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25+ Ways How to Increase Facebook Page Engagement

25+ Ways How to Increase Facebook Page Engagement Strategy

How to boost Facebook page engagement using 25+ different ways

Have you noticed a drop in your Facebook page engagement?

Wondering how you can increase Facebook page engagement with your fans?

Ways How to Increase Facebook Page Engagement

Making small changes to what and how you post can help your Facebook updates generate clicks, likes, shares and comments.

What Is Facebook Page Engagement?

Facebook page engagement is any action someone takes on your Facebook Page or one of your posts.

The most common examples are likes, comments and shares and it can also include checking in to your location or tagging you in a post.

Facebook page engagement matters because it can help extend organic reach.

How to Increase Facebook Page Engagement?

Here we will discover and discuss 25+ different ways to increase Facebook page engagement along with Facebook page engagement examples.

They are in no order of importance since all of them are equally important.

You can choose to use all of them, a few of them or mix and match whichever way that serves your business goals and objectives.

1. Ask a Question

One of the simplest and most effective ways to kick-start a conversation or dialogue with your Facebook fans is to ask them a Facebook page engagement question/s.

Basically you are inviting a response and always make sure it is an open ended question.

So if fans can relate to the question and you find a way to leverage people’s interests or needs they will find it hard not to answer.

Open Ended Questions

Here are some more examples of open ended questions to ask:

  • Specific: What is your favourite…?
  • Tips: How do you…?
  • Experiences: What is your favourite moment from experience/memory…?
  • Edgy: Do you think…? (controversial question)
  • Direct: Why do you…?
  • Events: Who is going / Who attended…?
  • Timely: Today is…, so what are you…?

2. Make Your Fans Happy

We all love a good laugh in our news feed. Lighten the mood for your fans and show them that you have some personality.

Have a Laugh

Do not overthink it – just do something to give your fans a chuckle. Keep their interests in mind and make sure the humour is relevant to your audience.

Even a touch of humour can spark engagement and shares.

3. Respond to Everyone

If you receive comments from your fans but fail to respond or acknowledge them then they will notice and stop engaging with you.

It only takes a few minutes throughout the day to monitor your social media activity and make a few quick or witty responses to fans who comment.

Another easy way to be interactive is to give shout outs. Facebook Live videos are instantly archived after they are finished.

This means you can always call attention back to them if you want to share additional value with your audience.

Respond To Everyone

To help boost your viewership among people who did not join you for the live show try sharing a quick post thanking people for watching.

You can also ask for new comments to generate additional Facebook page engagement questions.

The people who view your videos like to feel appreciated so show them some love wherever you can.

A little effort goes a long way toward making customers feel valued. Consistent responses make fans feel valued and they will be more likely to engage with future posts from your page.

4. Solicit Fan Content

Encourage your fans to share photos on a given topic or photos of your products.

This is a fun way to spark engagement and dialogue with fans. To go one step further perhaps run a contest or offer a giveaway to encourage more shares and submissions.

Increase Fan Content

Give fans a chance to be featured if they share their content.

Once engagement starts to climb you will begin seeing even more image posts from fans.

5. Go Live Video behind the Scenes

Visual content is much more likely to be shared on Facebook and this is especially true for video.

Facebook Live makes it easy to stream live video to your audience anytime you like and to leverage that engagement.

Live video gives your fans an all-access pass. Do not stress about the production value or not having a killer splash intro.

Fans enjoy seeing the people behind a business just being…people. Give fans a glimpse into how your company operates, show your personality and make a human connection.

Facebook Live

Live video is also a great way to take your fans with you on company outings or to major events and trade shows they are not able to attend.

Once your live broadcast is finished it is saved so others can view, share and enjoy it at any time.

To broadcast a live video – open your Facebook page from your mobile device.

In the status window click the option to Go Live. Give Facebook access to your camera and microphone, describe your video and click start.

6. Make Emotional Connections

If you want to elicit a big response from your fans, publish a post that appeals to your audience on an emotional level.

Share content and tell stories that pull at people’s interests, emotions, fears, and even their dislikes.

Brand loyalty does not come from a product but it comes from a customer’s joy at experiencing a shared sentiment or finding a solution that works.

Make Emotional Connection

Share content that connects with fans on an emotional level.

Emotion drives loyalty and engagement. It is why millions of people could not help but share different posts, video, images and more at any time.

Anytime you share or post content to your Facebook page – always ask yourself what kind of value you are providing to your fans.

The best way to get their attention is to make sure there is always a takeaway or something in it for them.

At the very least ensure to give them a good chuckle. At best – teach people how to do something, inspire them to take action and add value to their life.

Provide Value

Give away value is to build trust and engagement with your fans. A good value proposition:

  • Explains how your product solves your customers’ problems or improves their situation (relevancy)
  • Delivers highly specific benefits (quantified value)
  • Tells the ideal customer why they should buy from you and not from the competition (unique differentiation)

Make sure your give away or unique value is customer-focused and not just showcasing your product’s features.

This is especially true for your Facebook page engagement custom audience.

8. Tap into Trending Topics

There is a whole world of content revolving around us every second. Keep your ear to the ground for events and trends that might grab the attention of your audience.

How do I..

Work a relevant trending hashtag into a post to help boost organic visibility in social search.

Get creative to find engagement opportunities in trends. Both Facebook and Twitter make it easy to see which topics are trending based on posts and discussions.

Google Trends provides the same insight into trending topics based on search volume and published topics.

Trending Topics Buzz Sumo

If you are a local business then keep up with your city, county and state event calendars and watch for local trends that could be used in the same fashion.

To stay on top of trending stories in your industry you may currently use a mix of tools such as news readers, Twitter lists, LinkedIn groups, RSS feeds or Facebook feeds.

Now with BuzzSumo Trending you can monitor the content and articles that are trending in any topic across all social networks in a single feed.

You can view today’s trending content for all topics and for major categories such as News, Sports, Technology and Entertainment and also also see today’s trending videos. You can sort content by trending – the velocity of shares or the most shared stories today.

9. Recycle High Value Posts

You are not limited to posting only new content to your Facebook page.

Occasionally dip into your archives for an engagement spike for previous contents.

Recycle High Value Posts

Look at your Facebook posts from a previous year and identify posts that created a substantial amount of engagement.

Post that content again but tweak it so it is fresh and updated. Recycling posts allows you to spotlight popular content that some of your fans may never have seen.

10. Host Contests and Giveaways

Not many types of posts can trigger as much attention as a giveaway, contest or sweepstakes.

The greater the value and relevance of the giveaway – the greater the engagement and potential reach you may receive. The best part about giveaways is they could potentially cost very little.

Give away your own product or even a decent third-party prize and your costs are limited.

You are only paying out of pocket for the cost of the prize, fulfilment and whatever service you use to host the promotion.

Everyone loves free stuff and contests bring people out of the woodwork.

When you organise a Facebook Sweepstakes on your page the first thing you need to define is your goal for the Facebook page engagement campaign.

Here are the most common reasons to run Facebook page engagement giveaways or sweepstakes campaign:

  • Increase the number of followers or fans.
  • Build loyalty with your followers.
  • Increase reach on Facebook.
  • Convert followers into brand advocates.
  • Promote a specific product or a service.
  • Learn more about your followers.
  • Send clicks to your website.
  • Increase brand awareness or brand recognition.
  • Attach value to your brand.
  • Increase sales.
Host Giveaway or Contest

You can also reduce your costs by partnering with another brand for a giveaway. It is a good way to get the prize at a discounted rate or provided for free by the other brand.

Once the giveaway is live it can be promoted on your partner’s social media channels as well as your own for a significant Facebook page engagement boost reach.

If you use an app like Woobox , Wishpond, Shortstack,  Viralsweep or Rafflecopter to manage the event – you can capture email addresses for continued marketing and engagement.

Just make sure you follow Facebook’s page rules of engagement when hosting a contest or giveaway.

Unless you are publishing the same posts to all of your social media channels you probably have a goldmine of content that users on other channels have never seen.

Share Content On Social Media

Do not let that content gather dust. Look over your content, videos, and images on other platforms like YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat and so on and share the best with your Facebook fans.

This is a great way to fill a few gaps in your weekly posting schedule if you come up short on content ideas.

12. Ask Fans to Make a Choice

A fun way to get your fans to engage with you is to publish a this or that post.

How …

Ask people to choose a side, pick a favourite or make a choice between two things.

An added benefit is that it can create a division among your fans which can spark a dialogue in the comments.

Most of the time these debates are good fun but do be mindful of trolls. If you want to spark even more debate you can always mix in a little controversy but avoid politics.

13. Post When Your Fans Are Online

People use Facebook at different times of the day.

Some are on Facebook throughout the day while others may only check it in the early morning or evening.

So….

If you are randomly publishing a few posts each day then there is a good chance some of your audience will miss them.

By the time they check their feed your content could have been buried.

Facebook Insight for Peak Engagement

A better tactic is to post when your audience is most active. Check your Facebook page engagement metrics by looking at your Facebook Insights to access that data.

To access it – click the Insights tab and then click Posts in the left menu.

By default the dashboard shows data for when your fans are online. You can adjust the date range to compare blocks of time so you can see what times of the day your fans are most active.

Best Posting Times ON Facebook based on Industry

Posting late at night when your fans are less active is not necessarily a bad thing.

How come…

There is less competition in their feed so the people who are active on the site are more likely to see and engage with your content.

If that engagement jumps a bit then there is a better chance your audience will see it when they come online in the morning.

Try posting at different times to gauge and see what works best for you.

14. Share Relevant Images

A picture can say a lot more than a text post. A visually striking image can bring the rapid thumb-stroller to a halt.

Really??

Over time high clear visible Images have proven to improve engagement especially when they tell a story or connect with your Facebook page engagement custom audience on a personal or emotional level.

Reflect Personal Or Emotional Stance

The right images can help tell a story and encourage responses. According to BuzzSumo Facebook posts with images see more than double the engagement of basic text posts.

Use relevant, colourful and high-quality images. If you want to spice up your photos but do not have Photoshop-level skills then try free tools like Canva, Crello and Adobe Spark.

15. Engage With Other Brands

There is no hard and fast rule to say that you need to limit your Facebook efforts to your own page.

This is another great Facebook page engagement strategy.

Explore the social landscape, post to other pages and engage with brands when there is synergy and a shared audience that compliment your brand.

Engage with Other Brands

Engaging with other Facebook page post engagement ads or brands can put you in front of a whole new audience.

However you need to be tactful. The other business and their fans know what you are up to so do not spam their pages with selling your products or services.

Treat it with respect just like you would on your Facebook page engagement custom audience – build the relationship, share content and engage with new audience.

If you can work out an agreement to share someone else’s content then it would be mutually beneficial to boost organic traffic on both sides since both of you are exposed to a wider audience.

16. Source Crowd Feedback

People love giving feedback. When you request or ask for input the correct way your audience will jump on board and be quick to respond.

