Last updated on November 16th, 2022
“Let’s meet again for a coffee.”
“Yeah, sure. Great idea!”
“Friday night, then?”
“Sure, let’s keep it on Friday.”
Does this conversation seem like taken from one of your last meetings? If yes, the person is already interested in you and wants to take it ahead. Well, the world works like that. You meet people, you share your views, some of them like your opinions and some don’t. Some of them become a part of life, for a long time to come. Because most of the businesses run in a real-world scenario, the same is true for the businesses.
The success of every business does not only depend on the quality of your work but also how well do you communicate your ideas, make a good content strategy.This makes having a good content strategy one of several content marketing challenges.
Communication becomes even more of a crucial factor in content marketing because here all you have to do is convey your idea in the most useful form to the reader. The reader is already looking for a solution, and if you could convince him/her that the solution you are offering is exactly what he/she needs, the game is on.
Content strategists do always take the buyer’s persona into account while creating a content strategy. However, next time when you are working on your content strategy, ask yourself a question- do you really understand your target audience?Does your content strategy convert visitors to customers?
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I am requesting you to ask this question to yourself because the personalized content is the soul of the content marketing and if you don’t understand your target audience, you won’t be able to design the content accordingly. In the end, it’ll be generic in nature, without providing the relevant information to the relevant set of people.
Again, I ask you a question – Does your content strategy really differentiate a new reader from a returning visitor, does your content strategy convert visitors to customers? If not, probably you are also creating generic content irrelevant to everybody.
As harsh as it sounds, you are doing no good to anyone.
How to Generate Traffic by Differentiating between a Visitor and a Customer?
At the most fundamental level, both are looking for information. Information that can solve certain problems of theirs or that can add value to the way they work. The difference between both kinds of readers is what they want from the information.
What does a First-Time Reader want?
Your first-time readers come from the search engine results or the shared social media content. They aren’t very familiar with the kind of work you do, and most of the time they aren’t even interested in knowing you. They simply want the information and get themselves out of it. However, that is not true for every first-time reader. Some of them become genuinely interested in your work and want to bookmark you, and would like to visit you again for more information.
First-Time Reader
1. Comes across your content usually by a search engine or a social media post share
2. Usually looking for basic and fundamental industry information
3. May or may not bookmark your content based on the quality of your content and his/her approach towards the industry
4. 95% of the first time readers will never return to your website.
What does the Second-Time Visitor want?
The second time visitor is already familiar with your content and is on the way of taking you as a credible source of information. However, the visitor is looking for more in-depth analysis, trends, industry relevant information and thought leadership based content. In simple terms, the second time visitor is asking you for more “commitment”. A comparison between a first-time reader and a second-time visitor would make it even clearer:-
Second-Time Visitor
1. Comes across your content by newsletter or your website for more in-depth information
2. Looking for in-depth analysis, trends and tools
3. Has already bookmarked your content and on the way of considering you a credible source of information
4. 96 % of the visitors are not ready to buy your product.
The key to conversion from a first-time reader to a second-time visitor and ultimately to the buyer is to provide a genuine, useful information to them and establishing yourself as a credible source. This will work only if you have a very strong content strategy In doing that, personalization is the key. However, no matter how informative and well organized your content is, it is not going to be read completely by everyone. That’s a harsh reality. Well, let’s talk about it in a bit details and also how to deal with it.
How Much Time a does Reader give to your Content Piece?
- Majority of the readers leave your website in less than 8 seconds
- If you are not able to engage the readers in 59 seconds, they are not going to read your content any further
- 70% of the Facebook users make comments solely based on the headline of the post.
Harsh. Isn’t it? But that’s the reality. Life is fast-paced and not everyone is going to read your whole content, but you have to make it work for those who read it completely. The approach towards your content and the time dedicated to your content is different in your loyal and non-loyal readers. This is clear with this chart:-
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If anything that is clear with this graph is that you need to establish a sense of credibility in your readers to get their valuable attention. Then only, you get to talk.Make your content strategy convert visitors to customers.
But, the real question of how to do that? So, let’s talk about it:-
How to Convert Website visitors into Customers with your Content Strategy?
You need to ask these questions while drafting your content.
- Is your content credible and original?
- Does the article have spelling, grammar, or factual errors?
- Have you written it for users or the search engines?
- Have you edited?
- How do you see your article – story, essay, or mere encyclopedic representation of facts?
- Does the article work as a great resource with external links to good articles?
Image Source: blog.theenginuity.com
And as you have the answer to all these questions, you need to:-.
- Keep all visuals (photographs, graphics, and video) clean and professional. Do not use the images which are out of context. It distracts the reader.
- Keep it error free. There should not be any grammatical error, spelling mistake or any typing error. It doesn’t only raise the question mark on your credibility and authority of the field, it acts as a great distraction for the reader.
- Draft your article, like you are really talking to someone and helping them solve their problem.
- Make use of content marketing resources.
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Voila! Now, your content is ready to fetch you the readers, traffic and the buyers. However, you will need some patience to get there. Content is the most effective tool for marketing, but it can take some time to show its effect. After an appropriate amount of time,check your ROI and ask yourself again-Does my content strategy convert visitors to customers? How much time, you ask? Well, why don’t you take a look at this article for your questions – How long do I need to do content marketing before I see results?
