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Your keyword research and focus on search intent did their jobs. A member of your target audience just landed on your site. Hooray! However, creating quality content that is SEO-optimized is only half the battle when it comes to driving conversions on your website. Content marketing requires you to implement effective content conversion strategies. Read on to discover the conversion strategies you should be implementing and companies that are using them with great success.

1. Call-to-Action Placement

Your visitor is highly unlikely to buy your product or download your white paper unless you ask them to. That’s why one of the most important elements of content conversion is the call-to-action.

A CTA generally takes the form of a button or link that encourages site visitors to do something specific, such as make a purchase or subscribe to a newsletter. If you include first-person pronouns — Sign Me Up! Open My Account! — even better.

The placement of your CTA is crucial to its effectiveness. For years, marketers believed the CTA should appear “above the fold” — the screen a user immediately sees — because of its greater visibility. More recently, that truism is being called into question.

What is most important for placement is what you are offering and how close to converting someone actually is. If you’re a financial advisor, you’ll need plenty of compelling copy to demonstrate your expertise before asking a prospect to schedule a meeting. Placing your CTA below the fold would likely make the most sense.

But if you’re selling an instantly recognizable product to people ready to buy, put your CTA above the fold. Everyone knows what Spotify is; that’s why the music streaming service hits visitors with a sign-up button right off the bat. Well-executed A/B testing can reveal which approach is likely to yield more conversions for your business.

2. Landing Page Optimization

A landing page is a specific web page that a user is directed to after clicking on a link or ad. While your homepage is broad and general, these more focused pages are designed to convert visitors into customers. Optimizing your landing pages for content conversion is crucial for improving your overall conversion rate.

By the time a visitor gets to a landing page, they have narrowed down the reason they’ve come to your site. This allows you to provide the targeted information they need to take action, whether that’s downloading an e-book or ordering your product. To increase the odds they’ll do what you want them to, don’t provide lots of choices — one CTA is often best.

Other tactics for optimizing landing pages range from the technical — ensuring fast loading speeds and segmenting traffic — to the aesthetic and psychological. Catchy headlines and images will maintain the user’s engagement, and visual cues can guide them to your CTA. User reviews and testimonials will assure them that what you’re offering is worth their time and money.

HubSpot reports that businesses that optimize their landing pages can see conversion rates increase by as much as 30%. Mailchimp gets it: Their landing pages have concise headlines, a cleanly minimal design, and a clear call-to-action. This makes it easy for visitors to take the next step in the customer journey.

3. Social Proof

The reason user reviews and recommendations make persuasive components of your landing pages is that they provide “social proof.” Social proof is a psychological phenomenon in which people look to others for cues on how to act in a given situation. Customer testimonials, product reviews, and followers and likes on your social media profiles are all examples.

Reviews and testimonials from satisfied customers are particularly potent, especially those that provide detailed accounts of their positive experience. (Bonus points if they say how much better you are than your nearest competitor.) Showcasing your thousands of 4- and 5-star reviews is another winning play.

It makes sense that social proof would be a powerful content conversion tactic. After all, who are consumers more likely to believe — the company trying to sell them something or fellow widget-seekers like themselves? These success stories will encourage prospects to give you a try.

And this isn’t mere speculation. According to A/B testing vendor VWO, including social proof on your website can increase sales conversions by up to 34%. So comb through your customer surveys and Facebook comments and share the nicest things people have said about you.

Perhaps no business better exemplifies the power of social proof than Airbnb. It wasn’t long ago that staying in a stranger’s house would wig many people out. But the visitor reviews and ratings next to each Airbnb listing help to build trust and credibility.

4. A Compelling “About” Page

Speaking of building credibility, don’t forget about your About page. This crucial page — one of the most-visited on your site — gives you the chance to tell the story of your business and boost your marketing efforts. Recounting how and why you started the company helps you connect with site visitors and establishes trust with them.

“But wait,” you might ask, “didn’t you just say consumers trust their peers more than a company trying to sell them something?” Indeed. That’s why the About page is no place for direct selling — leave that to your landing and service pages. While it should contain a CTA (e.g., Find Out More), the only thing you’re selling on the About page is you and your team.

Not that you have to do it alone. If you haven’t highlighted positive press coverage of your business on your website’s homepage, do so here. An “As Seen On” bar featuring badges from well-known publications will show a potential customer that trusted authorities think highly of you, too.

Just because you’re not selling on your About page doesn’t mean this page lacks conversion potential. On the contrary — putting a human face on your business gives your audience the confidence to buy from you. The important thing is to be yourself. Online translation service Tomedes found that out when it upped its conversion rate by 13% after swapping in sprightlier language on its About page.

