A guided content experience for buyers creates more quality leads that convert at a higher rate.
That’s the perspective of Ray Goforth, SVP of Marketing at Verana Health. She explains, “Don’t just create content to have content on your site. If nobody comes, reads it, or values it, there’s no point. Content that guides the journey is key to converting intent.
A year ago, Verana Health primarily relied on industry events for lead generation, where they encountered a high volume of unqualified leads. Today, after implementing Ray’s approach about 60% of their Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) come from inbound web traffic.
This change has contributed to an impressive projected 75% growth in revenue at Verana this year. Here are the four keys to Ray’s strategies:
▶️ 1. Aligning Content with Market Trends:
A first key strategy is to ensure that your messaging and content point to market trends and challenges that will engage your buyers. Ray focuses first on conducting thorough SEO analyses to identify market trends and themes that connect to her target audience. This process involves understanding customer pain points and objectives to inform content creation while also highlighting a specific product or solution’s unique selling points.
▶️ 2. Website as the Staring Point:
Second, at Verana and in other roles Ray wants to ensure website content speaks directly to those current trends and needs. “We prioritize topics based on SEO analysis, then build content such as blogs, white papers, case studies, and webinars around them,” Ray emphasizes.
Customer stories that share highlight needs and solutions are a key part of that content. Stories, by offering peer-proof points, foster meaningful engagement across the buyer’s journey.
▶️3. Lead Scoring and Interaction Monitoring:
Verana uses an automated lead-scoring model to evaluate potential customers based on their interactions over a 90-day period. The scoring focuses on website visits, content consumption, and email engagements. “We have a SDR or sales team member do a manual inspection of all leads before outbound outreach, but this automated system helps focus time on the most promising leads that have the highest likelihood to convert in the sales process.”
▶️4. Extra Points for ICPs and Self-Solutioning:
Not all buyers or interactions are equal. To increase focus on the most promising leads, additional points are given to a buyer that meets a specific ideal customer profile (ICP). Additional points are also given to webpages with substantive content — white papers, case studies, or self-solutioning guides — that suggest deeper buyer engagement.
Quality research on what buyers care most about is the starting point for creating interest, but it is a guided content experience that will capture and convert this interest to new partnerships.