No way…

The added benefit is you can uncover opportunities to improve your business and delight your customers.

Source Crowd Feedback

Strategic questions can boost engagement while trying to elicit the desired feedback.

Imagine the potential boost to customer loyalty and future engagement if you make changes to your business based on the input you receive?

Give this method a try. It is a much more personal approach than surveys and you can respond to people directly to address their feedback.

The standing rule for any kind of marketing is that if you want your audience to do something you need to tell them to do it.

Use a call to action (CTA) in every post whether it is to prompt a comment, share, opt in, like, RSVP or any other action. This will encourage more page engagement on Facebook.

Call To Action - CTA

Always use a call to action to invoke or incite the desired response from fans and always tell your audience what you want them to do to encourage engagement.

If you have a blog post or other website content that has seen tremendous traffic – post it to your Facebook page and boost that post.

Right….

There is no need to throw hundreds of dollars at it- just give it a modest boost of $10 and target the people who like your page and their friends.

You would not necessarily see thousands of shares but a Facebook page engagement boost can help get your best content or post in front of your target audience and spark some engagement.

Boost Your Best Posts

The more people engage the greater the organic reach to their networks. This tactic can be especially effective if you are sharing high-value content with a lot of great takeaways such as a solution to a problem or an answer to a question.

To find your most popular content, check your Google Analytics. In the dashboard menu – click Behaviour > Site Content > All Pages. Review the metrics for each post to determine what content to promote on Facebook.

If you do not have any archived content to pull from then that is okay.

You can always boost other types of posts from this list with a small budget to give them an extra nudge.

Even your most loyal fans are interested in more than just your business.

Sharing big news from your industry will show your fans that you are focused solely not on promoting your business but to keep them informed about current topics. They will appreciate and respond to that.

Share News and Hot Topics

Only share news your fans will find interesting. Curate industry news from a trusted source and ask your fans what they think.

Ask and encourage them to contribute their thoughts and share the post.

20. Adjust Your Post Frequency

If your Facebook engagement is slipping it might have something to do with your post frequency.

Duhhh…

Posting too little like a few times a week would not help you establish relevance with Facebook’s algorithm and you will be fighting for space in your audience’s feed.

On the other hand posting too often can hurt you, too. Facebook tries to show users the most interesting and relevant content from everyone they follow.

Best Times to Post on Facebook

If you are posting about half a dozen times each day over a short period then expect a lot of your content to be missed.

To find a sweet spot try posting a few times each day at the times your fans are most likely to engage.

For maximum exposure the best time to post on your Facebook business page during the week is between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m.

That is likely because many Facebook users browse on their desktops and check it during downtime at work.

The single best time to post on Facebook on a Sunday at 3 p.m.

  • The best days to post on Facebook are Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Tuesday is the worst day to post on Facebook.
  • Weekends get the highest level of engagement on Facebook.

This is another great way how to improve Facebook page engagement by ensuring your post at the correct times for maximum exposure to your fans and audience.

While a survey can generate more serious engagement, a quiz or poll can be a little more light hearted.

Focus on current developments in your industry or topics that are relevant to your audience.

This type of interactive content can drive substantial engagement especially if it generates personalised results that can easily be shared.

Poll or Quiz

There are paid tools like Qzzr, Doopoll, Survey Monkey and Outgrow that makes it easy to create customised, engaging quizzes that you can post anywhere including Facebook.

There is also a free toll – Strawpoll and Google Forms to utilise with limited features.

22. Use Audience Targeting for Organic Posts

You can target a Facebook page engagement custom audience for your Facebook posts just like you target a specific audience with your ads.

Like ads – segmentation can potentially limit your reach but the upside is your content is more likely to be seen by the people you want to get it in front of.

Targeting Audience For Organic Posts

It also costs nothing to set up a Facebook page engagement custom audience for your organic posts and displaying your posts in front of the perfect audience.

If this option is not enabled on your page then here is how to turn it on.

Turning On Audience Optimisation on Facebook

Go to your Facebook page and click the Settings tab. Under General Settings, you will find Audience Optimisation for Posts.

Click Edit and make sure this feature is turned on. This custom audience option will now be available whenever you post a status update to your page.

BuzzSumo analysed over 1 billion Facebook posts and discovered that posts without hashtags get more engagement than posts with hashtags.

No way…

While you should use hashtags for trending topics to boost visibility only use hashtags sparingly or not at all in all of your other types of posts.

Using Hashtags correctly on Facebook

Do not make the mistake of using multiple hashtags in the hopes of increasing your content’s visibility.

24. Share Valuable Curated Content

Your audience knows when you are promoting your business and if you do it too much they will start losing interest.

Yes..

To mix things up a bit – try to source high-value curated content relevant to their interests. Be a helpful resource for your fans.

Curate Content

Share valuable content from authoritative and trusted sources. Use a tool like Quuu to curate content for specific audiences. It is free and pulls relevant hand-curated content.

Alltop and BuzzSumo are also recommended for finding popular content to share.

If you factor in silly holidays along with more serious awareness dates and traditional holidays you will never run out of ideas for your Facebook content schedule.

Right…

If it is a more whimsical celebration then have a little fun with it.

Celebrate Holidays

Use well-known events for engagement and promotion. Your fans might also appreciate knowing when they can get a good deal like $1 hotdogs on National Hot Dog Day at Sonic.

Find ways to add value to every post to spark engagement with your target audience to maximise Facebook page engagement reach.

26. Upload Native Video

YouTube is a sizable social channel but if you have been sharing your YouTube videos to your Facebook page then it is time to make a switch.

Facebook’s native video allows you to upload videos directly to your page just like photos and the algorithm works in your favour if you do.

Click on the picture below to see the video.

Native video is proven to get more engagement and views. If you compare YouTube shares to native videos on Facebook, native video receives more likes, shares, comments and reach.

Another way to keep up with the ever-changing social media landscape is to constantly experiment with new content.

Just a while back images were the best type of content to drive engagement.

Now videos are taking the lead. Brands that started on video early before it became the norm were able to benefit from the trend the most.

Testing new types of content keeps you at the edge of the latest trends.

A technique we like to use was inspired by Coca-Cola’s 70/20/10 marketing budget rule.

70-20-10 Rule

You can use this rule in many ways. Here is how we like to think of it when it comes to testing new Facebook content:

  • 70 percent of your content should be the types of content that are already performing well now like videos and images.
  • 20 percent of your content should be iterations and improvements of your 70 percent like new types of videos.
  • 10 percent of your content should be experimental content which might become the next big thing.

28. Be Persistent

We believe this is all about posting useful content with a consistent voice that your community knows.

Be Persisitent

A few mentioned above are the different ways how to increase Facebook page engagement rate to maximise results and efforts as follows:

  • Ask Questions
  • Post Fill-in-the-Blanks
  • Post Photos
  • Talk About the News
  • Ask for Likes
  • Target Different Fans
  • Talk About Facebook
  • Celebrate Today

Conclusion

This exhaustive list of ideas should help you fill your calendar with a good mix of content types that are likely to promote and increase Facebook page engagement ideas among your Facebook followers.

Keep your Facebook posts short for maximum effect. The ideal character count is about 50 or fewer and if you want maximum engagement you need to post and respond to your fans every day.

Do not automate your social presence. Go for the human connection and provide value and you will see increase Facebook page engagement on the rise.

Do you want your content to convert and increase engagement? Contact us today to see how we can help you develop content that gets results.

There are also competent video content marketing agencies like Best-Digital Marketing Services that can create catchy videos to meet the needs of any company.

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and select the package that suits your business needs.

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or fill your details with a message of your requirements at

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Hope you are enjoying and learning a lot with abundance of information about:-

25+ Ways How to Increase Facebook Page Engagement

 

21+ Key Benefits of Content Marketing for Businesses

21+ Key Benefits of Content Marketing for Businesses

Why content marketing is necessary for businesses

Eventually by today there is a great chance that you have heard of content marketing strategy for businesses.

This inbound marketing method will help you attract, engage and delight customers and prospects by delivering quality valuable content that provides value for everyone who visits your site.

As with any current marketing craze you may be wondering – does this strategy really have zoom and staying power? The definite answer is: Yes.

Content marketing strategy is one of the most effective, practical and useful digital marketing strategies that your brand can use to reach and engage more quality leads, conversions, sales and customers for your business.

The Content Marketing Cycle

In the following we will cover some of the top benefits of content marketing strategies for businesses.

We will explain how this powerful inbound marketing tactic can help transform the way your organisation reach and engage your target audience.

They are listed in no particular order since all of them are equally important.

How you choose to mix and use them will depend on your organisation’s goals, direction and plans.

1. Content Marketing Drives Conversions.

Surprisingly one of the greatest benefits of content marketing is that it helps your business drive more conversions over time.

According to recent research – businesses that create consistent marketing content experience conversion rates that are nearly 6 times higher than their competitors who do not focus on content marketing.

Content Marketing Drives Conversion

This shows that tough content marketing often requires a significant investment of time, money and resources.

It eventually pays off by leading to more conversions.

2. Valuable Content Brings More Traffic.

Publishing valuable consistent blog posts that are engaging and effective can help you bring more traffic to your site over time.

Content Increases Website Traffic

No way …

According to HubSpot – companies that published more than 16 blog posts per month got almost 3.5 times more traffic than those that only published 4 or less posts.

If you want to improve site traffic, publish quality blog content more often on a more consistent basis.

3. Engaging Brand Awareness with Useful Content.

There are consumers out there who are a perfect fit for your products or services but they have yet to learn about your brand opportunities.

How can I …

Build Brand awareness through Content Marketing

By creating useful content that provides value for your target buyers, you can commence to engage these leads and help build awareness for your brand.

Brand awareness is one of the most important benefits of content marketing for any business.

4. Use Quality Content To Educate Customers.

Your customers and leads have a problem that your brand can solve.

By using content marketing guides – this is a better way to educate them about their challenges and your solutions will provide them with engaging content.

The importance of quality Content

Be sure to develop content topics around your customers’ biggest pain points to help them better understand what steps they need to take to solve their problems.

5. Content Builds Trust With Your Audience.

The more that you educate and provide value for your target audience, the more trust you can build over time.

You start to establish a relationship with customers by educating and informing your target audience about their biggest challenges and pain points through content marketing like blog posts and other types of content.

Content Marketing Buils trust with audience

This process start to work in building trust based on the value that your contents provide.

6. Great Content Forges Stronger Customer Relationship.

Should you want to encourage repeat business and turn customers into brand advocates then it is vital that you nurture your current customer relationships.

How…

Best-Digital Marketing Services - Increase customer relationship

One of the best ways to do this is to continue to provide value for your customers through quality, engaging and valuable content in your marketing.

Whether you keep them updated through email marketing or educate them through your blog you can work to build and foster these relationships.

As you start to create quality content in marketing that provides value for your leads and customers -you begin to build credibility and authority with your target audience.

