Your organization’s online content comes in many shapes and sizes, but it all serves a singular purpose — generate new leads, grow your customer base, and increase revenue. Both written and interactive content should be key fixtures in your marketing strategies in 2024 and beyond.
Read on to learn more about the most important types of lead generation content!
10 types of content for generating leads
The top lead-generating types of content include:
- Blog posts
- Guides
- Case studies
- Industry reports
- Email marketing
- Video
- Social media
- Polls, quizzes, and surveys
- Tools
- Infographics
For ease, we broke the content types into two main categories: Written and interactive content.
Let’s explore how you can use each type of content to drive more leads.
Lead generation content: Written content
Although other forms of content are increasingly more relevant, written content is still your bread and butter. It supports your lead generation efforts in several significant ways, including:
- Search engine optimization: If you want your content to rank at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs), you need to include relevant keywords in the text. Producing consistent written content is a long-term, but surefire way to tap into these keywords, increase traffic, and generate leads over time.
- Website engagement: Readers will spend more time on the page exploring your written content, getting familiar with your brand, and gaining exposure to conversion opportunities.
- Industry authority: Authoritative content is more important than ever in this information age, especially with artificial intelligence (AI) bursting onto the scene. Written content rich with relevant information will help your organization build more industry authority and turn leads into sales.
Using the written word as your primary lead generation marketing strategy can help you achieve a strong conversion rate for organic content.
Now let’s dive into the most impactful types of written lead generation content you should use.
1. Blog posts
The classic blog post is the most well-known type of written marketing content, and for good reason. No matter your business model, you can write blogs that convert to sales and create a consistent content flow to establish brand authority. Every blog post is a new opportunity for people to find your website through organic searches and boost lead generation.
Another reason why blog posts are so important is because they strengthen your website’s infrastructure. A site with a robust blog looks more reputable than a site with just a few pages. New visitors can learn about your brand without even looking at a product page.
Overall, marketers who blog are 13 times more likely to see a positive return on investment (ROI) for their efforts.
2. Guides
The long-form guide is the next primary type of lead generation content. Guides typically fall between 800 and 2000 words and expand upon topics mentioned in other articles. While blog posts can get away with providing surface-level information, guides only work when they’re ultra-specific. You need to demonstrate your authoritativeness with deep industry insights.
When readers have specific questions, a guide allows you to provide all the answers in great detail. Guides are excellent forms of evergreen content because their information is relevant year-round and doesn’t depend on industry trends. Overall, long-form guides receive 77% more links than short-form articles because of the greater word density and more authoritative style.
Guides are also great types of gated lead generation content, which requires people to take an extra step before reading. For example, you can ask them to provide contact info or create a customer profile. Gated content is a perfect lead generation marketing strategy because it includes an additional interaction by default, bringing you one step closer to a conversion.
3. Case studies
Blog posts and guides will make up the majority of your written marketing content for lead generation. However, there are many other ways to increase traffic and sales opportunities with the written word. Case studies are excellent starting points. They combine statistical and social proof into one resource, giving readers a compelling case to choose your business.
Case studies also allow you to document unique customer journeys and observe how leads convert to sales in various industries. Sometimes the path to a sale is through a single organic search, while most times it might take several online interactions. Case studies simultaneously give readers enticing information while giving your business a blueprint for lead generation.
4. Industry reports
Industry reports are reliable pieces of marketing content for lead generation. They are often the longest pieces of written content, including dozens of marketing topics and statistics that can impact both consumer and business decision making. Thanks to this unique format, industry reports are ideal for creating a sense of urgency and driving readers to action.
If utilized correctly, industry reports don’t always require explicit calls to action. The data you provide might be influential enough to convert a lead into a sale. People who read industry reports tend to be professionals looking for new insights, not beginners. The right statistic could provide all the information they need to make a buying decision.
5. Email marketing
The world of content marketing has experienced massive changes in recent years, but some old strategies are still relevant. The strategy of email marketing is a great example. Rather than posting content on your website and waiting for people to find it, you can send the content directly to their inboxes.
Your business can use email marketing to boost lead generation at every step in the marketing funnel. Whether the recipient is a first-time reader or a loyal customer, you can send them valuable content that leads to sales through email marketing. The content can be informative in nature, but it can also be a simple call to action (CTA) that appeals to new subscribers.
Ridesharing company Uber provides a great example of an enticing CTA in their email marketing content:
Lead generation content: Interactive content
While written content is the meat and potatoes of your online presence, interactive content should be a bigger part of your lead generation strategy moving forward. People want to connect with businesses and learn more about them before purchasing a product or service. You can use these types of interactive lead generation content to gain their attention and trust.
6. Video
Videos are the best forms of interactive content for lead generation, especially now that mobile devices dominate the marketing landscape. More than 75% of online videos are viewed on cell phones and tablets. Users can absorb 95% of the information they view in a video, while they only remember 10% of text-based content.
