We’ve all heard the phrase “Content is king.” But is it? In the world of marketing, content is just one small piece of the pie. Yes, writing a blog post like this one can help you reach new audiences and share valuable information with potential customers.
But what will drive people to your website in the first place? How do you get visitors to read that quality content and convert them into paying customers?
The key lies in how you position your content and where you distribute it. Here’s how increasing traffic with strategic content distribution has helped real-life businesses grow their revenue:
| Takeaways |
|---|
| 1. Utilize data-driven insights to tailor your content strategy for maximum impact on your target audience. |
| 2. Craft engaging and valuable content that addresses your audience’s pain points, questions, and interests. |
| 3. Leverage storytelling to connect emotionally with your audience and create a memorable brand identity. |
| 4. Incorporate various content formats, such as videos, blog posts, and infographics, to cater to different preferences. |
| 5. Implement a strong call-to-action in your content that guides readers towards the desired next step, increasing conversion rates. |
| 6. Continuously analyze and optimize your content strategy based on performance metrics to achieve sustainable sales growth. |
Know Your Customers
Knowing your customers helps you create content that will interest them. This is critical for sales because if no one is reading your articles and social media posts and therefore not clicking on any of your ads you can’t make any money.
There are several ways to find out information about your audience:
- Create a survey that asks questions like these:
- What kinds of products do they buy?
- How often do they buy?
- Look at the demographics and psychographics of existing customers (if available). For example, if most users are female and in their 30s, this will help you tailor content toward their interests.
Asking other people who work for the same company as potential customers may reveal more about what those people like or dislike than just asking them directly would.
Analyzing customer behavior is key to optimizing your content strategy. Learn how to leverage data effectively with our guide on using Google Analytics in a B2C marketing capacity to make informed decisions.
Track Your KPIs
Now that you have a better idea of what your KPIs are, it’s time to start tracking them.
- Set up a Google doc or spreadsheet with all of the different metrics you want to track over time.
- If you’re using a tool like HubSpot or ContentMarketer.io, use those tools instead of a manual process for tracking these measurements.
- Keep in mind that there are many different ways to measure success and some may be more relevant than others depending on your business and goals!
You should also consider which metrics give you insight into whether or not your content marketing efforts are working well (and which ones just aren’t worth paying attention to).
Use A Content Marketing Calendar
Content marketing is a great strategy to make more sales. The key is to have the right content in place at the right time. A content marketing calendar will help you do just that.
You can use your spreadsheet or a tool like CoSchedule, which helps you plan and manage all of your marketing activity (email courses, social media posts, and other types of content).
It allows you to create a content calendar in advance so that you know exactly when new pieces of content are going live on your website or blog every week or month and what topics they’re about.
You can also see how many people viewed each piece of content as well as how many shares it got on social media.
If you want help creating an editorial calendar for yourself, CoSchedule has some helpful tips here.
Crafting compelling content can turn curious visitors into loyal customers. Discover strategies for using content marketing to sell your services effectively and build lasting relationships with your audience.
Don’t Create Another Boring Post
While you should be using all of the above to increase your conversions, there’s one more thing you can do: don’t create another boring post.
You’ve heard it before, but I’ll say it again because it’s true you’re going to get a lot more engagement from your customers if your content is interesting and fun to read.
If you put a little extra effort into creating something unique and exciting for them, they’ll be much more likely to share it with their friends (and maybe even buy from YOU).
If you think about how people use social media these days, it makes sense that we’d want our content marketing efforts to stand out from the crowd of other boring posts out there.
Most people aren’t scrolling through their feed looking for news or tips; they’re scrolling through looking at funny memes and hilarious videos shared by their friends.
When they see an interesting piece of content online (i.e., like yours), they’re much more likely to engage with that than reading some dry facts or statistics on why something is good/bad/true/false etcetera…
Create Buyer Personas
Buyer personas are fictional representations of your ideal customers. They’re not real people. Instead, they’re a combination of data points you’ve collected by studying your existing customers and prospects.
You can also create an ideal customer persona based on a few key attributes that define who your target audience is, what they do in their spare time, what their hobbies are, and other personal details about them.
