How to Write Creative Content that Converts
The purpose of your content is to attract visitors to your website that will convert as they follow your inbound marketing strategy. However, the leap from search engine result visitor to loyal, paying customer is no small jump. While you may view your blog or other written sections of your website as simply a means to the end of new profits and sales statistics, the creative content that you compose is what will engage those visitors, spark their interest, and keep them clicking all the way to your payment page.
As you beef up your site, there are several ways to ensure that your content is not only creating a funnel for a potential buyer to become a customer, but also developing a relationship with your reader. This is where the creativity of your copywriting comes in. With your buyer personas in mind, use these tips to engage your reader, connect them to your product or service, and lead them to join your community as a customer.
Craft an Identity
Based on the profile of your customer, craft an identity for your company that informs how you strategize your website content. Then, stay consistent as you explain the benefits of your product. In journalism school, you might learn the elements of this written identity using the terms voice, tone, and style. No matter the extent of your experience as a writer, it’s important to work with your team of content developers and copywriters to establish what exactly are the voice, tone, and style of your brand:
- Voice: your content personality
- Tone: your content attitude
- Style: the more technical elements that characterize your written content
With these elements in place, your team can move forward to express the highlights of your company on its web pages and in promotional materials with a unified sense of creativity. Across all platforms, readers will be able to recognize your brand identity and develop a familiarity that converts them into loyal customers.
Stay Relevant
A website is never static and maintaining creative content requires constant updates. Even if you’re thinking there’s nothing new to mention about your product or service, there is always new language to spice up your website and keep your content fresh. Try throwing in some cultural references or address the importance of your business in the context of local or global affairs.
In addition, your marketing strategy should include blog posts, social media, or a news page on your website, where you can provide updates for your customers. Besides staying relevant when it comes to search engine results, these spaces can also enhance your conversion rate optimization by providing more opportunities for potential customers to find and engage with your company. With these more free-form platforms, you’ll find success by exercising your creativity to publish irresistible content for your readers that’s compelling, relevant, and shareable.
Excite your Reader
Once you have the basic outline of your content, it’s time to add in those punches that will encourage your readers to click, select, swipe, or sign up to convert. Add some spunk to your content with action words that will reach out and grab the attention of readers. If using imperatives, isolate or bold these sentences in order to alert the reader and catch them as their eyes may gloss over longer paragraphs or sentences. In addition, a sharp exclamation here or there at the end of a section of text is always a good way to attract attention and share your enthusiasm about your product or service in your writing.
Perhaps the best way to add excitement to your content and optimize your conversion rate is by linking to an offer that is related to your product or service, using a call-to-action button. A call-to-action (CTA) is the signal to your reader about what action they should take next, whether it is to download something, navigate to a new page, fill out their information, or any other number of things. CTAs are a great place to exercise those creative content skills because they are all about psychology. A CTA can either feel too pushy or it can seamlessly fit in, to the point where clicking the button is not even a question in the reader’s mind. Take a look at your current content and your content identity to create a CTA that maximizes your page’s conversion rate optimization potential.
Enhance Readability
As you get all of your ideas down onto the page, do not forget to pay attention to the layout and formatting of your content. This provides an opportunity to get creative too, as you can use headers, spacing, bulleted lists, or text formatting to break up your content and emphasize key points about your product or service. Overall, the key to publishing readable content involves limiting large chunks of text where your reader is prone to get lost or distracted from your main point. Instead, keep your content direct, clear, and to the point.
Another way to encourage more site visitors to convert is by publishing content in different formats that you can offer on your site. Turn that next creative idea into an eBook or white paper that a potential customer can download either for a fee or for free in exchange for their contact information. These are also great ways to repurpose past content with new life. Including new insights or simply adding a newly-designed flair, these offers are a great way to both attract visitors and lead them along the buyer’s journey.
Experiment with Media
Using media throughout your web content is a great way to energize your site and hold your audience’s attention. It has never been easier to insert photos and videos within content management systems, so now is the perfect time to start building your media library with digital assets. Although stock photos are always available, try combining them with metrics or quotations from your content bank to add your company’s unique voice and align them with the rest of your content strategy. Many tools, such as Canva, Venngage, or Piktochart are all easy tools to create custom infographics, as well.
According to a Huffington Post article, video marketing is the “new darling of the marketing world,” so why not put your creativity into a shareable video that highlights your company, product, or service? Although creating and editing engaging marketing videos takes time and effort, incorporating this type of content into your marketing strategy is a strong way to boost your conversion rate optimization. As videos become more integrated with websites and social media, visitors to your website are more likely to expect and respond favorably to video content, so get started!
There are plenty of ways to convert your site visitors into customers through your online presence, but how you approach your content plan is a great way to exercise your creativity while doing so. In the process, you’ll distinguish your company and attract visitors that will follow your progress all the way to becoming a future promoter. Have fun and start seeing results in your conversion rate optimization metrics by using a revived creative content strategy.