I find that most things in life can be broken down into a series of simple rules. Make her laugh. Keep your eye on the ball. Don’t lose money. When you get down to it, achieving whatever you want to achieve is quite simple… The more you add, the more you risk obscuring those simple truths. The same applies to creating good content. Do you want a catchy title? Sure. Do you need calls to action? Of course. But the most important rule of all is to qualify your prospect.

Qualifying your Customer

In sales lingo, Qualifying is done upon the initial interaction with a prospect to determine whether or not they can become a customer. You generally want to find out a few things: do you have an issue that my product or service can solve, can you afford it, and are you in a position to purchase today. A good salesperson will do this quickly and effectively, going through prospect after prospect, dismissing those that are a waste of time (politely of course) and engaging those that may have a real interest in the sale. To see this in action, go into a store where you’ll encounter commissioned sales people and pay attention to what they say. After the “Hi, how are you” you’ll likely hear questions like “What brought you in today?” “What do you like about X?” “Do you currently X?” and if you’re lucky, “What’s your budget?”

Give the right answers and you’re on your way! Answer incorrectly, and a good salesperson will give you the “Let me know if you need anything!” Why? To save valuable time and reach a real win-win situation. Every second that’s spent taking to an unqualified customer is time that’s unproductive. With our content, it’s not only time that’s being wasted in the creating, but also in marketing dollars and staff hours spent driving traffic to the content. Our #1 Rule helps to avoid that.

Qualified Content

Obviously, there’s an issue here… how can content, which is static, qualify my prospects? Unless you attach surveys to everything you create, you’ll never know what the customer is thinking!

The key is to write content that only appeals to a certain type of consumer that you know you can help. For a simple example, if you’re a pest control company that specializes in with standalone properties with attics, create content that speaks to people with attics. Easy right? You can be as specific with this technique as you need to be. For example, what if you’re a consultant in the change management field? You’ve identified that you want to work with clients who are spawning a secondary stream of revenue and already make 1-2 million per year in revenue. Let’s say they also need to be in the manufacturing industry. If you were to create an eBook or webinar describing how to silo your products and treat them as separate entities, you immediately know that anyone who engages with it is A) creating or has created multiple streams of revenue B) Makes enough money that they aren’t really consumed by the more mundane aspects of running the machine and are focused on the bigger picture. Share that amongst individuals in the manufacturing industry and viola! You’ve created a stream of interesting prospects for you to engage.

Creating content is quite simply the most effective way to generate leads online. But that convenience comes with a severe time requirement. For those of us with only 24 hours in a day and without massive teams of employees, every second you spend at work should be an investment. Your business depends on it. Make it count.

‘Till next time,

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