Content marketing strategies to boost your conversion rate

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Obviously the fundamental objective of your overarching content marketing strategy is to boost your conversion rate. But what do you do for that? How do you make sure that you take the right steps that help you create and market content that help you improve your conversion rate?

This Tech Cocktail blog post rightly says that the old Indian saying that “focus on your work and don’t worry about the results” cannot be applied to content marketing because every strategy needs to give you some results, but uses it in the wrong context. You can stop worrying about the results if you’re doing the right thing, that is, if you are following the Dharma – the righteous path. If you are not following the right path then this can be a cause for worry. To elucidate this further I’m going to use another Indian saying – boya ped babool kaa to aam kahaan se hoi? – if you sow a prickly acacia tree how can you get mangoes from it?

Most content marketing strategies have got nothing to do with conversion

Surprisingly, conversion is a word very few businesses are aware of, consciously. Yes, they know what the word means, but how it is applied to their own business, they don’t spend much time on the thought. This is why their content marketing mostly involves achieving better search engine rankings and getting more exposure – these days – on social media and social networking websites. When most clients approach me, their primary concern is improving their search engine rankings. It’s rarely that they talk about conversion.

Okay, what does conversion mean?

Conversion means, you want people to carry out a particular activity on your website and after being exposed to your content, they actually carry out that activity. A few days ago I wrote about the KPIs of content marketing – the key performance indicators that tell you that your content marketing effort is yielding results. There can be multiple KPIs of your content marketing, and the sum total of all the KPIs is your conversion rate – among all your visitors, how many actually do business with you?

Anyway, the above-linked blog post lists 10 content marketing strategies that can help you boost your conversion rate. Some of them are

Plan your content marketing strategy with the desired end in your mind.
Clearly define your call-to-action expressions and then use them strategically.
Use simple, jargon-free language when creating content for publishing and marketing purposes.
Follow a consistent path and don’t dilute your content unless it is absolutely necessary.
Be your natural self – don’t try to be something or someone you are not.
Make an attractive and compelling case for yourself – remember that if you are not excited about your product or service, you cannot get others excited.
Sometimes it’s all right to use unrelated content as long as you can maintain the context.
Don’t ignore social media and social networking websites because most of your prospective customers and clients are there.
Don’t get impatient – content marketing is a prolonged activity. It is not a “campaign”. It has to be a sustained effort over a long period of time in order to yield results.
You don’t need to generate all your content by yourself. You can ask the others to create content for your website or blog, provided you can give something in return.

How to find the right content writer for your business

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Finding the right content writer for your business

Most businesses can do with general content writers but sometimes you need content writers that are trained in a specific field. In industry parlance they are also called subject matter experts but just as all content writers are not subject matter experts (SMEs) all subject matter experts are not writers.

When do you need expert or industry-specific content writers?

You need them when your topic requires vertical knowledge of a subject and your audience is very particular about what is being published. They can easily make out that your content reeks of mediocrity when it is not written by a person who knows what he or she is talking about. Such content can be medical-related, highly technical subject, or a field that requires lots of background knowledge in order to operate profitably, something like share trading and forex. If you read something on these topics, you will require lots of background knowledge in order to fully grasp the concepts. In the same manner, unless you know the topic properly, it is very difficult to write content on it.

So you need an expert content writer; how to find one?

Here are a few things you can do to find the right content writer for your business:

Educate the content writer you already have: As an experienced content writer I am used to learning concepts, assimilating them, and writing about them. You may not believe it, but for a trained person, this is not a very difficult feat to achieve. For example, I have recently attained a decent knowledge about the real estate industry because for a couple of years I have been writing for multiple real estate and realty clients. I have also written content for as diverse fields as law, hospitality industry, medical tourism, project management systems, Chip programming, mobile apps, fashion and photography, just to name a few. I let my clients know in advance that I will require some input from them but once I have all the needed information with me, I can do a fair job and barring a couple of incidents, the clients have been quite happy. Where I feel that I won’t be able to do justice, I let the client know within a few days of trying.
Go through some industry-specific journals: Every major industry publishes journals and most of the articles, essays and reports in these journals are written by subject matter experts or the professionals who have been operating within that particular industry for many years. Note down the names and then try to contact them either through the publisher or other contacts.
Interact in online forums: Professionals working in vertical fields have their tightly knit communities where they are constantly interacting with each other and exchanging their expertise. These can be nice places to find the right content writer for your business.
Use social media and social networking websites: If you have a Twitter or Facebook account, perhaps you can post your requirement there and let people contact you.
Get an expert content writer from some content writer you already know: Many clients contact me even when they are looking for an expert because they know that I’m constantly in touch with many content writers from all over the world. For instance, recently somebody needed a content writer who knew both Russian and English. I knew one.
Spread the word around: If people know about your requirement they may also contact you on their own. Leave messages on bulletin boards, the comments sections of different blogs and online forums. You can also place advertisements in the classifieds section of your local newspapers and magazines. You can also use job websites to post your requirement.

