How to write content that converts
Content marketing and lead generation for startups and businesses who want to scale up
As a content marketer for the last 14 years and counting, I have come across several businesses who were failing because of a number of reasons. One of them was the absence of a content marketing strategy. Therefore, if you run a business or plan to open one, here is what you should do before getting started.
Clarify your marketing message
If you are showcasing your products and services in a laundry list of items that people can buy, you are not helping them. ‘Clarify’ also means to let one product or service stand out from the rest. For example, if you are running a multi-cuisine restaurant, highlight three dishes that are unique to your place. This is part of enabling local SEO in your city. Make that the ‘chef’s specials’. Similarly, if you are selling a gadget, stay away from technical jargon and say it simply. Like Apple did with its iPod: ‘1000 songs in your pocket’.
Create a lead magnet
A lead is only good if you know how to target and re-target them. Here is where ‘lead magnets’ play a crucial role. They can be any freebie you offer in exchange for the potential patron’s email ID. These could range from an ebook to a one-page PDF, such as a checklist, cheatsheet, editable template, and so on.
Write blog posts
Write 1200-3000-word blog posts on a subject that your business is all about. If it’s a restaurant, you could share recipes that people will not get anywhere. Offer value in every blog post, and people will ‘subscribe’ to your newsletter for more. The knowledge you share for free will turn some people into paying patrons. Because they now trust you and believe in your expertise. Your personal voice in the blog posts resonates with them. Therefore, it’s important to not only offer immense value, but also convince the search engines that you know better. Just google the title of the article you plan to write and read the top ten articles shown on the first page. Now, make sure your piece is way better than all of these. This is how you can rank better than them. It’s a quality and quantity game. Write the ‘100 greatest Chinese recipes of all time’, and see how that one piece will be shared across the globe. This is content gold that will never cease to dazzle the search engines, generating organic (read ‘unpaid’) traffic to your blog or website.
Sequence your emailers
Once someone has given their email ID, you can send emailers every 2-3 days to get the lead into the middle of the sales funnel. If any emailer isn’t working, it’s only because there is a problem with the hook, story, or offer. Keep experimenting and see what works for you. For example, ‘the greatest recipes of all time’ is your hook. The recipes are the meat of your story. And your offer could be a 20% discount coupon or a ‘buy one, get one free’ if the readers like, comment, or subscribe to your podcast.
Appeal to their emotion, logic and fear
Every newsletter should have a combination of one or more of these elements. If you are selling a VPN service, talk about how other people are making the most of your product or service (emotion). Then talk about how it makes sense to invest in $10 for complete peace of mind in a surveillance state (logic). And then, offer them a limited time 50% discount to create a sense of urgency and scarcity. Playing on people’s emotion, logic and fear should make your newsletter resonate with your potential clients. As the attention span of people is down to seven seconds, your newsletter should not be more than 125 words. Therefore, you can use emotion in your first three follow-up emailers, and then use a ‘logic’ driven mailer, followed by ‘fear’.
Follow-up
Once your 3 or 5 introductory mails are sent out, continue to enthral your leads with value-added information through blog posts, videos, webinars, podcasts, and even Clubhouse rooms. Make sure, you respond to their every query, and even do follow-up posts on a topic they are concerned about. That’s how you show that you care, and build a community of ‘super fans’.
Paid ads
If you want to scale your business quickly, paid ads can get you there. There is one trick to this, and it can only come from trial and error. Always invest $1 and get it back through the business you generate from ads. That is how you can create a profitable sales funnel that continues to grow as you scale your business and offerings.
And finally…
Content marketing is a long game with much trial and error. You will have to tweak your content strategy, and engage in split testing to see what content sells more than the other. Closely follow the strategies used by your competitors, and see how you can better them. Most of all, you need to be consistent. Therefore, if YouTube is your top of the funnel and podcasting is at the bottom of your content sales funnel, make sure you show up on the same day at the same time for at least 2-3 years. Consistency and never-giving-up is the name of the game.
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How to write content that converts