This guest blog was written by Paradigm Marketing and Design Chief Operating Officer & Senior Marketing Strategist, Carolyn Menz.

Your website is up and running. It’s a well-oiled machine—and it’s beautiful. It’s engaging, visually appealing and speaks to your target audience. Now what? How do you get a user to visit your site? And once they’re there, how you move that person from casual peruser to lead?

It comes down to delivering value that builds trust.

Gone are the days of the heavy-handed, sales-first messaging that’s long guided marketing departments’ customer outreach efforts. Today, it’s all about offering substantive content that educates and informs. In fact, content marketing has been shown to generate over three times as many leads as outbound marketing and delivers six times higher conversion rates than other marketing methods.

Become that trusted partner to your audience and nurture them through the process using proven strategies that work.

Six Ways to Increase Website Conversions

Downloadable Content:

The purpose of downloadable content is to offer readers in-depth, free information in exchange for their contact info. Sometimes referred to as “lead magnets,” downloadable content might include eBooks, infographics, how-to guides, whitepapers, videos and more. The idea is to entice the reader with something engaging, such as a blog post or article, a case study or a social media post (more on those later), then lead them further down the sales funnel with content they really want—and can’t get anywhere else. With this, you not only take them further into the customer journey by offering deeper insights, but you also gather data that you can use for future touchpoints.

Blog Posts:

Blogs are intended to deliver meaningful content that helps your audience solve a challenge, answer a question or find better ways of doing things. A strategically implemented blog program not only helps you attract a relevant audience, but it can also catapult your organization to thought-leader status, which is foundational to your prospecting efforts. In fact, many business leaders say that thought leadership has directly contributed to them doing business with the company.

Ideally, your blog will offer enough substantive information to entice readers to request more information. Make it easy for them. Offer multiple mechanisms to receive regular blog updates, including RSS and email subscribe options, as well as “follow” links to your social media pages. When appropriate, include links to more in-depth downloadable content for deeper engagement.

Articles:

Similar to blog posts, articles are highly effective at conveying thought leadership through informative or educational content—with a few key differences. While a blog might veer towards a casual tone with expressed opinions, an article is more formal, factual and oftentimes much longer in length. Your fact-based piece will help you build credibility as an expert in a particular subject, and drive readers to your site. For greater brand exposure, consider pitching your article to a reputable third party, such as trade publications, partner sites, etc.

Webinars:

A webinar is one of the best ways for an organization to connect and engage with prospects in a more personal way. Immersive and educational in nature, webinars have been touted as one of the most effective pipeline-building tools. When asked, 73% of marketing and sales leaders said webinars are one of the best ways to generate high-quality leads.

While the webinar in and of itself is a value-add, there’s more you can do to drive engagement, learn about your audience and lead them through the sales cycle. Ideas include polling your audience to create a more interactive experience while gathering information, sending a post-webinar survey that measures content effectiveness and digs deeper into the demographic and firmographic makeup of your audience, and, of course, sending thank you emails with links to the recording and the presentation slides. These are high-quality leads; slice them, dice them and use them.

Case Studies:

Widely underleveraged in the world of marketing, a case study program is one of the best ways to establish credibility with prospects and, in turn, generate leads. It’s a matter of relatability. When you tell a story about how your product or solution solved a real-life problem for a customer, you’re showing business professionals how their peers are addressing challenges similar to their own, which in turn makes them more likely to do business with you. Don’t forget to include a call to action with a phone number or form to request more information. Entice them further by offering relevant downloadable content.

Social Media:

Social media has forever changed the landscape of lead gen and sales prospecting activities. So much so, in fact, that a whopping 90% of decision-makers say they do not respond to cold calls, while 76% are ready to have a conversation on social media. It makes sense considering three out of every four Americans use social media.

Social media is where you form relationships, build trust and engage—all before you try to sell them something. It’s a great way to listen to your customers, interact and establish yourself as a trusted authority. Direct them to your site by sharing blog posts or articles, gated content and case studies. Run contests, host hangouts or even use the paid advertising feature to get your content in front of more eyes. There’s really no limit to the creative ways you can use social media to entice, engage and convert.

Your marketing efforts are only as good as your ability to gather leads. The current marketing environment is one that caters to the “pull” mentality of your audience. Embrace your role as a thought leader, give your readers value, and nurture them through your funnel.

Paradigm Marketing & Design is an award-winning full-service marketing and design agency based in New Jersey that provides strategic marketing, web design, and branding services to B2B, B2C and nonprofit clients. Visit paradigm-md.com for more information.