What sort of expertise do I bring to the table as a content writer?

I must confess that with all these years of content writing, I have become a sort of Jack of all trades and master of none. Give me a topic, give me some background information and I can write you some decent content, although when something requires very deep understanding, you may be able to detect that I’m not from that specific field. But then, most of my content writing involves helping businesses sell more. So my clients don’t always require from me a very deep knowledge. As long as I understand their product or service properly and am able to communicate their benefits in best possible, compelling manner, the job is done.

Make customer success stories a big part of your content marketing

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Customer success stories are rapidly becoming a part and parcel of content marketing on the Internet and advertising in the conventional media.

When people read about your product or service, they not just looking for descriptions or a list of features or a list of problems they can solve (although it is important to know what problems they can solve). They are also looking for real-world examples of how your product or service has solved people’s problems. When you draw real-life examples they become customer success stories.

In terms of content marketing, what’s the difference between customer success stories and testimonials?

Every website has had testimonials. These small paragraphs – mostly a couple of sentences – in which people tell how great your product or service is and why they would recommend the same to others. Testimonials are good. They are quite reassuring. Every website should have them. Testimonials are also an integral part of your content marketing strategy. So gather as many as possible.

Customer success stories on the other hand are more like your case studies. I will give you my example – how my content writing services transformed someone’s business (not using real names and products, but an actual parallel story exists).

There is this customer, John who, no matter how hard he tried, couldn’t sell designer napkins from his website. He had good search engine rankings and he had lots of content, but somehow, people weren’t buying from him. He had spent lots of money on advertising and promotion. He had also spent lots of money on building the inventory of designer napkins. He was almost on the verge of financial ruin. He would soon have to shut down his website (or abandon it) and seek employment.

Then one day he came across Credible Content. While going through different webpages and blog posts, he realized that the main problem with his website was his content. What he had written on his own wasn’t very convincing. He thought that he was a good writer and he could communicate the benefits of using designer napkins easily, but since he had assumed that he could write well and he had assumed that he was able to communicate sufficiently, he never thought about that aspect. He couldn’t figure out why people were not buying, but he never thought that it was a content that was the problem, especially when he had gotten good search engine rankings. He didn’t realise that rankings don’t matter unless the traffic converts, unless people buy. If they are not buying, something is missing.

Since he considered himself to be a good writer, it was difficult for him to approach another content writer to write for his website. Nonetheless, he didn’t want to miss this last chance. So he wrote to me.

I did an audit of his existing content and sent him a report. He immediately hired me to revamp his content and also to add new content on an ongoing basis. He is running a profitable business these days.

OK, this is not a full-blown story, but here my intention is not to lay down exactly how I solved his problem. My intention is to present a real problem and then the real solution. This should be done through successive customer success stories.

This Hootsuite blog post elaborately explains how to gather customer success stories that you can publish on your blog or website.

Know your audience before writing content and starting your content marketing campaign

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Know your audience before content marketing

As I often say on my blog and website, most of the people plunge into the depths of content marketing without knowing what they are doing, and without knowing what their audience wants. They just know that they need to publish content and then they start publishing it. They hire a couple of cheap content writers, give them 20-30 odd keywords and then leave them to their devices. Since this content is cheap, they don’t take it seriously, without realising that they are paying money to harm their own business.

It’s very important that you know your audience before writing content and starting your content marketing campaign. Whom are you writing for? Have you ever thought of what your target audience wants?

You know what? I learned this at a personal cost, although it was a blessing in disguise because after learning from that mistake I started my content writing and content marketing services. In fact, it wasn’t as bad as I often make it out to be, but inadvertently, around 10 years ago I committed a content marketing mistake that I shouldn’t have, considering I advise clients what sort of content they should publish and market.

I used to publish lots of web design articles. I must had invested more than a year creating around 2000 articles writing on various topics, publishing some on my own website and submitting some to other websites (those days we didn’t have blogs). What happened? The traffic that I attracted was of those people who wanted to learn web design rather than those who wanted to hire a web designer. I should have tried to understand what sort of content those people who were looking for a web designer, were looking for.

Anyway, in this Whiteboard Friday blog post Rand Fishkin has explained in detail why it is important to know what your core audience wants before investing time and money in writing your content and content marketing. The video is embedded below.

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