish yourself there,” Darryl explains.
- Long form content: Content is becoming crowded in the space; and the way to overcome that is to start producing long form content to overshadow the medium and short form.
Content is here to stay and one thing is certain: average content is dead. If you want to stand out, educate your team on the importance of content, market it to relevant audiences, and stay engaged with your communities.
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