How to Use Content for Home Depot Creative Marketing Lead Generation
What are the best Home Depot creative marketing ideas for lead generation? What are your best lead generation results you are getting? We use many marketing lead generation results. Let’s discuss each.
A big part of building a strong content strategy is experimenting with new types of content. Your audience may love your podcasts, but that doesn’t mean that’s the only thing you should create. Fresh content types can expand your reach and attract more, and possibly even better leads.
To help you shake up your content balance, here are 15 things you can put on a landing page to help you collect new leads — and ways you can optimize your landing page for each type.
Home Depot creative marketing … guidebooks
Guidebooks are a popular type of offer used to generate leads, educate customers and prospects, and gain credibility in your industry.
But they can take the time to become a reality, so be sure to choose a topic that will help a prospect go from downloading your guidebook to having a productive conversation with a member of your sales team.
Guidebooks come in many shapes and sizes. There are “ultimate guides,” which are long, in-depth, and usually include detailed explanations, screenshots, and step-by-step instructions.
Then, there are “simple guides,” which are shorter and much more concise. There are also tactical guides, pocket guides, introductory guides, and advanced guides. The list goes on.
What’s the common denominator? They’re all tutorials of some sort, and many of them include step-by-step instructions.
Below, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority uses a landing page for its “Ultimate Guide to Choosing a Domain Name.” It’s simple, well-branded, and concisely explains what the user is getting out of this download.
Newsletter subscriptions
Business blogging not only drives more traffic to your website, but it also can become a major source for lead generation down the road. But how do you convert blog readers into leads?
First, turn them into dedicated subscribers by simply asking for their email address in exchange for sending them new blog posts daily, weekly, or monthly.
Make it easy for them to subscribe by including a one-step form on your blog as the American Writers Museum does with its blog.
Home Depot creative marketing … Slideshare presentations
Because of SlideShares, like blog posts, are great for traffic, some marketers choose to share them without hiding them behind a form.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t offer a download of your SlideShare in exchange for some information.
Here’s an example of a particularly nice design from Collision Latitude. Notice how there are bullet points to outline exactly what knowledge the user will gain from this download — as well as those handy social sharing icons.
Ebooks are informal, fun, design-heavy pieces of in-depth content. Whitepapers are more academic and persuasive reports. They’re structured to present a problem, then provide a solution to it.
People download them because they are authoritative, detailed, and informative. And since every audience could use a good hold on their respective industry details, white papers can be quite valuable to them.
The cool thing about white papers is that they can be created around almost any industry. Here’s one that HookLogic created for the buying behavior around beauty products.
Notice that the landing page allows users to auto-fill the form using information from LinkedIn. Letting visitors auto-populate, this data makes it easier for them to get to your content quicker, encouraging them to complete the form.
Home Depot creative marketing examples … events
Holding a happy hour at your office, a meet-and-greet at a local eatery, or a conference in a major city?
Whatever your event, ask attendees for their information so you can send or email their tickets ahead of time and have an ID badge waiting for them upon arrival.
Here’s how LIVE Magazine SA did that with registration for one of its free events. Notice how the brand used Google Forms — a free and easy way to collect registration data without navigation or other distractions.
Just make sure to direct your visitor to a thank you page where he or she can start navigating your site again.
This way, you can follow up with attendees to let them know about similar occasions, ways to connect with people they may have met at the event, and where to download content they may have come across there.
You can even add calls to action in follow-up communications that invite users to follow you on social media or subscribe to other types of content.
Tools
Interactive tools can be difficult and time-consuming to create, but if they’re truly helpful for your audience, the payoff is often worth it.
Take HubSpot’s Marketing Grader, for example. The landing page form below is simple and only requires a website URL and email address.
The feedback that the marketer gets from this tool is worth a lot compared to the amount of information we ask for. That makes it a compelling exchange.
Home Depot creative marketing … blog series
An email series is a multi-part series of emails sent to an individual who specifically opted-in to receive them. It’s different from an email subscription — it has a finite number of emails sent.
These programs are especially popular around the holidays when many brands do “12 days of”-themed promotions.
Microsoft, for example, executes one each year. And notice how even though I was a bit early for this year’s holiday email series, Microsoft still used the landing page to encourage me to shop its current sales or look at last year’s prizes.
Another example is HGTV’s Urban Oasis, in which a lucky winner receives a completely refurbished home. Users are allowed to submit one entry per day and can opt-in to receive daily email reminders to enter until the contest is over.
Lead generation through content marketing.
