Content Strategy: 5 Tips that Lead To Sales

What is content marketing and why is it so important? In general, it is a marketing approach that is about generating and disseminating valuable information. Its goal is to attract people who are seeking a solution and are interested in a product or service.

As a result, it helps drive visitors to the firm’s website to generate purchases. There are several examples of poor content marketing techniques on websites that don’t lead to sales.

However, there are many best practices that you can follow. So what are they?

In the article below I present five aspects to optimize your sales.

1. Crazy-Effective Call-To-Action Buttons

Call-to-action buttons (CTAs) are crucial since they play a significant role in improving conversion rate optimization (CRO). You have to guide your visitors through the buying journey using call-to-action buttons. CTA’s role is to grab visitors’ attention and push them to take action.

They tell users what to do on your website, so they can navigate more easily. Some instances of call-to-action buttons are: 

• Buttons for adding items to the cart
• Buttons for downloading or for subscribing

For the vast majority of websites that you see, are the call-to-action buttons clear or confusing? Do you know what CTAs mean there? What may prevent you from clicking on it? Maybe the unclear message or the bad design of the CTA.

If your call-to-actions don’t work well, the offer will be meaningless. Note that the most successful design of call-to-action buttons differs from website to website. There is no one best practice that is appropriate for every website.

In general, when creating effective CTAs, keep the following guidelines in mind:

Placement

The button, such as ‘Register Now!’, should be placed after the text of your offer rather than before.

It would not make sense to register for something the visitor doesn’t know about. Put a shorter title and subtitle with additional information around the button containing the importance of your offer or your value proposition.

An example of this is the following from michaelhyatt.com: If I subscribe now, and then start with a weekly leadership lesson from Michael Hyatt, I get the clarity that I need to win at work and succeed in life.

Image source

If possible, place most of your CTAs above the fold, so that visitors can view them without having to scroll. I also recommend including them at various places on the page. It is advantageous to have enough white space before and after the CTAs as this helps to highlight them. 

Design

Strive to make unique and appealing CTA buttons. Use a color that contrasts with the rest of the page to make the button stand out. Orange and green are effective because these are contrasting colors. If you want to find out what color works best, test it!

It is advisable to determine which shading of the button attracts the most attention. Test whether a round or a square shape works better on your website. You can use Heatmaps, session replays, A/B tests, and other web analytics tools to evaluate the effectiveness of your CTAs.

On some websites, the larger button size could reduce click time. You should format the text on the button large enough, to be easy to read. Use only two to five call-to-action words. Graphics on the button can positively affect the click-through rates.

Your non-CTA buttons have to be smaller and grayscale. The CTAs should be bigger and vivid colored. On every single page, your call-to action-buttons need to be consistent. Form the CTA such that it should direct visitors to the landing page.

Message

Do your CTA buttons contain action-oriented and motivating text? Do you use first-person speech? These things and adding a feeling of urgency to your CTA buttons might result in high CTR. The message on the CTA has to be clear and simple. Show a straightforward and easy buying process with your buttons.

To this, I recommend applying the ‘Grandma test’. Put the webpage in front of your grandmother and ask her if she can answer in 5 seconds what is the offer on the web page and how she can buy the product or service? Based on this, is your message clear enough?

It is suggested to apply more call-to-action options, such as ‘Schedule a … today!’, ‘Book …  immediately!’, ‘Call us right now!’. Note that if you only use the latter, fewer visitors will contact you. Namely, most people don’t like calling someone rather prefer another solution.

But offering too many options is ineffective. In your content, videos, or emails, you should also include CTA buttons. Thus you move your target audience one step closer to conversions. The button will direct them to your website encouraging them to buy something.

2. Build Up Your Professional Expertise for Trust

The messages on your web page can influence the efficiency of your CTAs – thus the conversion rate. Consider why a website visitor might take action like subscribing or purchasing? This is likely the consequence of the website’s clear messages.

It is important that the potential customers can review easily what your firm does and who it serves. The messages should convey that you are a guide who assists potential clients in overcoming their difficulties.

Customers should see you as an expert and rely their purchasing decisions on your advice. You should demonstrate how your company’s solution can address their problem, using meaningful information. Visitors are searching for a guide who will take action to resolve their problems or prevent failure.

You should convey that you have the necessary techniques to achieve their goals. Demonstrating authority in a certain field shows you have the ability to meet the demands.
Educating your audience reflects knowledge of a specific subject. The content on your website or blog serves this purpose. There you can also share your core values and what your company is committed to. Create valuable content that you would also read with pleasure and make people so amazed that they would share it with their friends.

You can, for example, give them a rich, detailed list of what they should and shouldn’t do in connection with their most common problem. Emphasize that you only offer devices that work with the following things:

• Testimonials: Using testimonials as social proof that you can keep your promise to your visitors. Use no more than two to four. 
• Reviews: Convince the potential consumer that “ Individuals just like you received my offer and that works for them, therefore it is also going to work for you!”  Use a short review because no one will read a whole paragraph.
• Video interviews: Inquire of your past clientele on how your company’s solution aided them in their everyday lives.
• Case studies: Tell the readers about how your customers have evolved through your solution.

