By ,
Published May 03, 2016
We all know content marketing is today’s de facto digital promotional strategy, but do you know just how big it is?
According to a 2012 study from AOL and Nielsen, 27 million pieces of content are shared every day, and this volume is only expected to continue growing as more brands recognize its value.
However, while content is a very valuable component of any marketing campaign -- online or otherwise -- many brands have discovered that increasing quantity isn’t always an effective way to improve results.
KISSmetrics, Skyword and other content marketing leaders all agree that brands need shift their focus from broadcasting static content to delivering personalized content to visitors, making custom content an important consideration in 2015 and beyond.
A number of companies offer marketing automation solutions. All of the leading providers, including Hubspot, Pardot, ACT-ON and Marketo, use personalization tokens to track consumers and provide custom content.
Certainly, it’s a good idea to research your options carefully before choosing a marketing automation tool. G2Crowd has a list of additional tools worth looking into, which includes independent reviews of each, though you won’t go wrong selecting any of the four popular options listed above.
Related: The 4 Essentials of the Most Read Content
Every customer has unique needs, priorities and expectations, and you’ll need to keep this in mind while building custom content paths for them.
Here are some factors to consider:
Consider the mindset of every potential visitor. This will give you more insight to offer more relevant content and create effective calls to action.
Develop separate landing pages for each customer that you plan to target. Here are some ways to customize your landing pages:
After you develop your content, you’ll need to login to your marketing automation interface to start uploading it.
The interface for each marketing automation platform is slightly different, but the overall process is fairly similar across each service.
Here are some steps you’ll need to take, regardless of the program you’re using:
In general, the process is pretty straightforward. Your marketing automation provider will have tutorials on it, though you can also contact customer support for additional assistance.
Related: The 5 Reasons Why Long-Form Content Needs to Be in Your Marketing Strategy
Traffic is an essential component of any content marketing strategy.
Your marketing automation tool will automatically display custom content to your visitors based on the traffic channel that you use, which is a great way boost conversions. However, choosing targeted traffic sources is still vital.
Search engine optimization continues to be a great way to get traffic, but the time commitment required to achieve high rankings has left many businesses looking to paid ads as an alternative to drive quick page views.
Email marketing is another great approach, as most marketing automation tools also offer email list management tools. You can build a list of email subscribers and nurture relationships with them over time. Using this information, you can offer separate landing pages to visitors, based on which list they initially subscribed to.
There’s no way around it -- perfecting your custom content marketing campaigns is going to take time. You’ll need to conduct extensive A/B testing to measure your conversions and make changes to improve your results.
As you refine your approach, try playing around with any of the following variables:
Of course, there are countless variables that can impact your conversions. Marketing automation software allows you to provide carefully targeted content to your website visitors, but you’ll still need to do some trial-and-error testing to optimize your strategy.
By developing the custom content that will appeal to visitors at all stages of your sales process and testing the results you see as part of your overall content marketing strategy, you’ll position your brand well to take advantage of the targeted traffic it receives.
Are you currently using custom content? If so, share any of the tips or tricks you’ve discovered in the comments section below!
Related: 5 Ways Content Can Make Your Brand a Thought Leader
https://www.foxnews.com/us/serve-your-customers-custom-content-with-these-5-steps