Drive Sales with Content Marketing

Creating content that is eye catching, captivating, engaging and of value to your potential customers. Is easier said than done, especially when you are a B2B that are selling services that aren't exactly exciting to read about like healthcare or software. Creating content that demonstrates value in terms of; money, time, energy and frustration saved is the best way to increase leads and revenue. Here are 5 things to keep in mind when creating and optimizing content that will convert.

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1. Content is about more than just Blog Posts and White Papers. 

Content is central to every single marketing message your brand creates. From your website, to info graphics, email and social media posts. Staying consistent in your messaging in your cross-channel marketing gives your company and content marketing a voice and personality to what you are passionate about and the problems you solve.  

Related: Content Cuaration Tools that Save Time and Money. 

2. Effective Marketing Tells a Story. 

Placing an emphasis on storytelling in your content marketing is an effective way to lead users down the path toward conversion. Even if your content reaches a wide audience, much of which is not currently in need of your products or services, it’s far more likely that they will remember your brand when later they do have such a need if you can manage to tell them an interesting story in the first place. This kind of brand recall has a big impact on the results you can generate with content marketing.

3. Optimize Landing Pages that Convert.

Landing pages are the gatekeepers of conversions. Aiming for a 20% conversion rate sounds easy enough, but many fall short. Here are 7 best practices when it comes to optimizing your landing pages. 

1. The "Blink Test" at a quick glance, a visitor should be able to understand the nature of the offer and why it’s valuable to them. 
2. Write a Clear, Concise, Action-Oriented Headline.
3. Explain the offer clearly and place visual emphasis on the value. 
4. Remove navigation menu and links. 
5. The form length mirrors the value of the offer. 
6. Include relevant image, animation, or short video.
7. Add social sharing icons. 

4. Create Compelling Calls-to-Action's.

Your call-to-action button also needs to include actionable language. It is a call to action, after all! This means verbs. Try now, get your free proposal, learn more, and so on. It needs to stand out visually as well. It should clash with your color scheme but rather contrast so that it clearly stands out. 

5. Develop Thought Leadership and Authority.  

Part of our job as marketers and business leaders is to find ways to make people trust the brands we represent. Without trust, there will be no conversions. There’s a lot that goes into building trust -- clear messaging, reliable customer service, and product/service quality are all critical building blocks in a trusting customer-brand relationship. Establishing industry authority also plays a critical role. People want to work with companies that are the best at what they do. But how do you prove that your company is, in fact, the best? You demonstrate yourself to be an authority. And there’s no better way to do that through content.