Content marketing costs 62 per cent less and generates three times as many leads as outbound marketing. So why do many CMOs and marketing managers prioritise paid advertising?

Unless you have a pile of cash to burn, that’s something hard to understand. Consider just that about 70 per cent of people now get information from blogs rather than traditional advertisements, and bots make up about 40 per cent of all web traffic. But let’s now take a step back and see why focusing on content can be a game changer for your startup’s organic growth in the long term.

If you are trying to grow a startup, especially a B2B one, you know that generating leads can be tricky. Finding the right balance between being visible and providing valuable content that will help your target audience is vital. That’s where content marketing comes in. By creating quality content, you can attract leads that are more likely to convert.

A common error among startups is failing to create a content strategy from the beginning. This can lead to wasted time and resources down the road. A content strategy should be tailored to your specific business and audience.

Also Read: A marketing map to the world beyond third-party cookies

It should outline who you’re targeting, what types of content you will create, and how you will distribute it. By setting up a content strategy from the beginning, with a content calendar adequately planned, you can ensure that you’re getting the most out of your content marketing efforts.

If my direct experience is mainly with financial services, particularly B2B fintech companies from Europe and the US, where quality content is working much better than anything else to generate new leads, the reality is that content marketing works equally well in Asia and other geographies as well as for different verticals that have nothing to do with fintech, blockchain or crypto.

Here’s a closer look at why content is fundamental for startups’ lead generation:

Content helps you attract the right leads

The first step in generating leads is attracting the right ones. You want to make sure that you’re targeting individuals who are likely to be interested in your product or service.

Creating quality content is a great way to do this. By writing blog posts, whitepapers, e-books, and other types of content that can be helpful for your target customers, you are likely to attract relevant leads.

Content helps you nurture your leads

Once you’ve attracted the right leads, it’s important to nurture them, so they continue down the sales funnel. Quality content can help you do this by providing valuable information that will help your leads make a buying decision.

For example, let’s say you sell software that helps businesses manage their social media accounts. You could write a blog post about choosing the right social media platform or create an e-book with tips for creating successful social media campaigns. By providing helpful information, you can nurture your leads and turn them into customers.

Content helps you build trust

Another reason why content is vital for B2B startups’ lead generation because it helps you build trust with your audience. When potential customers see that you’re providing quality information, they’ll be more likely to trust your brand and do business with you in the future.

This is especially important for startups because larger corporations generally hesitate to do business with new companies.

Also Read: We can no longer adopt a cookie-cutter approach to marketing: Gunalan Ram of CINNOX

It is also crucial to remember that the key to success in content marketing is consistency. You need to create and distribute content regularly so that you remain top of mind with your target audience.

Additionally, it’s important to track how your content is performing and ask for people’s feedback so that you can better understand your customers’ needs and pain points and make adjustments as needed.

What is probably more important than anything else is that Inbound marketing is about creating content that solves people’s problems. When you do that, you become a trusted source of information, and people become more likely to buy your products and services.

If, instead, you create sales-oriented content that is not genuinely useful to your readers, then you are just wasting their time and yours.

Content is vital in generating leads, especially for B2B startups, and should be considered a long-term investment.

It takes time and effort to create and distribute content. And you can’t expect too much in the short term. But in the long run, the results can be remarkable and exponential.

So if you still need to start using content as part of your lead generation strategy and you’re looking for a way to grow your startup organically, then the time to start is now.

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