Increasing your conversion rates can be as easy as using data-management techniques to reveal the hidden value of your pre-existing content.
In part 1 of our series on how to boost conversion potential, we examined the value that Google Analytics can add to your blogging efforts. In part 2, we took a closer look at a few easy strategies that can push your conversion rates over the edge. In this segment, we’ll review the best ways to optimize your conversion strategy for the best return on your investment.
Knowing Your Data
If you’re trying to optimize your old content, you’d better make sure your efforts are backed with research and data. Otherwise, you may end up lowering the value of your material instead of raising it.
The data provided by your CRM systems and analytics provide opportunities for growth and insight into the changing preferences of your markets. This data can be leveraged into new initiatives or strategies that meet customer needs better, leading to more conversions and an increased ROI. This type of forecasting is an essential part of the proactive customer outreach that sets remarkable marketing apart from the ordinary. Give your customers what they want before they’re even aware that they want it.
But no matter how diligent you are with data tracking and proactive outreach, it can be hard to measure your actual return on investment from content marketing. Since content marketing is most applicable to the first step of the sales funnel, analytics and automated systems tend to underreport its greater impact. Instead, your data will reveal end-cycle metrics, such as how many conversions are made on landing pages.
To balance out your data, track first-click interactions along with conversions, and integrate the data with your CRM system. This allows your measurements to account for multiple touch points in the sales funnel. Tracking your first-click interactions also allows you to segment your audience for effective remarketing.
Common challenges to Content Marketing success as found by eMarketer
Content Reviewing
Improving your ROI isn’t only about creating new marketing campaigns. Adding more value to your old content through a systematic process of auditing and reviewing can revitalize the readership of your old material with little additional cost on your end.
While refreshing your existing content sounds easy enough, research performed by Curata via eMarketer found that this tactic wasn’t a priority for the majority of businesses surveyed. In fact,nearly 40 percent never audited their previous content and only 18 percent performed a quarterly audit.
Your old content is a goldmine of potential for improving conversion rates, SEO impact, and sharability. To get ahead of the mass of marketers that don’t take advantage of their old content, keep the following tips in mind the next time you’re looking over your old material:
- Know your content’s value. Understanding how each piece of content fits into your marketing strategy is essential to optimizing them for the best return. If you want to create change that impacts your ROI, you’ll need to know who accesses your content, where your content gets shared, and what lead generation value it has to offer.
- This can be measured with KPI tracking and analytic reports that give you the lowdown on what impact your content is making.
- Optimize your content for SEO with keyword research and long-tail keyword phrases to ensure that your material can shove its way through the throng of search results and land at the top.
- Offer varieties of content such as whitepapers, video, images, and other formats to reach viewers who are unmoved by your words alone. This doesn’t mean you have to create anything brand new — your existing content can simply be repackaged into new formats. This may include collecting statistics to be made into an infographic, or turning a series of articles into a whitepaper.
- Add a call-to-action. This critical step is all about giving your readers an actionable way to move through your sales funnel. When in doubt, use another. Including a call-to-action above the fold as well as at the end of your content can double your chances of growing conversions.
Maximize Your Conversions
As our series on conversions draws to a close, let’s review the essential elements that make up a successful conversion optimization strategy:
- Proper tracking with analytics to inform decisions on how each stage of the sales funnel can be optimized.
- The value of your content should be clear and easy to grasp, with tested marketing strategies that resonate with your audience.
- Content should be tailored to your market, measured accurately, and regularly reviewed for maximum ROI potential.
As long as you keep these factors in mind, increased conversion rates are well within your reach. All it takes is a little adjustment on your end to reap the benefits of greater ROI and a better business.
