This quote just popped into my head so I wanted to share it with you.
“The road to conversions is paved with great content.”
The more I work on the front lines of the digital, content and marketing automation world, the more I’m convinced sales and marketing success is mostly about content.
Sure, the marketing automation software you invested in and the people on your team all count towards your success. So does your plan of action. (I have extensive experience with action planning so if you’re open to some suggestions please reach out to me here.)
So here’s the big question …
How do you great content marketing done so you can better attract, engage and convert more of your ideal customers?
I’m here to tell you I’ve hacked my way to a certain level of proficiency because I like doing the work. I am a creative, first and foremost. Then I learned how to sell. And look at the data so I don’t break my own bank. Over the years I became pretty good at helping other people do this. Now I have the small business and life of my dreams.
Bottom line … You don’t need to break the bank to create great content that converts more customers. But you do need to be creative enough to hack out your own designs, copy, etc.
Or you can believe that you deserve and can well afford to pony up for a real creative professional who helps you focus on the creative content marketing that gets you the conversions that count the most for your business.
The truth is we all need help with great content marketing when it comes to better attracting, engaging and convert our ideal customers. Good just won’t cut it because people will ignore it. Trying to hit viral content is like chasing the wind. Good luck.
Focus on creating better content than what you have now and campaigns that “speak” to your audience. This requires doing the proper planning, creative and target marketing during the pre-launch phase of your marketing. Do this over long periods of time and you’re almost sure to see improvements.
If you want to see significantly better sales and marketing results, focus on creating great content marketing campaigns that speak to the emotions (hearts) of your ideal prospects. Speak to them! Not to the whole world with a megaphone. Megaphones blast noise everywhere. Go where they hang out. Maybe it’s Facebook. Or maybe you can build a custom list and email it, call it, direct mail it and invite to get great educational content, attend a cool event or do something fun with you.
Dare to be different, but be consistent with your brand. If you’ve carved out your “voice” and identity for your content marketing campaigns chances are you invested in getting someone to help you tackle advanced branding and real marketing planning. That’s great. Now just follow through with the appropriate content marketing by website, landing page, web forms, email marketing, social media, ad campaigns, retargeting campaigns and more.
Great content marketing is about focus and truly understanding who it is you are targeting. And data. You need consistently sound data to make informed decisions as you and your team invest and learn. Measure everything that counts!
The best news is that the definition of great content marketing versus good content marketing lies in the eyes of the beholder. This means that what counts the most is that your content marketing works well enough to give you a positive ROI or return on investment. Just do your best to keep raising the bar. But you have to be willing to face your fear, get over your mistakes and trudge on. If you don’t you can be sure your competitors will.
We all need and want great content marketing that helps us attract, engage and convert more customers. And getting great content marketing doesn’t have to be maddening or break the bank. If you can’t or won’t hack it out yourself just find the content marketing expert who is right for you!
For now, keep learning. Check out more of our blog posts and YouTube videos. Start right where you are and make incremental improvements as you invest, test, measure, learn and adapt.
Your confidence will build as you go. Mine did. I used to have huge “head trash” about my blogs, design hacks, copy, etc. If you’re like me you’ll get over it with time. Practice if you feel you will enjoy this and it is one of the better and higher uses of your time relative to your position, influence and ability.
Got that? Invest and your confidence will build as you grow. Do what is best for you and delegate the rest to people who are great at what they do and be happy to pay them.
Take these five steps …
- Invest in a campaign with great creative content.
- Test it and see what happens.
- Measure everything so you can make informed decisions, take action.
- Learn as you go.
- Adapt by killing the worst converting results and focusing on beating your current best.
You need to understand and practice the fundamentals of marketing. One of the main fundamentals for me is the headline of my article today, “The road to conversions is paved with great content.”
It’s the great content that attracts, engages and converts.
Great content marketing is irresistible. You have to click it. Within nanoseconds of seeing the image, ad or call to action.
The rest of us compete for incremental improvement within our budgets and capabilities.
Just to give you some hope if you don’t have a massive budget, you’re good a copy writing and design and you’re willing t0 put your stuff out there for people to like it or not. It works both ways.
The ad you see in this post I did myself. Keep in mind that I am not a professional designer.
But I am a professional writer. I write copy.
I write copy that will pretty much sell anything that won’t eat.
And I love it.
My design people think it’s funny when I design. But they humor me.
And today I really liked this iteration of the ad, “So, you want to convert me?”
I love the image. It’s from Shutterstock. Pay for your images! Give credit where due to the creatives. They don’t have to cost a fortune.
You can also try Canva for amazingly sharp design templates, stock images and ways to customize your ads, blog images and more. I buy the license for the image, import it to Canva, edit the copy the way I want, add my links and preview it until I am happy. Then I download it, save the filename to the location I want and post it where it needs to be posted.
I tested this ad first without spending a dime. I queried an informal focus group among my 4,900 or so Facebook friends. Of course, only about 490 people saw it. And fewer than 10 gave me any feedback. But it was mostly great feedback.
Now it’s running a paid test on Facebook. Facebook is great place to test your content marketing campaigns. Google Adwords too. But I don’t encourage people to do their own ads much, unless you’re pretty good at it and again, it’s the best use of your time.
So you see, content really is what counts the most for conversions. Your designs and copy. It all has to flow together creating a story and compelling reason for people to take action.
How the whole campaign flows together is what counts. All campaigns have stages and related goals. Being on target with your goals and messages is key. Being consistent is essential. Being willing to learn and adapt is how winners crush the wimps.
This is what it takes. Content marketing really works, but it is not easy. No. It is creative!
It’s not just about money. Creativity is what counts. Don’t be cheap on creative. Marketing is an investment.
Heck, you blew a bunch of money on people and software. Get the creative right! Invest if it’s not you or someone already on your team.
Invest your money in marketing wisely by investing in great content that converts.
Content marketing is the path to attracting, engaging and converting people who count the most for your business.
We always appreciate your comments and suggestions on the Conversion Marketing Experts blog.