Since its inception, digital marketing has been gaining popularity and creating an impact. In fact, statistics that show that 91% of all B2B businesses and 86% of all B2C businesses use content marketing as one of the most important part of their digital marketing strategies. The reasons are very clear; content marketing offers organic visibility, traffic and revenue.
This makes it crucial for businesses of all sizes to think of content marketing as a viable marketing plan for their conversion rate optimization. It’s this that can convert blog traffic into sales, as traffic alone without lead generation and final sales is pointless. So, to help you focus your content, we offer 10 ways to turn that good content into better sales.
1. Offer Quality Content
The panda algorithm has been updated and changed over the last few years, but one thing continues to be true, even more so now that the algorithm is better; and that is the importance of High Quality Content Pages. That’s right the Google spider can now identify which websites have better overall content and which don’t.
This makes creating high-quality content a high priority, as it’s the best way to hook your audience and keep Google happy at the same time. However, “quality” is key here and this means you need to come up with unique ideas that are valuable and interesting.
2. Don’t Keep Making the Same Pitch Over and Over Again
The average consumer is bombarded with hundreds of marketing pitches a day, and this happens on all types of digital devices. Starts right at dawn and never ends. No one wants to hear the same marketing pitch again and again, so you need to do something to make your pitch stand apart and spark an interest in your content, which gives you the monetization you want. You have to make your advertisements for people and without it sounding like an advertisement.
3. Get the right mix
There’s a fine line between content that educates and content that sells. You need to do both in such a way that doesn’t seem like you’re selling. Most of the time business owners don’t understand that there is a right mix between education and advertising. Often, they either only educate or do nothing but sell. This makes the content strategy fail at its purpose.
In contrast, good content both educates and sells. For example, an e-commerce business that wants to sell dresses might write an informative blog on, “how to choose the perfect outfit for an office party.” In the blog would be tips on choosing the right outfit, but also you might add links to semi-formal dresses from your online store. This gives your audience real options that they can consider buying. This type of article is informational but also serves as advertising for real products. This is the type of content that actually converts better than either full educational blogs, or the more traditional advertising flyers.
4. Use the Type of Content That Attracts Customers
Selecting content can be overwhelming, but doable when you know what you’re looking for, and understand that the ultimate purpose is to attract buying customers. The ultimate purpose is to increase your sales funnel. So, you want to choose trending topics that are popular among your audience. These need to be as relevant to your industry as possible, so that they bring value to your targeted audience, and in turn create more sales. To find this type of content, be sure you:
- Conduct research into the types of content your competitors publish. Be sure to analyze the popularity of this content and then create your own.
- Do keyword research, including relevant search terms that can bring traffic to your business.
- Ask for customer feedback and contact online surveys.
5. Publish Different Types of Content
When we refer to content, we aren’t just referring to the type that is written. There are many different types of content for the web. This includes:
- Images
- Infographics
- Memes
- Video
- Text
- Reviews
- Case studies
- Blogs
- Press Releases
- News
6. Identify Problems in Your Industry
You probably already know what the problems in your industry are. Put yourself in your customer shoes, or listen to the questions they ask. Use this information to identify the issues and concerns then address them in your content. This solves their problem or concern, but it also creates customer loyalty. Remember, it’s always easier to sell to a friend than it is to a stranger. By solving your audience’s problem, you create a lot of friends.
7. Use Social Channels
Get your content in front of readers by using your social channels. Use social media to distribute and share your content; to reach out to people across many different platforms. Yes, you need to discover which social platform works best for you, but there is no one social-media-platform-for-all that works for every type of business. You need to do your research and gain industry insight, while at the same time considering the limitations of each of the social media platforms.
8. Create Editorial Guidelines
Create your business’ editorial guidelines in terms of tone, topics, style, and pitch. This will become increasingly more important as the new panda algorithm updates come into effect. This will definitely be a way in which Google weeds out poor quality content.
9. Create Better Conversations
Just as you reach out to your audience with your content, you want to create an interaction with your audience. In other words, you want to make your audience comment, ask questions and interact with your website. When you do it correctly, your content will be extremely shareable, and people will want to share through social media, on their own blogs and even on industry forums.
10. Create Different Content Strategies for Different Social Networks
Plan different types of content for different social channels. This will reduce your risk of losing out on audiences and ultimately on conversions. Why is this important? There are different age and gender groups on different platforms, so you need to orient your content towards those groups.
When you understand the need to create and implement different content strategies for different channels your conversions start to skyrocket.
Bottom Line
Once you implement all of these tips, you can’t forget to track your success. Performing regular content audits on your website and monitoring your efforts, can help you target the content towards your specific audience. Schedule content on a weekly and monthly basis, this helps you know whether the content you’re posting is hitting its target.