As a general rule, you will have the most success with short-form videos that are a few minutes long. You can utilize many trending video marketing ideas such as webinars, behind-the-scenes footage, virtual events, educational videos and in-depth product demonstrations. In any case, the important thing is to edit your videos to look professional and track their views over time.
7. Social media
Social media has been the biggest contributor to the rise of interactive lead generation content. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok, and X — formerly known as Twitter — are all great platforms for connecting with potential customers. In fact, 74% of people use social media when making a purchasing decision.
Versatility is social media’s greatest strength when it comes to marketing. Users have the freedom to create a wide variety of content on each platform, from videos to discussion forums to product descriptions. After posting on your accounts, you can calculate their impressions and determine how many leads each platform produced.
Social media content that boosts lead generation depends on the account you’re using. Here are the content types you should focus on for different social platforms:
- Facebook: Facebook is home to a variety of content types. You can post text-only status updates, images, GIFs, and videos to engage your audience. Facebook Live is a great tool to host product giveaways, behind-the-scenes content and Q&A sessions as well.
- Instagram: Although images are still the primary content type, video is becoming more popular through Instagram Reels and Instagram Live. You can also post interactive polls and surveys on Instagram stories.
- X: Most content on X still revolves around written interactions. Images, GIFs, and videos make regular appearances, but you need to focus on building your brand’s voice through regular posts. Similar to Instagram, posts that include polls and surveys can be huge hits.
- TikTok: TikTok is one of the best platforms for influencer marketing and partnering with popular social media personalities. Its short-form video style and powerful algorithm can also make informational content for small audiences highly successful.
- YouTube: Video content dominates YouTube, but you need to include the best practices for production and promotion to boost lead generation. YouTube Community also allows channels to interact with subscribers through regular text-based conversations.
- LinkedIn: While the other platforms are more laid-back, LinkedIn is about networking with people in your industry or profession. Informational content reigns supreme. Research papers, articles, newsletters, and videos/graphics rich with industry insights are great pieces of lead generation content for LinkedIn.
This X post from Starbucks is a great example of interactive social media content. It contains a humorous and relatable poll that stirs up conversations in the comments. The post also serves a practical purpose — to get more insights about consumer behaviors around the holiday season. It seems like an innocent poll, but it’s still contributing to a lead generation marketing strategy.
8. Polls, quizzes, and surveys
Polls, quizzes, and surveys might come in different formats, but they all provide tangible evidence of customer behaviors. They’re usually anonymous and include many participants, giving you a simple and secure way to compile tons of helpful information while boosting lead generation. People are eager to give feedback.
Gathering results from polls, quizzes and surveys is easier than ever thanks to an abundance of free online tools such as Google Forms, Survey Monkey, and Typeform. You can then display the results on your website’s high-traffic locations. Readers who see the positive results are more likely to trust your brand, and thus more likely to purchase something. Building trust is a crucial step for lead generation content.
9. Tools
Every person who visits your website is seeking an answer, no matter where they fall in the digital marketing funnel. You can provide the answers they’re looking for with online tools. Tools are great marketing content for lead generation because they provide tangible value, increase clicks on your pages, and increase our site’s authority over time.
Out of all the various tools, price calculators are the most effective options for your lead generation content strategy. They get people thinking about your product/service in terms of monetary value, which brings them one step closer to a purchase. Other great tools you can provide are Google Maps, live chat bots, site explorers, and games.
10. Infographics
Infographics are ideal forms of lead generation content if you need to display complex information in an entertaining way. There are many types of infographic formats to choose from depending on what data you need to visualize. The important thing is that each infographic tells a story and guides the audience to a specific conclusion.
If you want to tell a client success story, an informational timeline would be the best format. If you want to demonstrate how your product/service saves money, a statistical or hierarchical format would work better. You can learn how to create successful formats by following our five-step infographic process and nailing down all the design details.
Building a lead generation marketing strategy
Now that you know the best types of lead generation content for 2024, you can build a content strategy around them. There are four basic steps you need to cover:
As you produce new types of content to boost lead generation, remember to set measurable goals and objectives and track their progress. Monitoring your content is crucial for making quick changes if something isn’t working. Here are some common marketing goals that can help you accurately evaluate your lead generation content:
- Boost overall site traffic
- Increase duration of site visits
- Attract more organic visitors
- Attract more targeted visitors
- Increase your site’s conversion rate
- Increase interactions, shares, and followers on social media
Ultimately, your lead generation content strategy should aim to drive people farther down the marketing funnel. Most people who view your content aren’t looking to buy anything — at least not yet.
Just focus on getting them to take the next step, whether it’s following your social media, signing up for an email newsletter or clicking on another article. Any action is good action!
Boost your online presence with fresh lead generation content
Turning online interactions into sales isn’t always easy, but it can be simple. Sometimes you simply need to boost your online presence with fresh lead generation content. These 10 types of written and interactive content will make valuable additions to your brand profile. Now it’s time to get to work!
If you want to learn more about boosting lead generation and creating new types of content, don’t hesitate to contact us online. You can also call us at 888-601-5359 and chat with one of our top content strategists!