Producing content can be a waste of time without an aim in mind. Companies put real effort to employ designers and writers of content that bring quality attention to their brand. Quality content production and placement can create the funnel you need to capture serious attention, boost your search rankings, and give your prospects an exciting and friendly source of information.
Whether you decide to have designers and marketers in house or choose to hire a team, be sure to choose a team who understands your brand.
The next step is to identify your target audience, known in inbound marketing methodology as your buyer persona. Doing so is an ongoing and refining process as it takes time, effort, and lots of trial and error.
Every company and brand is different. Your buyer persona is specific to you. Finding where they view, share and comment will help you choose what types of content your design team should put their efforts in building your brand awareness.
You have a 434% higher chance of being ranked highly on search engines if you feature a blog as part of your website (Tech Client).
Blogs are a wealth of information and content that enormously increase your visibility online.
Mobile and desktop users are online to either be entertained or informed. As such, posting blogs that are relevant to your brand can increase the number of new users who are searching for topics that pertain to your services. Use your blog to funnel users into subscriptions, relevant offers, and landing pages on your website.
Content creation goes hand in hand with social listening, which is the process of actively listening to what your audience is saying and finding which platforms they use to communicate. Spending the time to periodically and frequently use social listening to find your buyer persona will allow you to keep up with their growth and progressive needs. Keep a log of past and present trends in your industry as well as current events. In turn, this data and analysis will help you produce quality, audience-focused content that is current, in-context, and engaging.
This is a great tool to align your sales, marketing and design teams in understanding what your buyers are asking about your products and services. It is also beneficial to your SEO as your website will appear when users are searching for questions that you have answers to. These webpages will increase your organic reach. Use them to promote seminars, webinars, consultations or any other Q&A event you are offering.
Pillar pages are vital to exposing specific content to your prospects and guiding them into the sales process. They are web pages that are un-gated and contain long-form content that extensively cover a particular product or service. They are critical to SEO strategy, giving you golden opportunities to link your page visitor to price sheets, downloadable information, and get in direct contact with a member of your team. Your marketing and sales team gather valuable data about your visitors when they find the information they are looking for and choose to click-through for more details.
Vertical-specific content is content that is specialized, something that sets your company apart from others. Having niche content also improves your SEO rankings. Create content that will help your team categorize leads such as checklists, e-books, infographics, slideshows and other presentations. Vertical content shows your expertise to prospects who are looking for specific answers, helping them narrow their search and find solutions from you.
When buyers are shopping around, you want to make it as convenient as possible for them to gather pricing information. It is better to have your prices accessible than to require visitors to your site to use a contact us option. Create a user-friendly price sheet for visitors to take to their team or to compare side by side with your competitors. Be transparent and show them how you can save their company money.
Say you had a website advertising paintings on canvas and you have to decline inquiries for face painters every day. Creating an assessment form on your website allows a prospect to self-evaluate whether or not your product is the right fit for them. This is an extremely helpful tool to cut out visitors who would otherwise contact you for something you do not offer or are not sure about the solution they need. Having this type of content allows your team to speak to viable leads only.
While testimonials and reviews are still useful, you can make a greater impact on your prospective customer by telling them descriptive stories of your past happy customers. Describe how the client came to you with a problem, the solutions you provided and the results your company was able to provide. Watching or reading about a success story for someone with similar needs gives a wealth of information on the customer experience your company would offer them. Include testimonials, images, and references to your quality and safety standards to build credibility.
Even if your product or service is not an extremely hazardous one, you probably still have safety standards at your company. Are you environmentally friendly? Do you pride yourself in the purity of the materials you source? These are all information you can proudly display to show integrity. Create info sheets about the handling and storing of your product. Safety as a core value can distinguish you from your competitors and show that your brand caring.
Immediate assistance is always coveted by shoppers. A live chat box on your website offers convenience to your visitor, furthermore, for your customer service and sales teams as well. Automatically log chat transcriptions and contacts into your CRM platform. HubSpot’s Live Chat is a convenient feature to add to your website now. Help your customers connect with you with one click and increase your lead intake.
These types of documents are the places where the most detailed information about your product or service is offered. Have your product manufacturers or service personnel contribute as much data as possible into this content. The more your prospects and customers are able to learn about you the more knowledgeable your company appears. They will help educate your company personnel as well. Allow your lookbooks to span the range of products you offer. Make sure each e-book and data sheet is detailed into technical nooks and crannies. Show your scope and expertise. As a result, your sales and service teams will also be able to gather data on what specifically is being viewed on your website, helping them direct their promotions and communication efforts.
While price-sheets on your website offer an opportunity for prospective buyers to compare your prices with competitors, you want them to stay in your site as much as possible. Providing them with product or service comparisons right on your site is a major bonus to keep them there. Create documents to download containing side-by-side comparisons of your products next to similar industry leading products. They will help your sales team answer questions as well.
According to HubSpot, “87% of consumers say they’d like to see more video from brands in 2019.”
Add videos throughout your websites and social channels to boost lead generation. Videos are cost effective, entertaining and provide opportunities for call-to-actions. Verbalize CTA’s or add functions to your videos to click through to more information. Create videos about company value, product demonstrations, and current events. Videos are a great way to gain subscriptions, schedule consultations, and keep viewers up-to-date with your brand.
When creating each piece of content, use language that inspires the type of action you want to generate. Ultimately, your content is the reason why visitors to your site are offering their contact information. Your content is what is increasing your revenue.
Make sure to have a proper CRM channel to gather, log and analyze data from your social listening efforts and from each of your content campaigns. The object is to nudge your visitors into prospects and your prospects into clients. Reference the buyer’s journey often to ensure you have placed the correct checkpoints in your sales funnel.
Consequently, your last step is content reach. From evaluating your buyer persona, you have selected the best channels to promote your brand. Use your social media platforms, email blasts, ads, blogs and web pages to extend exposure to new and existing content on your website.
By leveraging the inbound method, your content will generate more qualified leads that increase revenue. Furthermore, helpful and reliable content will lead to long-standing relationships with your prospects and turn your brand into an industry thought leader.