Content That Converts - Win Leads and Influence People

Content That Converts: Win Leads and Influence People

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Every Business Has a Problem

The Problem? User acquisition. How do we target potential customers and convert them into users?

!The Solution? There are many ways to drive users. Let’s look at some of the basic ways.

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User Acquisition Strategies - Display Ads

Benefits: • Great for brand

exposure !Drawbacks: • Low click-

through rate (0.1%)

• The average person is served 1,700 banner ads per month

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User Acquisition Strategies - PPC Ads

Benefits: • Tied to search

behaviour • More likely to

lead to purchase intention

• Affordable !Drawbacks: • Low click-

through rate (2%)

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User Acquisition Strategies - E-mail

Benefits: • Access to opt-

in audience • Personalizable • Preferred by

users for promotional messages

!Drawbacks: • Variable

conversion rate (5-50%)

• Requires great content

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User Acquisition Strategies - Promotions

Benefits: • High

conversion rate: 73%

• Generates leads and engagement

!Drawbacks: • Can only run 1

per month at most

• Requires great content

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User Acquisition Strategies - SEO

Benefits: • High potential for

click-through if you can rank well

• Targetted traffic tied to purchase intention

!Drawbacks: • Ranking well is

getting harder • Requires great

content and inbound links

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User Acquisitions Strategies - Social Media

Benefits: • Low-cost tools • Access to a

large audience • Generates leads

and engagement

!Drawbacks: • Crowded and

noisy • Requires great

content to stand out

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All Routes Lead to…

Great Content

You simply can’t get traffic, leads and conversions without awesome content

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What is Good Content?

Good content = Clear, informative, entertaining, educational

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Bad content = Boring, overly salesy, full of errors, lacks concrete, actionable information, focuses on you instead of your reader, tries too hard to be funny

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What is Good Content?

Here’s an example:

“The earliest salons were informal gatherings where B-list philosophers gibbered away so they couldn’t hear themselves dying of plague. Get an earful of the modern salon’s soothing hair-dryer purrs and scissor chop-chops instead with today’s deal: for $30, you get $100 worth of services at Gary Patrick Salon at its location in Pleasanton.”

In its early days, Groupon used outlandish copy in an attempt to stand out. It used descriptions that were so bizarre they bordered on fantastical. !Hair was described as “frayed head threads,” while spray tanners were “handheld hue-changers” and teeth were “mouth cubes.”

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What is Good Content?

For example:

30 Days of Unlimited Hot-Yoga Classes or 10 Classes at Westcoast Hot Yoga (Up to 69% Off)

Build strength, balance, and flexibility while stretching and bending in a 30- to 40-degree room

Now, Groupon’s copy is clear, direct and much easier to understand. Readers don’t have to work so hard to figure out what the deal is.

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The Internet is Noisy

• 2 million blog posts published each day

• 55 million photos uploaded to Instagram each day

• 100 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute

• 30 billion pieces of content shared on Facebook every month

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How will your content stand out?

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First, Decide on Your Format

Blog post

Text Visual

Photo Gallery

Video

Infographic

Tweet

FB post

Quora answer

Present- ation

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Next, Pick Your Channel

Your blog

Break original story into chunks and distribute across multiple channels

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Basic Blog Post - Best Practice

Avoid the direct

sales pitch.

!Avoid running

press releases as

blog posts.

!Keep the post

reader-focused.

The reader wants

to know what’s in it

for them.

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Basic Blog Post - Best Practice

Use an attention-

grabbing headline.

!Include pullquotes

and key

takeaways.

!Make it compelling

and make the

reader benefits

obvious.

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Instagram - Best Practice

Avoid using the

same visual over

and over again.

!Avoid nothing but

product shots.

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Instagram - Best Practice

Show your product

in unique contexts.

!Catch the eye and

build a story

around your brand.

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Twitter - Best Practice

Avoid leveraging

eyeballs on the

back of human

tragedy.

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Twitter - Best Practice

Leverage current

events in a positive

way.

!There’s no need

for a sales pitch

when the image

sells itself.

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Twitter - Good or Bad?

There’s a lot of

grey area when it

comes to creating

good content.

!This tweet could

be funny, or it

could be offensive,

depending on

where you live and

what you drive!

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Quora - Best Practice

Avoid overly self-

promotional

content.

!Focus on

delivering value.

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Quora - Best Practice

Answer questions

thoroughly.

!Include visuals.

!Be interesting.

!Include a link back

to a longer blog

post.

!Be helpful to

people without the

sales pitch!

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Infographics - Best Practice

Avoid overly complex graphics that are virtually impossible to decipher.

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Infographics - Best Practice

The purpose of an

infographic is to use

visuals to convey

information more

quickly and effectively

than you could with

straight text.

!Use a simple schematic

that is easy to decipher

and nice to look at!

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Your Content Mix

This content matrix,

produced by Distilled,

illustrates four types

of content that every

brand needs:

- Entertaining

content

- Educational

content

- Persuasive

content

- Conversion-

oriented content

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Average Content Mix

• Social media (other than blogs): 87%

• Articles: 81%

• E-newsletter: 80%

• Blogs: 76%

• Case studies: 73%

• Videos: 73%

• White papers: 64%

• Infographics: 51%

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Content Must-Haves

Here’s a look at the

elements you’ll want to

have in every blog post

to ensure its success.

!We’ll dissect our most

popular post — What

Burberry’s Doing Right

in Online Marketing

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Content Must-Haves - Title

Title: Must be clear,

compelling and

communicative.

!The title is often what

the reader will use to

determine whether

they will click-through

and read the piece.

!Be interesting, use

keywords and promise

the reader something

of value.

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Content Must-Haves - Microcontent

Microcontent: Sub-

headings, pullquotes,

and other small bits of

content that help the

reader navigate your

page.

!Use micro content that

helps tell the story and

makes the page

scannable.

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Content Must-Haves - Keywords

Keywords: Use words

that describe the

essence of what your

content is about.

Repeat them in your

title, meta-title, sub-

headings, and body

copy.

!Keywords are

important for SEO, and

also help your reader

identify your subject

matter.

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Content Must-Haves - Visuals

Visuals: Visual content

enhances readability. It

grabs the reader’s eye.

It gives the eye a break

from large blocks of

text. It breaks up the

content and makes it

more manageable on

the screen.

!Visual content also

gets more shares on

social media channels.

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Content Must-Haves - Call to Action

Call to Action: At this

point, you’ve earned

the right to be a little

salesy. Bring it home

and go for the ask - tell

your reader what you’d

like them to do next.

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Understand Web Reading Patterns

• Most web readers

• Scan a page in under 10 seconds looking for specific information. They typically do not read every word - at least at first

• Look to bold headings, subheadings and links to help them find the information they’re looking for

• Often only scan the first few words of a sentence, paragraph or teaser text to determine whether or not to read on

• Often won’t scroll below the fold if what they're looking for hasn’t been confirmed above it

• Will read, on average, only 20% of the text on a page

• Will leave a site/page quickly if they can’t find what they need

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Repurpose, Repurpose, Repurpose

• People learn differently, so use different formats for your content

blog post infographic slideshow

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Content Must-Haves - Shareability

Understand what motivates people to share content, then create content that

fits the different sharing personalities.

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How Do You Know if it’s Good Content?

• Measure it

• Traffic

• Shares

• Longevity

• Virality

• Engagement

• Conversion

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Study, Rinse and Repeat

• Study what works and do more of it

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• Title:

!

• Timing:

!

• Subject:

www.strutta.com

We can help you launch a promotion designed to

generate leads and engagement with great content

!

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Contact us for details

http://www.strutta.com/contact/

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