Now more than ever your customers are hungry for answers and they want those answers from you. Offering premium content, valuable information that your customers are craving, gives you the opportunity to generate leads, demonstrate your organizational thought leadership, and build your brand awareness. As part of your inbound marketing strategy, offers of premium content can be made throughout your website and marketed in your blog and social media channels. These offers send your prospects to a landing page to collect information which will give you information about your prospects and permission to continue to engage. Your offer of information via premium content sets up one of your first transactions with your potential customer.
You: Here is this information that will help you reach your goal. It is yours for free if you will simply share your name and email address and maybe a little bit more about your goals. Fair deal?
Customer: Sure thing.
Here is a presentation of common premium content and the value to you and your customers.
| Content | Value to Customer | Benefit to Your Business |
| Product Advice Sheets | Accelerates learning curve and helps with purchase decision-making | Share experiences of past customers authentically |
| Useful Checklists | Everybody likes check lists and numbered lists | Enhance your relationship with potential customers |
| White Papers | Receive balanced report which provides in-depth industry knowledge or research | Demonstrates your leadership in your industry |
| Case Studies | Ability to see themselves in past successful customer interactions | Provides proof of successful customer interactions and a referral source |
| Blogs | A great source of information delivered in a form that helps the customer establish a relationship with your organization with the expectation of regular and frequent new information | Blogs allow you to enrich the content of your website for the benefit of your prospects or customers, increase Search Engine Optimization, improving page searches |
| Newsletter | Regular updates on topics of interest to your customer about your organization and your industry | Opportunity for regularly engaging with customers and potential customers, including periodic calls to action |
| EZines | Regular updates on topics of interest to your customer or constituents in an editorial format including feature stories, and images | Creates an environment for affiliate advertising, sponsorship and the ability to create a loyal following |
| EBooks | Easy to read compilations of information that is useful to your customers or prospects | Delivery of high perceived value information, rich opportunity to include more Calls To Action, gathering more customer info |
| Info-graphics | Presents the latest statistics or trends in an industry in a pleasing and memorable graphic style | Easily provides share-able industry knowledge in bite size talking points |
| Webinars | Persuasive presentations for groups, educational presentations, interactivity in real time or recorded for later viewing at convenience of individuals | Build enthusiasm for your product or service, answer important questions, launch new products, engage key customers or prospects |
| Video Clips | Great for reinforcing brand promises, presenting how-to info, and offering breaking news from industry leader | Adds credibility to the company and on-camera representative when done well and authentically |
| Podcasts | Allows customer to listen to relevant conversations on your industry at their convenience | Communicate regularly with prospects or customers to enhance engagement and loyalty |
As you can see Premium Content can come in many forms (or combinations of forms). 
Today’s technology advances makes it possible to create most of these types of content with modest investments of time, technology, and money. Understanding who your customers are will help you determine what types of content they are most likely to desire and value. For example, customers that are more likely to visit your website via a mobile device will generally opt for easier to download content items and some customers will gravitate to an eBook, whitepaper, or case study from their desktop computer and will often download them in pdf form to print and read later.
The important thing to remember is to consistently create premium content with a purpose in mind – such as supporting a keyword strategy, meeting the needs of a specific customer segment, generating leads and/or building awareness.
Look to yourself and your staff as your first source for developing content, considering time commitment and budget you wish to allocate to handle technical details and guarantee high quality premium content. If you would like to know more about planning your premium content strategy, or for technical or ongoing assistance, go to my contact page and tell me what obstacles you have to overcome to institute a successful online content strategy.
