Content marketing is undeniably one of today’s hottest marketing strategies, with companies from Anaheim to Atlanta cranking out content and sharing it on social media. But is that enough to get results? Let’s look at some numbers.
In the fourth quarter of 2013, conversion rates averaged just 3.06 percent across desktop, mobile and tablet devices. That means that 97 percent of the work you’re doing is not having the desired impact on your prospects.
Turning that 3 percent into a number a CMO can love is what Conversion Rate Optimization is all about. Let’s look at several aspects of CRO and explore how you can implement them into your strategy to get the best results possible from your content marketing.
Conversion rate optimization is the process of using data from your website’s visitors to create a better user experience and improve rates of conversion.
What’s conversion? Here you get to decide what constitutes success. Is it an ebook download, an email newsletter subscription, or the purchase of a product? Obviously, this is an important decision. Another is determining your numerical goals.
Without CRO, there’s no reliable way to tell whether you are achieving your goals and earning a return on your content marketing investment. Sure, you can count the number of social followers or blog visits each month, but it’s impossible to tell how many of those people became customers without tracking, targeting, and testing, all of which are CRO tactics.
You probably already use one or more CRO techniques in your current marketing strategy, but to be truly successful you’ve got to learn how to put the many pieces together into a cohesive, engaging strategy. When done properly, CRO will help you:
Check back next week for a thorough overview of the elements of conversion rate optimization.