Attract Valuable Leads With Longform Content
The release of Hubspot’s 2022 marketing statistics got us thinking about the value of longform content. Longform content—1,500-7,500 words—is a very effective way of attracting and converting leads. It boosts your SEO and engenders trust in your company. While it takes time and money to create and execute a longform content strategy, there are ways for companies to do it economically and sustainably.
When Hubspot released their Ultimate List of Marketing Statistics for 2022, we geeked out. What can we say? We get excited by data on the high effectiveness of blogs and content marketing.
According to the data and our experience with clients, content can be a crucial component of a business strategy. Here are a few of the data points that stand out to us:
56% of marketers who use blogging as part of their company’s business strategy report that it's effective, and 10 % of marketers say that blogging generates the biggest return on investment.
54% of decision-makers say they spend more than one hour per week reading and reviewing thought-leadership content. (Edelman/LinkedIn 2021)
Almost 40% of marketers reported that content marketing is a very important part of their larger marketing strategy.
What does all of this data mean for your business? Simple: there is a big opportunity for you to generate leads and revenue from longform content.
Why is longform content so valuable?
While word counts differ slightly, longform content can refer to any content piece—a blog, article, whitepaper, how-to guide, etc.—that is at least 1,500 words and is capped at around 7,500 words.
Longform content has the power to make your company appear higher in SERPs and establish your company as a trusted authority to both customers and search engines. Better SEO + trusted authority typically equates to your company attracting organic, warm leads that can turn into revenue.
While we tend to assume customers don’t want to read long pieces of content, shorter content simply does not engender the same level of trust in consumers or decision makers—and therefore move them to make a purchase—that longform content can. The business value of longform content is also backed by data:
Buyers typically read or consume 3-5 pieces of content before making a purchasing decision. (Hubspot 2021)
Blogs with at least 2,000 words get 3x more traffic, 4x more shares, and 3.5x more backlinks than shorter articles. (SEMrush, 2019)
In the B2B world, 71% of B2B customers consume blog content before making a purchase. (DemandGen, 2018)
Getting Started With Longform Content
It’s crucial to identify and be honest about what you can accomplish feasibly with longform content. Using content to bring in leads and revenue is a significant undertaking. Consistent results require time and money.
If you know your company is unable or unwilling to dedicate resources to execute longform content, that’s totally okay. You can still capitalize on it. Here are a few ideas:
Create a free download. This might be a large, well-researched collection of best practices that solve a particular problem facing your customers, an in-depth case study of how you helped a customer see results, a trends report with your company’s insights about what’s happening in your industry. You could create 1-2 free downloads with longform content per quarter. Pair the download with a longform, SEO-optimized landing page and watch the leads roll in!
Email your opt-in list. Have a list of customers who have opted in to receive communication from you? Good news! Email marketing has the highest ROI for small businesses, according to Campaign Monitor in 2019. Begin writing regular emails to your list. While it’s best to write shorter form content for emails, building up your email marketing makes writing and setting up a strategy for longform content much easier. Plus, emailing your list allows you to experiment with the type of content that resonates with them the most—so that they become repeat customers. Then, when you create a blog or free download, you’ll know exactly what type of longform content will get results with your audience.
Blog once a month. The key with longform blogging is consistency over frequency. Yes, the companies that see the most organic traffic and leads from their blog post 4+ times per month. If you can’t commit to posting that often but can commit to posting one longform blog per month, do it. A monthly blog is a fantastic way to begin seeing some results and also learn what resources and systems you’ll need in place when you’re ready to accelerate. What you don’t want to do is post aggressively, burn out, then post nothing for months. That has a worse impact on your authority and trust—from both a consumer and SEO level—than posting fewer blogs on a consistent, sustainable basis.