5. Clear Navigation and a Robust Footer

Given how impactful the About page is, you might find it surprising that it’s often relegated to a website’s footer. But that’s both surprising and not. While many businesses are beginning to put their “Our Story” page right up top in the navigation bar, many more leave it below. That’s because they know customers know that’s exactly where to find it.

High-converting site navigation is all about putting things where site visitors expect them to be. Prospects won’t buy from you if they can’t find what they’re looking for — or see at a glance what you’re offering.

So be specific with your section headings, for starters. “Products” isn’t going to entice customers (or search engines) the way “Totes” or “Cookware” will. The point is to make it easy for visitors to get to different sections and navigate them with the fewest additional clicks. Texas-based custom printer PrintGlobe can attest to the power of this tactic: Improvements to its site navigation boosted its conversion rate more than 18%.

While good navigation gets most people where they’re going, there will always be site visitors who’ll want to cut to the chase. They’ll head directly to the footer, which is why a robust footer is so important. It acts as a safety net, helping visitors get needed info — everything from FAQs to your business address — fast.

In addition to helping users find things they missed up top, your footer offers you one last chance to make your case. Privacy policies and terms of service go here, both of which build credibility with users. And you can reiterate your mission and issue one final call-to-action, with a contact form or an email signup.

Where the Rubber Meets the Road

Implementing effective content conversion strategies is crucial for transforming browsers into buyers. The strategies above are just a starting point; you should continuously experiment with new tactics to find what works best for your business. Since a single digital content strategy won’t necessarily drive conversions on its own, use a combination of different tactics and strategies to achieve the best results.

Want to learn more? Reach out to see how Relevance can help boost your visibility with a strong SEO strategy. More traffic = more conversions, right?

The customer journey starts from the moment someone hears about your product’s name. Consequently, it’s important to get off the ground running as early as possible to maximize your chances of converting them into a customer of your retail brand.

An overall brand experience needs to be crafted to set you apart from the competition. Bigcommerce.com defines the eCommerce Customer Experience (or in our case journey) as the sum of every touchpoint, engagement, thought, or feeling that occurs or is exchanged between the customer and your brand — as experienced from the customer’s perspective.

Here’s a quick video on this concept from PlaybookUX to get you started.

Quick Takeaways

There’s plenty of reasons why a unique customer journey is important to customer conversion and retention.

Building Loyalty with Your Customers

Emplifi says that 49% of customers have abandoned a brand in the last year because of poor customer experience. And why shouldn't they? When you stay engaged with customers, you build trust and loyalty between them and your product.

Neglecting to keep their attention through things like content marketing and the post-purchasing experience can lead them away from your brand in favor of the competition.

Attracting New Prospects to Convert

Every step of your customer journey should be built with attracting new prospects in mind. Accordingly, things like excellent website UI and special offers for new clients attract the eye and put you in a great starting position with someone who’s never used your product(s) before.

Think about it this way: your overall brand is unique to you — by selling your brand at every step of the journey you are doing the most to differentiate your product vs the other guy’s.

Long Term Growth Through Data

Customer data is crucial to the overall growth of your business. Data should drive your KPI’s and long-term goals for lead conversion and customer retention. More importantly, customer data can help you see where your customer journey is succeeding, and where it could use a little attention.

Every stage of the journey is measurable. Things like clickthrough rate and traffic to your landing page can show you how many eyes are on your website, while email list websites like Constant Contact and Mailchimp provide crucial information on the happenings of your regular clients.

Here are some metrics to consider in the long run.

Traffic

Traffic is about pageviews and users. Services like Google Analytics can give you an accurate read of this data. It also helps you see exactly where your views are coming from.

Brands Customer Journey: Website Traffic

 

Conversions

Views are great, but what happens after the initial click? Is the reader just leafing through your website? Are they sharing it? Are they actually purchasing your product or scheduling your services?

Conversion rate shows how many prospects are becoming customers. As a result, this metric is the real shining gem of your content marketing efforts! Converting prospects should be your number one goal with content marketing.

SEO

Seeing how your organic search rankings are performing is crucial to a healthy content marketing strategy. Consequently, keywords drive your content, because the higher you rank with keywords, the higher you are on Google’s search results. Be honest, when was the last time you clicked the seventh link down?

Regardless of stage, knowing how many people are participating in the experience is crucial to the success of your overall customer journey.

Now that you know why, let’s talk about just how eCommerce retail brands are doing their customer journey.

Great Website UI

An aesthetically pleasing landing page is the first taste a prospect gets of your brand. No one wants to see an HTML page of word vomit. Instead, they want to see something nice and pleasantly informative. Here’s a great example of a good looking webpage from us!

Brands Customer Journey: Relevance Home Page

 

Relevance is a great example of an excellent landing page because it has all of the required elements — from the catchy headline to the simple CTA copy and visually appealing screenshots.

The overall design banks on SEO. As a result, there is enough content to keep readers engaged with the site before they complete the next action.

