Remember pulling in to your local service station and filling your tank with premium? That little extra octane helped your car run a little smoother. Well that’s the idea behind premium content. When you use it, your inbound marketing efforts hum right along (and so can your sales). Learn more about this content-marketing tool and the value it provides to customers.

What Is Premium Content?

You likely share content now. It might be a helpful hint you post on social media, a how-to video that demonstrates a new product, or a testimonial on your website. Each provides general information and is available free of charge.

Premium content takes that idea but turbo charges it. First, your unique insight is added to the information. That makes it even more valuable. Second, prospective customers are required to provide something before it can be accessed. Generally, it’s information like name, mailing address, email, and phone number.

Here’s how it works. An auto repair shop has information about which car brand has the best maintenance record. It’s based on the shop’s experience. That could be valuable to someone looking for a new car. The shop places an ad offering to share this report. The ad drives people to the shop’s website where they’re asked for their contact information before the report is emailed to them. The auto shop feeds this information into their prospecting database. Then they follow up individually or add them to an existing campaign, like their monthly newsletter.

Why You Should Use It

Premium content works because it provides information that’s highly valued by the people you want to attract. It might be a solution to a problem they are having, your prediction on what’s going to happen next in their market, or what to look for before making a purchase. That’s insight they can’t get just anywhere.

It positions you as a subject matter expert—someone prospective customers go to for advice. That helps you move them through the buying process. Here are ways you can use premium content to support that cycle:

• How-to videos, webinars, blog articles – In the early buying states, engage people by showing them how to perform a task in easy-to-follow steps. Pick something that you deal with everyday in your business. A music store owner might explain how to change a broken string on a guitar and tune it. A technician at an electronics store might demonstrate how to save money by refilling a printer’s ink cartridge.
• Reports – In the later stages of the buying cycle, help them evaluate information by going in-depth on a particular topic or issue. Share facts and figures that aren’t available to the general public, until now. It might be information from your business experience or industry information you’ve gathered on your own. Typically, this content is organized into a whitepaper, a case study, or eBook. You’ll want to break up the content using charts, diagrams, or infographics to make it easier to read.

Premium content can be an effective way to fill-up your inbound marketing engine. By providing valuable information to future customers, you position your business as their go-to resource. And that puts you in their consideration set when they’re ready to buy.