Blogging

9 Untold Secrets of Content Marketing That Increases Your Website Conversion

Oct 7, 2020 | Seo, website

Content Marketing Strategy is not a new concept in the world of digital marketing, but with several innovations, gradually this idea has developed as a vital marketing approach more than ever before. Marketers consider content as the king of digital marketing because it is a crucial element to reap the rewards regarding lead conversions.

Website conversion is one of the essential factors for the success of any online business. Conversion means prompting one’s visitors to do what one wants them to do, whether purchasing a product or downloading any document. However, each company has to develop a particular type of content marketing strategy according to its niche.

Companies need to focus on creating high-quality, unique and engaging contents for its target audience. Users get attracted to pieces that are entertaining, interesting and useful. Contents are of varied types; they range from texts, images, videos, infographics, webinars and podcast. Different types of content generate various kinds of leads. Besides creating an excellent material, it is also essential to ensure that these are relevant and shareable to the industry.

Marketing that uses contents requires two funnels – Purchase funnel and Content Marketing Funnel. The purchase funnel or conversion funnel is a model that is a consumer-focused approach. This pipe describes the entire process of a customer’s journey through the buying of a product or service.

The content marketing funnel is a marketing process which increases the leads to a continuous content flow. This system converts the users into actual customers who are likely to pay for the products or services.

Content marketing funnel includes three different aspects:

• Knowledge: When visitors initially discover the brand.
• Assessment: The moment a qualified prospect finds out whether the offered product or service is the right fit for him or not.
• Buying decision: when the prospect gathers the final necessary information before purchasing the brand.

Understanding why content marketing is essential to increase conversion

Content marketing has become the buzzword in the digital marketing scenario. Nowadays, instead of pitching about the products or services, companies provide appropriate and useful information to their customers to help them solve their issues and understand the offered product and services.

The Content Marketing Institute defines the content marketing strategy as a preferred marketing technique as it aims at creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent articles to attract and retain a limited market. The primary goal of content marketing is to initiate useful customer action.

The approach of marketing through the contents yields the same result of driving traffic for both the established brands as well as small business owners alike.

How to increase conversion rates through content marketing

Every brand around the world is spending over 25% on an average of their total marketing budget on this ever-evolving technique. But sometimes digital marketers get lost when it comes to differentiating between contents that work and articles that cannot make an impact on the audience.

Mentioned below are some of the untold secrets of Content Marketing that can enhance your Website Conversion.

Secret 1: Create contents to convince target audience to take further action

Contents have a convincing and persuasive power on the audience. Hence, while producing such materials, companies should aim to satisfy the target audience about their needs. People must get the impression that the offered product or service is the best in the market.

Before publishing such documents, decide how the audience would react to the piece. Develop contents that provide solutions or answers to persistent problems or questions. Create contents to augment emotional response in the audience. These approaches are some of the proven methods that compel users to read the write-ups and share it again and again.

Secret 2: Build a strategy to influence your competitors’ audience also

Building a perfect strategy to influence competitors’ audience is one of the best ways to increase one’s reach through content marketing.

Online marketers should look for opportunities where they can create compelling write-ups and leverage other people’s audience.

As a marketer one needs to ensure the best possible customer response. One should develop a winning marketing plan with detailed marketing objective. It is essential for entrepreneurs to identify productive ways to target the intended audience.

Secret 3: Use Plugins to share and promote content quickly

When you’re publishing content to draw visitors to the site, it is also necessary to make it easy for the people to share the content further. Although, these people might not be potential customers, yet they may share the content with someone who will be interested in the information you provide.

The internet offers several plugins for social sharing. Online dealers can use the available plugins according to their preferences. Among many plugins, – ‘AddThis’ is a favorite one that can be used in various locations throughout one’s site. The -‘AddThis’ service is one of the preferred plugins among others because it has the capability of showing the geographic location and web activity of the visitors.

Secret 4: Build a network of your clients amongst competitors

The internet is a crowded space; almost all businessmen within the industry would post contents to reach their clients. So, it is essential for every online marketer to build a network among the people who value the content.

Content marketers would find success when they focus on matters of not just creating great content but also on building up great relationships.

How to build an effective client network?