Don’t forget — your website must be optimized for mobile. No one wants to open their phone and have to zoom in on every part of your website! Make sure the experience is great on all platforms.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is the sustainable and cost effective tool to get your product or service in front of your top prospects. Creating content on your website and distributing them across your social channels can cut your marketing strategy spending down drastically.

Brands Customer Journey: Content Marketing

Source: Entrepreneur

Blog Writing

Blog writing is the easiest way to get organic hits on your website by creating quality pieces that those who fall into your customer profile are already searching for. Proper distribution can also captivate your current customers, guiding the post-purchase stage of the customer journey.

This process is especially beneficial for top of the funnel prospects seeking information before they purchase. Creating context about why they need your item and leading them to the conclusion is key.

Social Media

By keeping up on your social media presence, you are also opening an avenue to get your content in front of your customer’s eyes. Posting your new content across different platforms gives you a variety of outlets to send the same message to different people.

Not to mention, an open comment section is a place for your community to discuss ideas and connect with each other. This organic engagement is important to the viewership of your content and the overall value of your brand.

Using a content calendar can keep your publishing efforts organized and well-planned.

Customer Surveys

How do we know what the customer wants out of their journey? Simple. We ask!

Keeping in contact with prospects converted into customers and asking about their experience provides excellent insight into the customer journey. It also helps build the communication line that instills trust in your brand.

Surveys can be sent directly to clients via the email addresses they used at checkout or through the email blasts from your content marketing efforts. Either way, providing an incentive like a discount code can encourage them to give the feedback you need.

Wrap Up

The customer journey is the entire process your prospect goes through from being aware of your product to the second they stop doing business with you. Making sure every step in your brands customer journey contains elements of your unique brand will help grow trust between you and them.

By keeping a connected and unique customer journey, you can ensure your product and brand stand out from the competition and blow past your marketing goals!

You got this!

Hiring Relevance as your growth marketing agency can make this process easier on you as your brand and business grows in an ever-changing market. Ready to talk? Fill out an interest form and we can help your business on the path to success.

Just like a sales funnel, a content conversion funnel is meant to drive conversions. It starts off by creating awareness on a certain topic and ends with a conversion.

Content marketing is one of the most effective ways to market your brand or products. In fact, 95% of B2B product buyers consider content trustworthy when they are evaluating a company.

This powerful statistic establishes the importance of content marketing. However, to make sure that content marketing helps you get conversions, you need to have a content conversion funnel in place. This can help you plan the journey of potential buyers better.

Before we get into the advantages of a content conversion funnel and how you can create one, let's take a close look at what it actually is.

Content Conversion Funnel

The content conversion funnel is the process through which you take your visitors that leads to converting them. You create the content flow to convert visitors into actual customers who will pay for your products.

When a website visitor arrives at your site, you'll want to grab those eyeballs with catchy headlines, useful information, and existing content that serves to support your legitimacy. According to the Content Marketing Institute, you'll also want to make your content source format accessible to all.

There are four stages to the content conversion funnel:

Most people don't move through this process along the defined path. That is why you need to have a content conversion funnel in place. The funnel will not only help you drive the visitors to make a purchase but will also help you plan and create content.

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Before we dive in any further, let's take a close look at each stage of the funnel.

Awareness Stage

The awareness stage is the first stage of the funnel and is meant to attract and educate your audience.

This content should add value. It should answer questions or solve the problems of your audience. It should essentially help generate brand awareness in the long run.

One way of figuring out if your digital content is working is to check the number of views and shares it gets. At the same time, you should also see if the people viewing and sharing it are a part of your target audience.

Evaluation Stage

This is the stage at which the leads that you've attracted during the awareness stage will start evaluating your brand.

They will look for content to determine the legitimacy of your brand and develop trust. Based on this stage, visitors will decide if they want to purchase your product or services.

This type of content should generate leads and also influence them. If visitors are converting from this content, then it is successful.

Nestle, for instance, released their Toll House Chocolate Chip recipes. These recipes included chocolate chips as the main ingredients. This helped build the brand's image in the minds of consumers. It validated the brand.

Purchase Stage

This stage involves convincing your leads to make a purchase from you.

The content should result in a conversion. It should influence the purchase decisions of your leads. It should also influence the content pipeline.

To analyze if this content is successful, you can conduct reviews or surveys. The survey responses and self-assessments can give you a fair idea of your success.

Delight Stage

Many companies overlook this stage. However, it is especially important for companies with a subscription model.

The delight stage will help you build a loyal audience that will help you grow your business going forward.

Customers abandoned as soon as they make a purchase will likely be only one-time customers. However, if you can delight them with your response and special offers, they may become repeat customers.

Why Should You Create a Content Conversion Funnel?

According to Kapost, content marketing produces three times more leads than paid search for every dollar spent. It also offers six times higher conversion rates than other methods.

