Conversion is not and should not be the only reason why you're publishing
content. If
all your content is about conversion, your brand will come across as needy, desperate,
annoying, or overly salesy.
But that doesn't mean you shouldn't have any conversion content. Because you get more when
you ask. And if your content that asks isn't getting any, something's wrong.
So What Exactly Is Conversion?
Conversion is a tricky subject in marketing, because the stage of the marketing funnel where
you actually
make
the sale is also sometimes labeled "conversion." But that's not what I mean.
Conversion Is When the Audience Takes the Offer
When it comes to
content marketing, a conversion is
when a prospect takes an action that
indicates acceptance of an offer a piece of content makes, with that action being the explicit
and primary goal of the piece.
The Offer Can Vary
The completed action might be to fill out
contact
details and click "download." Or it might be
to follow a link to another page to learn about a product. Or it might be to start some kind of
interactive content journey (like a
product
selector). It could be a lot of things.
The action might be carried out at the bottom or end of a piece of content, though it doesn't
have to be (a landing page might have terms and conditions at the bottom).
The Audience Must Know What's Being Offered
Something important to remember here. For an action to count as a conversion, the content must
include an explicit and specific ask or offer tied to it in the main body of the content. In
other words, the prospect needs to know where they're going, what they're doing, or what's
going to happen next when they click.
If a link is presented without context (even at the end of a content piece), clicking it is
not a conversion.
Side Quests Don't Count
Even if a link has context or otherwise offers something, clicking it is not a conversion if
it's not the clear and obvious goal of the piece. For instance, if a link offers supplemental
information, but only incidentally, it's not a conversion.
Conversion is when you take the offer, not an offer.
The Content Makes the Offer, Not the Surroundings
If there's a prompt at the bottom of every
blog page
or webpage (like a "follow us" or
subscription prompt) that isn't part of the content itself, but instead the website navigation,
clicking it is not a conversion for that piece of content.
And if you're wondering why it doesn't count (considering that subscribership is often a goal
for a blog), remember that when something is offered every time it's not the offer, it's an
offer. And it's also not a clear offer.
When someone agrees to follow you or subscribe to your newsletter, they don't know what exactly
they're getting. They only know the format. The offer may be obvious but it's not clear.
And a conversion involves a clear and obvious offer, because you want a prospect's intent to
be clear and obvious when they click.
You don't want an accidental click showing up as a conversion. You don't want an "I'm just
looking" click labeled as one either. You don't even want a conversion to mean "I agree" or
"I'm ready to enter your brand's orbit." A conversion should mean more.
A conversion should mean "Your offer has lit me up like a pinball machine" and/or "I'm ready
to move forward."
So Why Isn't Your Content Converting?
Failure to convert can have many causes. Most of those mentioned here aren't mutually
exclusive.
1. Your Content Doesn't Target Current Buyers
I put this first because I think it's the lowest-hanging fruit most B2B marketers aren't
thinking about. Many will tell you to focus on customers with content. And yeah, you should
but that isn't enough to convert them (since
most of your potential
customers aren't
looking to buy right now).
If you want to convert, your content should be focused on a topic that current buyers would
want to know about (and it should make that clear in the title).
But a lot of conversion-focused content doesn't do this. B2B businesses will just put out a
whitepaper on the general state of their prospects' industry, or an e-book offering general
advice anyone in that industry would want to know, and expect the conversions to roll in.
But why would I volunteer to be bombarded by your spam if I'm not currently looking to buy?
You tell me.
2. There's No Call to Action
This is a mistake you sometimes see in blogs, and it hearkens back to the explicitness of
the ask I mentioned earlier. When you put a link at the end of an article but don't tell
the prospect where the link leads to or why they'd want to go there, clicking it is not a
conversion.
Making an explicit ask can be awkward, I know. But remember that your prospects are busy.
And the odds of them reading another blog right away are low, at least not without
a compelling reason. Hence the need for an explicit call to action (CTA).
