How To Create Content For Each Sale Funnel Stage

June 25, 2021/in Articles, Attraction Marketing, Blog, Content Marketing, Directors /by Dan Gartlan

Even though you may not realize it, you go through a process before buying something, unless, of course, you are an impulse buyer. This process is called a sale funnel. It refers to “the buying process that companies lead customers through when they are purchasing products.” But for any company to succeed, its process must have quality content. Having quality content is having leadership, which is a part of attraction marketing. Here is how to create quality content:

Phases of a standard funnel

Top of the funnel (TOFU): awareness stage

At this point, your followers do not know they have a problem or are just now realizing they do. TOFU involves driving traffic to you as well as providing free surface information with “how to”, “improve”, and “prevent” content.

Middle of the funnel (MOFU): consideration stage

When a potential buyer gets here, they graduate to a potential lead. They need the best solution for their problem and are willing to make possible future purchase commitments. For this stage, begin providing deep content with a wide coverage of topics.

Bottom of the funnel (BOFU): decision stage

Here, someone is making a final purchase decision. Still, there is no guarantee. A little nudge from the right content and assistanced from a call to action will win the customer over.

[Read to learn about the importance of lead generating content marketing]

Creating sale funnel content for each stage

TOFU

Content can be in the form of an eBook, checklist, podcast, whitepaper, etc. It should be rich with key words, compelling, informational, correctly format, and delivered in a timely manner. Do not attempt to sell at this stage because the potential customer is not yet considered a qualified lead. Make your content both easy to understand and enjoyable to read. Try to obtain the potential customer’s personal contact information at this point through forms and landing pages to use later in the lead qualifying process.

MOFU

As your visitors transition to this stage, your content should transition with them. This content can be in the form of case studies, demonstration videos, trial offers, cost estimates, etc. You should offer expert, in-depth content. For example: “The Complete Checklist for a Refurbished Phone.”

As they look to expand their personal understanding, usher in lead nurturing techniques such as personal engagement and email marketing. This is usually the longest phase because potential customers need to weigh their options and research further. However, an advantage to this wait is that you can take time to filter out unqualified leads and instead focus your resources on marketing qualified leads.

BOFU

When your leads reach the final stage, you will probably be a little anxious, but don’t push too much. Offer content to make them understand why you are the best best option for them. Position yourself as a solution to their problem. Be careful not to sound too much like a sales person, and focus your content on their needs. “Guidelines For Success” or “How to Implement Inbound Marketing Strategies” are some examples of content you should provide in order to convert your leads into sales.

The Benefits of Inbound Marketing

June 18, 2021/in Articles, Content Marketing, Directors, Inbound Marketing /by Nicole Wagner

Inbound Marketing is all about empowering potential customers. It provides a shift in marketing tactics that can make a real difference in how consumers react to a company. Inbound strives to create marketing that people will love. The goal of inbound marketing is to give consumers content that will be helpful to them, rather than simply giving them a sales pitch. The following are some inbound marketing benefits.

5 Types of Landing Pages To Increase Your Lead Conversion Rate

May 14, 2021/in Articles, Content Marketing, Directors, Inbound Marketing /by Nicole Wagner

Are your company website’s landing pages converting as many visitors to leads as you’d like? One problem may be that you are not using the right kinds of landing pages. Landing pages have several purposes: to collect important information from visitors, to begin building a relationship with visitors, and, ultimately, to convert visitors to leads. Some companies only have one or two types of landing pages, and as a result, their lead conversion rates suffer. Here are 5 kinds of landing pages that are sure to increase your lead conversion rate.

Email List Opt-In Landing Page:

It’s been proven that the most effective place to put your email opt-in form is on it’s own dedicated landing page. An email list opt-in landing page gives you more room to tell visitors exactly how they stand to benefit from filling out your form with their personal information. By removing pesky distractions, like navigation, a landing page urges your visitors make a decision: opt-in or miss out on quality content and offers.

