Content Marketing 101: Can Your Website Pass The 5 Second Test?

In the direct mail world there is something called the "5 second test". This means that your offer has to be engaging enough that a prospect reading it over the kitchen trashcan needs only 5 seconds to decide whether to open - or pitch - your message.

The same is true with websites. Companies that don't enjoy a steady stream of internet business leads often flunk the 5 second test for one (or more) of following reasons:

It's All About Me - Prospects don't care about your company and how great you are. The people that count from a lead generation standpoint are in the shopping mode, and are looking for information that will lead them to one company or another. If you don't have it - and they don't see it right up front - you are history.

Death By Brochureware  - Content-rich sites attract prospects with informative videos, blogs, and other materials that engage readers. Sites that are little more than online brochures waste valuable marketing money that could (and should) be spent for lead generation.

The Leaky Balloon - Many websites start out with good content, but after a few months the content goes stale, and lead flow starts to fall off. Good content takes time and effort, and once the habit of posting new content to a site is broken, it often just fades away.

Gone and Forgotten - Success has many fathers, and failure none. Sometimes when a costly website fails, it's just hung out to dry. When management can't cost-justify the current site from a lead-generation standpoint, it's a tough sell to push for a new one.

The best lead generation sites use informative, fresh content to pull good prospects into the top of the sales funnel. So if you can't allocate at least one staff person to be the "keeper of the content", it might make sense to find a content provider who can keep this all-important fuel supplied to your internet lead engine.