Content Marketing – How To Use Content Marketing To Boost Conversion?

The new generation of consumers is well-informed buyers who do their research before they make a purchase. Creating quality content for your audience is an important step in converting these prospects into customers. Content marketing is a powerful tool to reach and engage with your target audience and to create informative content that educates prospects about your business and what it has to offer.

Content marketing can increase conversions by helping businesses to build relationships with their customers. Conversion-oriented content is designed around customers’ needs and their frequently asked questions. 

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is the process of planning, creating, sharing, and publishing content across multiple channels to reach the target audience. The purpose of content marketing is to attract visitors and convert them into buying customers. 

Marketers need an in-depth understanding of the users who visit their company’s website and social channels, to create engaging content that would resonate with their audience. Content marketing is an effective inbound marketing technique that motivates visitors to take action, ultimately driving user engagement, user retention, and conversion rate.

The most popular types of content marketing are:
Social media content marketing
Infographic content marketing
Blog content marketing
Podcast content marketing
Video content marketing
Paid ad content marketing.

How to create an effective content marketing strategy?

1. Set an objective
The first step in creating a strategy is to start by setting SMART goals. Establishing SMART goals will help your team to clarify the idea behind the strategy, focus all the efforts, and use time and resources more effectively. Each of the goals must be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. The objective of content creation is to generate brand awareness, increase conversions, and improve revenue for your business. 

2. Determine KPIs
The next step is to determine the KPIs for your SMART goals, which will enable you to measure the success and impact of your strategy. Using analytical tools such as Google Analytics will allow you to monitor and track your performance. Data such as site traffic, social media followers, CTR, churn rate, and conversion rate will give you an understanding of which areas are making gains and where they are falling short. 

3. Decide the type of content
The type of content that you intend to create must be based on the demographic of your target audience. To drive engagement, the content must be tailored to your audience and their interests. By creating buyer personas, you will be able to curate relevant content. When deciding on the type of content you want to create, you must keep in mind your customer’s needs, their pain points, the intent behind their purchasing decisions, and how your products and services can help them.

4. Select content channels
Once you have decided on the type of content you want to market, you need to decide on a channel to promote your content. Most businesses have websites today. Creating a separate blog section on your website can have an incredible impact on conversions. Depending on your target audience, you will have to select one or multiple social media platforms to reach them effectively. It’s important to use multiple channels of communication to ensure that your content has a broader reach.

5. Set a budget
The budget of your content marketing strategy will depend on the type of content and the channels of promotion. While some software and technologies are free, most are subscription-based. If paid ad content marketing is part of your strategy, it would require a bigger budget. Based on the tools, software, resources, and ad space required for creating and promoting your content, the budget will vary.

6. Create and distribute content
Once you have set the parameters for content creation, the next step is to actually start producing content for all your platforms.  Consistency is key here. It’s important to regularly and frequently update content to maintain user engagement. Using a social media calendar will take out the hassle of planning when to share content. Most CMS software has features that allow you to draft and schedule content ahead of time. It’s also important to ensure that all content has the same tone and voice across multiple platforms, which aligns with the company’s image.

7. Monitor and measure results
To determine whether your content marketing strategy is a success or failure, you will need to continuously monitor, track, and analyze all your KPIs, and adjust accordingly. Evaluating your strategy periodically will ensure that your investment and time are dedicated to generating better results and conversions.

Tips to keep in mind when producing content

1. Understand your sales funnel
To create conversion-oriented content, you must first understand your sales funnel design. The various stages of the sales funnel are awareness, interest, consideration, intent, evaluation, and purchase. Content must be specifically designed for each step, such that it persuades visitors to take the next step and move towards a purchase. Understanding the sales funnel will enable you to comprehend and create content that would incentivize your visitors to become customers.

2. SEO optimized content
It’s important to optimize all of your content to ensure that your prospects can organically find you on SERPs. Using relevant keywords and phrases, meta descriptions, and meta titles will improve your ranking on Google and other search engines. 

3. Content on current trends
It’s always important to stay on top of market trends to ensure that you have a competitive advantage over others. A quick Google Trends search can inform you what your customers are looking for and what’s the most trending keyword in your domain. Additionally, monitor your competitors to see what content they are posting, and what sort of engagement they are getting. 

4. Add CTAs
To ensure that your visitors take some action, it’s crucial to make your Call-To-Action buttons more persuasive and exact. Whether it’s a sign-up for free trial, subscribing to a newsletter, watching a video, or buying a product, all your CTAs must blend seamlessly into your curated content to ensure the best customer experience.

5. Make how-to guides and tutorials
Creating how-to guides can enhance user engagement as customers appreciate tutorials and informational guides that make their life easier. Engaging, informative, and entertaining videos and tutorials are effective advertising tool that educates your audience on how your products and services can help them.

6. Add testimonials
Today, businesses know the immense power that recommendations have on a customer’s purchasing decisions. Customers look for guidance from other buyers when they do their product research. Highlighting testimonials of past buyers on your websites and social channels can greatly improve your conversion. These testimonials work as proof of good customer service and showcase your products and services in the best light possible.

Final Thoughts

Content marketing is an effective way to boost brand awareness, increase conversions and grow revenue. It’s crucial to experiment and create user-generated content to ensure that maximum results are achieved. At Alkye, we help our clients to create a content marketing strategy that resonates with their audience and helps them build a community of loyal customers.