Product Detail Landing Page:

A product detail landing page is common in the retail industry. Product detail landing pages are located on the company’s main website, and contain the information regarding the product for sale such as features, specifications, and customer reviews. A benefit of product detail landing pages is that there is no extra work or cost required when it comes to creating a separate page. Another benefit of this landing page is it applies to visitors who are in the awareness or the consideration stage.

Read more on Driving Website Conversions During Each Stage Of The Buyer’s Journey

These type of landing pages can be applied to every type of traffic that your website generates. Most likely, any landing pages attached to your social media accounts bring visitors to your home page. This is a start, but it’s not the best option. You should make your landing page more customized and personal. A good social network landing page addresses where the visitor is coming from and provides information the visitor is probably looking for. Information such as background about the company as well as how to get in touch.

Content Guide Landing Page:

Inbound marketing revolves around content. If your company blogs, you can extend the reach of your content by organizing it with its own landing page. The blog page on your website is useful, but it probably shows only the latest content. By creating topic-specific content landing pages, your best quality work is being showcased to your visitors.

Lead Capture Landing Pages

These pages are often referred to as “squeeze” pages. They don’t contain any exit paths or distractions such as links or navigation tools. A lead capture landing page should include one thing: a button that takes visitors to a form where they are encouraged to submit their personal data. In order to coax visitors into filling out the form, offer an incentive, such as eBooks, whitepapers, or webinars.

How to Drive Website Conversions with the Buyer’s Journey

May 4, 2021/in Articles, Attraction Marketing, Content Marketing, Directors, Lead Nuturing /by Nicole Wagner

Before any customer commits to purchasing a product, they will have to go through the sales funnel. The sales funnel is comprised of several stages that the buyer will go through, from identifying the problem they have to making a decision. In online marketing, the sales funnel expands from a prospective buyer to a buyer looking to purchase. Marketers are responsible for guiding prospective clients along the sales funnel until they eventually make a purchase. Attraction marketing is what will catch the attention of customers.

Growing social media usage gives marketers a chance to engage their prospective buyers by creating customized content. However, some marketers still find it challenging to identify the most effective content for each step. The following is a guide to creating the right content to drive website conversions at each step of the sales funnel.

Top of the Funnel: Awareness and Research

This is the primary step where prospective customers realize they have a problem or a need to fulfill. Buyers at the top of the funnel are searching for high quality and relevant information to point them towards the solution

Over 80% of buyers research products online before buying. The best way to attract them is by offering exactly what they need: highly optimized content with original research. Additionally, posting explainer videos that contain demonstrations can have a huge impact on your site. Lastly, create attractive landing pages to offer your visitors solutions at the click of a button.

Read More: How To Use The Buyer’s Journey To Create Great Content

Middle of the Funnel: Evaluation

During the second stage of the sales funnel, buyers are trying to sort through their best options that you and your competitors are offering. It’s the seller’s job to explain why they are the best solution for the customer’s problem. The purpose of this section of the funnel is to highlight your expertise and begin the process of lead nurturing.

The best content for this stage are webinars and live communication features. These give the marketers and customers a space to interact with live questions and discussions. Email marketing is also a great way to offer relevant and consistent content. Don’t forget to include clear calls to action that will convert leads.

Bottom of the Funnel: Purchase

At the final stage, the buyer has decided they are ready to make a purchase, but they have not yet decided the source of their purchase. Providing them with access to the solution as well as some incentives will likely turn a prospective buyer to a customer.

Clear calls to action linked to trial offers, video tutorials, and product information can have a huge impact on prospective customers. Aligning your offers with educational and entertaining testimonials is an effective technique. It’s also wise to creating a purchasable demo based on a free plan that entices customers to access its premium features.

Pay Attention to the Buyer’s Journey

Above all, remember to consider your clients’ needs first. From there, develop your funnel in order to fulfill these needs at each stage. If the sales funnel is implemented correctly and your content is helpful to customers, your lead conversion rate will definitely increase.

