Content doesn’t convert. Or at least, it converts far less than many people think.
In my view, content is primarily about branding. You want people to see you more often, get familiar with your perspective and gradually understand who you are and what you know. On LinkedIn, that’s much more important than trying to send people straight to a landing page, event or form with every single post.
People on LinkedIn aren’t exactly eager to click on links. And naturally, LinkedIn has little incentive to encourage everyone to leave the platform as quickly as possible.
So let’s say you’ve written a great blog post for your website. What should you do?
Don’t just share the link and hope people rush to click it. Use the original image, write a valuable post directly on LinkedIn and make sure people get the main message even if they never visit your website. Then give them a little teaser that makes genuinely interested readers want to explore the full article. You can put the link in the comments, for example.
But don’t expect massive conversion rates from that either. Maybe only a handful of people click through, while thousands of others have seen your name, your face and your point of view. And that, in my opinion, is where the real value of content lies.
The same goes for events, downloads, demos and other conversion goals. Sometimes we expect to publish something online and have registrations or meeting requests automatically start rolling in. That’s usually not how B2B works.
Because people aren’t leads. They’re people, and people do business with people.
Content can make someone familiar with you long before you ever speak. Personal branding can build trust and make that first conversation feel a little less cold. But at some point, you still have to build the relationship yourself.
If you genuinely want someone to attend your event, sometimes you simply need to email them, call them, send a personal LinkedIn message or invite them directly. Sometimes you even have to show up in person.
That may be less appealing than the promise of fully automated funnels and customers on autopilot, but I believe it’s much closer to how B2B actually works.
Content builds trust.
Personal contact builds relationships.
And that’s where business happens.
Thank you, Marketing Report Nederland & België and New Business Radio!
