The Content Marketing Institute‘s Joe Pulizzi said in a release that 60 percent of B2B marketers plan to use content marketing to drive relevant traffic to their websites and improve conversions. However, many companies fail to align their efforts across channels to act as a single conversion funnel along with the custom content.
According to the report, marketers that use several different channels on the web are actively positioning themselves to drive conversions and visibility. However, too many companies are viewing each channel as an isolated strategy, rather than a part of a broader funnel guiding users toward the same result.
According to CMI, the creation of website content, whether it’s news, blog posts, video or any other form, is the first step in content marketing. Each type needs a unique creation process and there may be more than one conversion, with different types of content supporting different on-site conversions. While SEO and thought leadership marketing efforts will effectively bring a portion of prospects to these pages where they’ll convert quickly, the distribution channels the web provides help drive leads and conversions.
Email and social media marketing provide a strong method of bringing content to consumers. Moreover, many prospects only find website content from these channels. This may be especially true of repeat customers, who enrolled to receive emails or followed the company after initial purchase.
Additionally, Pulizzi said that the targeting efforts that go into shaping website content must also be applied to strategies for distribution channels.
“Successful content marketing requires the right tools to support it, but, with the marketing technology space getting so crowded, it can be difficult to select the right platforms to deliver content to the audiences that matter,” he said in a release.
Even after conversion, email messages and social channels must be leveraged correctly to re-engage consumers and bring them even more relevant content. Creating separate email marketing efforts for repeat business can bring different site content to users that may not be of interest to first-time buyers.
With content marketing set to take off, it’s important for companies to ensure users find their website content. Brafton recently highlighted a study from the Direct Marketing Association that said companies are increasingly turning to email and social to drive prospects to conversion.
