Content and the Sales Funnel: How to Improve Your Content to Boost Conversions

There’s something you need to know:

Good marketing is no accident.

To create a demand for a product or service, you need to tap into your target consumer and keep in mind that, at any stage, they are in the sales funnel.

With a web-fueled environment as a backdrop, the battle between marketers takes good marketing to a whole new level. Today, building a strong market and a loyal customer base is contingent on digital content—its depth, breadth, and relevance.

Power up your content marketing efforts and convert browsers into loyal customers with these tips:

1 Depth

To capture valuable leads, establish depth in your content. In the context of content marketing, depth involves creating a solid groundwork for the type of market you wish to target.

Once you’ve identified the right market, further classify them into segments to better understand their needs, wants and expectations.

To begin? Start mapping out your business’ customer personas.

What are Customer Personas?

• Customer personas are fictional representations of your target customers.
• You can segment target markets further through demographic information such as age, gender, income, marital status, location.
• Crafting a detailed customer persona provides a more unobstructed view of the potential profitability of each segment. From there, you can select a target and incur less cost in putting up an actual marketing campaign.

How does it help to Optimise Marketing Content?

• Mapping out personas helps your business better understand the behaviors and preferences of potential and existing customers.
• It helps you efficiently produce compelling content as well as product and service developments.
  • For example, if your business caters to travel enthusiasts, you can use personas to narrow it down to specific traveler categories. Which groups prefer budget trips? Which travelers prefer first-class accommodations?

TIP # 1: Segment Customer Personas through Digital Platforms

• Use a pop quiz to generate quality leads. To create a lead-capturing pop quiz, choose a quiz topic that best represents your business.
  • If you run a makeup website, for example, you can design a quiz that helps visitors identify their skin’s undertone. Stick to five short questions and three easy-to-understand options.
• Create a strong handle and a link to your quiz by setting an intro that points out how the quiz will help a visitor’s need.
  • For example, ‘Take the quiz to uncover more about yourself,’ while wrapping up the results with a statement like ‘You don’t need to worry about getting the wrong foundation shade anymore.’
• After a visitor completes the quiz and identifies a ‘need,’ you can further tailor your marketing pitch by offering product brands that your store carries. For example, foundation brands that offer shades for warm-toned visitors.
• Influence purchasing intent by directing consumers to personalised options.
  • For example, offer foundation brands that sell ‘pink and yellow undertone’ shades.
• Ultimately, use the wealth of data you gather to familiarise yourself with a customer’s pain points, target further market offerings to the right customer, and increase their recall of your website.

2 Breadth

Lead Capture Pages or Landing Pages are separate pages from your website, yet are equally crucial in generating quality leads. Any action that your visitor does on this page determines the rate of conversion for your marketing campaign.

The breadth of your landing page is vital to successfully ‘warm up’ potential customers and guide them further into your sales funnel. Given this, such pages should provide the proper amount of emphasis on your marketing campaign, focusing only on a single call-to-action.

TIP # 2: Build a Landing Page That Converts

Keep it Simple

• An effective landing page gets rid of extra links and other navigational points to clarify what a visitor should do, and that is to click your call-to-action.
• Craft a call-to-action that clearly communicates what your visitors will get in exchange for the information they will hand over.
• Forms must be designed just right—not too long scaring away potential leads and not short enough whereby it’s difficult for you to gather the right amount of information.
• Your forms should only have around 3 to 5 fields. Conversion rates begin to drop off significantly when fields in a landing page form go beyond 7.
• Limit content on your landing page by giving it enough breathing space.
• Use forms that are easy to navigate and uses only simple steps to get users signed up.
• Make your landing page mobile friendly.

Use Attractive Visuals That Mirror Your Business

• Highlight unique attributes of a marketing campaign by making user benefits clear and concrete.
• Make an eye-catching headline that explains your message in a split-second.
• Use headlines that are strong, big and clear.
• Do not confuse your visitors with a wall of text. Use bullet points and images to further explain the benefits you offer.
• Talk like a real human—use simple terms, be specific and witty.

Create a Call-to-Action (CTA) that Persuades

• Use the formula ‘verb + time‘ in writing a call to action that will guide leads wherever they are in the sales funnel.
  • Examples are: “Download today”; “Get Your Free EBook Today.”
• Specify the value your visitors will get for taking action.
  • Examples are: ‘Get a Free Consultation’; ‘Get Exclusive Membership’.
• Tailor fit your call to action to your business type.
  • If you run a sales page, CTA such as ‘Buy Now’; ‘Shop Now’ are standard keywords.
  • If your call to action is designed for content marketing, common examples are ‘Watch the Video Now,’ ‘Find Out How’ and ‘Learn More.‘
• Place your CTA in a button that stands out. This will make it easy for your visitors to navigate your CTA and propel an action.
• If possible, use only a single CTA button with enough space around it to avoid distracting your visitors.

3 Relevance

Surviving in a content-saturated marketing economy can be difficult, yet not impossible. To carve out a unique selling point, you must be able to establish relevance in your content and make visitors stick to your website.

TIP # 3: Educate Your Consumers

Empower Them To Be Smart Buyers

• Helping leads make an informed purchase is an excellent way to improve your conversions.
• Remember, apart from price, product features are vital factors that convince customers to subscribe to a service or buy an actual product.
• Humans have very low attention spans online. Right off the bat, your marketing pitch must answer the question, ‘So what?’ by highlighting solutions, you can offer to them.
• Provide content that helps consumers learn and grow by publishing ‘How-To’s’ through fun and engaging video tutorials. For blogs, you can present tips through ‘Listicles.‘
• Work your brands into your content by demonstrating how a particular benefit or solution is best offered by a concrete product or service.
  • For example, if you run a beauty website, talk about how acne can be minimised by using PH-balanced cleansers, citing brands that are proven to work.
  • If you run a travel site, share a list of hotels that are best for backpackers.
• Capitalise on thought leadership by showing customers you understand their plight. Prove your expertise by inviting key authorities in your industry to talk more about your products or service.

Optimise Error-Free Content

• Search, analyse and select keywords that you can incorporate into your content as naturally as possible.
• Use Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) plugins to help you evaluate whether your keywords are distributed evenly to your heading, page title and meta descriptions.
• Proofread content before publishing. Simple grammatical errors could weaken the trust your viewers have towards your website.

Make Content Shareable

• Ensure content is shareable on social media—Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
• Add a human touch by talking to your viewers through Facebook Live videos and Instagram Stories.
• Acknowledge them by answering comments nicely.
• Bank on word of mouth marketing by inviting viewers to share their experiences.

Be Genuine

• Showcase User-Generated Testimonials that are genuine. A product or service will always have a positive and a negative side—don’t sugarcoat things and uphold transparency in your content.

Key Takeaways

Generating useful and compelling content takes a keen eye and a well-crafted marketing plan. Don’t bank on what you think your target market wants to see–ask them.

With the tips we’ve shared above, we hope you’ll be able to publish and promote content that will drive traffic to your website and turn that into quality leads that bring cash.

About Bill Sheikh

I am the founder of Oklahoma’s premier online marketing and website design company, U-Thrive Marketing.

We have helped hundreds of businesses across the US put their business on the map online & offline.

We specialise in generating customers for the businesses we work with by using proven online marketing tactics such as Search Engine Optimisation, Pay Per Click & Social Media marketing.

I have also been personally featured on many national and local publications with content related to online marketing.