Checklists
Checklists are a type of short, concise offer that someone might bookmark for future reference. Think of them as comprehensive guides to terms, commands, symbols, or other things.
They should be formatted for quick reference, which means clear headers and not too much detail. And the more visual, the better.
Home Depot creative marketing ideas … trials
Trials aren’t just limited to things like courses. Sometimes, your prospects will want to try out your product or service before deciding whether they’re a good fit.
That’s a good thing — you want to grow a base of customers that are convinced and loyal, and that can take a little more work than trying to sell your stuff to everyone who will listen.
That’s why it can be helpful to provide a free trial of your product or service with no risk, no obligation, and no credit card required — the only thing the prospect needs to do is fill out a form.
Content types for best lead generation … contests
People love contests. They can teach you a lot about your audience while engaging them, growing your reach, driving traffic to your website, and — drum roll, please — generating leads.
You can run contests on your website, or on pretty much any social media platform, including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. They can be as simple as you’d like:
Notice how Bryton Designs uses its lobster gauge giveaway — I mean, who doesn’t need one of those? — to pull off a double whammy of lead generation. To enter the contest, the user has to follow the brand on Instagram and fill out a form.
But Bryton made it easy. When I clicked the Instagram icon on the page, it took me directly to the brand’s profile in a new tab, so that I could easily go back to the landing page and fill out the form.
How does content marketing generate leads … data & research
Data and metrics are have become especially valuable as many fields become more data-intensive. If your team has the bandwidth, original and data-heavy industry reports can build authority and trust with your audience.
The trade-off is that curating them takes a lot of time, resources, and expertise.
One of the least expensive ways to curate original data and research is to conduct a survey among your subscribers, leads, customers, and industry professionals. Then, share the results in the form of a downloadable report, study, or infographic.
For example, the data in our annual State of the Inbound report is taken from a survey of over 4,500 marketing and sales professionals. We asked the questions, and the answers provided us with great insights that our audience is interested in learning about.
Annual reports are similar to original data and research, though they usually focus on information about a specific organization, rather an industry at-large.
And while these reports are often written with the intended audience of shareholders, they can be helpful resources for some users, like potential non-profit donors or members of the press.
Home Depot creative marketing … podcasts
Podcasts can build an audience and establish your brand as a source of expertise, while also showing off your company’s personality. They put a voice to your brand, so to speak.
And creating one can even be relatively low-budget — all you need is a decent microphone and a smart — but fun — host who can keep your audience listening in each time a new one is released.
When it comes to using a podcast for lead generation, one of the best ways to do that is to ask your listeners to subscribe to updates about it. Subscribing to a podcast alone is already easy to do through apps that don’t ask for contact information, like iTunes and Stitcher.
But by offering a “latest news” subscription, you can keep your audience up to date on related information like industry trends and sneak previews of future episodes. Here’s how we do that with HubSpot’s The Growth Show podcast:
Lead generation through content marketing … free apps
Who says a free product doesn’t earn business? They’re a great opportunity for lead generation. Try giving out free versions of your product or service — it can be lighter or have fewer features than the full-blown version — with no risk, no obligation, and no credit card required.
The only thing they need to do is fill out a form.
Check out how booking.com does this below. The brand could just post links directing individuals to the App Store or Google Play. Instead, it also provides the option to receive a link to download the free app via email or text.
For the sake of convenience, some users are willing to provide that information, so think about how you can provide that ease of use in exchange for information from your audience.
Home Depot creative marketing … webinars
The webinar is a useful content format for introducing prospects to thought leadership around your industry, and it establishes you as an expert in the discussion.
A successful webinar takes a lot of work — especially about planning and promoting it — but with the right strategy, it can be a great way to generate high-quality leads.
Here’s one that Sprout Social did about Instagram with a special guest. The registration page is fairly simple in design, but still, has enough information about the webinar leaders to pique the interest of prospective attendees.
The bottom line
From guidebooks to apps, to events, each type of content you put on a landing page has a specific job.
By experimenting with different types of offers, you can observe which ones resonate with your audience and convert the most leads.
He delivered his message with both supreme confidence and self-deprecating humor. He is a man who is unafraid.
So, be bold. There is something there. Just a small observation that meant something to me and I hope it means something to you.
Content favors the bold. Bold makes you pay attention.
Of course, you can always do more of what works, but never get too comfortable — keep your audience alert and intrigued with new topics and formats that are groundbreaking, but relevant.
Need some help in capturing more customers from your marketing strategies? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?
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Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
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11 Steps to Media Framing Messages for Optimum Engagement
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on Facebook, Twitter, Quora, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