Marketing Blog tips to Supplement your Digital Strategy

April 16, 2021/in Articles, Blog, Content Marketing, Directors /by Nicole Wagner

Ask any business, big or small, and they’ll tell you how important digital marketing is to their overall marketing strategy. When it comes to digital marketing strategies, most prioritize social media, SEO, and email marketing. While these strategies can be very effective, it’s critical that you don’t dismiss the importance of maintaining a digital marketing blog. For many businesses, their blog isn’t nearly as big of a priority as other digital marketing elements. However, a digital marketing blog has an enormous impact on the overall success of your digital marketing efforts. In fact, a successful blog can have a huge impact on how effective your SEO and social media strategies are.

Why Maintaining A Digital Marketing Blog Is So Important

The following are some of the reasons why you should maintain a blog on your website:

Keep new content organized – Digital marketing requires regular content generation to be effective. A blog allows you to publish and organize all of your content in one place, making it easy for leads to find information that they’re looking for. Leads will also know where to go to find new content, keeping leads engaged.
Educate and nurture your leads – A regularly updated blog allows you to continually educate new leads and to nurture them through the buyer’s journey. The more informed your leads are, the more prepared they will be to make a purchasing decision in the near future.
Generate website traffic – Having a blog makes it easier to improve your website’s SEO. When you routinely publish relevant, highly optimized content on your blog, you’ll end up boosting web traffic. As a result, you’ll bring in more new potential leads.
Build brand authority – A blog full of high-quality content will help position your brand as an authority within your industry. The more you build your authority, the more brand trust you’ll create. It will also help you build your audience on social media as followers will be more likely to share your blog content with others.

Brand Storytelling Examples to Learn From

Tips For Maintaining A Successful Digital Marketing Blog

Now that you have a better understanding of why a blog is so vital to your overall digital marketing strategy, the following are a few tips to help you build and maintain a successful blog:

Know who your audience is – If you don’t know who your target audience is, then you won’t be able to create and publish content that’s relevant. Two of the main goals of a content strategy are to build authority and attract new leads. Neither will occur without an understanding of who your audience is. Develop your buyer personas so that you know who your blog is for.
Perform content research – Once you know who your audience is, you can figure out what kind of information they’re looking for. Do research on trending topics that are relevant to your audience. You should also look at the blogs of various competitors to see what type of content they’re publishing.
Publish new blog content regularly – To maintain your audience, you need to publish new content on a regular basis. This means posting new content to your blog on the same days of the week, at the same times. Doing so ensures that your audience knows exactly when to visit your blog for new content, thereby helping keep your brand at the top of mind.
Monitor the performance of your blog – Use analytics tools to track how your blog posts are doing. You can learn a lot about your blog content this way. For instance, what types of content get the most views, engagement, click-throughs, and conversions. This data is invaluable when it comes to adjusting your content strategy for success.

Keep Your Blog in the Front of Your Audiences Eyes

Publish different types of content.– Make sure you vary the type of content you post so that you keep things fresh. In addition to written content, create and post infographics, SlideShares, and videos
Keep your content interesting – It’s okay to post promotional content to your blog once in a while (such as a product announcement or a sale announcement), but it’s better to stick to educational content so that your blog doesn’t feel like a giant advertisement. However, this doesn’t mean your content should be purely informative. Your content should also be entertaining to keep your audience’s interest.
Optimize your blog for SEO – Proper optimization through the use of high-quality internal and external links and relevant keywords will improve your chances of ranking. By ranking well, you’ll attract more traffic through Google and other search engines.
Promote your blog – Don’t rely solely on SEO to attract an audience. Promote new blog content by posting links in your email newsletters and on social media. You can even use PPC ads to promote specific blog posts you want to showcase.

Building and maintaining a blog is essential to a successful digital marketing strategy. Be sure to use these eight tips to maintain a successful digital marketing blog on your website.

Types Of Marketing Videos You Should Use

April 11, 2021/in Articles, Content Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Video Marketing /by Terry Becker

Year after year, video marketing grows in importance. Video has never been easier to consume for Americans, especially when considering the increasing quality of smartphones and tablets. Video is also the easiest way for people to absorb information. Additionally, according to a prediction by Zenith Media, the average person will spend around 100 minutes a day watching videos in 2021. The pandemic certainly had an impact on these numbers as well. People have more time on their hands to watch video content, especially those who have switched to a work-at-home environment. Because of this increase in video consumption, a video marketing strategy is an absolute must. The following are some of the different types of marketing videos that you should consider producing this year.

