You’ve heard it on this site and pretty much everywhere else–content is vital to sensation in today’s marketplace. So you spend a lot of your time writing blog posts and creating videos, or you recompense someone else to do it. And you wonder, is it worth the asset? What are the chances that your carefully crafted content will actually result in sales?
Focus on your customers, not your product.
Don’t give in to the attraction to focus your content on your product’s new feature or the award it just won. Effective content marketing starts from the question of what your consumer requires to know, not what you want to tell.
Link to Your Online Catalog
One of the simplest ways to turn your blog into a sales tool is by writing posts about your products or services, then linking to those products where customers can obtain them. These informational posts should provide expensive information about the product that isn’t available in your online catalog such as a more product detailed sketch or ideas for how customers can use the product to benefit their lives.
Lay out a path.
Once you’ve managed to grab potential customers’ awareness by supplying the answers they need right when they need them, make the most of that attention by providing a path that makes it easy and expected for a customer to buy. “Instead of thinking of yourself as a keyword strategist, position yourself as a tour guide.
Create different content for different customer segments.
Not all your customers are alike, and they won’t all have the same needs. “Spend time figuring out your audience segments and what they care about.”Develop profiles of them. A fitness club shouldn’t just think about ‘customers,’ but specific segments of customers. Consider the 65-year-old male who wants to stave off diabetes, the 32-year-old female who wants to get in shape for her wedding, and the 16-year-old male who wants to make his varsity team next year. Then generate really great content that speaks to each of their needs, especially at their parachute moments.”
Provide Exclusive Information and Tips
Make your customers feel ‘in the know’ because they read your blog and reward them for doing so by writing posts that provide elite information and tips. For example, you could write a blog post about an upcoming product release or sale. Offering extra incentives to promote customers who read your blog to make a purchase through special discounts and promotions offered only to blog readers or subscribers is a successful way to turn your blog into a sales tool.
Raise your social profile as much as you can.
If the above sounds like a lot of work, it is. But the fact is the more great content you create and publish, the more likely you’ll be to reach your customers at just the right moment, and the more visible you’ll become. You can amplify that visibility by posting on social media, responding to others, engaging with your social network, and curating other great content as well as creating your own.
Talk About and Link to Other Online Marketing Programs
One of the most important aspects of operating a flourishing business with an online component is developing an effective online marketing strategy including viral marketing and social media marketing tactics. Don’t forget to talk about and link to those marketing programs in your blog posts. Doing so will create a cohesive and reliable online marketing strategy that has a better chance of considerably boosting sales.
