How to create content that generates sales

“Content is king.” If you have been involved in digital business for more than a week, you must have heard or read this at least once by now.

Today more than ever, an incredible number of businesses are creating content daily and they’re always just a click away. But, have you ever noticed how almost all the search results beyond the first page of a search engine always look the same?

Everyone involved in digital marketing understands that producing content is critically essential to make it big today. But, not everyone knows how to turn their content into subscribers and sales.

It takes more than writing down about your business to turn a guest on your website or blog into a customer. You not only have to know your business and the value it offers, but what your visitors are looking for, too.

How a content that sells looks like

In today’s digital marketing world, content marketing is a crucial strategy to generate quality leads. Content marketing is a strategy that helps your company’s audience find useful solutions or insights through well written content such as tips and tricks, how-to’s or personal experiences.

Producing content may look like an easy task to accomplish, only it’s anything but. Before even penning your first piece, you must put a great content strategy in place. Also, it’s best to look upon your strategy as a perpetual work in progress. You will no doubt come across ideas as you implement your strategy that will help you refine it. As Kenneth Chenault, former CEO of American Express, said, “many people don’t focus enough on execution. If you make a commitment to get something done, you need to follow through on that commitment”.

A content strategy will be the greatest difference between educating your website visitors until they decide to become customers, or simply confusing them away with disassembled pieces of information. Organizing these strategic materials will boost your sales opportunities.

One of the biggest keys to succeeding in digital marketing rests in sharing the right information with a person at the appropriate time in their journey with brand. When you have the content properly mapped to your sales-funnel, the buyer’s journey becomes much easier. Your content itself becomes an indication on how sellers should be talking with the (hopefully) soon-to-be-customers.

How to create content that leads to sales

In order to create the proper content for each stage of your buyer’s journey, you must follow these 7 steps:

1 – Know your buyer-persona

After researching aspects that are common to your existing clients, you can put together a set of features you find common to most of them. This will form your buyer-persona.

A persona is a semi-fictional character that represents your ideal customer. Once you have created one or more personas, you will be able to design more assertive marketing campaigns based on them.

2 – Choose ideal content types

There are many kinds of content, such as infographics, ebooks, blog-posts, podcasts, workshops, webinars and others. Consider focusing on ones that are better aligned with your sales strategy and also with the buyer’s journey.

For example: if you’re writing content to the consideration stage of the buyer’s journey, you should also create webinars, case studies and users testimonials’.

3 – Chose your content distribution channels

You can distribute your content through many channels. The distribution means available to you can be divided into two groups: organic channels and paid channels.

Organic channels are free and include search engine rankings, blogging and guest article posting . While great for a low budget start, organic channels also take a lot of time to produce results.

On the other hand, paid channels cost money, but help you generate leads faster. Search engine/social ad networks and sponsored posts are great examples here.

Both distribution channels will require significant effort and shouldn’t be taken lightly. While you can always start with organic method and move to paid channels when  you have good cash-flow, you can also mix both strategies to generate more leads faster, too.

4 – Create a publishing calendar

At this point you already know who you want to attract, where to find them and how to talk to them. Having a publishing calendar will help you map out your posts and keep track of deadlines. Consistency is the secret to a great content strategy, after all.

5 – Publish guest posts

Publishing to a well-known business blog in your industry brings new visitors to your website. It also helps your website stand out in search engine pages.

6 – Optimize

When you have a constant stream of visitors (and hopefully, sales), it’s time to improve. Consider analyzing your analytics data to find out what your visitors like and don’t like. Use the insights to hone your buyer-personas and your blog to improve its search engine ranking and landing page conversions.

7 – Keep it fresh

It is essential to have regular meetings with the sales team to find out what your audience want. Insights gained can help your marketing team to go on with the right campaigns.

Being up to date on the hottest marketing trends, adjusting personas (if necessary) and staying on the same page with the sales team will help your strategy generate consistent sales for a long time.

Once you have all the 7 steps mentioned here down to a t, all you have to do is analyze your metrics, repeat what is working and adjust what needs to be improved. Before long, you will have a successful online presence and a loyal brand following.