Ah, paid marketing. It’s awesome until it isn’t.

Most startups start with paid marketing and get strong results for the first year or two—until it hits that inevitable plateau. Now you’re maxed out on budget and leads.

So what’s a startup to do? Add in content marketing.

Content marketing generates 3x more leads than outbound and costs 62% less.

Does it work? You bet your biscuit.

If you want to reduce your paid spend, this is how you do it.

If you need to bring in more leads, content marketing is a no-brainer.

Companies with blogs get 55% more website visitors and 67% more leads than those without. And blogs result in 434% more indexed pages and 97% more backlinks, making your site more discoverable.

It’s not just blog posts though. Optimizing your product and solutions pages can help you rank at the top of Google and pull high-intent traffic directly onto your most important pages.

Then you capture all those visitors’ emails and start an email nurture program. Now you’ve got a full organic funnel in place. Cool, right?

I took this same approach for AdvancedMD a few years ago and it resulted in a 48% increase in organic leads.

Are you putting out content that just isn’t resonating with your audience?

Americans are exposed to online media for 7.5 hours a day—it’s not easy to get anyone’s attention. But it can be done with thoughtful, targeted content that engages your audience on an emotional level and keeps them coming back for more.

You want a content experience that immediately lets your ideal customers know they’re in the right place. And then you want to make it incredibly easy for them to learn more, sign up, pay you, and even upgrade.