5 Ways to Generate More Leads From SlideShare

Although SlideShare has been around for several years now, a growing number of marketers are catching on to the value it provides.

SlideShare is a great content marketing tool that companies should be taking advantage of, because it allows you to distribute a presentation that’s easily digestible, regardless of platform. Plus, it’s easy to get started without any technical knowledge required. If you have Powerpoint or Keynote, you’re ready to go.

However, SlideShare isn’t just an option to add variety in your content marketing strategy, it can also be a powerful tool for lead generation. This requires you to take a specific approach to creating your SlideShare presentation that prioritizes lead generation over other goals — which is where many Slideshares fail.

In this article, we’re going to discuss 5 ways to generate more leads from SlideShare. These are best-practices that you can start using today, even if you’ve never created a SlideShare before.

1. Be an Expert on Your SlideShare Presentation Topic

All the content you create should be relevant to your brand. There may be times when you create content for your business on topics you might not be an expert on. This is not one of those times.

When your business is generating leads, your approach needs to be highly-focused. Potential customers are looking for the best companies in their field. If you don’t make it clear that you’re an expert on the subject of your presentation, your prospects won’t be inclined to convert to leads.

To establish your expertise, your SlideShare presentation should:

• Provide real value
• Be relevant to your brand
• Be highly-specific to your buyer persona

Take a look at this perfect example, created by Agency Nation, to see what I mean.

How to Survive the Customer Expectation Triangle of Death from Agency Nation

The presentation provides useful information that challenges conventional wisdom, it’s a subject based around the brand’s service, and it caters specifically to the insurance industry — which is where Agency Nation specializes and targets their buyer personas.

2. Optimize Your SlideShare Presentation for Search Engines

Organic traffic is one of the highest converting sources for lead generation and blog posts aren’t the only pieces of content that benefit from SEO. To reach more people, all forms of content should be optimized for search engines.

SlideShare automatically transcribes your presentation, so optimizing your SlideShare presentation is similar to optimizing your blog posts.

See how Ana Hoffman includes relevant text in her Slideshare to optimize for search engines.

SEO Traffic Guide for non-SEOs: 2014 Edition from Ana Hoffman

Treat your first slide as your headline, keep a consistent design throughout, and structure the content to flow smoothly from slide to slide. You’ll want to follow the same keyword best-practices that you would in a blog post for your titles, descriptions, and within the slides — without keyword stuffing, of course.

3. Add Clickable CTAs Throughout Your Presentation

To generate leads from your SlideShare presentation, you need a CTA. However, the best-practice for CTA placement is different than a blog post.

For a blog you typically place your CTA at the end of a post. However, placing your CTA exclusively at the end of your presentation can significantly decrease conversions in a SlideShare presentation.

Add clickable links with CTA directly within your presentation:

Content Marketing is Sold Wrong from Ryan Hanley

The reason for this is that people tend to scan content online more than they read it. They are more likely to scroll all the way to the bottom of a blog post than they are to scroll through every slide in your presentation. This is why it’s a good idea to include a clickable CTA towards the beginning of your presentation, around the middle, and at the end.

That way you are providing an easy way for prospects to convert, no matter how much of the presentation they actually want to consume. Of course, your goal is to create a presentation that maintains their interest, but the internet has made people impatient and we have to work around their behavior to get the best results.

4. Promote and Recycle Your Slideshare Presentation

A SlideShare presentation is a piece of content that you can use to generate leads repeatedly. When you create your presentation, you should be promoting it across social media and all of the channels you would normally promote your blog posts on.

One benefit of SlideShare over a blog post is that you can get more value by embedding it in future content. Whenever you create blog posts that are relevant to your presentation, instead of simply linking to it, embed it in the post.

See how Stone Temple Consulting utilizing Slideshare presentations in their blog posts to amplify the value of their content.

Not only are you engaging your persona with visual content, but you’re increasing your lead generation opportunities. If you put in the effort to create a great presentation, you can continue to benefit from it for years to come.

5. Add a Form Directly in SlideShare

SlideShare has a lot of cool features that allow you to embed a YouTube video in a slide, add clickable links for CTAs and social sharing, and even sync an mp3 soundtrack. One of the features that doesn’t get used as much as it should is the ability to embed a form directly in your presentation — which is ideal for lead generation.

See below how Jay Baer uses the “Learn More” button inside his Slideshare to capture leads:

Create a Content Marketing Strategy Your Customers will LOVE, in 7 Steps from Jay Baer

SlideShare gives you an option to have a form pop up at the end of the presentation. This allows your prospect to enter their information to download the presentation or to learn more about your company. Best of all, your new leads are automatically added to your database in your marketing software.

Instead of sending prospects to a landing page to convert, you can eliminate that step entirely and collect leads directly from your SlideShare presentation — anywhere that it’s published or embedded.

Thank you and good luck,
Ryan Hanley