Let’s Talk about Content that Sells

 

Hi again! Remember me? Last time, we touched the tip of the Engagement Marketing iceberg. The key takeaway: think about the customers from dawn to dusk, Sunday to Sunday. That means you want to create good content.

You want to feed people with valuable content that will make their day-to-day life tremendously easier. Engage your audience with information that they want to read.

 

▷ How to Write Engaging Content

 

1. Be Honest. Believe in the stuff you’re selling because it’ll help them do what they do.

2. Talk to People. Aim for your buyer personas. The narrower the target, the better.

3. Answer their question or problem. They might not even know they have one, so show them they do!

4. Learn to English. It not only helps with clarity, but makes you look well-put together. You can add a little fun here and there, too.

5. Tell a Story. Create strategic content narratives that resonate with people. It tells them that you care about more than just crunching numbers.

6. Proof. Lots of it. Use what you need: quotes, testimonials, metrics, and statistics.

Now that you’ve built your post of amazing material, it’s time to promote it.

 

▷ Where to Promote Your Stuff

 

• Social Media. Tell me you didn’t see this coming.

• Email campaigns. Yes, email is still a thing. In fact, 85% of people who use the internet use email.

• Both offline and online (webinars & virtual events).

• Digital Advertising. You need all the exposure you can get!

  • Content syndication

  • Paid search marketing

  • Email sponsorships

  • Newsletter sponsorships

  • Facebook ads

  • Promoted tweets

Although we like natural and organic hit rates, non-organic leads don’t hurt. They just cost more, a.k.a. higher customer acquisition costs.

 

▷ Let’s Nurture Our Loving Leads

 

Attracted people to your highly relevant, valuable, and treasured content? Check. Next: don’t let them leave without feeling loved.

 

Let me pass on some hints for writing content that nurtures your buyers:

• Respect their schedule and short attention span using headlines and headers. 8 seconds is a good rule of thumb. Create easy to digest reading material.

• Make the content valuable, not self-promotional.

• Use sales and marketing emails to get personal, not pushy.

• Allow customers to “choose their own adventure.” Give them the resources to get educated and buy with confidence.

 

▷ But What Actually Sells?

 

All this theory and best practices stuff is fine and dandy, but what content actually motivates customers to buy?

 

“[Attribution is] the science of determining what media are driving purchases.” – Convertro

 

Attribution works by assigning points or “credit” to each campaign and marketing touchpoint, as they like to say. Then you know what content influenced movement down the sales funnel. If one channel brings in more revenue, embrace it.

 

It’s a known practice that companies create seas of virtual content, but a lot of them don’t really know which ones bring in the profit. That’s a one-way ticket to budgeting disaster and an angry CFO! Instead, use attribution scoring to precisely determine which content is driving the most leads, and follow the buyer until you close sales so you know what actually got them there.

 

This used to be the “holy grail” of content marketing. However, with marketing automation and attribution systems, there are no more excuses. The data will set you free!

 

1. Use attribution to measure content value

2. Make more valuable content

3. ???

4. Profit!

 

Now you know a pinch of how to produce content that sells. Sort of. It doesn’t hurt to do more research and make it even better. I got all my know-how from Marketo. Thanks, Marketo!