Are you tired of reading about content marketing? Everyone is talking about viral content, beautiful visuals, flawless articles, detailed infographics, increasing article length and, of course, keywords, keywords and more keywords.
There is a reason everyone is talking about content marketing: it works.
Everyone knows content marketing works, so how does your business stand out from the rest?
Businesses are getting increasingly creative with how that they are approaching content marketing to help increase sales. You can’t just stick in a couple of selected keywords and lift your website on Page 1 of the search results.
No, if you want to reach your audience, you will need to take tried and tested content marketing and blending it with innovations that will help you stand out from the competition.
To get you started, here are a couple of creative content marketing tips that you can use for your business.
#1 Use your content to drive customer engagement
Your content should act as an entry point into your well-designed customer experience. Understanding where your customer is in the buyer’s journey (example: awareness, evaluation, decision) allows you to anticipate what information will guide them further.
Map your customer journey and use strong calls to action to help them get the information they want.
#2 Marketing automation will increase CTA completion
Our attention span is short. So is the attention span of your prospects and customer. There are just so many distractions that it’s hard to remain focused on one particular thing. The result is that it leaves countless websites with half-finished tasks, unfulfilled sign-ups and abandoned shopping carts.
Marketing automation, Remarketing, and purposeful emails can help increase completion rates by getting visitors to return to your website and retrieve abandoned shopping carts.
Making use of thoughtful automated follow-ups, not spammy or sketchy, can make a difference in the rate of completion of your calls to action and increase sales behavior.
#3 Make Sharing Content Easy
You are flooded with email, posts, and tweets. So are your customers. Even if they love your content, it’s difficult for your audience to decide on the most effective 140-character pieces to publish. So make it easy for them.
When you write your next blog, incorporate a “Click to Tweet” link and a pre-written tweet, all set up and ready to go?
Like this:
Tweet: Check out these hacks to increase software sales – #3 is ironic. http://ctt.ec/Lb7Mz+
Instead of waiting for your readers to feel inspired enough to come up with tweets of their own, I make sharing as easy as one click.
#4 Welcome Guest (Guest blogging that is)
While there continues to be debate around Google frowning upon some of the negative behaviors associated with guest blogging there are reasons you will want to take advantage of this idea.
Guest blogging is a good opportunity for new exposure.
Having a guest blogger on your site can mean an introduction to their audience. That could increase your contact list and help you build awareness. The same goes for being a guest blogger on someone else’s website.
It’s can be a win-win for promoting your software sales and a good way to show cross-brand strength.
#5 Offer More
More and more content marketing teams are focusing on eBooks and eCourses as a way of getting more the attention of their potential customers. If you want to increase your software sales, try giving your prospects a resource first.
A free eCourse or eBook can establish authority, educate and inform prospects, and help to guide them along their buyer’s journey.
If you are providing resources like these, you’re actually doing two things at once: you’re helping strengthen your brand as an authority in the industry, and you’re gaining the loyalty of customers who ultimately will increase your software sales.
Final Word
These content marketing hacks are by no means a shortcut for good work. They are the product of combining creativity and knowledge. You can make use of any of these tips right now to improve sales growth, but the key is to make them your own.
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