How to: Increasing Digital Conversions With Content

When you think of digital conversions, what comes to mind?

Advertising channels? Marketing metrics? Sales numbers? 

Believe it or not, there’s an easier way to boost your digital conversions without spamming ads or endless tinkering with SEO. The best part? You’re already doing it!

Let’s take a look at how you can leverage content into more digital conversions!

Where Do You Get Your Conversions?

As it stands, where do the majority of your conversions come from? 

It’s important to remember that the customer doesn’t actually convert until he or she makes a purchase. With that said, all conversions take place either in-person or digitally. A customer can’t make a purchase without having access to the product or service in question. While good customer service and smart sales tactics will help convert customers who are already in your store, how do you go about optimizing your digital conversions?

First of all, think of your website as a digital store. Just like a brick-and-mortar, the goal of your store is to get customers in and close the deal. Again, just like a physical location, you need to facilitate traffic to get folks to buy your brand offerings. If you can deliver the right content to the right customer at the right time, you can supply a steady stream of prospects to your digital storefront. 

Content Marketing vs. Advertising

What gets customers into stores?

Catchy advertisements, and of course, low prices. 

While advertising is a great medium through which to extol the 4 P’s (product, price, promotion, place), there’s a limit to what advertisements can do. Essentially, ads are limited to what the product costs and where to buy it. Not to mention, customers don’t want to be sold to. Unless you’re advertising the lowest price in the galaxy, your ad won’t be as effective as you’d like. 

Content marketing, on the other hand, does so much more than sell a product or service. It builds connections around trust and credibility–and while an ad might sell a product, content sells a relationship. Plus, because you’re not directly hawking a product or service, folks are more likely to pay attention to your content in the first place. That’s the whole idea.

To that end, content in the earlier stages of the buyers’ journey should never be mistaken for advertising. That means you can leave out price, place, and promotion. Focus on how the product or service solves new problems, adds value, or appeals to the prospect in question. You can even look for indirect ways to get folks thinking about your brand offerings. 

For example, an outdoor sports retailer might create a blog post on “best secret hiking spots.” Nowhere in the title or content of the post is there anything that directly says “buy product X from retailer Y.” Instead, the reader gets value (new hiking spots to visit) and potentially thinks, “I could use products A, B, and C from retailer Y on this new hiking trip!”

Measuring Content Marketing Results

The problem with content marketing is that, unlike advertising, there’s no clear model for attribution. In other words, there’s no way to tell if a piece of content was the one that triggered the conversion. A customer might read your blog post or watch your video and be inspired to buy from you, but you’d never be able to tell. So how do you measure digital conversions from content marketing?

One way to measure digital conversions from content marketing is through specific landing pages. If a digital conversion series is built around a corresponding landing page, you can track the metrics of that landing page to gauge whether or not the content was effective. For instance, if a blog or video has a CTA that directs to a specific landing page, you can review the number of visitors, views, shares, CTR, and even the conversion rate!

That also means each piece of content should have a clear CTA that inspires the prospect/visitor/customer to do more. Whether that next action is to learn more, provide contact information, or even buy, it’s important to facilitate action. Standalone content is not only ineffective at garnering more conversions, but can be downright confusing. 

That’s not to say you should avoid free-touch content altogether, but limit it to the earlier stages of the buyers’ journey. Once you have folks to the point of decision/action, your content should be geared towards the conversion. That also means you have to be more specific about who you create that content for, as well as the CTA. 

Ditch the Ad Campaigns and Get More Conversions With Content!

Experience shows that it takes around three to seven pieces of content to inspire a digital conversion. Compare that to advertising and it’s clear: content marketing is more cost-effective and efficient at turning prospects into conversions. The best part? Whereas Google Ads and Facebook Ads require an investment to boost visibility, clicks, and conversions, there’s no added cost to content creation. 

Sure, you might need to pay a content creator or digital marketing company, but you don’t need to pay for the delivery of that content. Plus, with the right CRM frameworks, you can keep a pulse on which pieces of content are driving traffic, action, and ultimately, the conversions you covet. Ditch your ad campaigns and focus on creating the content your customers crave! Your brand will be better for it!