DISCLAIMER: This post is written as a live blog from Conversion Conference. There may be typos and grammar to make my high school English teachers weep. Please excuse those its a fast-paced conference with back-to-back sessions and no time for proofing or even proper writing.
Full coverage of the event can be found here.
Vertical Measures takes the stage in the session “How To Map Your Content To The Sales Funnel”. He starts chatting persona.
Understanding the issues your potential client is trying to solve is critical in determining not just your messaging but also the content types that you should product.
That is understanding the stages of the buying cycle:
Awareness – editorial content, social media
Consideration State – webinars, expert eGuides, hot to videos
Decision Stage – product comparisons, case studies, user manuals
Words people would use in these stages:
Awareness – resolve, upgrade, etc.
Consideration – service, solution, tool, etc.
Decision- test, review, comparison, etc.
Once you have identified the stages then you can match those to your personas and ensure you have offers at each stage geared to your persona.
At this stage you can map out your content plan to capture the visitor at each stage of the process. This will not only grab the visitor early but reinforce your authority as they continue the research cycle. The average car buyer will spend 10 hours researching their decision in advance.
Remember that there will not just be one path or focus. You may need to create content and craft offers for different personas at different sages of the process.
There are 5 types of content that work:
- Cost/Pricing
- Problems/Issues
- VS/Comparisons
- Reviews
- Best/Top
This is the best content but it’s also the content that will5 produce the best results. Even if you can’t answer the question directly you can inform them about the variables.
He rarely does keyword research and just focuses content on the types of queries people would be looking for at different stages. (My note: I do worry this might cause issues with thinking all consumers are like the business owner which is unlikely and even the terms might be off but it can work well if you understand the user or as people who aren’t experts)
He lists Yale Appliance as an example. They just did some research into what people wanted to know and produced that content. Their organic traffic went up 600%.
So don’t focus on what’s cool or fun, focus on bottom of the funnel and what your users want to know.
He suggests a hub and spoke model. That is a key point of content and then over 90 days a bunch of spoke content (supporting content). A guide would be a hub example and then press releases, etc. that focus on getting people back to the hub piece.
To find ideas just ask yourself, “What are we asked every day?”
Great. Thanks for posting, Dave. I feel like I am there, and that it’s a great conference.
I’m a big believer in generating content based on different personas and the info they need on their path to purchase. I’ve advocated exactly that on my own blog. But I don’t think that needs to come at the expense of keyword research.
Certainly, if I had to do just one, I wouldn’t choose keyword research. But the two approaches work well together. The personas and stages tell you what type of information you need to supply, and the questions you need to answer. The keyword research helps you finesse the way you supply the answer. It’s a solid combination.
Indeed it is. And that’s why you’re successful at what you do. π