For example – by writing blog posts about common challenges that your customers face or issues that pertain to your industry helps show site visitors that you really know your stuff.

Content builds awareness, credibility and Authority

This will encourage them to trust your advice and guidance when it comes to products and services that can add value to their lives.

Valuable content will definitely help you leverage all of the benefits of content marketing.

8. Use Quality Content To Position As An Industry Expert.

By using engaging content marketing – you start to build credibility and authority within your customer base.

You can start to position your brand as an industry expert.

Consumers will look to influential leaders in the industry to get relevant information that helps them better understand their needs and challenges.

Content marketing Positions you as Industry Expert

By creating quality content that others find valuable, you can start to position your business as an industry expert or leader that others can look to for guidance and support.

Every customer goes through different stages before they make a final purchase.

Seriously ….

First they need to recognise their challenges then they need to identify and evaluate potential solutions.

Best-Digital Marketing - Customer Life Journey

Finally they will make a purchasing decision based on their research.

By providing the right valuable content that engages the customer during each step of the buyer’s journey can help guide them to making a purchasing decision more quickly.

10. Content Marketing Materials Generate Everlasting Traffic.

Blogs and other forms of information materials are a lot like a gift that keeps on giving especially in content marketing.

According to research – 1 in 10 blogs are compounding which means that these blogs help increase website traffic through organic search over time.

Finer point is that although compounding blog posts only make up 10% of all blog posts they still generate about 38% of all traffic.

Benefits of Content Marketing

The key to creating blog posts that continues to bring organic traffic to your site long after they are published is to focus on topics that will remain relevant to your target audience forever.

This is what we call evergreen content and it can help you get the most out of your blogging efforts via your responsive website.

11. Valuable Content Reduces Your Bounce Rate.

Your business has a short amount of time to engage consumers once they have landed on your site.

Based on a recent Microsoft research, human’s attention span is only less than 10 seconds.

Basically that is shorter compared to a goldfish. So it makes sense for marketers to give all they have in creating compelling content.

Content marketing reduces bounce rates

The more quality, engaging content you can provide on your website the better the chance for customers visiting your site to stick around.

Content marketing helps engage, entertain and educate them so they better understand the value that your brand can provide and further reduce your bounce rate.

12. Content Improves SEO (search engine optimisation) and Online Visibility.

Many consumers turn to the search engines when they are looking for a product or service. 

SEO (Search engine optimisation) is the process of optimising your site to rank higher on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).

The more quality content you create the better your SEO.

The more optimised your site is for search engines like Google the more visibility you will have online.

Content improves SEO

For example someone is searching for “What is an air compressor?” on Google and they find a blog you may have written with the same title.

This will help bring this interested person to your site to learn more about their inquiry and also find out more about how your brand can help answer their questions and resolve their challenges.

13. Content Marketing is Cost-Effective.

Content marketing is by far more cost-effective than many traditional outbound marketing methods.

Since content marketing is easier to get started with and more popular with customers who are tired of traditional advertising messages.

Content marketing is cost effective

This strategy can often help reduce the amount of money that marketers need to spend when engaging leads and customers.

According to Content Marketing Institute – content marketing costs 62% less than outbound marketing even though it generates more than 3 times as many leads.

14. Targeted Content Can Reach Your Niche Audience.

You need to be picky about who you attract to your website when it comes to reaching customers online.

Not every online consumer is interested in your products or services.

writing for your target audience

Content that is created with your target audience in mind helps you better reach those who are most likely to be interested in your products or services.

Blog posts and other types of content not only help you bring more leads to your site but also ensure that these leads are relevant and qualified to buy.

Creating content around topics that are relevant to your products and services is important to your audience.

This can help your business bring in more targeted and relevant website traffic for your business.

16. Updated Content Helps You Remain Competitive.

Did you know that 53% of marketers say that creating blog content is their top inbound marketing priority?

That is because blog content is so effective at attracting, engaging and delighting your site visitors and customers.

Blogging statistics for content marketing

If you want to remain competitive in the busy online marketplace you will need to make publishing blog content and other content assets like e-books and infographics a priority on a regular and up to date basis.

17. Buyers Pre-assess your Content Before Purchasing.

Another powerful benefit of content marketing is that it allows you to start a conversation with potential customers before actual sales are triggered.

According to Demand Gen Report, 47% of buyers view between 3 and 5 pieces of content before they engage a sales rep.

This just show how important and powerful an impression on your content can make before the customer is actually contacted by a real person.

Consist of compelling content

Make sure that you are making the right first impression by publishing relevant quality content.

This will help leads better understand their greatest challenges and how your business fits into the process of solving them.

18. More Content Means More Touchpoints.

Should you wish to spend less time in engaging your audience then you need to create enticing content for them.

It has been proven to cost less than 62% compared to other standard outbound marketing techniques and it can generate more than 3 times the leads.

The more content you publish on your site and share on social media platforms – the more opportunities you will have to engage with your target audience.

Content marketing costs less than standard outbound marketing

Considering that most customers will visit your site a few times before making a purchase, you want to ensure that you have the chance to engage with them and start a conversation to help guide them down the conversion path.

Content marketing offers you many touchpoints where you can communicate with leads before they make a purchase.

19. Provide Unconditional Value with Content Marketing

Another valuable benefit of content marketing is that it allows you to provide value to your leads and customers with no conditions attached.

Force buying for consumers who are actively buying their products online may seem like it is in the best interest of the company but it can actually impact their ability to attract new customers and build relationships with leads.

Content marketing without conditions

Content marketing allows you to provide value to your customers through informative and interesting content without asking for anything in return.

This increases your chances to engage with consumers who are not yet ready to buy for your business.

20. Content is Shareable

One of the best ways to increase visibility online is to get your current customers, leads and brand advocates to share your business with others.

Content just happens to be very shareable.

Today customers can forward your email marketing messages to a co-worker or share one of your social media posts with their friends and families.

Content is shareable

This can get your content shared is a great way to increase visibility in the marketplace.

21. Make personal connection with Content Marketing.

Sometime it can be difficult to show the human side of your business.

However your content allows you to make a more personal connection with your leads and customers while showcasing your brand voice and character.

Do not be afraid to put a little personality in your blog posts, videos, social media posts or other types of content material which will benefit your business.

22. Increase Engagement with Effective Content Marketing.

Increasing engagement is another major benefit of content marketing.

How…

The best way to start a conversation with your leads and customers is to present them with helpful information on relevant topics that can get them thinking and talking.

Sharing your content on social media is a great way to encourage engagement.

It gets your customers to interact further with your brand and increase awareness of your products and services.

23. Content Marketing Works for Every Business & Industry.

It is true that content marketing is an effective digital marketing strategy for any business in any industry from consumer retail to technology to manufacturing.

Content is for every business & Industry

The key to success is finding the right topics and types of content that best speak to your unique audience in your business and industry.

24. It Helps Secure Unexpected Customers.

By creating and promoting valuable content that speaks to your target audience’s greatest challenges – you may find new customers in unexpected places.

Maintaining an active blog and social media presence helps you introduce your company to people that you may not have realised have a need for your product or service.

25. More Content Generates More Social Media Traffic.

Social media marketing is a powerful way to reach and engage new leads while fostering long-lasting relationships with your current customers.

The more quality content you create the more material you will have to share on your social media channels.

Content generates more on social media platforms - channels

Once consumers start to see how useful and valuable your content really is – they will have no choice but to follow your brand on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and wherever else you may be.

Conclusion

With so many powerful benefits of content marketing it is easy to see why more and more businesses are making moves to develop a content marketing strategy and start producing quality content for their brand.

No matter what industry you are in or what size your company is – you can start using content marketing today to reach and engage your audience.

Content Marketing Experts

Our content marketing experts at Best-Digital Marketing Services are here to help your business to develop and implement effective content marketing to connect and improve conversions.

So contact us now and see how we can work together to create a more effective and efficient content marketing strategy to move forward.

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and select the package that suits your business needs.

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21+ Key Benefits of Content Marketing for Businesses

 

7+ Ways Why Video is the Future of Content Marketing Strategy

9+ Ways Why Video is the Future of Content Marketing Strategy

Why Video is The future of Content Marketing

The digital arena has experienced a drastic change over the last decade.

Consumers are now using their smartphones and tablets to browse, search for information and interact with others rather than laptops and desktop computers.

Today digital technology has become accessible and affordable.

Video Is The Future Of Content Marketing

You can get a tablet or smartphone with plenty of valuable digital tools including a small HD video camera, superfast Wi-Fi with 4G or 5G signals, cloud-based and unlimited storage space.

As a result the world of content marketing has undergone a fast-paced change.

Video marketing is an innovative tool to help companies create valuable content and deliver well-crafted and tailored messages to their customers.

Below are 9+ ways or reasons why to invest in video marketing.

1. Consumers Want More Video Content

Consumer preference has played a major role in the rise in demand for visual content.

Social video generates 1200% more shares that text and images combined.

Customers want more videos

According to recent studies visual content gets

  • 47% more higher click through rates (CTR)
  • 80% more conversions
  • 12% more traffic and
  • 200% more shares and engagement compared to other forms of content.
Why visual content is important

For this reason businesses are investing in video to reach and engage more with consumers. More so consumers would rather watch a video than read a blog post.

2. Emotion Encourages Engagement

Content is always more successful when it is able to influence the consumer.

But video has the potential to elicit a greater emotional reaction within the viewer than written content, enhancing the brands message through the viewer’s immersive and personal involvement. 

Emotions encourage engagements

Video can also increase audience trust in the brand as it can allow the viewer to see the people working behind the business, adding a personal touch to your marketing communications.

In today’s competitive digital world – it is becoming more important to have a strong marketing strategy for your business and this can be executed well through video.

3. Videos Boost Conversion

About half of online shoppers now look for product-related videos before making a purchasing decision and 90% of them say that demo videos are helpful.

What’s more? 85% of those consumers are more likely to buy after watching a product demo.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - videos boosts conversions

Therefore if you have a landing page or a product that is not doing so well at the moment then it is time to add a product demo video or an explainer video.

Several studies have found that sales pages that have videos convert better than those that do not.

There may be several reasons for this but one of them is that videos keep your visitors on your page longer.

4. Useful in Email Marketing

For every dollar spent on email marketing -brands get a return of about $40. This is fairly high and you can improve your email marketing ROI using videos.

videos in email marketing

How do I ….

Adding them to your emails makes them engaging and also saves the receiver’s time.

You will be able to convey your information to them faster using video content.

Due to their engaging nature consumers may also view your email for longer and might end up clicking on your CTA.

This can help you increase leads, conversion and Return On Investment (ROI).

Based on consumer trends people are more likely to buy a product or service recommended by someone they trust.

This person must be able to provide an objective opinion, pros and cons and enlighten them on how the product or service will improve their everyday lives.

the rise of influencer marketing

Really!!

Influencers are a big part of marketing in today world and many companies are more likely to invest in influence marketing than traditional channels.

Choosing the right influencers – a campaign can achieve bigger exposure and reach a wider audience.

