Your content may be the product of blood, sweat and tears, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s guaranteed to convert consumers. If all marketers were blissfully unaware of the tools and analytics needed to attract and keep consumers, we’d all be in big trouble.
Stimulating conversions through content marketing starts with increasing customer engagement, driving subscriptions, online traffic and encouraging brand loyalty. These are now the top priorities – or at least they should be – if you want to see your ROI skyrocket. Today, Kraft generates 4x more profit from content marketing than it does from targeted advertising, which definitely serves as food for thought. Check out our 5 top tips to master the art of conversion.
Get Techy
Making a footprint on social media platforms has become more important than ever before. With over 1.4 billion monthly users on Facebook and 1 million on YouTube, Interbrand 100 companies are now realising the huge marketing potential of social media, and are actively present on at least five or more networks. But it doesn’t stop there. Producing different forms of content in the form of infographics, video marketing, podcasts and long form content will encourage a more diverse audience by expanding your appeal. Oreo set the bar high when they introduced their 360° degree social media campaign, Wonderfilled, reawakening nostalgia for the brand around the world.
Use Headlines with Odd Numbers
One of the main reasons content marketers create lists is because our brains love them – and particularly the ones with odd numbers. Content platform Outbrain’s study of 150,000 headlines indicated headlines containing odd numbers had a 20% higher click-through rate than those with even numbers. Audiences are attracted to the unusual, bizarre and “never-seen-before” content, which is why our eyes find odd numbers instantly more appealing. Listicle King Buzzfeed also conducted in-depth research into the perfect number and discovered a direct correlation between higher readership and odd numbered articles. So if you want to get noticed and increase lead generation, it pays to be a bit odd.
Make It Controversial
With 80% of all online content being generated by consumers, marketers need to create content that stands out from the crowd. And apparently the more shocking it is, the better. Consumers are more likely to share corporate marketing content that is surprising and hard-hitting. This is because our minds react positively to certain types of shock. Advertising stalwart Grey New York played on this by producing eyebrow raising content for States United to Prevent Gun Violence that not only became instantly viral, but instantly memorable.
Turn To Creative Crowdsourcing
One of the main reasons brands are turning to crowdsourcing is because it can drastically improve the quality of content marketing. Giving potential consumers the opportunity to get actively involved in the idea-making process can deliver exponential ROI. Coca Cola, no beginners to the crowdsourcing game, teamed up with eYeka to revolutionise their creative strategy – and “achieved something like a 900% productivity gain against briefing through traditional means,” according to Coca-Cola’s Director of Integrated Marketing Communications, Leonardo O’Grady.
Track Your Content’s Performance
After curating great content, one of the biggest mistakes marketers can make is failing to measure its effectiveness. Marketers may think that they scrutinise every part of the customer journey, but some 53% are not even measuring the ROI of their content.
Analysing readership in terms of click throughs, bounce rates and comments will not only give you a better understanding of your audience but also boost profits too. Jason Gartner, CTO of API Economy at IBM, said in today’s economy “a huge amount of cognitive activity is taking place between businesses without any direct human intervention”- and this includes content analytics. A wide range of KPI analysis tools are available to help companies keep track of nearly every aspect of their business – and measure the business effectiveness of content marketing programmes.
