You don’t just need content, you need content with a purpose
When it comes to content marketing, unsurprisingly, we are huge advocates. However, we caveat that statement by saying that you shouldn’t just create content for content’s sake – it must have a purpose.
Content being used for marketing purposes is nothing new, and we’re certain that you have engaged in this activity in some capacity. But it’s how effectively – or even strategically – that you use that content that matters.
The fundamental basis for great content marketing is to show off what you know in a manner that is useful to your audience, and present your expertise in an engaging and interesting way. Dry content that simply promotes your products, leaving your audience bored, just isn’t acceptable.
Once you have grasped the basics for creating great content, then what? Do you simply put it on your blog and wait for people to read it? Er, no.
Fine-tune your promotion
Great, so having created the content, laid it out on your site in an interesting and inviting way you then set about promoting it through your social media channels. You do this by targeting influencers who you have researched because they are thought leaders and experts in your field. You also know that they will positively respond to your content because your research also determined their interests, passion points and needs.
Analyse and monitor your traffic
Once the content promotion campaigns have been set up, your analysis of the traffic coming to your content shows pleasingly that the time on page is great, but you can see that the Bounce Rate is in the high 90 percent range. Should you be worried? You should really be considering what are people doing once they have read or consumed the content.
CTAs, CTAs, CTAs
All the traffic in the world coming to your content won’t do any good if you don’t know what you want people to do once they have consumed it.
Have a purpose! All those people have the potential to be customers, after all, they have taken the time to not only click on an ad, but also go to your website, and then consume what content you have to offer. Now, what do you want them to do next?
Create content with purpose
That’s where giving your content purpose comes in. Is there other similar content that they may also be interested in? Make sure they can find it easily with an inline contextual CTA inserted into the body copy directing them to something equally interesting to them. There should be more good content for your audience to consume, all designed to drive a deeper engagement with your web site steering them down the funnel from awareness of your brand to consideration of your products.
Use gated content for lead generation
The ultimate aim of all content marketing campaigns is to start a conversation with possible future customers, so you will obviously need a way in which you can become connected.
In our modern world of endless communications (and regulations such as GDPR) people don’t just give up their email addresses to any and everyone, you need to earn them. This is where email gated content comes in.
Give them the articles and videos that you have promoted through your social media but then when they are on your site, offer them something else – something even more deep and meaningful to them! Offer them a more substantial product that will be of real benefit to them and that will make a positive contribution in their world.
You can build a list of potential customers genuinely interested in what you have to say.
If there’s one thing that you take away from this, it’s that in order to get someone to give you their contact details, and hopefully, their permission for you to contact them with other material in the future too, you need to give them something of value first.
So don’t scrimp on your gated resources, give them the good stuff. Yes it will cost more to produce, but think about it, what would you give up your email address for?
Track everything
Ultimately, your ROI for this customer acquisition strategy should be balanced by your customer value. With your content created and in place, and with the right link tracking, you will then be able to really start to put some ROI on the content as you will see how users are moving from your social media campaign, through your content to the download.
Remember also that if you’ve designed your content strategically, those MQLs that you’re now acquiring should also be highly familiar with the benefits that your product can bring for them – as ideally, that’s why they connected with you in the first place.
In short, you will be building a list of potential customers genuinely interested in what you have to say, which means they are more likely to consider what you have to offer when the time comes to buy.
Need help creating strategic content that drives the actions you want your potential customers to take? Email [email protected] today to find out how our experts can add something extra to boost your customer
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