You can also show your expertise in the form of blog posts, Q&As, or Live talks on social media.

3. Uncovering and Solving Problems means understanding

It is not enough to reflect your expertise. In the whole story, you are the guide and the customer is the main character whose problem needs to be understood and solved. So you should explore their problems. To create good content, first, determine who is your target group? Who is a good fit for you?

Entrepreneurs, students, or fathers? Then you have to make an effort to understand the challenges the target groups are facing. What do they want? What is their pain point? Perhaps too many cart abandonments, getting into college or having no time for lawn care.

When you are looking to identify their pain, try to understand what motivates them. If you can connect your product or service to how it will improve the potential customers’ feelings, you will surely increase your sales.

The majority of companies offer a solution to external problems. For example, if you have dandruff hair, ask your hairdresser for a professional shampoo and it will look good. But people are looking for a solution to their internal problems. For example, my dandruff hair makes me feel unhappy. People want to be happy and carefree. Customers are trying to move from the present version of themselves to a future version.

By connecting your solution to how it will make them feel after they get it, you will get closer to a lot more deals. You should explore potential customers’ problems and show the product or service as a solution for this. And always give the visitors the required help at the right point of their buying journey.

4. Identify The Questions your Audience is asking

Don’t assume that you know exactly what your target group’s pain point is. Your audience is often talking on online interfaces about something that does not work for them. Your job is to discover what it is. Pay attention to how many people, how and how often are asking for a given topic.

You can use this data to figure out what are the most common pain points that your potential customers may also have. Visit answerthepublic.com, which is a website that collects all the questions asked on a topic. The best places to read questions are Quora, Reddit, and Facebook groups too. There you can answer questions and can share your offer too.

Here are some questions people may ask:

• How can I use my time more efficiently?
• How can I reduce financial expenses?

It is useful to include call-to-action buttons in the guide because they urge visitors to take a step towards a purchase. For example:

• What made you decide to contact me?
• What are your concerns with…?

Observe the social behaviors

The goal is to observe the users’ feedback and interactions online – especially on social media- interfaces for a deeper understanding, etc. Your rivals are also a good source of learning about customers. So follow your competitor’s social media channels where the questions give you valuable insights.

With analytics tools, you get information about potential consumer’s difficulties, for example, if something is not clear to them on the website. You should keep an eye on mouse movements and clicks.

Another recommended way to get to know your potential clients is by asking them. This can be accomplished by the methods below:

Conduct surveys

The simplest method for learning more about your audience is to ask them questions. You can ask your social media followers or email subscribers what you want to know about them. You may then quantify the results by having all the information you need.

Get to know your customers on a personal level

Formal interviews and focus groups are also good options to get to know your customers. What do they have on their minds? What attracts or frightens them? As you ask many clients you’ll be able to make generalizations.

5. Use Buying Guides to Help your Customers Make The Best Purchase

The purpose of Buying Guides is to provide a guideline for customers to make the best buying decisions. So it isn’t pushing people into a purchase, instead, focuses on giving information about products or services.

Generally, e-commerce businesses and financial services use it. Buying Guides are popular because they provide a quick overview of the product characteristics, the purchasing method, etc. Thus the customers can easily decide whether to buy.

To determine for whom you’re writing the guide, it is essential to define your audience. Figure out who is most likely to read it. This will help you adapt your material to their requirements. You can use Google Analytics to learn more about your target audience.

Make your instructions as easy to read as possible. The majority of individuals who read material on the internet skin through long paragraphs. The way you present information can make the difference whether you get a sale or not.

The aim is to make crucial information visible to everybody who is reading the guide. Subheadings, bullet points, infographics, images, and videos can help to increase the quality of information. The tone of voice you apply in the guide should be passive, helpful, friendly, and interesting. You can also include a video that presents your product or service in action.

People like reading about products before buying them. Therefore you can showcase customer reviews for each product and you can also add a ‘Customer Favorite’ field to increase credibility.

It is useful to include call-to-action buttons in the guide because they urge visitors to take a step towards a purchase. It makes shopping quick and straightforward.

By including links directly to a landing page with your own products or services, visitors are less likely to leave the site and buy from a rival. Note that a buying guide can be an evergreen material, but you will need to update it from time to time.

It’s essential that people could discover the guide after a fast Google search, so make it SEO-friendly. The title and keywords are some of the elements that search engines take into account when determining page rankings. A WordPress site plug-in may assist in optimizing these characteristics.

Conclusion

Only good content attracts customers and generates sales. The right content marketing requires a variety of considerations. What I recommend you the most is to spend time clarifying the message on your website.

Consider what do the readers take away from it? Something they can find anywhere else or is it unique? So when a prospect lands there it should be clear what they’re going to get, how it’s going to make their life better, and how they can get it. I hope you find the content presented in the article useful!

Disclaimer – This is a guest post from Tóth Angelika of Capturly

Author

Gaurav Belani

Gaurav Belani is a Senior SEO and Content Marketing Analyst at Growfusely, a SaaS content marketing agency specializing in content and data-driven SEO.

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