Data Secrets to Creating Content That Sells
There's so much to learn about digital marketing! I love it! It's so fun, it's always a challenge, and there's always more to learn.
The content process we have today has taken us almost 20 years to come up with. The last two years have been hard (but very gratifying) work.
We've tried countless experiments and delivered really amazing results. I'm so proud of the work we've done!
Today, I'm sharing a few of the data secrets behind content strategies.
Remember one thing About Content
Here's the ONLY thing you need to remember:
Marketing is all about capturing the right people's attention and getting them to trust you as fast as possible.
— Dafne Canales
Think of yourself as a publisher
Ok, so what does that mean? It means you need to think of your marketing as if you were the publisher of the [Insert Your Company Name Here] Magazine.
The fastest way to get people to know you, like you, trust you — and buy from you — is to PROVE to them that you're the expert they've always needed for the particular problem they're facing at that particular time.
Use Content to Prove you're an expert
You produce content that is original, engaging, and useful, and don’t forget to check that it’s mobile-friendly.
There's tons of repetitive, old, re-hashed content online. What gets you recognized as an expert (and ranks well in search engines) is content that's unique and helps people solve a problem.
What's the point of good content?
Before I started working with you, Dafne, I had no idea how important it was to create original, valuable content. I never understood why people would pay more than $10 for an article, and I couldn't imagine why some would pay hundreds.
And now that I see how much difference your content marketing has made to our bottom line, I can't imagine how businesses can live without it.
— Brian Bird, Owner, Champion's Creed
That's what Brian said to me the other day, and he encouraged me to teach more about WHY business owners need to spend the time/money/resources on good content marketing.
Here's why great content is important:
1. Shows you're an expert.
Your website is the first place your target market goes when they’re trying to research who you are. Original and valuable content shows that you’re an expert and increases the visitor's trust factor.
2. You only have 3 - 7 seconds to capture their attention.
Stats show that you only have 3 - 7 seconds before your visitor will click away. Good layout, mobile-friendliness, and valuable content ensure that your visitor will stay on your website and learn more about your company.
At Spartan Spark, we base many of our marketing decisions on that 3- to 7-second rule. One of the unique things about Spartan One software is that we've been able to reduce the time it takes a website page to load to under 1 second. We've received a ton of grants and funding to work on that unique part of the software. We know it's a huge factor in getting better conversions. Google's stats on Page Load Speed are incredible.
As page load time goes from
1 to 3 seconds, the probability of someone leaving the page increases 32%
1 to 5 seconds, the probability of someone leaving the page increases 90% (that's only a 2-second difference)
1 to 6 seconds, the probability of someone leaving the page increases 106% (that's only a 1-second difference)
1 to 10 seconds, the probability of someone leaving the page increases 123%
Page load time affects your content and your conversions because if your page takes more than a second or two to load, you've got even less time for visitors to see what you have to say.
More than 70% of websites have pages that load in 5 seconds or more
— Dafne Canales
Source: ThinkWithGoogle.com
3. Good Content Increases conversions.
When visitors come to the website and see that you’re actively writing content, they get the impression that things are going really well for you because you've got so much to say.
Through your content, your visitors get a feel for your company’s brand and that increases trust which increases conversions.
4. Brings traffic from social media.
When your target market sees valuable content on social media, they're more likely to want to learn more and click through to your website where your call-to-action and your marketing funnel are set up.
Sharing great content on social media also increases trust and ensures that your brand stays top of mind.
5. Makes you look successful.
When you set up a great content strategy, you want to create an outline or roadmap for your business that includes a variety of different kinds of content. It's not just about writing article after article. You need to capture people's attention in different ways.
Great content is all about storytelling and appealing to the 4 learning modalities: Written, Audio, Visual, and Kinesthetic — more on those topics later. ;)
By creating a mixture of content like that, your business looks like a rockstar. Your company looks successful, and your competitors will have a hard time keeping up. (Unless they read all these tutorials!)