[Wil Reynolds, CEO, SEER Interactive, 2:59]
Continuing the conversation with Wil Reynolds, CEO, SEER Interactive. In part one we talked about how what we learned in the sandbox applies to search.
In our second conversation we get more granular and take a pragmatic look at writing content to help people become more educated and make better decisions about a topic.
What's the best use of resources when producing content? Which top three things marketers should be thinking about when developing content for their Website?
The first thing is not putting content where people aren't looking.
Start with keyword research to learn what they are searching for. This helps with budget requests as well. When you do your research and are able to show that thousands of people plug in certain terms, you are in a better position to justify budget allocations toward a piece of content that will deliver it.
Then you need to know the number of visitors it takes to convert one lead. Say it takes ten visits to a piece of good content to get one conversion. So now you have something you can take to your boss and make the case.
If I can get five hundred out of ten thousand people who search for a term to my site by developing one piece of content that costs $1,000 or $2,500 once, knowing that I can convert one out of every one hundred who view the content, that means five of them, each for a yearly contract of, say, $25,000.
This is the kind of thought process marketers need to bring to the table.
Very often, as content marketers, we don't present that logic. Instead, we talk about what we think people want. We don't go to the CEO or CMO and make the argument for how one piece of content can make the company money directly.
Using the tools we have to help have this conversation is the biggest tip. People almost risk their careers when they go to their boss and asking to invest resources for building content without presenting the framework for the return on that investment.
A year later, if you haven't set up key performance indicators and didn't do the research to find out if people are consuming that content, and didn't do any outreach once the content was there to point people to it, then you're back to square one. In the best cases, your budget gets cut. There are less rosy prospects as well.
Eliminate those risks in Web content production by doing these three things:
- Make sure people are looking for the answers you plan to provide
- Have a plan to promote the content by reaching out to the people who are asking those questions and pointing them to it
- Know how you're going to make that matter to the C-level, down to leads, otherwise you're not going to get buy-in
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