1. Educational videos

Educational videos should be used to help inform your audience about a particular subject. No video marketing strategy will be successful without them. This is because the more informed your audience is, the more confident they will be in making a purchasing decision down the road. Educational videos provide them with the knowledge they need to understand your business and the solutions you offer. There are several types of educational videos, including:

Demo videos – Videos that demonstrate how your product or service is used.
Explainer videos – Videos that showcase why your product or service is needed.
How-to videos – Videos that provide step-by-step instructions on how to do a specific task.
Animated videos – Animated videos are a fantastic way to deliver information in an entertaining way, whether they’re explainer videos or how-to videos.

2. Interview videos

Interviews are an excellent way to provide detailed information about certain subjects to your audience while also providing a personality to engage with. You can film interviews with both employees and upper management as well as experts that are relevant to your industry. What’s great about interview videos is that they are incredibly easy to produce.

3. Event videos

Certain events, like industry tradeshows, conferences, fundraisers, and round table discussions, can reveal a wealth of information. Film these events and edit them into event videos for your audience to enjoy.

Leveraging Video Marketing During COVID-19

4. Case study and testimonial videos

These types of videos focus on customers and their experiences using your product or service. Not only can you use them as social proof that your products or services work, but they make it easier to build trust with your audience. Potential customers are much more likely to relate to and believe what previous customers have said, after all. Using case studies and testimonial videos, you give customers the chance to explain what their challenges were and how your product or service solved those challenges.

5. Behind-the-scenes videos

A big part of creating a successful brand identity is presenting your company as being relatable. You don’t want your audience to think of you as a big faceless corporation, after all. Creating videos that depict your company behind the scenes is a great way to do this. It shows that there’s a human element behind the business. There are tons of ways to go about creating behind-the-scenes videos. A video of the day-in-the-life of the typical employee or a video of the manufacturing process of a product are great examples.

These are five different types of marketing videos you should consider creating in 2021. As you develop your video marketing strategy, remember that the quality of your content matters — and so does the audience that you’re creating it for. Always keep viewers in mind to ensure that your video marketing efforts are relevant.

Brand Storytelling Examples to Learn From

April 7, 2021/in Articles, Brand Development, Brand Positioning, Content Marketing /by Stevens and Tate

Your brand identity goes beyond your name, logo, and the products or services you provide. A brand identity is all-encompassing: it also includes your goals, your beliefs, and the feelings you elicit from your audience. To create a strong brand identity, you need to create a narrative that’s consistent across all channels. This is where brand storytelling comes in. Brand storytelling involves using storytelling techniques that bring together both facts and emotions to create your brand identity. The following are five brand storytelling examples that you should use as inspiration to help create and drive your own brand story:

1. Apple

Apple is arguably one of the greatest examples of successful marketing in the history of marketing. They were able to capture a small corner of a market dominated by Microsoft and, through the use of incredibly effective brand storytelling, turn themselves into a behemoth. Knowing that they were up against Microsoft, Apple decided that their message would be to go against the grain. They would position themselves as a revolutionary innovator. Their “think different” tagline showcases this, as does all of their other advertising. Their most famous ad is the most obvious example: the 1984 ad in which a woman defiantly smashes the screen with a sledgehammer.

2. Ikea

Ikea has built its brand on the functionality and simplicity of its products, which they showcase using lighthearted humor. Their most famous commercial “Lamp” highlights this. It’s a commercial showing an old lamp being replaced and being thrown away. It’s a sob story until a narrator shows up to exclaim that the viewer is crazy to feel bad about the old lamp since it doesn’t have feelings, and the new one is much better. It gets a great laugh and emphasizes the need to update old products with newer, higher-quality versions.