Using a buyer persona as the basis for all of your content marketing efforts will give you more reach than simply creating content without considering who it’s for or how it will resonate with them as individuals
Provide Gated Content When Appropriate
Lead magnets are a great way to collect leads. A lead magnet is a piece of content that you give away for free in exchange for contact information, like an email address or phone number.
By providing something valuable through your lead magnet, you can gain access to the reader’s contact information and then follow up with them later on.
Gated content is another way to collect leads. If someone wants more information about your company, product, or service and they are willing to give some personal details to get access, then you should offer them gated content (also known as “paywall” content).
In addition, if someone wants more information about your company after attending a webinar or seminar and they are willing to give some personal details to receive the handouts from the event then you should offer them gated content (also known as “handout” content).
You can offer different types of gated/paywalled/handout content depending on what makes sense for each situation:
Launching a successful marketing campaign requires careful planning and execution. Explore our guide featuring 15 tips to launch your B2C marketing campaign with impressive ROI and ensure your efforts yield outstanding results.
Test Titles And CTAs To Maximize Results
You may have heard the phrase, “Content is king,” but does that mean you should put your faith in one particular piece of content for all of your sales and marketing efforts? Not necessarily.
The fact is, it can be hard to know exactly what works when it comes to content marketing. That’s because there are a lot of factors involved and they’re constantly changing! For example:
Test different titles and CTAs. One day you might find that a title with fewer words performs better than one that has more, or vice versa; on another day a call-to-action like “buy now” might perform better than “learn more.”
A/B testing allows you to keep up with these changes and make sure all of your titles (including those on social media) remain optimized for maximum impact at any given time.* Test different landing pages.
Landing pages are where users go once they click through from an ad or email campaign; if yours aren’t optimized for conversion rates, then all of your other hard work will go to waste.
Test different email subject lines and copy. You may have heard about split testing before but what exactly does it mean?
Essentially this technique lets marketers compare two versions (or variations) simultaneously by showing both variants at random over time; the winning version is generally considered to be the one that gets higher engagement rates (clicks throughs) than its competitors.
Test email formats such as HTML vs plain text emails because sometimes a simple change like switching up how people see their message can boost open rates significantly by making them easier to read when viewed by recipients who don’t want clutter around their inboxes!
Check Out Buyer Legends By Steve Olenski And Content Marketing Institute’s Blog Posts
While you’re reading this, check out Buyer Legends by Steve Olenski. It’s a great book for small business owners looking to increase sales using content marketing.
You can also sign up for the Content Marketing Institute’s blog posts to get more insights into how to grow your business with content marketing.
If you’d like some more specific tips on how to optimize your landing pages and social media accounts using these techniques, I recommend checking out this article from CMI: The CRAP Principles Of Content Marketing
To learn more about how interactive content can help drive conversion rates on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, check out this article from CMI: 5 Ways To Optimize Your Interactive Social Media Posts
Finally, if you’re not already doing so I recommend capturing emails of interest visitors with lead magnets on landing pages that are optimized for search engines (i.e., use relevant keywords in the title tag).
This will allow them to find those content pieces when they perform searches related to those topics down the road!
Learning from real-world success stories can provide valuable insights into effective content marketing strategies. Discover 19 examples of content marketing done right that showcase creativity, engagement, and positive outcomes.
Use The CRAP Design Principles
Use short sentences and paragraphs. One of the most important rules of good writing is to keep your content as short as possible so that your readers can get through it quickly.
If you have too much text on a page, people will skim over the words without taking in the meaning.
You want them to pay attention to what you’re saying! So make sure there aren’t any unnecessary sentences or paragraphs and edit out anything that doesn’t add value to your message.
Use active verbs instead of passive ones. When we’re talking about writing style, “active” means “high energy,” while “passive” means “low energy.”
This isn’t just an issue of vocabulary choice; it also applies to sentence structure: active voice makes the reader feel more engaged with what’s being said than passive voice does. Make lists (of links/images/quotes/questions), not walls of text.
Write subheadings in boldface or italics so that readers can easily skim through parts they don’t care about. Link off-site references in your posts and include images from other websites when relevant
Use Interactive Content On Social, Like Polls, Questions, And Quizzes
Use interactive content to engage your audience and get feedback.
