Today’s guest post is from Andrew Gazdecki, the founder and CEO of Bizness Apps on content marketing.
Content marketing has become an important strategy for enhancing the customer experience, staying relevant and valuable in the minds of clients and converting consumers into avid fans of your business. More and more companies are placing a heavy importance on blogging and generating other content that is valuable to users. Unfortunately, as more of these firms turn to content marketing, it becomes increasingly difficult to have your pieces of content noticed by consumers.
Some marketers try and circumvent the heavy competition of content by optimizing their campaigns to post at off-peak times, use underutilized channels and produce content more valuable than the relevant. An alternate strategy is to use different types of content. A lot of content marketing strategies end at blogging, but there are lots of other content types that have high conversion rates and are very engaging to consumers, such as surveys, quizzes, interactive infographics and more.
Knowing what these types of content are and how they can be leveraged to engage and convert audiences is critical towards achieving an advantage on the content marketing playing field.
Surveys, Polls, and Questionnaires
Companies miss out on a lot of relevant customer information simply by not asking for it. In fact studies show that 24.8% of customers like to share their thoughts and experiences with their favorite brands. That’s what makes social media so appealing — the communication. Surveys and questionnaires are an engaging type of content that provides a secure means for your customers to share what they think. You can ask questions that are relevant to your current objectives, and the responses you receive can be utilized to make better future decisions.
Interactive Infographics and Data Visualizations
Depending on the scope of your business and industry, you may deal with complex topics that are difficult to explain, but important for your target audiences to understand. For example, a renewable energy company may have to explain emerging legislation and how it will affect the industry. An infographic or data visualization offers a means to communicate complicated subjects in a format that is easier for viewers to comprehend. Data visualizations can transform raw, cold numbers and data into a visual story that is not only more understandable but makes numbers and otherwise boring data interesting.
Quizzes, Puzzles, and Trivia
People like to flex their brainpower on silly, short quizzes and puzzles. Every once in a while, a puzzle or a seemingly simple math problems circulate social media. Even if you don’t engage by clicking the ‘Like’ button, you must admit that you spend a couple of minutes trying to solve the problem. Quizzes can produce high conversions if you can subtly (or not so subtly) connect it to your business. A potential customer may discover that they do not know as much as they thought about the subject in question and then you offer them the solution. Picture a mattress company that offers a quiz asking questions about how much sleep is appropriate, the effects of bad sleeping posture, etc. The quiz taker discovers that they are getting bad sleep and potentially damaging their body. Then, the mattress company can provide a solution — a superior sleep experience with one of their products.
Calculators
Some companies have found huge returns in calculator tools that allow customers to input their information/data and receive a price, estimate, etc. that is unique to that client’s situation. For example, a technology company can help businesses determine whether they should build a mobile app based on the functionality they require. Calculators achieve high conversion rates because a potential buyer can quickly determine if a purchase makes sense or doesn’t.
This isn’t applicable for every company or industry, but considering how interactive they are and the high conversion rate they can deliver, it is worth thinking of any way you can leverage a calculator in your content marketing strategy. You may have to think creatively about how you can use one.
Interactive Videos
Thanks to social media channels and mobile smartphones, videos have become very, very popular. YouTube receives 30 million visitors each day and those visitors watch 5 billion videos. Watchable content is incredibly shareable, engaging and it converts big. Videos are already hugely common types of content, but now they are becoming even more interactive. Third party software allows you to create videos with clickable elements. You can pose questions or small surveys inside the video that make them extra engaging while providing you with important data and insights.
Giveaways, Prizes, and Contests
It is no secret that people like saving money and getting free stuff. Free is a powerful motivator, which is why giveaways and contests produce so much engagement on social media channels. You can incentivize participation in any of these activities by providing a special discount or free giveaway. These fun competitions can produce significant gains when customers let their competitive nature take over. It also encourages others, whom may not already be your clients, to take part because of the fear of missing out and then become a customer at the conclusions of the contest.
Assessments
While quizzes pose questions that the audience may or may not know, evaluations are less about knowledge and instead inquire about the personality and opinions of the assessment taker. The Internet media company Buzzfeed has made assessments extremely popular among consumers. In fact, these types of content boast a 12-28% click through rate with a conversion rate of 9.4%.
If you’ve ever ventured out to discover the best app makers, ecommerce platforms, or marketing automation platforms based on your business needs, you are familiar with what an assessment is. This type of content draws people in through their curiosity and, like quizzes, can connect them to a solution that your company provides and thereby increases conversion rates.
Final Thoughts
Finding new ways to produce content and attract engagement is an essential practice to remain competitive in the content marketing game. With nearly every business turning to blog articles and other common forms of content to provide value and convert more consumers into potential customers, companies are being challenged to find ways to stand out.
Incorporating these different types of content will make your overall content marketing processes more successful; it will engage and convert more of your audiences than only trying to match the blog content of your competitors. The only real question that remains is what type of content your marketing department will leverage first.
Andrew Gazdecki is the founder and CEO of Bizness Apps — making mobile apps affordable and simple for small businesses. We’re a do-it-yourself iPhone, iPad, Android & HTML5 app platform that allows any small business to simultaneously create, edit, and manage mobile apps without any programming knowledge needed. Think of us as “WordPress for mobile app creation.” Many of our customers are white label mobile app resellers — marketing or design agencies that use our platform to cost effectively build mobile apps for small business clients.