The primary reason for this is that content marketing helps you improve your website's search engine optimization (SEO).

It can help you get more pages indexed and even get more backlinks. This can not only help improve your website's authority but can also help you create brand awareness.

Content marketing not only reduces your costs but also helps increase your conversion rates.

But if you don't plan your strategy well, your content marketing campaign can fail. Which is one of the main reasons you should have a content conversion funnel.

How to Create a Content Conversion Funnel

The first step in creating a content conversion funnel is to figure out who your target customer is.

You create a funnel for the purpose of selling your products. For this reason, it is important to know who your target audience is because you must tailor content to the requirements of your target audience.

You will need to figure out the challenges that they face so that you can solve them through your content. Is your product able to solve their problems? At that point, you will have sparked their interest in making a purchase. Then you tailor content according to each section of the funnel.

1. Awareness Stage

At this step, focus the content on expanding your reach to spread brand awareness. The goal is to get the attention of people who have an interest in your products. It's on you to create great content that would be of interest to a potential customer. You may need to create a buyer persona and conduct AB testing as you develop your digital marketing campaign.

The content marketing efforts of today's digital marketer will include some combination of Google Analytics, keyword research, email marketing, social media, and marketing automation. Social media channels, in particular, can help facilitate rapid distribution. Some of the best types of content that you can create for this stage fall into one of three categories.

Curated

This sort of content creation revolves around posts that are easily shared on social media. They are very easy to create and share easily. However, these sorts of posts can become spammy all too easily. You must also ensure that you add your own views to the content to give it a personal touch.

Infographics

Infographics are images with bundles of information. They show a variety of statistics and data that is very easy to interpret. Infographics can generate high engagement and views as well.

Blog Posts

A blog post is a great type of content when done correctly. Blog content can help improve your website's SEO and can also be highly informative to your audience. Your website traffic can increase dramatically if your blog posts are well-written. And when you can create and share blog posts, the overall reach will increase as well.

Other great types of content for this stage include videos and podcasts. These can dramatically increase your conversion rates and boost your lead generation as well.

2. Evaluation Stage

The content that works the best in the middle of the funnel should be educational in nature. Relevant content provides the key to the conversion process. Authentic interest and compelling content converts mere readers into customers. You'll want to make sure that your contact info is readily accessible at this stage of the average buyers journey.

The awareness stage concentrates on getting the attention of people. The evaluation stage should show them why they should purchase a product or service from you. The content should show why your products or services are useful for them. It is only then that they will continue through the funnel to make a purchase from you.

Ideally, you should get the contact information of consumers during this stage to convert them into leads. The main purpose of the content is to ensure that consumers who see this content will continue to the bottom of the funnel.

The most popular forms of content for this step include:

Case Studies

Data is the primary driver behind case studies. They showcase statistics and other data gathered during a test.

White Papers

White papers provide statistical data and academic style reports as well. They help convince your audience that the product or service you offer can solve their problems.

Ebooks and Free Guides

This form of content revolves around "How-to" get things done. Target these at providing solutions to the problems faced by your audience. This content should describe and show consumers how your product can solve their problems.

You can also include worksheets as a part of this stage. They can also help you with lead generation.

You should also take the time to build attractive landing pages and optimize them for conversions. Similarly, if you're an eCommerce business, a visually-appealing website is even more important for you.

You can leverage WordPress to build your eCommerce website or landing page. This platform provides the foundation for over 30% of the world's websites, many of which also sell goods.

3. Bottom of the Funnel (Purchase and Delight Stage)

These stages should be extremely personal. The content that you create for the bottom of the funnel should show your leads the added value that your paid product offers. This should be in contrast to the free value that you've already been offering them.

One of the best ways of distributing this content is through an email autoresponder sequence. These emails can be sent to people who have provided their email addresses to you. The sequences will build up gradually and bring the user to the point where you can ask for the sale. You can do this with a great call to action.

You can offer demos and trials of your products or services to your leads to give them a hands-on experience. Other popular forms of content for the purchase stage include discount codes, webinars, and testimonials.

For the delight stage, you need to ensure that your customers are happy with your products or services.

The best types of content for this stage include special offers, member-exclusive giveaways, and product guides. You then aim this content at making the customer experience better so that their renewal rates and product usage increase.

Final Thoughts

Having a well-charted content marketing strategy is essential for success. And that includes a well-planned content conversion funnel. You need to think up content ideas tailored to your target audience for maximum effect.

At each stage of the conversion funnel, your content marketing world should be based on the primary goal or target of that stage. This will ensure that you can succeed in your goals for that stage and, in turn, increase conversions. If your company does not have a content marketer on staff, you may find success reaching out to a sales conversion service or other digital PR agency.

If you would like to set up a time to speak to a Relevance strategist about content conversion, schedule an appointment.

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