But don't overthink the exact wording of the CTA. Because a CTA doesn't convince a prospect
to click, it reminds them to click. The content that accompanies the CTA does the
convincing.
3. You Ran a Bait and Switch
This might be when a blog article's title promises a legit piece of pure
awareness content
(not targeted at current buyers), but then about halfway to two-thirds of the way down the
page transforms into a sales pitch.
And I've seen companies where every blog follows this same formula. Other times the blog
will stop one-third of the way through and hide the rest of the information behind a link
or registration wall.
Imagine if I stopped right here and told you to submit your contact details to see the rest
of this article. Or lured you in with something you were searching Google for, only to
reveal that the answer is the shit I sell?
How would you feel about it? You'd probably feel like I'm jerking you around. And you might
feel like these are the tactics of a real lowlife. And lots of other people would feel that
way, too. And this can
damage
your brand.
So don't do it. It doesn't convert, even when the dwell times help your SEO.
4. You're Not Bringing in Enough Readers
It's called the marketing funnel for a reason, not the marketing waterfall. Even a superbly
written, high-value piece of conversion content won't convert everyone who reads it. In fact,
you're doing great if you're converting more than
10-15%.
But even at that rate, to convert ten to fifteen people, you need a hundred or more to show
up and read enough to see the offer. And if you can't muster that many, barely anyone will
convert at all.
You need numbers.
5. You Haven't Sufficiently Educated Your Buyers
This can happen with consideration content, like your product page. A prospect reads the page,
then you want them to contact you. But they often aren't ready to contact you just yet.
Maybe they're having trouble figuring out which model on your website is the best match for
them.
Maybe they have potential dealbreaker technical questions you haven't answered. Maybe your
product seems fine on paper but they have concerns about you as a vendor. About your
reputation. Your aftersales service.
This is why I frequently tell B2B businesses to create more
consideration content than they
are now.
It also means you shouldn't expect any one piece of consideration content to convert at a
particularly high rate (the consideration part of the journey will often be more lateral than
vertical), and that's okay as long as prospects eventually get where you want them to go.
6. You Haven't Sufficiently Persuaded Your Buyers
This problem is largely confined to
gated content
(aka
lead magnet content) Think about the
last time you had to fill out contact fields with honest information. Did you enjoy it? I didn't.
I don't trust businesses with my personal data. And I don't want to be on some brand's spam
firing range, either.
To convince prospects to surrender those details, you need to offer something they really want.
And the prospect needs to at least be open to the possibility that this particular piece of
content won't disappoint them (which gated content
often
does).
How do you do that? Well, that's a tricky balancing act. You want to tantalize your prospects
but not reveal your whole hand. And you don't want a landing page cluttered with excessive text
either, which slows things down (decreasing your conversion chances).
Having a good consultancy's name on the whitepaper is probably the best way to cut through the
noise. But a nice testimonial can also help (perhaps from an influencer or journalist you let
read the content).
7. Converting Is a Pain in the Ass
You want the conversion process itself to be as simple and frictionless as possible. People
hate handing over more info than they think is necessary (about
five
fields is the max).
It's also annoying when you hit "send" and don't see what you asked for because you just got
sent to another page where you have to hit another button. It's also annoying when the content
you asked for doesn't come up because of some pop-up blocker and there's no option for sending
it to your email.
Think about these things. Try the journey yourself. Have others try it. There are a lot of
potential ways to screw up the conversion process.
One Other Thing
The problems I've mentioned so far are content or promotion problems, which means they're
relatively easy for content or digital marketing people to deal with. And if your content isn't
converting, you'd better hope the problem is one or more of them.
Because if it isn't, you've got bigger problems, because it means the issue is marketing or sales
related. Your messaging or key selling points (KSPs) are muddled or aren't resonating. Or your
product just isn't scratching the right itch. And if it's one of those, back to the drawing
board.
Need help with your conversion content? Contact us
here.
See what I did there?