Polls and quizzes are effective ways to engage customers and ask them questions, but they can also be used as a powerful tool for learning more about your audience.
If you want to learn more about their preferences, a quick poll can be an easy way of finding out what people like or dislike about your products or services.
You might also find that some people aren’t sure about something, so by asking them directly through a survey you’ll gain insight into what they think before making any changes that could negatively impact sales figures (or even turn off potential buyers).
Capture Emails Of Interest Visitors With Lead Magnets On Landing Pages
The best way to convert a visitor into your customer is to capture their email address. The next best thing? A lead magnet, is an incentive that you give away in exchange for an email address.
Lead magnets can take many forms, and they tend to be very effective because they’re usually free and if you’re offering something of value in exchange, why wouldn’t people want it?
You can offer anything from a checklist or ebook to a special report or guidebook; the possibilities are endless!
In addition to providing value upfront, lead magnets also help you gather information about your audience so that when it comes time for sales outreach (or upsells), you’ll have more context around what makes them tick, and who is better than YOU knows what resonates with THEM?
Sometimes, simple changes can lead to significant improvements in sales. Explore our tips on how to generate more sales without really trying and discover tactics that can make a noticeable impact on your business’s bottom line.
Optimize Video For Search With Video Transcripts, Titles, Descriptions, And Closed Captions
Video transcripts are an easy way to help people find your videos. People often use search engines to look for content that’s relevant to their interests.
So adding a transcript can be a great way to increase the chances of someone finding your video and learning more about what you have to offer.
Video titles and descriptions are another way for you to optimize your video for search. You can also use keywords in these fields as well as in tags on YouTube.
This will make it easier for people searching through YouTube results or Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) to find your videos when they’re looking at potential solutions that could fit their needs or problems they’re facing.
Video closed captions are another important feature on YouTube that can help increase the visibility of your videos in search results by providing context around what’s being said before someone clicks into them.
If someone searches “how do I cook chicken” and sees this question answered by one of your cooking shows but there’s no closed captioning available then they might not feel like watching it because there wouldn’t be any context given until after clicking into the video itself.
Making them less likely than if there had been some sort of summary beforehand telling them what its contents were going towards answering this question!
Closed captioning also helps those who need subtitles enabled because it allows everyone who wants access regardless of hearing ability.
Conclusion
and for all of you who are still wondering how to increase sales and get more clients, we hope that this article has cleared some things up.
The most important part is to understand your target audience and their needs and then write content that satisfies them.
With the right approach, you can create content that attracts potential customers, generates leads, and eventually brings profits! With the help of our tips, you’ll be able to start increasing sales in no time!
Further Reading
Here are some additional resources to help you dive deeper into content marketing strategies to increase sales:
Content Marketing to Increase Sales: Explore how content marketing can play a pivotal role in driving sales growth by engaging and converting your target audience effectively.
How Content Marketing Drives Sales: Discover the ways in which content marketing contributes to boosting sales through building trust, showcasing expertise, and nurturing leads.
Using Content Marketing to Increase Sales: Learn how to harness the power of content marketing to enhance your sales efforts and create a more impactful customer journey.
FAQs
Here are some commonly asked questions about content marketing and its impact on sales:
How does content marketing contribute to sales growth?
Content marketing helps attract, educate, and engage potential customers, building trust and authority that can lead to increased conversions and sales.
What types of content are effective for driving sales?
Various types of content, such as informative blog posts, engaging videos, and valuable eBooks, can be strategically used to guide customers through their purchase journey and influence their buying decisions.
Can content marketing work for all types of businesses?
Yes, content marketing can be adapted to suit the needs of various businesses, regardless of their size or industry. Tailoring content to your target audience’s preferences is key to success.
How can I measure the success of my content marketing efforts in terms of sales?
Metrics such as conversion rates, lead generation, and customer engagement can provide insights into how well your content is driving sales and contributing to your business goals.
Is content marketing a long-term strategy for sustainable sales growth?
Absolutely. Content marketing’s focus on building relationships, authority, and value over time makes it a sustainable approach for consistent sales growth and customer retention.
Costantine Edward is a digital marketing expert, freelance writer, and entrepreneur who helps people attain financial freedom. I’ve been working in marketing since I was 18 years old and have managed to build a successful career doing what I love.