Many of your lead generation campaigns are fueled by promoting your content. You can create a variety of campaigns using various lead generation tactics, but it's important to first lay out the foundation and define content's relationship with other lead generation efforts.
Email is a great way to promote your content to your database. Consider creating email campaigns whenever you write an important new piece of content. Depending on your content cadence (how often you create and publish content), you may not want to send an email out for each piece of new content you develop, but you want to make sure you create dedicated campaigns to all of your larger pieces, particularly your big rock content pieces.
The following figure gives an example of what a content-specific email looks like.
Social media
Social media is a great place to promote all of your content, the big and the small pieces. Social media is also where you want to promote your visual pieces like infographics and visual slide decks. Videos also perform exceptionally well on social channels.
Schedule promotions spanning a few weeks for each piece of content. Make sure to create a custom image for Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. And the more creative your messaging, the more people will want to share and download your asset. Take a look at a few sample social promotions focusing on new content assets in the following figure.
Website
Your website is the home base for all content pieces. Consider hosting all of your content in a resource section. Also, make sure you add new content pieces to your home page and on all applicable product or service pages. For home page promotion ideas, refer to the following figure, which shows how new content can be merchandised for optimal conversion.
Blog
Each content piece should have at least one blog post created for lead generation purposes. Don't be afraid to take content directly out of the ebook and include a few links and calls-to-action (CTAs) within the body of the blog. Also include a few images that reflect the content piece design. A blog can be used to promote downloads for a new content piece. The CTA at the end asks the reader to download the content asset.
Webinars and presentations
After a new content piece is created, always consider a webinar, particularly for your big rock content pieces. Have a thought leader in your organization speak to the key points and create a deck. Often people who haven't downloaded your asset will sign up for your webinar. From the webinar, you can get some nice qualified leads and promote additional downloads of your asset.
Paid programs
You can choose among many paid programs to promote your content asset and drive new leads. With a paid program, you pay a third party to show your content piece to a targeted audience in the hopes of capturing more leads. Paid programs are a great way to get new leads into your database, as long as the cost of getting noticed is offset by the interest that is generated. Paid programs typically ask for names on a form in exchange for a download of something that intrigues the target audience. Include content assets in pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, banner ads, paid email programs, content syndication, and paid social campaigns.