One can create a comment section on the blog. Social media Facebook, Reddit, Twitter play a vital role to build fan following and a network. With such customer relation, a marketer can experience a consistent flow of traffic to their site and continue regular sharing of posts as well.

Secret 5: Create high converting landing pages

Creating a high converting landing page is another untold secret of content marketing. This activity results in improved website conversion. A landing page is the most significant part of a website; it is the first page a visitor sees when he starts browsing a site.

Thus, marketers must produce a landing page with attractive images and engaging write-ups to capture the attention of the targeted leads. Further, the landing page should have the capability of conveying a message well.

Secret 6: Keep posting blog sequels and series

To generate more traffic and improved user experience, bloggers should generate more leads by presenting series or chains of posts related to their previous posts.

Keeping target audience tied up to the content is another proven method of website conversion through content marketing.

Digital marketing professionals are of the view that posting content in a sequence has several SEO benefits also. The more pages one can create, the more opportunities a reader can find the company through search engines. Additionally, a high-ranking post will even bring much more traffic and lead to conversion as well.

Secret 7: Podcast should be used in content marketing

Besides the traditionally written contents, a podcast has taken the front seat as a prominent content marketing tool. It is a type of material that adds variety to a text-based content strategy.

A podcast is an easy way to generate guests’ content and further, it can influence the audience more. Among several benefits, a podcast can attract an deal buyer. It creates awareness regarding the brand and establishes the company’s status within the industry.

Secret 8: Graphics are content too – give importance to graphics

Graphics are visual contents and so to succeed in content marketing one must adequately go for visual treatment. If marketers fail to produce visuals that are not appealing, the website might lose prospective consumers. The human brain is equipped to process visual information faster compared to plain text. Research shows that people on an average remember about 20% of what they read, but never forget something which they see in an image or video form.

A marketer can thus use strong visuals in the form of images, charts, screenshots and symbols to appeal to his readers.

Secret 9: Analyze situation-what type of content fits your business

One should consider analyzing the content type that fits the business. The activity of identifying appropriate content is necessary for marketing and website conversation. There are several types of contents and each has its converting power. Enterprises should take a closer look before investing in this marketing approach. One should identify which type of content has been more successful and which model will establish ROI.

Conclusion

Effective marketing is not possible without excellent content and so Content Marketing has evolved as an engaging trading technique in today’s environment. To create a better impact, a marketer must plan adequately and devote the maximum amount of time to explore what will initiate good content marketing. Each entrepreneur must aim to produce high-impact content that will pay-off and make readers come back again and again.

Want to Escalate Your E-commerce Conversion Rates? Try Videos!

Oct 7, 2020 | Online Marketing, Video Marketing

Did you know, why do you mostly prefer videos over plain texts? Because the human brain processes videos 60000X faster than plain text. Hence, videos have increasingly become the perfect solution in improving e-commerce conversion rates and creating brand awareness.

The average e-commerce conversion rate 2018, through desktop is 3.83%. This figure is a bit lower in mobile with 2.03%. If you own an eCommerce site and intend to boost your sales conversion, you must be trying your hands in every possible device. Leveraging the power of product video on your homepage happens to be an integral part of that strategy. Once you garner leads, channeling them to the sales funnel is what comes next.

With videos strategically placed on the homepage, inside services pages or on the product pages, customers automatically develop a sense of confidence upon you. And there starts the actual conversion! These are some of the e-commerce benchmarks to augment the lead conversion rate.

So why are videos so effective?

The average b2b lead conversion rate for a novice eCommerce site would be 1% to 2%. This is 8% to 9% for big eCommerce enterprises. With videos, this figure can increase 6X. If your eCommerce website homepage has a professionally created video about your services and the benefits, it establishes you as an industry expert.

Once you attain that stature, it becomes easy to goad your prospects towards purchase. Videos are that marketing force hard to ignore. Bland commercials and lousy sales pitch are no more trump cards of businesses. Smart entrepreneurs have understood that videos have come of age now and must be utilized wisely.

Shareability – Videos are shared 12X more than texts and links on Facebook. On YouTube, social actions are taken by 100 Million users every week. That said, videos have enough power to make people click on them and share them.

