There are five things that must happen in order for your content marketing campaign to be successful:
1. Your content must be visible, appealing and compelling to consumers in your target group.
2. These consumers must share your stellar content with their individual networks.
3. These friends and their friends and their friends’ friends must be able to trace your content back to your intriguing landing page where they can subscribe to your witty feeds and emails.
4. You must delivera steady stream of timely, well-written and concise information to their desk tops, lap tops and mobile devices.
5. They must feel compelled to make a purchase.
If each of these steps occur, you have succeeded in running an effective content marketing campaign. However, if your audience gets hung up on any one of these actions, they could end up buying somebody else’s product – not cool.
Getting the Word Out to the Right Consumers
A marketingcampaign is most cost-effective when it targets consumers who have proven themselves interested in your particular niche. There are a number of ways to reach this demographic:
Co-register with other website administrators who already have an established client base with the customers you’re striving to reach. Co-registration gives you access to individual email addresses which you can then use to send subscription requests. Quality research and effective tracking are extremely important in a co-registration marketing campaign. You must know who to target initially, and then once you’ve begun proactively seeking these consumers, you need to know which tactics bring you the most conversions.
Retarget consumers who’ve visited your site and then bounced away for whatever reason. It’s estimated that roughly 2 percent of the initial traffic to a site results in a conversion. Retargeting helps you aggressively pursue the other 98 percent by following them wherever they go online. For instance, if your site exists to encourage consumers to buy a particular brand of shoe, a retargeting campaign puts an advertisement for this shoe on other websites they visit regularly. As the administrator, you decide how many ads will display and how long you’ll follow this particular consumer along on his online travels.
Take advantage of the latest social networking perks. Facebook’s Graph Search is an invaluable tool for finding and targeting consumers who might enjoy your products. It allows you to refine searches by any number of given criteria. Consumers can stumble across your local business much easier, and you can more effectively narrow down their likes and interests
Keeping Your Audience Captivated
Once you’ve hooked the right audience and reeled them in, it’s vital to produce a steady stream of compelling content that keeps them from drifting away. One of the best ways to do this is by offering up content through a variety of platforms such as podcasts, blog posts and YouTube videos. While these methods are not necessarily new and innovative by any sense, they’re time-tested to bring proven results.
Content to include in presentations such as these include:
1. Steep discounts like the ones offered through Groupon and Living Social
2. Testimonials from satisfied customers
3. Blog posts written by expert guest bloggers
4. Beginner’s guides
5. requests for referrals
Making the Sale
Probably the most lethal mistake small business owners make when marketing their content is not asking for the sale. You’ve found the right audience. You’ve presented them with all the reasons why they need your products. You’ve impressed them with your targeted ads that speak to their very souls. Why then, do they drift casually off to make their purchases from the competition?
More than likely, you’re forgetting to close the sale. You have earned the right to ask for the sale because you have worked hard to attract interest and generate leads for your small business. You have to make it easy for consumers to buy your products and services. This means easy access to an online shopping cart that accepts several convenient forms of payment. Sometimes it means free shipping or 20 percent off their entire purchase today only. Sometimes it’s as simple as having the item in stock at the best price in town. Whatever your gimmick, customers need a reason to buy from you as opposed to the thousands of other similar sites out there.
