This is the second installment of our periodic advice for marketers. You can read the first installment here, or go straight to our advice on how to write engaging content.

Lead generation is the priority for nearly all marketers these days as companies seek and incentivize data to attribute to sales and pipeline growth. However a rush to lead generation without a continual dedication to the fundamentals of brand awareness, trust building and credibility can break down and even set back these initiatives.

As such, many of these programs stall out. Here are five reasons why and what you can do about it:

1. Fundamentals – Who are you trying to reach? Have they heard of you? Do they trust you? If two companies are publishing (“5 reasons why”) pieces, the prospect will pick the one published by the publisher that they know of and trust. Your brand matters.
2. Ignoring “low level” leads – The average b2b purchasing decision involves nine colleagues and 17 interactions (source). If your sales team will only talk to a VP or C-Level person at the company, they are ignoring 77% of the of the opportunity. Ask your CEO if she downloads all her white papers and webinars, or is it spread across multiple teammates.
3. Have you earned a phone number? A new prospect has found your content and wants to read more. Do you really need a phone number at this point to build a relationship? Is the phone number just for a CRM score? If the last question’s answer is yes, then consider appending the data from publicly available information, and focus on the hard part, building a relationship.
4. Content is an art, not a science – If Above the Law could all predict which content pieces would perform best, we would be sending this from our yacht in the Mediterranean. Alas, we are in our cramped office in Manhattan, creating multiple pieces of content. For any program, leverage 2-3 content pieces with different angles, and ABCDEFG test every single email subject line, blog headline, landing page title. If you can, make sure to have multiple mediums. Some people like videos and webinars. Some people like on-demand presentations and eBooks. Both of these people are your prospects.
5. Nurturing is not one-size-fits-all – If I said yes to reading more from a white paper, the next step might be a demo with a sales person, or it’s a case study on how else I could use this solution. It is important to have multiple nurture paths with an eye on timeliness.

If you’d like to discuss lead generation programs or share your own insights, we’ll be happy to publish in the next installment. To read more about ATL’s lead generation programs or account-based solutions, click here.

Any questions, comments or feedback? Email advertising@breakingmedia.com.

This is the first installment of marketing advice from the makers of Above the Law, MedCity News, Breaking Defense, Fashionista, Dealbreakers, Breaking Energy, & Breaking Gov.

We at Above the Law publish a lot of content – roughly 400 original articles a month. This is a 40% increase since 2014, which coincidentally matches the rise in media consumption by adults – 8 hours in 2014 to 12 hours in 2019. Companies, brands, and vendors are also competing for those 12 hours of attention, to spend more time with their prospects and customers. Today, there are over 70 million blog posts published on WordPress every month. If every publisher has a “How-To” or “10 Top Tips” article, content creators have to ask themselves, why would anyone read this?

Here are a handful of tips on how to get your content read:

• Headlines matter – If you can’t think of a catchy headline, ask yourself why the article exists in the first place.
• Brand matters – “How-To” and “Top Tips” articles are important and things that your prospects will search for. If you and a competitor have essentially the same article, which will they click? The brand that they have heard of and trust.
• Value add – What does the reader get from your content, and not the 15,000 other interchangeable articles? The answer is not “information” – all 15,000 have “information.”
• Medium and promotion – If you’re good at writing, create articles. If you’re good at short reactions, focus on social media. If you’re good at talking, look at podcasts and webinars. Pick the medium based on your own comfort. Then invest time into the promotional strategy. If you build it, they will… not come on their own.

Click here for advice on content marketing from Above the Law’s own Elie Mystal.