Google Page Rank – Videos generate quality backlinks and increase the time people spend on your website. That helps in boosting your SEO. Google is always focused on helping searchers find the best answer to their questions. And if your video has that answer, then your eCommerce site will see itself high on the SERPs.

More Clear and Concise Communication – Did you know? A 30-second video is equivalent to half a page text. So no matter how complex your product or service is, you can swiftly communicate and explain it through a well-created video. The more you come up with clear communication, the higher your e-commerce conversion rates amplify.

It takes less effort to watch videos – Videos work great where understanding things are involved. A survey by WeCapture says, 59% of corporate executives prefer videos over texts while grasping data.

You can instill faith and trust in your prospects – Your eCommerce site does have a myriad of people working behind the curtain. In your “Meet The Team” page, if there’s a video that shows all of the faces who are continually working on the site, that not only boosts your prospects’ confidence. But also gives them an idea of your work culture and values.

You can address their concerns – When prospects see a brand or a product, there come several questions in their minds that need to be clarified. Understanding the product through a video gives answers to those questions and transform your conversion rate.

User-Generated Video Content – Seeing real people benefited by your product/service has its reward. Including such UGC in the key stages of the sales funnel can reduce drop-offs to a great extent and transform your conversion rate. Because user-generated contents contain more weight than something coming from you.

Create and Leverage Instructional Videos – This is another step in boosting user-experience. Suppose your product is a Smart TV. Now if you create a video that clearly explains how to set up the device, that’s a great relief for your users/customers. The more they are fed with instructions that make their lives easy, the lesser is the chance of them moving on to your competitors.

Also, it is likely they will intend to buy other accessories from your eCommerce site.

So, How would You Use Videos for your eCommerce website?

Put together your landing page with a video

Your prospects need to connect with you. And landing pages with relevant images and videos connect with them faster. Using videos on landing pages can take your conversion rate to the higher side just because they can evoke the desired response among your traffic.

Know your previous year’s sales conversion rate statistics and find out where you can leverage video contents.

On your Homepage

Just as mentioned earlier, homepages that have videos have a higher rate of lead conversion. Why? Because of the fact (true fact rather) that videos build trust with the audience. Your homepage is the first thing that your traffic would see. And if there’s a thumbnail of a happy smiling face, people are likely to click on it.

A 60 seconds video delivers your core message as well as why you stand out from the others in the industry. There you go! Give a short description of your brand and how you can add value to your customers, and have been doing it since, say, 1990? 🙂

Send Personalized Videos to your Prospects

If you get no luck in reviving the dead leads, have already tried cold emails and cold calls to death, try sending video voice mails to your leads. Not only these create a more personalized sales experience, but it makes your prospects feel that you genuinely care for them. They open up and discuss things more freely.

Thus it becomes easier for you to take them towards the end of the sales funnel.

On your Product Page

While making a purchase, 90% of buyers find it useful if there’s a supporting video. And 64% of users opine that they are more likely to buy a product only after viewing a video. That said, your primary target would be to include engaging videos in your product pages.

When images are not enough, videos save the day by giving your prospects a real feeling. It doesn’t really matter whether they watch the videos till the end or stop midway, but the very existence of product videos will amplify the conversions.

Include Videos that explains your benefits better

The best way to appear neutral and less ‘salesy’ is to just to showcase your benefits to your prospects. They will decide for themselves whether to tune you out or stick to you. So make sure you have videos that talk and explains about your benefits and how they can add value to your buyers.

Testimonial Videos

There’s something called ‘Social Proof’ that 90% of buyers rely upon while making a purchase decision. And smart business persons know that the most original sales message come from happy and satisfied customers. So when your prospective buyers get to see such satisfied customers benefited by your product, their trust quotient increases.

So ensure you include proper testimonial videos that reinforce credibility and trust.

Try Tutorial or How-To Videos

This type of videos is more apt for brands that sell products and not services. This is a straightforward way to showcase with step by step guidance, how one would use your product. Surely enough when their concerns and questions are addressed, they would be happy to try your product.

Post Videos on Social Media Profiles

Social media channels can be big-time lead catchers considering how powerful they are now. They are not only great tools to reach the masses, but also to convert the followers into paying customers. And your social media conversion rate will significantly rise as you upload more and more shareable videos.