Engaging personalities and attention grabbing videos are what people actually spend time watching.

In influence marketing video content is much more powerful than written paragraphs of text.

What is said about the brand by others is much more influential than content created by the brand itself.

6. Easier to Remember Video Content

Recent reports state that 80% of consumers recall a video they watched at least a month ago.

Unlike text-based content -videos consist of great visual and acoustic materials that are easy to remember.

easier to remember video content

When customers recall your video they also recall your company, converting to leads and sales.

Video marketing comes with the possibility of strengthening your online presence since customers tend to share videos they find entertaining or enjoyable.

remember a video content

The best way to make your videos memorable is to make sure they support your brand strategy.

This can be achieved by using fonts, colours, themes and audio in your video marketing similar to those in your article and blogs.

The idea here is to help your audience master the style and design of your brand’s visual content.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - Videos provide high retention rates

There are also competent event production agencies like Best-Digital Marketing Services that can create catchy videos to meet the needs of any company.

Incorporating online visual content into your digital marketing strategy goes a long way in enhancing your brand’s message and helping your customers understand your company better.

video reinforces brand value

Video marketing allows you to leverage simple tools like branding and design as well as more sophisticated tools like content and voice to build your brand identity.

8. Visual Content is Attractive

Judging by the numbers of people creating, sharing and watching videos these days, videos have become more attractive.

Really ….

According to Forbes, making video part of your email marketing strategy can increase the rates of click-through by 300%.

adding videos to your emailadding videos to your email

Customers are likely to spend a significant amount of time on a site that features a video and landing pages that incorporate video also register an 80% rise in conversion rates.

9. Videos can help With Customer Support

Videos can convey information in a short and engaging manner. This can help reduce the burden on your customer support team.

You can find out the common issues that your customers face and create videos with their solutions.

Ooh never thought of that …

This is better than text because the customers will be able to see the visuals along with the commentary. As a result they will be more likely to understand how to solve the issue.

video helps customer supportvideo helps customer support

This would mean that they do not have to reach out to your customer support team for issue resolution and this would take the load off your team.

In fact – 43% of video marketers said that videos have led to a reduction in the number of support calls that they used to receive.

Creating even simple how-to videos can help you achieve this.

This can also improve the customer experience as all their issues will be resolved quickly.

Responsive design is one of the major trends facilitating the rapid growth of the digital marketing landscape.

When your content fails to work seamlessly on a certain browser system or device – your business will lose traffic and experience a drastic decline in conversion.

videos are consumer orientated and user friendly

Amazingly video content works well on all devices including mobile phones, tablets and computers.

This makes video consumer-oriented and user-friendly and it also expands its reach.

Videos are effective in improving the SEO performance of your business.

When people watch, like, subscribe and share your videos, their reactions will boost the click-through rates of your website.

A high-quality and engaging video has the power of attracting customers and compelling them to visit your business’ homepage.

videos and seo

Video can also improve your conversion rates – over 90% of internet traffic is video content.

By embedding video to your website, landing pages and website – it is easy to boost your company’s SEO and also your click-through rates.

using videos statistics

Video is a great marketing tool due to its high returns on investment and low cost of production.

All you need to do is to create your characters, pick a location and tell your story.

Any rich information, accessible and user-friendly video content can build a great online following and boost customer recall.

Email marketing offer a unique method of serving content directly to verified subscribers and bypass the issue of content getting lost in customer’s crowded news feeds.

Conclusion

Video marketing is not new but as video is becoming more accessible people are consuming more video content over text.

Your business can also enjoy higher returns with video content marketing if you can creatively use videos to support your business goals and customer needs.

You have free tools at your disposal and are aware which types of video content marketing works best. Contact us today to see how we can help your business grow.

There are also competent video content marketing agencies like Best-Digital Marketing Services that can create catchy videos to meet the needs of any company.

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9+ Ways Why Video Is The Future Of Content Marketing Strategy

 

Creating Content Marketing Funnel That Works for Businesses

Creating Content Marketing Funnel That Works for Businesses

Creating Content Marketing Funnels for Businesses

You have been pushed through another business’s content marketing funnel whether you realised it or not – as a consumer. Let us see how it all began.

You are browsing online. Suddenly you become aware of the latest must-have device. You instantly feel drawn to buy now but you hesitate. As an informed consumer you control that urge and consider your purchase.

What processes did you go through before deciding to buy this item?

  • Do you check the reviews?
  • Are they a reputable brand you can trust?
  • Do you see if you can get a better price?
  • How does the product work?

Each time a customer decides to buy something they go through a buyer’s journey.

Understanding this journey allows you to design a content marketing funnel. It guides the customer through this process and along the way – it cuts costs, increases revenues and maximises your Return on Investment (ROI).

What Is a Content Marketing Funnel

Sales funnels come in many different forms. Different experts and influencers may call the stages by different names.

They may also have different names for the funnel itself – for instance you have the Buyer’s Journey in inbound marketing.

Best-Digital Marketing - Customer Life Journey

Each of these funnels describes the same basic process that customers go through based upon their methodologies as they feed and nurture through the funnel.

Let us have a look at a basic sales funnel.

The Basic Sales Funnel

You may be aware of a sales funnel – AIDA. It includes the following steps:

  • Awareness
  • Interest
  • Decision
  • Action

We call awareness at the top of the funnel. You feed the top by generating brand awareness. You keep people moving through the funnel by getting them interested.

Basic Sales Funnel

You provide them with information to make a decision so they can take an action.

A funnel with low conversion rate is called a leaky funnel. Where the leak takes place in those four stages can guide a small business to rectify which layer of the funnel needs work.

In addition AIDA – an acronym that stands for the four phases of a client’s evolution, from awareness to direct action in which your company should invest its marketing resources:

  • Awareness – attracting the target audience – generating relevant website visitors with a business blog
  • Interests – generating new leads through content download or live chats.
  • Desire – offering each prospects a good reason to stay through demos, free trials or something relevant to your target audience in return -you will receive signups.
  • Action – convince people to turn into customers

The biggest problem with traditional sales funnel is that it does not really address how modern consumers buy.

The Content Marketing Funnel

content marketing funnel works much the same. It guides people through the different stages with content but it has one very important distinction.

It recognises the importance of delighting customers as a way to continually replenish the funnel.

This funnel looks more like this.

  • Analysis
  • Awareness/Discovery
  • Consideration
Content Marketing Funnel Top Half
  • Conversion / Decision
  • Happy / Satisfied Customers
  • Promoter activity / Spreading The Word
Content Marketing Funnel Bottom Half

Content Marketing Stages

The marketing funnel can be divided into these three stages:

  • TOFU or Top of the funnel – includes the methods used to raise public awareness.
  • MOFU or Middle of the funnel – contains the techniques used for leads generation.
  • BOFU or Bottom of the funnel – consists of the measures taken to generate customers and maintain their level of satisfaction.
Content Marketing Funnel Stages

Let us take a closer look at each of these 3 stages below.

Find out more about your target audiences and analyse your competitors with SWOT analysis – Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats.

When we use the term awareness you think of brand awareness. Brand awareness is an important part of building trust and name recognition with a target audience.

You also have problem awareness. Feed the top of your funnel by creating content that both generate brand awareness and problem awareness – what problems you need to solve.

In this phase a person considers the possible solutions to their problem. These solutions may be provided by you or they may also be looking at your competitors.

You need to provide a viable solution to your target audience’s problems.

This may seem like a single point in time but it is not. It is your entire sales process since the buyer is ready to make a purchase decision and you will need content here as well.

Businesses who act as if the sale is the end to all will find their business is on shifting sand. Strong customer relationships are the foundation of any business.

Happy customers skip the top of the funnel where you are spending time and money on awareness and consideration. They go straight to conversion.

Looking after loyal customers must be your main priority.

The results are phenomenal outcomes especially for small businesses:

  • You have around a 5% chance to sell something to a new customer. You have a 60%-70% chance to sell something to a repeat customer.
  • 65% or more of a small business’ revenues come in through existing customers.
  • A 5% reduction in customer defection can increase revenues by 100%.
  • Increasing your customer retention by a tiny 2% cuts your marketing costs by as much as 10%.
  • And only around 32% of companies say that they have any strategies in place to retain customers.

This is a serious competitive advantage and we will show you how to increase your marketing ROI and slash your customer care costs.

Your existing loyal customers can become your greatest advocates or your worst enemies. Most of them stand on the side-lines.

They like your brand and are happy with your product but do not feel the need to do anything about it.

If you can turn even a fraction of these bench warmers into promoters you can leverage their enthusiasm to feed the top of your funnel with new customers.

You can do this via content and now your sales funnel will look like this below.

Self Feeding Content Marketing Funnel

A content marketing funnel becomes a self-feeding funnel by reinforcing it with the right content at each stage.

As you do this an amazing chain of events begins to take place.

  1. More people enter the top of the funnel
  2. People move more quickly through the funnel
  3. Costs plummet
  4. Revenues increase
  5. Return On Investment (ROI) is optimised

Did you know that content marketing produces 3X the leads for 67% of the cost? This is accomplished by turning your content marketing funnel into a cycle.

Content for Each Stage of the Content Marketing Funnel

Funnel leaks happen when we try to skip stages. If you try to take someone from awareness straight to conversion you will lose them.

That is why there are different kinds of content for different stages of the funnel.

Each piece of content will have specific marketing objectives and metrics that you could use to measure its success.

Now let us go through each stage of the content marketing funnel and the content you need to create in order to generate more leads and sales for your business:

This is crucial stage because the consumer becomes aware that your company exists. You are striving to generate brand awareness and visibility for potential leads.

The content used for this part of the process has to be engaging and trustworthy because possible consumers will analyse it to see if it fits their needs.

During this stage there is no selling. You are providing highly useful information. Let the consumer discover you make them want to know more about what you do or represent.

Draw them slowly to the next stage of the funnel. You may also want to focus certain problems that you product or services can address or solve.

Strategies to Apply

Building a social media presence is important and a consistent sharing on every platform is necessary.

Create content around trending and evergreen popular topics. Content should be very shareable with a strong chance of going viral.

The awareness stage is mostly about providing value to your audience. You are giving them something they want or need in the format they prefer.

If the problem that your product solves is not well known then this is your opportunity to demonstrate the need for your product or services

Research your customer’s challenges and address them directly in the content. They will think of you when they encounter the problems you address.

There is no selling at this stage. Your brand or specific products are not mentioned and you are only providing highly useful information.

Get people curious about your brand. Rather than jumping right into how your company solves their problem -make them want to learn more.

Draw them further into the funnel.

As you provide them with valuable information – you start to build brand awareness and show your audience that you know your stuff and they begin to trust your brand.

They begin to see you as the answer to those problems.

Types of Content

You can use the different types of content that can be created at this stage below:

Blog poststhey are a great opportunity to generate brand awareness. You can offer the exact information that your consumer is searching for and attract possible leads.

