Successful storytelling – How to gain leads through content

Do you have unnoticed success stories or other valuable content on your company website that threatens to “perish” in the depths of your Internet presence? Especially now in times of Corona, when many events are cancelled and more and more people are turning to digital – companies must consciously draw attention to their content. Campaign techniques such as content marketing are ideal for marketing your own products that need to be explained. We provide you with 5 tips on how you generate awareness and leads with your content.

Many companies take advantage of the opportunity to create a platform for their constantly added content and topics. The so-called company blog, their own news page or the magazine that picks up all trends and news from the industry. This is also an ideal extension of your direct portfolio marketing. But not every blog is optimally designed from the ground up. Most of the time, there are minor problems – lack of user experience (UX), no topicality in the articles, no dynamic content, too few recommendations for further reading, etc. This article gives you an overview of the aspects you should consider when setting up your corporate blog – no matter what industry you are in.

► 1. Google loves dynamic content

You know it yourself. Within the first 5 seconds you decide on a website whether you want to read the article or not. This is by the way proven to be the case. What is the reason for this? The human eye can be strongly influenced by professional content presentation, conspicuousness and also aspects such as topicality. If these are missing, the user is quickly bored and jumps off. For your company blog it is therefore advisable to choose a mix of dynamic and static (fixed text modules) content. Dynamics can be seen here twice – on the one hand through the continuous updating of the blog (for example via routines – and if it is “mini news“), on the other hand it ideally requires a minimum of dynamic content – such as moving images or sliders. These dynamic elements are especially useful on the home page of a magazine. They encourage the user to continue reading and look around the page.

But you should not exaggerate with dynamic elements. In our example, only the content slider at the top of our cloudmagazin.com was animated. Here, three “featured” contributions alternate regularly. Not too fast, but also not too slow. The reader encounters a first movement within the magazine and waits to see which articles are recommended to him in the upper area.

And the best thing is – Google loves dynamic content. By using it, your site will always be up to date – it keeps moving and this will also affect your ranking with the biggest search engine. This is often more effective than any on-site optimization.

► 2. More attention through subheadings

In order visually enhance your articles, you should include subheadings if possible as well as highlights in the text such as bullet points. These help to keep the reader’s attention. By adding more links in the text, you increase the length of time spent on the site, offer the reader further input, but can also run the risk of your readers bouncing (jumping off).

Again, a certain mix is required: The subheadings give a short overview of the upcoming passage, highlights loosen up the text a bit and links provide the reader with further information.

Tip: Pay attention to the SEO-optimized, correct mix of “H1”, “H2” and other text modules.

► 3. Does the article deliver what it promises?

Of course, having your own company magazine or blog is an added value for the company and especially for marketing. A magazine offers the right platform for marketing and sales managers alike. You can refer to this platform during ongoing campaigns or sales talks and use it in a targeted manner. But a company blog should also be professionally set up and managed. In addition to your topics, place the most current topics of the industry on your blog. And above all: Use the “opening credits” function, which summarizes the content in an exciting way at the beginning of the article and thus encourages reading.

How do you best approach this?

✎ Find out what topics your target group is concerned with (e.g. pain points in the industry).

✎ Formulate exciting headlines that attract attention, and

✎ mention in your opening credits in an exciting way which aspects your article will highlight.

This is the most important point you should consider when writing a article: Make sure that the article delivers what it promises. Because only 5 to 20 percent of the article will be read if it doesn’t. So do not upset your readers. Stick to the truth and only tease what you can deliver in your article in the headline and lead-in.

And another thing: They say that you lose about 50 percent of your readers in the first sentence. So remember this when you start your article and get to the point or make it exciting.

► 4. Article recommendations

In order to make your company magazine as trustworthy as possible for the readers, it is recommended to show further articles from your blog – e.g. articles on a similar topic or further “trends from the industry“. These are mainly placed at the end of an article, but can also appear in the sidebar or even within the article. They work very well and give the reader the feeling that he is moving within a professional magazine environment. Evernine recommends that these boxes be placed below an article, so that readers are not lost by clicking away early and still have the opportunity to continue reading. After all, 30 percent of readers scroll to the end of the page – readers like to click their way from article to article. So don’t let your readers “starve at the bottom“.

There are now two possibilities. Either you recommend only editorially created articles from your own company blog – here there are certain settings that you have to make in your CMS so that only certain articles are recommended. Or you can place some additional ads, as in our illustration.

As a publisher with the large publisher networks plista and Outbrain, you can have such “read more” recommendations programmed and earn a penny or two by having readers click on the respective ads (which can also be assigned to a theme). On the cloudmagazin.com we do this and earn money on the side. But the displayed advertisement is not a necessity – and of course not recommended for many company magazines, but it also gives the reader the feeling that he is in a professional magazine environment. The cloudmagazin.com has chosen a mix of 4:2 – 4 editorially created articles from the magazine and 2 external ads. So the reader is not overwhelmed with too much advertising.

► 5. The optimal basis for your content marketing

You have the right topics, your blog is up to date and you want to use it now as an extension of your marketing? Rely on content marketing and make your target group aware of your Pain Points in your articles. Let your customers immerse themselves in your worlds of experience. With content marketing campaigns you have the chance to address your target group optimally with your topics and generate awareness and leads in a targeted manner. Now that content marketing, after its great hype in recent years, has become a strategic tool for your communication strategy, it is now easy to reach your KPIs in the best possible way with an existing magazine.

How do you manage this? The Evernine Group has been offering the conception, implementation and optimization of content marketing campaigns for several years, for which a magazine is always used. Evernine’s so-called QLM (Qualified Lead Marketing) approach offers marketers a mix of native content distribution, social media marketing and retargeting to achieve the best results. One of the tricks is to use landing pages with your offers in conjunction with the articles and to optimize the Click-Through-Rate (CTR) in the best possible way.

You’re interested and you would like to start with content marketing, for example in B2B?

Contact us directly and get first information about our digital campaigns.

Image source: iStock / filadendron