Encourage Surveys through Videos

Customer feedback/reviews are the primal elements expected by all marketers. Conduct surveys and ask for feedback from your customers. You may appear in the videos yourself and ask for feedback on the areas you can further improve. Halfway, questions can come up onscreen that the audience has to answer to further watch the video.

Wrapping Things Up!

So all that said, video marketing happens to be the most lucrative yet cost-effective strategy to enhance conversion and create a sustainable brand image. Marketers and business development managers are under continuous pressure to come up with innovative ideas to generate more leads and conversions. Yet in a less pricey way. In this scenario, video contents have the highest ROI.

We offer professionally created Animated Explainer/Promotional videos for all kinds of business that encourage prospective buyers to make a purchase, bring repeat clients and boost your e-commerce conversion rates. If you are interested in how video contents can further help in raising your online conversions, feel free to get in touch.

And if you have anything else to add, please share your comment in the comment section below.

10 Conversion Crushing Opt-In Form Examples from GetResponse

Oct 7, 2020 | Seo

Email marketing is one of the most powerful and effective ways to increase traffic, revenue, and growth. While content creation is the core focus for many online businesses and brands, it’s the email marketing and mailing lists that drive the majority of revenue and repeat traffic back into the business.

However, why are some sites so good at email marketing while other’s aren’t?

The common theme among underperforming mailers and marketers is that they aren’t fully utilizing all of the tools at hand and definitely not split-testing to see where improvements can be made.

It’s easy to start a mailing list, throw an opt-in form on your site and send out a blast to your audience, but if that’s all your are doing, then you are leaving a ton of money and opportunity on the table.

GetResponse is one of the top email marketing platforms available today. Unlike other list hosting solutions where they simply store your data and make it easy for you to send out mailings to your audience, GetResponse has a whole tracking, marketing, and management platform built into their system. In short, as a customer of GetResponse, you are essentially gaining access to the same tools and features that huge email marketing companies are using at a fraction of the cost.

In addition to the many features provided by GetResponse, they also offer a wide range of methods to get people to join your mailing list. The days of simply adding a subscribe form to your site and asking users to “Join My Newsletter” are over! Now it’s all about engagement, providing value and split testing headlines and call-to-actions to see what’s working best.

Using everything GetResponse currently has in place for their customers, let’s take a look at ten of the most effective ways to increase signups to your mailing list.

10 Opt-in Form Methods to Increase Your Mailing List

Depending on the content of your site and how you provide value to your audience, each of these opt-in forms might be used differently. No matter how you are collecting leads online, any or all of these methods should be split tested against what you currently have in place.

To see a full breakdown of each opt-in method used before, be sure to check out this infographic. We’ve provided a quick description of each opt-in method below, along with value pros, cons and tips from GetResponse as well.

Exit-intent

Imagine if you had the ability to make one last call-to-action attempt before a user clicks away from your site? That’s exactly what happens with ‘exit-intent’ popup forms. As the user is looking to click away or close out your browser tab, you are getting one last chance to grab their email address before they leave forever. You can see a list of how top bloggers are currently using this method on their sites here.

Pros: Grabs attention and might give you a last chance to convince your visitors to stay connected, in the long run could help you improve your churn rate
Cons: Similarly to light-boxes, can be overused and cause annoyance especially if difficult to close
Pro tip: Make sure that the presented benefit is something they are truly interested in and is worth their time.

Light-box

A pop-up light-box subscribe form is a great way to engage with your audience as they are browsing through your site. One of the many benefits of using a light-box form is that you can set when you would like the popup to display. This also means you can split test how well the form might perform if it pops up after 1, 5 or even 10 seconds.

Pros: Instantly grabs attention and drives user action, thus helping to maximize conversions
Cons: Easy to become overly used and can cause annoyance
Pro tip: Test the amount of time before the light-box appears and try using funny/clever, graphic elements to motivate sign-ups.

Embedded email sign-up form

The classic and most traditional way to get users to sign up to your mailing list is to simply ask them to join. The problem with this method is that many users will see your subscribe form every time they visit, even if they’ve already joined your mailing list. If you are going to use this method for newsletter signups, be sure to have a call-to-action, otherwise you will likely see very low conversion rates.