You can provide them reliable information and at the same time may be offer a free tool to connect with you.

Guides – these types of content will be a great source of knowledge, a very powerful tool – your audience gets a lot of value out of them.

Guides are also practical instruments that help consumers better understand specific terms and processes.

Videos – you can choose to engage your audience through videos. At this stage only make use of social media videos with fun stuff. Make your clients want to watch more every time.

Webinars – a webinar contains valuable information about your brand and subjects might that matter to your possible consumers.

It is a good choice to start building your brand.

Guest posts – guest posts are a great way to reach out to your target audience. If you post an amazing article on a well-known industry blog with tons of visitors – you are increasing your chances of being seen by your target audience.

By contributing to top blogs in your industry it will help grow your influence in your niche.

Content Marketing Funnel - Different types of content

Quizzes – this form of content is interactive by nature. Quizzes make a person take action to complete them and can also generate brand awareness at the same time.

E-books – these are a great way to offer valuable information and generate brand awareness.

How to content – most people rely on how to articles when they want to get something done but they do not know how.

The step by step instructions needs to be easy to understand and show readers or viewers exactly what they need to do in order to achieve the results they want.

Social media posts – Social media posts are quite important for the first stage of a content marketing funnel.

They make your brand visible in an online environment where tons of people search for different things.

Infographics – Reading them is a lot faster and easier and can be shared anywhere in a jiffy. Great infographics will travel around the world in no time.

Measuring Effectiveness

What do you need to see to know that your awareness stage content is effective?

You need to see increased:

Traffic should come in from various sources. Some of it will be clicks from social media.

Some will come in from inbound links to your website and others will come in through the search results.

Google Analytics - How to Use

Quantity is important. It helps feed the top of the funnel but do not get too hung up on quantity alone. You need to know that you are reaching the right target audience.

Use analytics to determine who is viewing your content. Both social media and Google Analytics will give you basic information about your interactors.

Find out their age ranges, gender and general interests and look even closer. How are they interacting with your content?

What you want to know is -are they simply finding your content? or are they actually interested in your content?

When consumers are interested in your content they will:

  • Read the whole blog
  • Attend the whole webinar
  • Watch the whole video
  • Download your E-Book or free tool
  • Join and complete the quiz
  • And more

You are able to measure the effectiveness of your content to whatever extent they do the above.

For example look at:

  • Time spent viewing a video
  • Dwell time — how long someone stayed on the page
  • Bounce rate — whether they clicked on anything else on the page
  • Number of webinar sessions attended or time spent

How to Be Aware When It is Not Working

These are 3 primary ways to know that this stage of your content marketing funnel is not working.

  1. Low traffic.
  2. People are not interacting with content.
  3. Reaching the wrong people.

If you find that your content falls short or does not address the correct audience – change, amend or pivot.

Awareness Stage - When it is not working

Just because you have started on one path does not mean you cannot make changes to your strategy.

To fix it you need to re-evaluate your content creation processes. Learn from your mistakes and create better content.

This stage is all about showing your products and services to your target audience.

At this point you can start placing your products and services under the spotlight and convince them you are the best choice on the market.

This is the moment when you can start addressing your leads directly and showcase all the possible ways in which your business can come up with solutions for their needs.

The content you create here has to bring to life everything your business stands for. 

Your objective is to acquire the customer. By the end of this stage, your customer should be ready to buy.

At this stage you need to help the consumer evaluate you as a brand. Share with them the various options they can choose from. Give them the tools they need to make a decision to buy now and to buy from you.

Here use your social proof to demonstrate that you are the best company for the job. Social proof is a psychological phenomenon that you can leverage to increase sales.

It stems from the fact that no one wants to be the guinea pig and only a few people are willing to take the risk of being someone’s first customer.

Don't Be The Guinea Pig

Social proof reassures people that you know what you are doing. If your social proof is impressive then it can act like positive peer pressure. It compels someone to not miss out on the benefits that others are experiencing.

The following types of content are very effective for this stage:

Videos showcase your products and services through demo videos. Make people understand that you can provide them the most reliable offer on the market.

Create engaging videos and reach out to your target audience. People love to watch videos more than reading an article so make this count.

Case studies – these research reports contain valuable information about a problem, its solution and the final results.

They refer to the reason and the way your business has helped one of your customers and because of that they are an amazing tool for showing potential customers what you can do for them.

Webinars – in this stage these should contain more information about your products or services and other valuable knowledge to attract an audience.

How-to content – here you should show the consumers that you can manage to do the task for them.

Some may consider that too much work is more to handle so if you make them see you can solve their problem – you have the upper hand.

White papers – white papers are an elevated form of guides. They are a long-form type of content that offers researched statistics, documented facts and particular information about a specific subject, quotes and citations.

A well-researched white paper can help you gain your consumers’ trust.

Checklists – creating an organised checklist can offer the answers your potential customers are looking for.

Imagine yourself in their position and think of what you would do to solve that issue.

Testimonials – this type of content can transform you into a trustworthy company.

Content Marketing Funnel - Different types of content

If your previous clients leave you positive comments then you are officially in the business.

In-depth blog posts – conduct keyword research and make a list.

Use the most relevant keywords to your industry and create an amazing blog post that shows you can handle your customers’ needs.

Microblog – most companies are usually choosing to implement their blogs directly into their websites.

Another better solution to reach your target audience is to create a microblog on another blog platform like Medium or Reddit.

Slideshows – this type of shareable content can be effective in some situations like when you need to illustrate complex topics or processes.

Templates – most people want to simplify their work as much as they can.

This is why they are always looking for the fastest solution to finish the job.

Sometimes a template is exactly the thing you need to make your possible customers engage.

E-books – they can also represent a great way to generate leads at this point.

An attractive E-book with lots of important information might respond to a more complex problem.

Guides – this content can help you show your deepest knowledge in your industry.

With a step by step set of instructions you can manage to offer an interesting solution for a consumer’s problem.

Give the consumer what they need to make an informed decision and demonstrate your authority on the topic.

Measuring the effectiveness of consideration stage content is more straightforward. Measure the percentage of people entering conversion stage.

For a service company it may be scheduling an appointment. For e- commerce this would begin with adding something to the cart. For brick & mortar this may begin with calling to start the order process.

You will know your consideration stage content is not working if you have few customers entering the conversion stage of your content marketing funnel – with a poor conversion rate.

To fix this you will need to evaluate what you can do better to demonstrate that it is time to buy and it is also important to look at the conversion stage itself.

If consumers are entering the conversion stage but then backing out then the problem lies at the conversion stage content itself.

This is where most of you will struggle to convince potential buyers to choose your brand over others in the industry.

They have to make a final decision and it is up to you whether you manage to influence them or not. Here you can use a direct pitch to gain their attention but without aggressive content.

At this point potential customers already know what their needs are and how to solve their issues but they have to choose a specific product.

It is very important to offer your target audience a direct path to your business without hitting them too hard with too much information.

You have one objective. Carry the customer seamlessly through the conversion process.

This should be the fastest part of the process. The decision is already made.

Make it so easy to continue down this path that it would seem silly to back out now.

You need a very intuitive sales process and this comes down to your website design. The process should be very easy and as short as possible.

If a person is navigating between screens it should load quickly. They should provide the person with what they need to keep going.

If there is any confusion that causes a need to hit the back button – you could lose the customer.

If the customer is caught with a surprise charge or unexpected high shipping or sales tax they may back out. The content you provide at this stage avoids these last minute second thoughts.

Additionally these content types can aid the process:

Testimonialsthis is to convince a customer that your company is reliable by offering a few testimonials from previous customers.

Webinars – webinars showcase your performance as a company and since they are live – it has a great impact on the target audience.

They get to see the way you talk, how you describe things and what you have to say about that specific subject.

Always keep them short, compiling everything in a maximum of 5 minutes or host a longer webinar of 20 to 30 minutes or more but stay on the subject.

Case studies – a great case study can convince possible customers to engage in no time with previous customers telling successful stories about your company.

The solution provided in this type of content might be helpful for more than one potential buyer.

Reviews – feedback is very important in any type of business. You can find out if something is wrong with your services or if your customers are happy.

On the other hand you can motivate new customers to purchase your products.

Coupons – this is an interesting way to attract visitors and convert them. Coupons will always be appreciated by anyone because they represent discounts or free stuff.

Content Marketing Funnel - Different types of content

Videos – most videos are fun to make. Customers enjoy them because they can see interesting content.

You can take advantage of this type of content to convince those customers to purchase your products because they do this and that as seen in the video. Everyone gains in the end.

Free trials – free trials will generate leads in no time. If a customer wants to see how your service works- you can provide this opportunity through a free trial that lasts several days.

In the end a happy customer will pay for a full subscription because he/she received something free from the start.

Demos – demos are important here as well because they show how your product or service works and the way they can solve the customers’ problems.

People like to know what they are buying before they pay the price. There is a 50/50 percent chance a purchase will actually be made but you have to risk it before gaining something.

You can measure the effectiveness of your conversion stage process by knowing if a sale has taken place.

If people actually enter the conversion stage process in your content marketing funnel and then back out then something is not working.

Scrutinise the entire process. What can you do to avoid those second thoughts?

If you have an email address then you may resume the sales process by sending them a compelling offer. Sometimes – special offer popups are effective.

You can also automate your website so that it will remind a person if they have abandoned their cart.

Content Marketing Funnel and The Various Stages - complete

Delight your customers, exceed their expectations consistently and increase the Customer Lifetime Value – CLV.

These are your objectives for the happy customer’s stage of your content marketing funnel.

Provide the product or service that the customer expected. A marketer may not make the actual widget being sold but your marketing efforts do shape how people perceive their purchase. Do not over promise while under delivering.

Provide your customers with support they need to use your product. This can be from a helpful customer care team or even more effective when customers can help themselves.

This may vary some by demographic – 91% of consumers say they would prefer to help themselves online.

If you give them the content they need to answer their own questions they will use it and this impacts customer satisfaction.

If the content is there you make the customer happy and avoid that unsatisfied person queueing up for your customer care team.

The right content can reduce incoming customer care volume by as much as 80%. You can also use content to make customers feel special. Reward them for loyalty with exclusive access to certain content.

Content that will help you in this stage includes:

  • Chatbots that look information up for customers
  • Problem-shooting guides
  • FAQs & How-to’s – designed specifically for existing customers
  • Automated follow-up emails

In addition to online content, provide your customer care team with the same easy access content to help those who prefer to talk to a person.

This will generate consistency between what the online content says and what customer representatives say.

Measure the effectiveness of this stage by increased:

  • Upsell potential among existing customers
  • Customer Lifetime Value – CLV
  • Promoter activity – great reviews, sharing, referrals, etc.

Whist lowering:

  1. Acquisition costs
  2. Care costs

If you are not getting this kind of results then re-evaluate the buying process. Target the areas where the dissatisfaction is coming from and address it.

