Content marketing can break or make your business. Here’s how to do it right.
Contents
1. Don’t forget the copy
The copy is the most important part of your content marketing efforts. In addition to everything else on the page, customers are going to dig the copy more. It’s a great opportunity to create a sense of urgency.
“Things are running out. Don’t miss out on your chance to get this limited time offer” Tip: This is one of my favorite call-to-action ideas.
“You know that it’s a real deal. And it’s not going to happen again.” By introducing urgency into your copy you get people to take action. It’s a simple, persuasive, and click-inducing piece of copy. How about blog posts? Blogposts too are an example of copy. You should make sure that the copy on your blog is free of grammatical mistakes and reads well. In addition, to ensure that people trust what you have to say make sure that the copy cites research and data.
Why do we do this? Time and again research from Content Marketing Institute has shown that if you include research and data in your content, that immediately elevates the content piece’s standing before others and that’s how you leverage that content.
Keywords can make or break your copy whether it be ads or pages. Here’s more info from Voymedia.
2. Don’t forget to use your images
No one does better it better than the picture of an actual person. (Even if the person doesn’t look great but still exudes originality, it’s still worth it.) A picture is worth a thousand words.
Research also tells us that people tend to stay longer on a blog post or read a content more if there are images inside it. In fact even if the only thing you can do on a page or blog post is keep on adding additional images you can succeed with that. Images increase dwell time on a page. You can also tie copy and the images to the email marketing campaigns you do. “We are about to do a big promotion, which will offer 30% off all men’s clothing.” Would this particular subject line and email content inside look good without an image that shows the different designer wear you’re going to retail? This is a great example of a persuasive email from a clothes retailer. We’re not saying anything about the brand or even hard selling the idea. We’re just using the image to illustrate the subject line. We’re using images to illustrate what we want our customers to do — make the offer more meaningful.
And in a similar way line your blog posts and review content with images that show the actual product in action. This builds up reviews to it.
Trying to get people to click through to a page isn’t easy. If you can use a sneak-preview, you can get a little more than a click-through and get people to interact with you. With a video teaser it’s just like telling the people who come to your site this “We know you’re busy. So here’s a little preview of what we hope to achieve.” Tip: This is something Zappos does all the time. They make a great use of the second sentence of their email. They tease their customers with a promo code and then tease them through the code. It’s a simple and subtle way to get more attention.
Social proof is important for anyone who wants to build an audience and convert them. If you’re not sure what to include in your email signature, we recommend doing some Google searches to see what’s relevant and what’s not. But what exactly is social proof? Social proof consists of testimonials. It consists of reviews and content that third parties talk about you and combined these result in a lot of trust for you. Be creative in the way you use social proof so that it increases retention.
“We’re so excited to feature you in our newsletter.” Tip: We’ve used social proof in our newsletter several times and we’ve learned that it works well for us.
We like social proof because we tend to love things endorsed by celebs and knowledgeable people around us. We buy products celebs advertise to look like them. We trust what others say through their reviews because they used the particular product and their experience rings true. So you can leverage expert social proof when someone in your industry recommends products or services associated with a brand. An Instagram mention or a review endorsing your skills is one such thing you can leverage. You can also leverage this through expert roundup where experts share advice on a particular product or service. This way you associate experts with your brand. User: A user social proof is when someone who has gone through using your product recommends the product or service to others. For instance, social media praises and ratings on review sites.
George blogs at Kamayo.in.