Pros: If designed well i.e. fits the overall design, good copy, clear benefits and CTA – can motivate to sign up
Cons: May not be enough to catch attention unless your visitor is looking for a newsletter sign-up
Pro tip: Should be visible on all the major pages of your website.

Bar

Testing different locations on your site for mailing list signup forms is key to maximizing conversions. Bar signup forms are great for testing performance at the top, middle or bottom of your site. A bar signup in the top middle portion of your main page might be the perfect spot when trying to make that first impression, while offering something of value.

Pros: Instantly visible yet subtle
Cons: Limited space, but can be part of a two-step sign-up process
Pro tip: Use contrasting color and a catchy line to quickly grab users’ attention.

Slide-in form

If you want to increase email signups on your site, you are going to need to use a form that grabs your audience’s attention. If you don’t want to use popups or exit intent forms, you may find slide-in forms work just as well. As a user is browsing through your site, a popup for your newsletter form will come scrolling up in the bottom corner of your site. Easy to sign up, easy to close out. A win-win situation for the site owner and the site visitor.

Pros: Shows up only to users that are engaged and have scrolled down the page or blog post
Cons: Appears only to users that are engaged in your web page
Pro tip: Make sure to include it next to your best articles or high-traffic websites in addition to your other sign-up forms.

Download box

Getting site visitors to take action is all about incentivization and giving them a reason to want to enter their email. One of the most effective ways to do this is through the use of a free gift or offering something to download. Such downloads can be a PDF of the article they are reading, an educational course, whitepaper, or free report.

Pros: Great way to generate leads with valuable content
Cons: Easy to overuse – not all content is worth gating,/em>
Pro tip: Make sure that what you’re gating is valuable and unique.

Shake box

We’ve already covered popup windows and exit intent subscribe forms while also seeing how effective they can be on user engagement. If you want to step up your call-to-action a little bit more, why not implement a simple “shake box” to grab their extra attention?

Pros: Engaging and attention grabbing. Hasn’t been used too often yet!
Cons: May not fit all target audiences
Pro tip: Choose it instead of your regular light-box and test its effectiveness. The element of surprise may improve your conversions vastly.

Webinar sign-up

Webinars are one of the best ways to build a massive mailing in a short period of time. When trying to get people to attend your next webinar, you should send a mailing out to your existing newsletter subscribers and also try to connect with other audiences as well. A perfect example of this would be if you wanted to co-host a webinar with another popular site. This would be considered a joint-venture or revenue-sharing project, where you would split the earnings from your webinar. However, the person running the webinar will end up with a much larger mailing list as a result of it.

Pros: A great way to attract new subscribers who are already interested in your topic
Cons: Visitors may be reluctant as they might assume that they’ll receive purely sales-oriented communication
Pro tip: Clearly communicate the frequency and the content of messages that your visitors are likely to receive if they sign up.

Twitter Lead Generation Cards

With over 300 million users on Twitter wouldn’t it be great if there was a way to get them to join your mailing list with a simple click of a button? Good news — there is! It’s called Twitter lead generation cards and millions of brands and websites are using it right now to massively grow their mailing lists. If you aren’t already using Twitter cards, get started with that today!

Pros: The easiest way to attract leads from Twitter other than redirecting your traffic to dedicated landing pages
Cons: You have to pay for the generated leads, which means you need to devote additional financial resources
Pro tip: Select your audience carefully and design your ad with their personas and preferences in mind to make the best use of your budget.

Video opt-in

Bring your opt-in form to live by having a video built right into the subscribe form. Not only is video a great way to show who you are, it’s also something people will instantly see and not be as reluctant to close it out in once the subscribe form shows.

Pros: A growing number of users prefer to watch videos and if you can entertain and educate them, building a list won’t be a problem
Cons: Users may be annoyed by ads and other similar elements that prevent them from watching the video
Pro tip: Great videos are worth waiting for. Serve them enough content to gain their interest and convince to leave their details with you.

Building Your Mailing List with GetResponse

Now that you’ve seen some of the best ways to gain new subscribers through creative opt-in forms on your site, which are you going to use?

GetResponse has all of the necessary tools and tracking in place to make it easy for site owners to implement any of the form types above, while also split testing which work best.

Click here to start your free 30-day trial with GetResponse.