Articles
Writing Outstanding Content That Converts into Sales: Top 10 Tips
It took some time for the marketing world to undergo the transition from a pitch-based sales approach to a vision in which content plays the dominant role. The latter approach is more natural and creates greater value. However, it comes with its own set of challenges and requires more effort. Content marketing deals with how to make the perfect pitch and use your charisma, confidence, and what to avoid for converting a client. But it also offers a much clearer understanding of what has to be achieved and by what means. Below, we detail a few content writing tips that should drive conversion rates up.
Embrace the Paradigm of Content Marketing
Content marketing makes the relationship with the audience more human. Through it, the company lends a helping hand to the content consumer aiming:
-
- to educate,
- entertain,
- fill a perceived informational void,
- to help decide on products or services (or on the meaning of life, the universe, and everything).
If the created content is qualitative and highly relevant, it gets a life of its own. It serves as an online beacon for all curious or confused souls out there. While the company can use this chance to advertise itself or its products occasionally, the idea is that most clients will become aware of the content authors, and will APPRECIATE this. And this appreciation often forms on a personal level. It is interpreted as a demonstration of care just like among two people.
Be Honest In Your Content
This New York Times article from 2013 tells the inspiring experience of Marcus Sheridan. He was leading a company that was installing pools and spas. When his company faced a significant drop in sales, he engaged in what is known today as content marketing: publishing videos, informational blog posts. Marcus took an unconventional marketing approach. He created a series of bold articles that answered honestly a few questions. These topics were of high relevance to his audience, and there weren’t any answers anywhere online. Some of the questions were:
-
- What is the price range to install a fibreglass pool? As Marcus stated, he could track up to $1.7 million in income to this article alone.
- What are the problems/issues with fibreglass pools, compared to the benefits?
- What are the top companies in the area that are involved in the business?
Shockingly, Marcus wrote about his greatest competitors, literally acknowledging their position. It was viewed as extreme honesty by the readership. Besides, this propelled his name among the search queries involving his competitors!
Use Academic Assistance Platforms to Carry Out Research
Any good piece of writing is much more valuable if it builds on credible research into topics relevant to the audience. This is one of the essential pillars of content marketing.
But carrying out research using specialized sources and creating thoroughly documented pieces of writing based on this research are very time-consuming tasks.
Hence, it could be wise to contract academic assistance services aimed at students to help with this. The content marketer and writing expert Angela Baker says: “Take any academic thesis writing site review, and you’ll be surprised by the diversity of academic assignments and subjects at any academic level that these services can help you with. Such websites are known to recruit people with Bachelor, Master, or Doctoral degrees in sciences or arts.”
Use Analytic Tools
Analytic tools help to obtain valuable insight into how the content “performs”. This allows one to correct the content, the strategies guiding its creation as well as the approaches used. Thus, these tools have a profound impact on content marketing efficiency.
Google Analytics can help examine the relationship between content and conversion rates. They assist by monitoring how the content engages, what type of content works best, how the trends in search engine traffic evolve over a specific time. This information can influence SEO-related decisions and can be used to alter the SEO content strategy. It helps to identify, terminate, or adapt inefficient methods.
Be Original
Today like never before, we live in a society of the spectacle. To attract attention, you should be able to impress, present original ideas, have a style. The good thing about original content is that it is self-advertising – it has an intrinsic property to go viral without being pushed too much. More popularity means bigger sales and hence, a better ROI from your content.
Be Accurate
Accurate content is one of the prerequisites needed to look credible in the eyes of the audience. Online content, unlike face-to-face communication, is just a few clicks away from being fact-checked. Even if you get 95% of your content right and 5% wrong, you will likely lose credibility in the eyes of the pickiest clients. Oftentimes, it might be the most valuable ones (they could be purchasing in bulk). During a post-truth era, being accurate and educating others to be so could be even viewed as a form of social and corporate responsibility.
Employ Third Parties from the Content Writing Business
By no means do we suggest contracting all the content from such services. But you could easily run one or two dedicated rubrics on your website or social media page. You would cover a much greater variety of topics with appealing titles and creative or inspiring content. In this way, they will bring you additional traffic.
Estelle Liotard is among the content marketing specialists and writing experts that try to uncover this new content resource to marketers. As she states concerning one such writing company: “The number of ways in which the content delivered by GetGoodGrade could complement your site, blog, social media page is fairly impressive. It can provide you with a creative essay, a case study, a motivational text, and virtually any imaginable type of custom paper.
Be Descriptive
When it comes to pragmatic decisions such as those involving purchases, clients appreciate when they get efficient and comprehensive info. They want to find all the relevant information in one place – this will allow them to decide what to focus on. Many clients literally hate when key aspects related to a product or service are not disclosed. They feel that the company does that to make them contact one of the company representatives and “be converted” by the latter.
Structure the Content Well
It is known that a colossal proportion of clients would rather opt for self-help using the company’s website and written instructions, FAQ rubrics, step-by-step guides, etc. To let clients navigate these knowledge bases efficiently, the latter has to be structured. The same is true about written articles. It is essential to fragment a longer text/paper into sections and subsections. Also, use clear and representative titles and subtitles for each of these. You could include outlines for greater convenience. This way, readers can jump straight to those sections they are interested in.
Use Other Forms of Content to Complement Your Writing
We live in a world of competitive multimedia content. Most people find some forms of content, such as videos, images, or audio, incomparably more engaging than text. In many circumstances, an image or video could replace a thousand words. And both videos and images are instrumental in attracting more views on social media. Long reads are normally inappropriate or hard to implement technically.
Videos are also the ultimate self-help instrument many clients prefer to use. All these make it highly advisable for companies to learn to produce such content following all the stages from corporate video script writing to shooting, and editing. The process could be much simpler depending on the ambitions.
Final Thoughts
The criteria that good content has to fulfil are fairly numerous. Many of these are subject to the personal understanding of the author. Any lengthy content unavoidably captures the personality of the latter. It can reflect the author’s creativity, sense of humour, wit, intelligence, precision, meticulosity, wisdom, conciseness, orderliness, discipline, straightforwardness, etc. It also means that the path to successful content can be unique and personal. But having serious intentions and resolve to produce something of value is a universally good starting point.
This article does not constitute legal advice.
The opinions expressed in the column above represent the author’s own.
Start managing your legal needs with Zegal today