5. Promoter Activity / Spreading the Word (BOFU/BEFU)

Once you have gained new leads you also have to keep them and transform them into ambassadors that tell your story further.

Happy customers still need to be persuaded to write you a great review or share your posts.

88% of consumers today consider online reviews as reliable as a referral from a close friend.

This stage is sometimes called Beyond the Funnel or BEFU and sometimes called BOFU.

Retention is an important process because once you have loyal customers they can write referrals and testimonials while making new purchase.

Your objective is to encourage existing customers to recommend you to others.

You still have to deliver amazing content to keep the image of your brand vivid in the minds of your customers.

Strategies to Apply

Actively ask for reviews and monitor your online reputation whilst addressing concerns quickly.

Remember and recognise that all businesses do get bad review sometimes.

According to recent studies of content marketing funnel statistics:

  • 95% of people say that they are suspicious of a company’s reviews if they see no bad or negative reviews.
  • 62% of consumers sat they will not buy from brands that censor online reviews
  • Reviews drive 18% higher loyalty and 21% higher purchase satisfaction amongst existing customers

Engage with your existing customers through content.

Content Marketing Funnel - The BOFU or BEFU StgaeContent Marketing Funnel - The BOFU or BEFU Stgae

Type of Content

Add these forms of content to your toolkit.

Specific email newsletters based on your customer needs – you have figured out what your customers’ desire most so keep them close to your brand with newsletters with specific content.

Contests – organise contests with prizes to offer your customers an opportunity to win free stuff and leads to greater User Generated Content – UGC

Special offers or upgrades on new products – once you have launched a new product or an upgrade – always try to create special offers for your existing customers.

Content Marketing Funnel - Different types of content

Videos – create storytelling videos to highlight positive messages from particular customers or some of their specific activities.

Tips and insider’s guides for your existent products or services – release new tips and guides for your products and services and make them available for your customers. New content will always be appreciated.

Automated emails – reminding people to write a review

Website or App integrated review system

Do not just stop after they have bought something from your business. Let them promote your brand for you too.

Here is what you can do.

  • Offer discounts on their next purchase if they refer your brand to a friend.
  • Give trial codes that they can send to their friends and families.
  • Make them feel VIPs by giving them exclusive content in exchange for sharing your brand with other people.
  • A good impression lasts a long way so your customer support should always be great. Through this, your consumers will like your brand better and will recommend it to other people they know – for free!

Monitor your reviews – you should see more and better reviews. As reputation improves you will see more new customers coming into the top of the funnel.

In the early stages of the content marketing funnel you have to work really hard for these new top-of-funnel visitors but now your funnel is feeding itself.

All you do is maintain the funnel you have built.

Content marketing is more like a snowball effect. At first it takes a lot of work but once you get your snowball to a certain size it becomes its own force. As it starts down the hill – it start to grow larger and larger.

Many people get discouraged when they try content marketing. They see themselves doing all this work up front and do not see the immediate returns.

Content marketing is a cost-effective, long-term strategy that grows your results exponentially. At the same time, costs go down as you go into maintenance mode.

You can expect timeframes to look something like this. See how they correspond to the content marketing funnel stages we have discussed.

Plan, strategize and execute your strategy.

These questions may be running through your mind – Where are the customers? Is my content doing anything?

We mentioned earlier about how to measure awareness. Track those metrics to understand how you are doing during this phase. Increasing revenues is not part of this stage.

Google starts to realise you exist. You may start getting a little traffic through searches.

More people are finding your consideration stage content. Continue to execute your strategy. Create more and better content.

Content Marketing Funnel Time Frames

Now the leads are starting to come in more consistently. More people are entering the conversion stage.

Revenues begin to climb and holds steady your content creation pace as you approach a tipping point.

You start to see significant revenue increases and your hard work is really beginning to pay off and so does your ROI – going up and up.

Your funnel is now self-sufficient and you can focus more on the narrow part of the funnel as your awareness content continues to do its work. You may update awareness content or weed it from time to time.

You would not stop feeding your funnel but you would spend most of your time delighting existing customers.

Creating content is not an easy task especially if you have to deal with all three content marketing funnel stages in a short period of time.

Firstly you have to think of your target audience and serve them tiny pieces of business information but not everything.

Then you describe your business and state what you are offering to solve the possible customers’ issues.

Penultimate stage – you have to convince them to convert and buy your products.

Finally – keeping your customers is the key to a successful content marketing funnel.

Conclusion

As always the heart of improving conversions is improving customer journey.

By anticipating the customer’s thoughts, customising your communications, offering transparency, help when required and giving consumer’s options to complete a purchase in the way they would like to – you will see an increase in leads, customer base and sales.

However if you are finding it difficult then seek an experienced marketing agency like Best–Digital Marketing Services to help you set up a creative marketing funnel for your business to maximise your businesses’ potential

Do you want your content to convert? Contact us today to see how we can help you develop your content marketing funnel and strategy that gets results.

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Creating Content Marketing Funnel That Works for Businesses.

18 Ways to Recover Sales through Shopping Cart Abandonment

18 Ways to Recover Sales through Shopping Cart Abandonment

Recover Sales through Shopping Cart Abandonment

Today greater amount of consumers are watching more video content than ever before.

Over the past few years content marketing has undergone a huge transformation and video has emerged to the top spot.

It is the most effective strategy you can use to connect with your audience.

The average cart abandonment rate across all industries is 75% – that means 3 out of 4 visitors on your e-commerce site never turn into customers.

The following graph provides an accurate representation that is indicative of the cart abandonment situation in different regions of the world.

It is worth noting that the global stats average is representative of many regions’ averages.

Global Cart Abandonment Rate

For e-commerce retailers this is a huge lost opportunity especially when you consider all the costs and effort it takes to get consumers interested in your product or service in the first place.

This is a huge toll on your bottom line if you let 75% of visitors leave without making a purchase after:

  • creating content
  • social advertising
  • referral marketing,
  • investing into branding
  • SEO and SEM
  • optimising their journey with smart UX and CRO strategies

How to Calculate Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate?

To calculate the cart abandonment rate- you need to divide the total number of completed purchases by the number of created carts.

Subtract from one and then multiply by 100. 

How to calculate Shopping cart abandonment rate

For example – if you have 300 carts created and 100 completed purchases then your cart abandonment rate is 67%.

How can we stop abandoned checkouts?

You can help reduce the number of people who abandon their shopping cart on your site:

  • analysing your current checkout funnel
  • email remarketing
  • SMS remarketing
  • retargeting ads
  • by using exit intent overlays
  • live chat and chatbots and more

What percentages of shopping carts are abandoned?

The percentage of abandoned carts is different across industry and it ranges anything from 61% to 84%. The average basket abandonment rate is 75.6%.

cart abandonment rate by industry

This simple approach gives your video content a human quality, relatable and a personal production. The total cost is just one cup of coffee.

One of the best types of video content for vlogging is the simple concept of sharing your day at work. Nearly everyone is vlogging these days from celebrities to everyday person.

How to recover adandoned shopping cart

There are a number of cart abandonment solutions and strategies available to turn a significant number of abandoned carts into purchases and this is done through checkout optimisation.

Here we look at 18 of the best cart abandonment strategies to help you recover or reduce cart abandonment rates and reclaim some of those lost sales.

1. Track Google Shopping Cart Abandonment

You first need to determine your current cart abandonment rate before you implement any tactic to reduce the cart abandonment rate.

Setting up Google Analytics Enhanced e-commerce tracking is the best way to track your shopping cart abandonment rate.

Apart from determining your shopping cart abandonment rate – enabling Enhanced e-commerce tracking gives you powerful reports like:

  • Shopping Behaviour
  • Checkout Behaviour
  • Product Lists Performance
  • Sales Performance

In your Google Analytics report – go to Conversions > Ecommerce > Shopping Behaviour to find your cart abandonment rate.

google analytics enhanced shopping behaviour

2. Detect & Revise Leaky Checkout Process Areas

Once you have set up Enhanced e-commerce tracking on your site the next thing you need to do is conduct a goal flow analysis to determine leaky spots in the checkout process.

You can find the goal flow report by navigating to Conversion > Goals > Goal Flow provided that you have already created a Google Analytics goal for your shopping cart on your site.

google analytics enhanced goal flow

By conducting a goal flow analysis you can identify how your visitors actually flow through your site to the checkout process.

It also helps you determine leaky areas so you can come up with measures to reduce the drop off and boost conversions.

The easier you make it for customers to navigate between shop and cart the more likely they are to stick with it and actually check out.

Below are ways that will help you create navigating easier.

  • Identify the drop offs from the user flow report and fix them.
  • Create a stress free shopping experience for your customers. Do not make them click the back button after adding a product to the cart.
  • Keep the cart visible on every page so customers can easily return to their cart to complete the checkout at their convenience.

The process typically follows this flow:

shop to cart to completion flow

You can boost your checkout completion rate from 8% to 19% which can make a significant difference in your return on investment.

SMS communications usually have an urgent reaction compared to emails.  A recent study found that 95% of texts will be read within just 3 minutes of being sent.

SMS Remarketing

As more and more shopping is being done on mobile it makes sense to target consumer’s attention while they are still on the device to refocus their attention to complete the sale.

If mobile browsing and sales account for a large proportion of your traffic then it might be time to consider implementing SMS remarketing to remind customers that their cart is waiting for them.

Best-Digital Marketing - Customer Life Journey

To perform this – you will need to introduce phone number capture in your overlays and guest checkout and also ensure that your customer journey is optimised for mobile checkout since this could be a factor in mobile cart abandonments.

5. Send Email Reminder about Abandonment

A promising scenario is that you have the customers email contact details who abandoned their carts on your website.

So email marketing can do wonders to save your lost carts and bring back a great amount of money in this situation.

Example of remarketing campaign

Cart abandonment emails are triggered when customers leave the website without finishing cart order. 

A cart abandonment campaign can be a series of more than 1 email to persistently follow up customers until cart is recovered.

cart abandonment email marketing stats

Email still remains one of the most effective marketing tools but customers expect more than just a mass marketing mail out.

It needs to be deployed in a personalised and relevant way that makes the customer feel like they are being looked after.

Once they are back onsite you can welcome them and guide them seamlessly back to where they left off.

email marketing campaign statistics

Email and Fear Of Missing Out - FOMO

Your purpose is to remind them that something they want is awaiting them in the abandoned cart and create a sense of fear of missing out FOMO – creating the perfect follow-up email is an essential way to tailor the message to the customer.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - Fear Of Missing Out - FOMO

When implemented intelligently an email remarketing campaign can reduce the abandonment rate and increase conversions by as much as 25%.

Take a look at an example of remarketing email below.

email marketing call to action - cta

You can see that headlines are focused on reminding customers about their incomplete order.

The CTA is made prominent to drive the customer back to the cart page to complete the order.

6. Use Retargeting Ads

A less positive scenario is that your customers leave without giving you any detail to contact. It is best to test different timing settings to find the optimal amount of time between cart abandonment and showing an ad.