3. Old Spice

Old Spice used to be a brand associated with older men. The word “old” certainly didn’t help. They altered their brand storytelling to emphasize that the scent of old spice was how men should smell. They used humor and great writing to convey this, but what made the storytelling particularly effective was that they didn’t target men — they targeted women. Old Spice essentially focused on delivering a message to women about how their men should smell, so that they could influence men on Old Spice’s behalf.

How to build your own brand story

4. SoulCycle

What’s interesting about SoulCycle is that it basically consists of a class full of people riding exercise bikes. That’s it. There’s nothing more to it. But their brand storytelling has lifted this simple service into something much greater. They have positioned themselves as a high-end fitness service that’s not just a service, but a lifestyle. This lifestyle includes the use of teachers who are essentially fitness influencers and classes that are almost club-like in their atmosphere. Members feel like they belong to a community, not a gym. Without their incredibly effective brand storytelling, you could argue that they would be a glorified gym with limited equipment.

5. Warby Parker

Warby Parker is a glasses frame manufacturer that has positioned itself as a company that sells fashionable frames at reasonable prices. Their storytelling focuses on how they build their frames and on the customers that buy them. In fact, much of their content is user-generated, which helps emphasize that they are frames built for everyone. Their message gets across because they keep their brand storytelling simple and focused.

These are a few brand storytelling examples to keep in mind when crafting your brand story strategy. Successful brand storytelling will strengthen your company’s identity, thereby making it easier to evoke an emotional response from your audience and to build long-lasting connections with them. By implementing an effective brand storytelling strategy, you’ll be more likely to increase your company’s visibility, impact, and — eventually — profit.

The Importance Of Lead Generation Content Marketing

April 5, 2021/in Articles, Content Marketing, Directors, Lead Nuturing /by Nicole Wagner

Your company is struggling to generate leads, and you’re looking for a quick and relatively simple solution. I have this solution, but you’ll probably groan because you’ve heard it before. “Content is king” might be an overused term, but that’s only because it’s proven to be true. A foolproof solution to your lack of leads as well as website foot traffic is lead generation content marketing.

Nowadays, the quality of your company’s content is more important than ever before. Granted, there is more space to generate content and share it on the Internet, but with increased space comes tougher competition. We as marketing agencies feel pressure to stand out from the pack with remarkable content that converts our website’s visitors into potential leads. Consistent, quality content will attract the attention of readers, as well as encourage them to trust your company.

So what exactly is “quality” content?

Quality content has a specific purpose, format, and topic. The purpose should help the users find an answer to their questions or interests. The format you choose should fit your content well. In order to attract more leads, the content in the conversion stage should consist mainly of content offers.

Choose an appropriate format

The format of the content offers can be a multitude of things, such as case studies, white papers, forms, calls-to-action, visuals, eBooks, emails, and landing pages. For example, if you want to demonstrate to users how a product works, you might use the template of a visual, such as a video or an image, rather than an eBook. On the other hand, if you wish to show your readers a how-to process that is also aesthetically pleasing, an eBook format would work better than a visual one.

In terms of topics, your content should be educational as well as specific. You should conduct market research and create content with your buyer personas in mind. Imagine you are your buyer persona: what problems do you need solutions for? How far are you in the buyer’s journey? What language would you use when typing keywords into the search engine? This can help you cater your content towards your target audience.

Read our article about using the buyer’s journey to create great content

Be consistent

Another factor that makes content “quality” is frequent and consistent publication. If your readers know they can count on you to publish a semi-weekly blog in a specific time window, they are much more likely to see you as reliable. Webdam’s statistics show that blogging consistently has led to B2B marketers generating about 67% more leads marketers who do not, which is a huge advantage. After you’ve earned their trust, a number of your visitors will subscribe to you and convert to leads.

Lead generation content marketing is a proven way to get the word out about your company and have potential customers become interested in your business. Without good, consistent content, people will have little reason to visit your website or truly believe that you’re a leader in your field. Don’t let this happen to you. For a consultation, please visit the link below.

