How to polish your content marketing strategy to drive up your conversion rates without draining your budget.
In part 1 of our series on improving your conversion rates, we discussed how you can use analytics to give you the informational edge needed to move more viewers through your sales funnel. In this segment, we’ll take a look at some basic conversion optimization tips to keep in mind as you begin to deploy your content marketing strategy. These include using value-driven statements, exhaustive feedback, and personalized content to entrance and engage your viewers.
The first 10 seconds is critical to getting your message across, as shown by the Nielson Group
Value Propositions
We all know that viewers don’t stay on web pages for long. Research done by the Nielson Group identified the first 10 seconds spent on a page as the determining factor for whether or not they’ll choose to stick around.
While 10 seconds isn’t much, one of the ways you can fight this attention-deficit is with a strong and unique value proposition.
This is a statement that answers the question of why customers should buy your product, and should be focused on the values that your consumers hold. Your proposition should be clear and easily digestible, meaning that even those viewers who stay on your page for less than 10 seconds can grasp what you do.
To create a value proposition that grabs and holds your reader’s attention, keep the following tips in mind:
- Accessibility and scannability are two of your primary goals. Your proposition should be a quick read that’s easy for your audience to understand.
- Use of visuals can catch the eye can help keep viewers engaged for longer.
- Your proposition should demonstrate the benefits and results that can be gained from your products or content.
Knowing Your Buyers
The next step is to devise personalized content that drives engagement with your audience. The best way to segment these markets and determine what content they want to see is with buyer personas.
Buyer personas are generalized profiles that represent an ideal customer in your target market. These profiles allow you to customize your marketing strategy to your viewers. By understanding their needs, wants, and purchasing processes, your message will resonate more deeply with viewers and increase the odds of conversions. (It may reduce your abandonment rates as well —research gathered by Hubspot found that 84 percent of 25-34 year olds have left a favourite website because of irrelevant or intrusive ads.)
The goal here is to understand the needs of your buyers well enough to specifically target them with personalized advertisements and valuable content that’s relevant to their unique stage of the sales cycle. You should use these personas to inform your lead nurturing campaigns, as well as all other elements of your inbound marketing strategy.
This helps your brand speak to your market and encourages your audience to trust that your value-driven content that will help them meet their goals.
Test for Success
Value propositions are necessary and buyer personas are great, but until you get the chance to test them out on your audience, they should still be considered rough-drafts.
Strong value propositions or carefully crafted personas come from exhaustive testing and customer feedback. After your content has been made, test it out by trying different formats using A/B testing to see which gives you the best effect. Identifying which options will best draw in your viewers is a critical first step for optimizing your conversion rates.
The analytics we discussed in part 1 can be invaluable to the process, showing you which pages have high bounce rates and which can be improved to keep customers moving along the sales funnel. Once you’ve launched your pages with your new adjustments, keep a close eye on them to make sure your efforts were successful.
Improvements in ROI will only come from enhancing the right material; once you’ve identified what should be changed and the best way to change it, apply the feedback to solidify the value of your content.
Your Unfinished Masterpiece
A content marketing strategy that isn’t optimized for maximum conversion value is much like a chunk of rough marble. The true value is still hidden, waiting for the right sculptor to come along and unlock the potential it holds.
For the best effect on your conversion rates, your marketing strategies need to include clear, value-driven statements to draw your viewers in and then use customized profiles to keep them engaged in the sales funnel. Once they’re entranced by your content, you can use their feedback to enhance your efforts further and create content to effectively generate sales and increase your ROI.
What tricks have you used to increase the conversion value of your material? Let us know in the comments below!