An advert retargeting someone is more likely to be clicked on than a standard display ad and it is because customers are being reminded of something they already want.

This can be done via A/B Testing Design and Ad Copy. Not only does A/B testing help optimise creative assets in ads but it helps keep ad sets fresh.

A / B testing of ad copy design

Click through rates can decrease by nearly 50% after five months of running the same ad sets. So A/B testing is essential for analysing ad performance and future campaign decisions.

There are a number of things to A/B test for ad optimisation.

  • Ad Copy: The copy used within the ad, the text size, colour, font or effects like shadowing.
  • Design: Backgrounds, products, border colours, overlays, layouts and any creative visual aspects.
  • CTA: Buttons vs. hyperlinks, copy variations and colours.
  • Ad Headline: Test what is likely the first thing consumers will see and read.
  • Promotion: 10% Off Save 10%, Free Shipping On Orders Over $50 vs. Free Shipping  
A / B testing of design

Retargeting Technique

To follow these customers and get them back to the site you need to save their cookies while they were in your store and target them with ads when they visit other websites or log into social media using the same browser.

That is called remarketing technique to retarget cookie visitors who previously visited your website with ads services.

They are 10 times more likely to click on a retargeting ad than a standard one with brand recognition and targeted content or offers.

A great example is Cole Haan in their Facebook retargeting:

facebook retargeting - cole haan- example

Retargeting helps you increase your brand awareness and convert visitors into paying customers.

Creating social retargeting on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn can generates better engagement and results since consumers can like, share and discuss on the ads post which is shared under your business account.

There are many providers of ad retargeting software which will simply require you to install a cookie on your site.

From there you can segment abandoners to personalise the kind of advert they see.

Some examples include first-time vs return shopper, value of the cart or product in the basket, locations and the search terms that led them to the site in the first place.

If shoppers have questions or doubts they might hesitate and ultimately leave the checkout process if they are not able to find answers to those problems.

One way to get around this is to offer customers a live Artificial Intelligence – AI chat service to help them. 

Chat Bots Atificial Intelligence AI

Chatbots or conversational bots can be effective at a number of points in the customer service journey – from welcome messaging to lead generation to appointment setting.

They can also be extremely useful for FAQs since many customers in the checkout process will have similar questions about returns, shipping times and sizing or delivery options.

Chat Box Service Immediate Response

By installing a live chat app you can give customers the care and clarity they need to complete the purchase with confidence and it also cuts operational costs by 30%.

Chatbots can cross-sell and upsell, serve offers and discounts and create even more incentive for your customers to stay and complete the purchase.

You expect customers to give away their email for subscription, fill out transaction forms with their personal identity and submit credit card information all online.

Although shopping online is becoming a norm but online security is still – doubted.

Building trust and authenticity play a vital role in growing your online business as it helps to remove customers’ hesitation with their personal information and make a purchase.

Examples of trust badges

Adding Trust Badges

There are a few ways to present signs that you are an authentic, secure, safe and trustworthy.

A recent article indicated that almost 61% of shoppers did not finish their purchase because trust badges were missing.

Adding recognisable trust badges on your website at the bottom footer, on add to cart and in the checkout page can assure customers that they are shopping on a secure website verified by authorised organisations.

Another great idea is showing visitors that you have many other customers shopping on the store.

You can display notifications of recent sales made by real people from real locations to create a sense of a busy store and build trust in new customers.

sales pop apps insight sales, traffic and trust

61% of customers read reviews before making a purchase and 66% said they were more likely to make a purchase when it is accompanied by social proof.

Social proof is one of the biggest factors in making any purchase. Therefore providing verified reviews from other customers through a star rating or testimonials is a great way to create the security that social proof provides for shoppers.

Ratings and reviews can also be served at key points of the customer journey so if consumers are comparing shopping then an exit overlay might help them return to complete the purchase.

Enticing your customers to create an account on your website is a great strategy for customer retention.

It also helps you gather data about your visitors so you can curate a personalised user experience for each individual based on the data you have.

That being said forcing your customers to create an account prior to checkout may discourage them from completing the order.

create an account or guest check out

To overcome this you can replace the sign-in barrier by enabling a guest checkout. This way you can encourage your customers to complete the order even they are in a hurry.

This means that you can still collect an email address, name and phone number which is essential for email remarketing as well as staying in contact with the customer for delivery persons and be compliant with GDPR.

You can always prompt them to sign up for an account at the end after they have already completed their purchase.

If you want to gather onsite behaviour of your logged in customers –you will need to enable logged in user tracking in Google Analytics by setting up custom dimensions.

The length of checkout is a significant factor in basket abandonment.

A lengthy process might cause the customer to give up or get irritated so letting them know how fast they are moving through the checkout process is important.

different examples of progress bar checkout

Progress indicators or progress bars tell customers which stage they are at in the checkout process and how much there is to do to complete a purchase.

It is a useful visual reminder for customers and helps to reassure them that the process would not take long or perhaps that they will have a chance to review the order before confirmation.

According to recent data – 21% of basket abandoners felt that the checkout should be simpler.

cart abandonmnet during checkout

They might be concerned that there was no chance to review the purchase or make changes so having a step marked Review may help to ease concerns.

Visuals can often convey information more quickly and efficiently than text and can also make checkout forms seem less tedious.

A visual connection between the checkout pages and the rest of the site helps to establish credibility.

visual display of basket contents

If the checkout page looks like the rest of the site then it feels safe, secure and looks like it belongs to the same site.

Visuals can also convey key information like images of basket contents offer a quick reminder for users which is easier to digest than text.

Free shipping is everywhere so your customers will likely expect it on your site as well.

free shipping - delivery badges

It is clear that throughout all available stats that the most common cause for bailing on carts at checkout is shipping and handling cost related.

More specifically to get a glimpse of the most common causes we have categorised them as follows:

Shipping costs

  • High shipping costs
  • Extra costs (customs, etc.)
  • More costs appear later
  • Tax-related fees

Without a doubt free shipping can reduce cart abandonment.

But what if offering free shipping is not profitable for your business? In that case the solution is to set a free shipping threshold.

free shipping - deliver above a threshold

For instance, you can set your free shipping threshold just above your average order value of your store. 

Not only will it help you to reduce shopping cart abandonment but it also boosts the average order value of your customers.

Tools can aid address entry perform two useful functions – they make it faster and easier for shoppers and ensure that addresses are accurate.

They take a number of forms the most common is asking customers to enter a house number and postcode before searching for the address.

simple address finder

One alternative is to use address predictor tools which suggest matching addresses as shoppers’ type in their destination address.

address predictor tool

Sometimes upfront payment can be daunting or prevent some customers from being able to make a purchase at the point in their customer journey when they most want to.

Recently a number of third-party checkout partners have entered the market to allow customers to delay, split or spread payments out and options include Klarna, Clearpay, Afterpay, Laybuy, Payl8r and several others. 

Fashion retailer Boohoo makes these options clear at the point of browsing to allow the customer to shop with peace of mind.

A prompt to use payment options could also be used for any customers who appear to be hesitating at the payment point of the checkout to ease concerns over affordability.

offer different payment options

These options are largely aimed at millennials who want flexibility in how they pay and many of whom do not own a credit card.

Therefore making big purchases can be tricky with many millennial shoppers who prefer debit over credit. 

So offering these shoppers access to shorter-term credit could be a highly effective way of attracting these customers.

56% of shoppers surveyed in the Klarna Confidential Report reported that they were more likely to buy more if more varied payment options were available.

Social sign ins offered by many ecommerce sites can offer an easy alternative to registration and can speed up the checkout process.

offer social sign in as alternative

They can also help to avoid problem with passwords since users are more likely to remember social logins that they use regularly.

On the flip-side some retailers may feel uneasy about a third party site controlling customer data.

According to Visual Website Optimizer, ecommerce shopping cart conversion rates drop 7% for every one-second delay in your page loading.

Checkout pages that are slow to load practically beg impatient shoppers to take their business elsewhere therefore optimising your checkout pages to be as fast as possible is a priority.

Some on-page technical elements are more easily optimised – for example your images should be as optimised to maintain that balance of quality and speed.

optimise page loading time

You can also limit the use of ad network trackers, poorly implemented tags, social plugins and other bloat to increase your page load times.

Other elements may be beyond your control – such as the delay between a customer clicking Place Order and your financial institution/payment provider actually processing their payment.

In this instance – consider using a visual representation of the delay to assure customers that something is actually happening like a loading bar or progress indicator.

This will let them know that things are happening behind the scenes and that they will be done momentarily.

One of the most reliable ways to prevent shopping cart abandonment is exit intent technology.

This sophisticated technology identifies when a visitor is showcasing exit behaviour and serves a strategically timed overlay with a message that encourages them to stay.

For example if a customer who has already reached the checkout page exhibits exit intent because the shipping costs are too high then a timely message offering free shipping for purchases over a certain amount might save the purchase and also increase the average order value.

With OptinMonster’s exit-intent technology you could present an even more targeted offer by displaying a different message depending on which item(s) the shopper has shown an interest in or which pages on your site they have viewed.

If the shopper still leaves without completing their purchase you can send them an abandoned cart email sequence to entice them to return.

exit intent pop up during checkout

Similarly certain onsite behaviour might indicate that the customer wants to compare prices with a competitor.

If that happens then the exit-intent overlay might suggest a discount on the particular items they added.

exit intent pop up offer discount

It is essential that this technology is deployed subtly and based on a data-driven understanding of customer behaviour or it may backfire, irritating the customer and causing them to leave for good.

Creating an exit intent popup can save your marketing budget by targeting abandoning customers before they leave your site and it is a lot easier than running a remarketing campaign.

Report also points out that 27% of surveyed online shoppers said they abandoned carts because of too long and complicated checkout process.

Optimising checkout process to be a simpler with flexible options can drastically reduce shopping cart abandonment for your store.

Consider going over all items in this checklist to optimise your checkout process for a higher conversion rate:

  • Make your checkout page mobile-friendly to reduce shopping cart abandonment on mobile devices
  • Shorten checkout form by requiring only vital information and minimise the number of required fields
  • Offer guest check-out a viable option for customers who do not want to reveal their personal identity or who are buying gifts for their friends
  • Provide numerous payment options to support customers from different age group and countries
  • Show progress bar to let customers know how many steps left to finish checkout

While you might never recapture all the customers who abandon their carts – the ugly truth is that a majority of small and medium online sellers can get a decent traffic but not make good sales.  

This is due to the outrageous shopping cart abandonment issue and the numbers prove that it is worth the relatively small investment it takes to reclaim those potential sales.

Conclusion

To be effective you need to resolve the root-cause problems. You need to fully and deeply understand why and where your customers abandon their carts.

As always the heart of improving conversions is improving customer journey.

By anticipating the customer’s thoughts, customising your communications, offering transparency, help when required and giving consumer’s options to complete a purchase in the way they would like to – you will see a corresponding decrease in abandonment and an increase in recovered cart sales.