Different Types Of Content Marketing For Lead Generation

January 4, 2021/in Articles, Content Marketing, Directors /by Nicole Wagner

“CONTENT IS KING.” It’s a phrase we have all heard before. But today, especially, it couldn’t be more true. Content, at its core, is what is essentially going to draw prospects to your brand. It is what makes you valuable. What others want to share and recommend. And it is the essence of what Inbound Attraction Marketing is all about. The trick is this: making the experience of your content one that will delight your readers and visitors and keep them coming back for more. Read more

Sourcing User Generated Content

August 25, 2020/in Advertising Agency, Articles, Content Marketing, Digital Media, Directors, Marketing Strategy, Media, Mobile Advertising, Public Relations, Social Media, Storybranding, Trending /by Nicole Wagner

One source of content generation you may not have tapped into yet is user-generated content. Content marketing is a critical component of any successful marketing strategy. However, it can take a lot of resources to produce your own content on a regular basis. Even if you’ve managed to regularly generate high-quality content, you should look for other ways to create new content for variety’s sake, such as high quality user generated content.

What Is User-Generated Content?

User-generated content refers to content created by consumers and not brands. Such content includes videos, pictures, reviews, articles, and more. For instance, if a consumer takes a picture of themselves using your product and posts it on Instagram, that’s user-generated content. The following are just a few of the benefits of user-generated content:

Free publicity

Your audience is essentially promoting your brand on your behalf. As a result, user-generated content can help increase brand awareness.

Free content

Creating your own content requires a lot of resources. User-generated content requires none — your audience is creating the content for you. While you don’t own it, you can share it and reap the benefits of it.

Positive word of mouth

Customers trust other customers more than they trust brands. Positive user-generated content can, therefore, help to boost your brand reputation by creating trust.

How To Source Usable Generated-Content

Considering how beneficial this free content can be, you’ll want to do everything you can to encourage it. However, the biggest challenge lies in the lack of control you have over the content. You can’t control the message, format, or quality, after all. But there are a few ways that you can guide your audience to create the content that will benefit you most. The following are a few tips on how to source high-quality user-generated content:

Encourage

Don’t just wait for your audience to create content relevant to your brand. You need to encourage it. For instance, hold a contest on social media in which users vote on the best submission. You can then give the winner a prize. There are many ways that you can encourage content generation.

Utilize Marketing Audiences on Pinterest Today

Provide clear guidelines

If you’re looking for a specific type of content, then you need to provide guidelines. For example, if you want user reviews, consider providing a basic review format. Such a format could list three broad questions that users can answer in order to generate a review.

Provide content creation tips

Your audience does not consist of professional content creators. As such, provide tips that they can use to create higher quality content. For instance, if you’re holding a video creation contest on YouTube or on Instagram, provide your users with a list of basic filming tips. Such tips can help cut down on the amount of poor quality content that you might receive.

Offer an example

If you’re looking for a specific type of content, then provide an example. When users see what you’re looking for, it will help them create the kind of content you want. For instance, if you’re hosting a picture taking contest, upload a few pictures of your own that would be considered exceptional examples. By providing an example, you also make sure that users understand your instructions more clearly.

Identify the channel

Make sure that your audience knows where to send it. The last thing you want is users posting their content on different platforms or sending it to you via different channels. If you’re promoting a contest, specify what platform they should post to or what hashtag they should use. Provide detailed instructions on how to submit content. By making it clear what channel you’re using, it will be easier for you to track and organize user-generated content.

Open a line of communication

Provide a channel through which your audience can contact you. This channel should be specifically for users who are creating content. You can do this by providing a specific support email address, a phone number, or a page they can DM on social media.

Monitor performance

Track how the content users create for your brand is performing. By doing so, you can identify what types are the most effective. You can then adjust your guidelines and instructions to encourage the creation of that type of content.

Enhance your Strategy Today

User-generated content can go a long way towards boosting brand trust. Not to mention that it’s a great way to expand your content marketing strategy. As such, make sure that you encourage the creation of high-quality user content. You can do this by providing your audience with general guidance and encouragement to drive effective user-generated content creation.