Client background: A B2B lead generation company with 250+ people worldwide

Belkins is a B2B lead generation company founded in 2017 by Vladyslav Podoliako and Michael Maximoff. They’re headquartered in Dover, Delaware with over 250 people employed worldwide.

Their team of specialists are experienced in lead research, outreach, appointment setting, and a host of digital marketing services for SMBs and enterprises in various industries in the US and internationally.

Belkins has been recognized for the quality of its services, and is featured on the Clutch 1000 List as a top performer in the professional services sector. The company is well-regarded for taking on projects with budgets exceeding $5,000 and achieving a high ROI in competitive markets.

Challenge: Impressive rankings, minimal returns

While lead generation and appointment setting make up Belkins’ core strengths, they lacked the content marketing expertise to produce blog posts that would both consistently rank in Google searches and convert members of their target audience.

They had an extensive blog and some impressive rankings for high-value keywords, but because of the lacking ROI generated from their content marketing efforts, they felt they hadn’t yet “cracked content.”

Without the return needed to justify on-going investment in blog content in-house, they looked to outsource. They started by hiring more freelancers. When that didn’t produce the results they were looking for, they brought us on as a content specialist.

Solution: A multi-stage content production process

Our time with Belkins began with a 2-article test project—one a competitor piece, the other a guide. This test not only gauged our writing ability but also how well we could assess search intent and come up with ideas and outlines for articles. Both articles performed better than expected in a short span of time.

LinkedIn post by Michael Maximoff

Margaret Lee, chief marketing officer at Belkins goes on to say that they had tested 20 freelancers—“those considered to be the best marketing writers”— before contacting our agency.

We became Belkins’ dedicated writers, which included regular strategy sessions with their SEO Expert, Eugene Zatiychuk and Content Manager, Iryna Yelisova along with Subject Matter Expert (SME) interviews.

We were off to a strong start but, there were some growing pains ahead. What we lacked was a content production process that yielded consistent rankings and conversions.

So, we developed a multi-step process for producing content that consistently ranked on page-1 in Google and resulted in signed 5 and 6-figure deals.

The stages of production are conducting search intent analysis, building a brief, interviewing the SME, outlining the article, writing, editing, and design. However, the articles were effective at ranking and converting leads because they included these tactical stages:

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Foundational principles

The specificity principle, analyzing the SERP to determine search intent, and originality nuggets. We still consider these foundational principles to be the most important and difficult to master.

Information inventory

An information inventory is a curated body of assets from your client’s business that serves as a resource to be used in all your long-form content. Translation: information inventories increase ranking and conversions by better satisfying Google’s algorithm and making content more relatable to humans.

SME interview

Interviews with subject-matter experts (SME) serve as the informational backbone for all the content we produce. The SME interview is also instrumental in giving your articles a unique perspective on a topic.

Compelling argument

The compelling argument acts as a thesis statement. It should always be stated clearly in the introduction.

Work-the-body structure

Set it up, make the argument, get specific, tie it back. We apply this 4-step framework to all body content under an H2 or H3 within the article. This keeps the entirety of the post tight and on-topic.

Results: 30 qualified opportunities from 7 articles in 9 months

Over the first 3 months, the content we wrote achieved 5+ leads, 2 deals, 5+ page snippets, and 2% average CTR. Within 9 months of publishing the first article, 7 different articles have resulted in 30 Sales and CRM-qualified opportunities, and continued content marketing work for myself.

Below we share some of their sentiments as well as performance data.

“I’ve invest over $500K in content from 2018 to 2022 with minimal returns, but partnering with a content specialist… changed the game. We began seeing significantly improved results, all at a fraction of the previous cost.”

Michael Maximoff in his newsletter, From Zero To Agency Hero

OPPORTUNITIES BY ARTICLE · FEB–NOV 2024

CIENCE for lead generation

132 clicks

8

Lead generation for recruiting and staffing

420 clicks

6

The best b2b lead generation companies

214 clicks

6

In-house vs. outsourced SDRs

151 clicks

3

B2B appointment setting costs and pricing models

3

621 clicks

A guide to SDR outsourcing

81 clicks

2

Martal group for lead generation

79 clicks

2

TOTAL OPPORTUNITIES

30

Tracked in Belkins' HubSpot from first click to qualified leads that signaled they are ready for sales outreach.

Here's the result for the Belkins article: B2B Appointment Setting Costs & Pricing Models Explained

Postion 1 ranking for "b2b appointment setting pricing"

Postion 1 ranking for "b2b appointment setting cost"

Belkins tracking data for 4 articles within 3 months of publishing.