Guest Post: Darya Jandossova Troncoso, Chief Editor MarketSplash
Here’s an indisputable fact about content – if you’re going to invest in content that converts, you need to ensure that you’re utilizing the right type of content. Irrespective of the industry of which your business runs within. The ultimate goal of any content-related marketing activity, be it on social media or via a blog, is to move customers closer to making a purchase. To that end, it’s vital to identify the types of content that tend to work best when it comes to enticing your target demographic into making a purchase – aka converting a lead into a sale.
There are a wide variety of content types out there:
- Interactive content which allows the viewer to respond to that content in an interactive way
- Visual content, such as photos, graphics, infographics.User-generated content, which is renowned for generating extremely large rates of engagement
- Research-based content, such as case studies
Some content types have the potential to gain a viral response, while other forms of content sadly will be lost to the dark depths of the internet, never to be seen again. If you want to achieve more of the first kind of content, you need to understand what is required for creating high-quality content.
One key point to consider is that your content must always take into account the needs and desires of your target demographic. If you fail to create content without a smart, organized strategy, your content is likely to fail to convert.
For instance, a public account and consulting firm successfully expanded its brand using content marketing strategy tactics to boost their email marketing success. They used executive briefs, case studies, infographics, and video content. This campaign generated 778 new contacts and focused purely on improving engagement and resulted in a 70% email opening rate, which rose from a previous 10% opening rate.
By utilizing effective content, the brand was able to make conversions happen. But what was it about their content that converted so successfully?
- The headline was bold and eye-catching.
- The copy was optimized effectively.
- They experimented with their content to find an approach that worked for their customers.
Now let’s look at three types of content that sell and convert successfully:
Infographics
Often, the role of infographics in lead generation is downplayed; while they’re widely recognized as a driver for engagement and traffic, there are few statistics that clearly define how successful infographics can be when it comes to lead conversions. However, one statistic shows that infographics can triple social media engagement and increase website traffic by 12%.
Did you know that infographics have had the biggest increase in usage among B2B marketers in the last four years, with a rate now at 65%? That’s a clear indicator of the power that this content type offers.
Research has shown that people following steps or directions do 323% better when using illustrations such as infographics, rather than just text. This statistic highlights the very real need for infographics within the marketing sphere and shows just how effective a well-designed infographic can be.
Why do infographics convert? To successfully generate leads with content marketing, your content must make a good impression within a few seconds, and retain attention for long enough to convince the audience that the value of the content is high.
It’s important to note that an infographic will only be successful if it creates the right value – factors to consider here are:
- 94% of first impressions are based on design
- The brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text – so the more image-heavy your infographic, the better
- Visual content such as infographics tend to receive 94% more clicks than non-visual content, as long as the design is well created
Infographics tend to convert well because their high visual value holds the viewer’s attention for a longer period of time, with the added fact that they are being offered a high content value.
As a rule of thumb, infographics tend to work best when displaying simple and easy-to-understand statistics, alongside an image-heavy design.
Video
Video content is entertaining, highly visual, and extremely effective at converting leads. For instance, having a video on your landing page has the potential to increase your conversion rate by as much as 80%, according to research.
It’s for this reason that 80% of marketers choose to use visual assets such as video content, with video having surpassed traditional content creation such as blogging by 63%. That’s a clear example of how successful video content can be, if well created and carefully throughout.
In a 2018 HubSpot survey, 54% of consumers said that they wanted to see more video content from businesses. This is a key indicator of why video content is so powerful: because consumers like video content, which gives this content-type power.
To ensure a video converts into leads, there are a number of steps that can be taken, these include:
- Inserting a lead capture form in the first 10 to 20% of your video content
- Use custom photos that feature humans rather an illustrations or text
- Make your video short, ideally no longer than 30 seconds, and ensure it’s entertaining and interesting
- Aim to instill a sense of trust through your content
- Personalize videos for different demographics
Videos can be a fantastic form of content that sells and converts, it’s just a case of knowing how to create effective videos. The good news is that it’s far easier than you think to make high-quality videos that have the potential to convert into successful leads.
There are a range of useful online video tools, such as Biteable, Adobe Spark, Canva, and iMovie, for example. These tools are designed for marketing purposes, which means that they’re easy to use and have a range of key features that can be effectively utilized to see video marketing success.
The most important factor is learning to utilize these tools in an effective way; anyone can create video content but creating good quality video content can be a complex task. Should you struggle to deal with this aspect of your content marketing, it may be beneficial to outsource the task to specialists in the video marketing field.
Case Studies
The fact is that a high-quality case study can be a fantastic tool to convert leads into sales, however knowing how to write and create a compelling case study is not always an easy or straightforward task. A case study requires a lot of information and knowledge in order to act as a successful marketing tool.
Case studies are important as they give potential leads to a realistic example of the power of your product or brand. Many people find it easy to relate to other people’s experiences after they have used your services or purchased your product, which is what makes case studies so crucial in terms of content marketing.
One of the biggest challenges that come with creating case studies is sourcing the perfect customers to use; you want to find a customer who has had a fantastic experience with your product or services but is also able to pinpoint what makes it, and your brand, so unique and worthwhile investing in. You don’t just want someone to say they love your offering, you need them to clearly define why.
You need to choose a customer who can tell their story well, in a clear and concise way. It’s also key that case studies are broken down into three sections: the problem, why your brand to solve it, and the results.
It’s also important that case studies incorporate key statistics, such as the case studying saying that your brand’s IT solution increased their team’s productivity and efficiency by 24%, for example. The numbers are key – you cannot create a high-converting case study without some key statistics.
To conclude
When it comes to content marketing, in order to see success and see leads converted into sales, it’s essential that you get the form of content being used right. Not just that, but also that the content you select is designed in a way that leverages the potential for the best results. There’s no point in spending time and money on content marketing if you are not going to carefully strategize each piece of content that you plan to utilize.
Good content is key for conversion success; if you are sharing dull, boring content, it’s never going to have an impact. However, if you are sharing content that’s unique, interesting, and relevant to your industry and your customer, it has a far higher potential for conversion success.
When it comes to creating content that will convert, it’s important to utilize various content types and not just stick with traditional written content marketing. The more diversity your strategy incorporates, the higher your success rate should be.
There are a wide variety of content types out there, including infographics, video content, and case studies; three of the most powerful content marketing types available, when utilized effectively, that is.
