Creating Content That Drives Sales

You’ve no doubt heard that quality content drives conversions, which equal sales and revenue. As a business owner, one of your primary goals is to ensure your online presence is designed to maximize conversions. After all, sales drive business and without them you could easily find yourself out of business. So, the question becomes just what kind of content can help drive those all-important conversions?

According to the Content Marketing Institute, you can create a content marketing strategy that drives revenue in as little as four steps. The Institute wields an impactful fact that completely changes what a lot of people initially think about their content: create your content to help your customers, not to talk about yourself, your product, your service, or your business.

Focusing On the ‘Who’ Whom Matter

The customer is always right. When it comes to content, they know what they want. Moreover, if you don’t provide it, there are a hundred other sources a click away that just might. People won’t hesitate to click away as quickly as they came if your content doesn’t speak to them. This brings us to the first foundational step in creating content that converts:

Step 1: Know Your Audience

Knowing your audience involves more than simply identifying who these people are and what set of problems they face. You need to identify the audience that can help your company grow. Then, you need to craft content that addresses their problems and identifies solutions.

According to Vocus.com, you’ll never make it to your ideal consumer’s wallet unless you produce images, text, and video in their various permutations. Visitors will travel to your website by way of the path your content creates, regardless of whether they hail from search engines, inbound links, blog posts, social media, publicity, or even advertising.

Step 2: Research Your Audience in Depth

The first step is merely a dip in the pool of content creation. Now it’s time to dive into the deep end with pointed research. You want to discover:

• The problems your audience faces and proven solutions.
• The relevant trends and spending habits associated with your target audience.
• How these aspects relate to your business.

Consumers are smart, and they will spot content that “reads like an ad” from a mile away. As you (or your writer) create your copy, it’s vital use the following outline as a guide:

1. Address a problem the reader faces. Explore it, but don’t read like a gimmick.
2. Build credibility. Present facts, statistics, or even a case study.
3. Present a solution. It’s okay if the solution leads back to your product or service, but avoid sounding like a pushy used car salesman.
4. Use relevant trends and spending habits to craft a call to action. Your call to action doesn’t have to be a “buy now” pitch. Instead, encourage the reader to learn more about your company, a specifically beneficial product or service, or to reach out and contact you.

Step 3: Show Your Unique Value

Customers are on the hunt for value. They aren’t going to convert simply because you’re cheaper than the other guy or have a killer limited time offer. No, they want to see unique value. Is your product easy to use? Is your service more comprehensive? Are you offering a feature no one else has, and why is it beneficial?

In order to show your unique value, you’ll need to compare yourself to the competition. Focus on ways of making your business stand out as different. You can accomplish this through a brand story or by creating a memorable persona that illustrates your unique value.

Step 4: Craft a Robust Content Marketing Strategy

A successful content marketing strategy is not one-dimensional; it’s multi-faceted. In other words, you’ll want to combine the information you’ve learned about your industry (in step 3) and your audience (in steps 1 and 2) to forge tactics that will work for you. As you craft your message into content, you’ll need to incorporate essential search engine optimization.

You’ll also need to craft content types that will appeal to your target audience. Don’t be afraid to get creative. Use your social media channels to test new types of content, such as videos, SlideShares, podcasts, white papers, infographics, and more.

A word of caution: Don’t require an opt-in for all content. It’s an attractive idea that seems to lend itself to pushing conversions, but pushing isn’t always the way to go. According to Vocus.com, opt-ins in exchange for emails are fine. However, if you don’t have at least one that is out in plain sight, it will be that much harder to push ponderers off the fence.

Creating exclusive content for subscribers only is a substantive way to hook your ideal customer and introduce them to a tailored content world, a place where you can really maximize conversions through a focused marketing approach. A subscriber only zone also hands you the opportunity to involve the audience. For example, you might create a 7-day challenge in which subscribers collaborate or compete to achieve a goal. Offer a free product for the winner or a special offer to the collaborators. Push updates about participants to your blog, and you’ll be actively attracting more target customers to your subscriber zone.

There’s No Guarantee

Content builds a strong foundation. It is not in and of itself the perfect and only means of pushing conversions and generating revenue. It’s simple one of the best tools available for persuading your audience to take that all-important step to conversion.

Even with the most amazing content bursting at the seams of your website, no writer can guarantee that your content will ALWAYS convert, or that you’ll see an X dollar amount return. The truth is conversion takes more than just copy, just as a cake takes more than just frosting. The product and the website, design, and flow has to go hand-in-hand with great copywriting to equal sales. It’s a multi-tier project, not a one-dimensional solution.