However if you are finding it difficult then seek an experienced marketing agency like Best–Digital Marketing Services to help you set up strategies to recover sales through shopping cart abandonment.

Contact us today and see how we can help you boost your lost sales through cart abandonment.

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18 Ways to Recover Sales through Shopping Cart Abandonment.

How to Increase E-commerce Conversion Rate using Trust Badges

How to Increase E-commerce Conversion Rate using Trust Badges

Trust Badges increase conversion rate for small businesses

For any business customer trust has always been a key element that can lead to success or decline.

It is directly connected to a brand’s self-image and long-term sustainability.

This is why it is something that businesses need to do – putting their customers at ease with trust badges.

One area where buyers are particularly concerned about is a site’s security since they are giving out their personal information.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - trust badges for business

If they become victims of identity theft, their finance, emotion and images are all affected.

So trust badges are your business’s promise to take care of their sensitive information.

But do trust badges really work? Can they really make customers feel safer?

Do your conversions, leads and sales increase with them? Which trust badges should an online store use?

Those are the questions that we will explore and answers in this article. Read on to find out more

What are trust badges?

A trust badge is a badge that you can place on your website that inspires or induces trust.

You can find them during the checkout process, on homepages, or placed on landing pages.

They are often designed as symbols that ensure a website is legitimate and customer data is collected through secure third-party service companies.

The trust seal company that agrees to place their badge on your website confirms that your business is authentic therefore users know that all processes taking place on your website are safe and secure.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - product page with trust badges

These companies are famous for their reputation in internet security or transactions therefore their badges confirm that your business is safe and secure to process their money.

Trust badges can also be from your own company to let customers know you have a certain service standard and protection in place.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - Safe Secure Layer - SSL

You can simply tell a website is using some kind of SSL safety protocol or not by the little lock symbol as a trust badge next to the URL or you can see if the web address starts with HTTPs (safe) or HTTP (not safe).

Not everyone is aware of this therefore it is important for customers to see it with visible trust seals.

Why does a store need trust badges?

Data security has always been a huge problem on the internet these days and buyers are more concerned than ever about their personal information with threats of credit card thieves.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - cyber crime fraud split by type

According to recent credit card data in the UK –  over 60% of customers reported to have experienced a data breach in their history that lead them to be victims of cyber-crime .

This leads to a lack of trust and cart abandonment when buyers see signs of payment insecurity.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - cart abandonment during checkout

In 2020 – 17% of U.S customers did not trust the site with their credit card information and abandoned their carts.

You can see that you can potentially increase your sales by ten percent or more by simply installing trust in the payment processing system.

A trust badge can increase trust and reduce customers’ anxieties allowing them to purchase with ease.

You may ask – do they really work? Simple answer – Yes.  Numerous studies have shown that there is a positive correlation between trust badges and conversion rates or sales.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - adding trust badges lead to increased sales- leads- conversion

A recent study showed that by just adding trust badges on their own sign up page has led to an incredible 42% increase in sales which is amazing.

Not every single brand will experience a dramatic increase in conversion just by adding a trust badge but it is obvious that many businesses will experience a positive impact.

If you want to get the conversion rate that you desire and build trust with customers then trust badges is a great way to do it.

10 trust badges that can increase conversion rate for small businesses

E-commerce and any online stores tend to gain the most from trust badges.

Every time a customer provides their information to complete a purchase these are the symbols of security that reassures buyers when they are making payment.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - examples of trust badges- seals

As mentioned earlier they can reduce shopping cart abandonment and encourage customers to complete transactions.

You will find ten trust badges as well as examples to implement on your site.

1. Safe Checkout Guaranteed Badge

Not all trust badges have to come from third party companies and cost you money.

You can find free symbols online that induce the message like safe checkout guaranteed badge.

This can help reduce traffic bounce rate and increase your conversion and sales.

You can download the badge above for free in PNG format.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - guaranteed safe checkout trust badge

They are simple to use – just copy the link provided and directly link to the company provided, you can adjust the badge with a bit of coding.

A source to get your safe checkout badges is trustlock.co – a company specialising in providing verification trust badges. They have a payment plan that is cheaper than most big companies.

2. Payment Processor Badge

Trusting a brand that you recognise can really increases your confidence when buying online.

That is why you see so many E-commerce sites have PayPal, Visa or MasterCard badges listed as accepted payment options.

This can boost the level of trust for your site without doing a ton of work.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - payment procesor badges

A study performed by CXL.com revealed a whopping 42% chose Visa-MasterCard as the most recognised brand while PayPal was voted as the most trusted brand with 25%.

Furthermore it states that:

The hypothesis that familiarity accurately predicts a population’s perception of security is generally supported. For most part greater familiarity also meant greater feeling of security.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - most familiar brand vs most trusted brand

The best part about these trust badges is that they are free and easy to get.

Visa does have a verified by Visa merchant program so when you sign up you receive a Visa Verified badge for your site that will boost confidence and conversion rates.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - accepted payments

These badges are more commonly displayed at the bottom of each page on your website.

They do not necessarily need to be at the centre of attention or glorified in any way.

Third-party companies can help build trust for your business by showing that you have credibility.

They often have programs that you can apply to have your site reviewed and then given the badges.

These badges can either be free, one-off payment or on-going subscription.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - Best Business Bureau accredited Businesss trust badge- seal

The Better Business Bureau Accredited Business Badge is a prime example.

Over 173 million people search BBB.org every year to check business profiles’ ratings so the site’s endorsement is widely trusted.

After joining the accreditation process you can put the badge on your site and let customers view your verification.

Another trust badge that is well recognised is Google Customer Reviews badge.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - google verified customer reviews badge

Once you apply and meet Google requirements your customers will receive surveys after making a purchase on your store.

You will be granted a badge after Google decides your reviews are good enough.

It is a great way to show off your excellent ratings and reviews and at the same time increase trust for your customers.

Think about when you shop on Amazon – you look for highly-rated items with lots of reviews and even an Amazon Best Seller badge if you can.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - amazon best seller badge

These third-party trust badges may take a little extra time but they are worth the effort to increase conversion for your online store.

Your customers can see your excellent rating and credibility therefore they are more likely to purchase.

4. 100% Money Back Guarantee Badge

Should you not have any third party endorsements then do not worry?

You can still show your consumers how your store has an amazing service by just showing them a 100% money back guarantee badge.

It is completely free and you can choose to make it yourself or find a downloadable version online.

This helps to eliminate the risk and fear of buying online and losing money when putting items into carts.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - 100% money back guarantee badges

The money back guarantee badge provides confirmation that you will take care of your customers and assure their purchases.

This is your commitment to buyers so you can display it proudly anywhere. But make sure you can do what you promise or you risk losing even more trust and sales.

5. SSL Secure Badge

This may be one of the most important badges for your store. It is what you get when you sign up with a third party company that provides an SSL certificate.

Secure Socket Layer or SSL protects the internet connection and the information processed through it. This trust badge proves that your checkout process is safe and secure.

Customer information is encrypted and would not be stolen. Instilling such trust can certainly help your conversion rate.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - SSL secure badges

The number one most recognised and trusted SSL badge is from Symantec.

Symantec owns what used to be called VeriSign as well as Norton and LifeLock. All of these names are well recognised and trusted security certificate providers.

Symantec offers a variety of options and packages to suit your needs.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - symantec options & packages

Paypal SSL

Another well recognised and trusted security system is PayPal. You can purchase protection from PayPal just like from Symantec and receive the trusted security badge for your site.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - paypal secure payments

Shopify SSL

Shopify is one more example of an increasingly recognisable SSL provider.

If you open an ecommerce store using Shopify then you will automatically receive an integrated SSL certificates.

When ecommerce customers shop at a Shopify store they know that their personal information will be kept safe.

Keep in mind that one of the reasons the safe checkout trust badges work so well in increasing conversion rates is because they are recognised.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - shopify payment gateway

FREE SSL Badges

You can also get SSL badges for free online by using Cloudflare or FlyWheel.

But since recognition plays a huge part in trust badges performance therefore having recognised badges can build more trust for your business.

Brand recognition does play a major role in building trust since they are Accepted Payment badges. 

All these examples are of trust badges paid version. Display these badges near your Add to Cart buttons and at your checkout page.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - trust badges bottom- below add to cart button

They need to be clearly visible in order to have the desired effect. They can also be displayed at the bottom your landing page or home page. 

These seals are great to add another layer of trust showing customers that your store meets certain security standards.

The most trusted security badges are of Norton and McAfee that you can include in your online store.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - security trust badges

There are some other names that you can use for your store like Thawte or Truste.

These security badges usually require purchase and only if your site meets the requirements.

They can be costly though as Norton Seal solely can cost $399 per year for a site.

7. Free Shipping Badge

Another trust badge that you can put on your website for free is free shipping.

Just like the 100% Money Back Guarantee badge this can provide additional trust for your customers and highlight your customer service policy.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - free shipping- delivery badges

You can show this badge anywhere on your site from homepage to checkout page so customers know what they are getting from you.

8. Free Return Badge

To gain more trust you can add the Free Return badge on your online store.

This together with a Free Shipping badge will portray excellent customer service that promises a good shopping experience and the badge is free too.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - free returns badges

Here you are eliminating the perceived fear and risk of purchasing online whilst assuring customers that they can buy, return the unsatisfied item and get their money back.

Only provide this service if you are capable since it puts a lot of weight on your shipping service.

9. Best Price Badge

If you are confident about your price then you can add the Best Price badge on your website.

This is a powerful statement about your pricing structure that not many stores can declare so customers are more likely to buy from you.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - best price guarantee badges

It may also be double edged blade if buyers find out other cheaper sites so use it at your own risk.

You can either design this yourself or get it for free – online. If you want the badge to match your site’s design then hire a freelancer to do it for you.

If you want another useful statement yet not so bold then Satisfaction Guaranteed badge is the answer.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - 100% money back guarantee badges

This shows your store exists for your customer’s satisfaction and they can put their trust into you.

The badge is free to design or download to add to your site.

There are three main places that you should definitely put trust badges on your site. First is Add to Cart page.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - trust badges bottom- below add to cart button

Remember the problem about conversion rate? These trust badges help customers stop abandoning their shopping carts.

It is an important time of the purchase process and these badges can increase the likelihood of a customer going through with the transaction.

You would also want to place these trust badges near the checkout button. This will guide the buyer’s eyes and navigate them to hit the checkout button.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - check out pages with trust badges

Secondly add trust badges to landing pages where you ask for personal information.  You can place trust badges close to the call-to-action button.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - adding trust badges lead to increased sales- leads- conversion

Keep in mind that it is not just credit card information that consumers are careful in sharing.

Their name, phone number, address, social security number, and medical information can all potentially be exploited by cyber criminals.

To reassure users – placing trust badges strategically where you are asking for sensitive information is essential.

For the landing page – A/B testing is a powerful method to ascertain which optimal design to use on your landing page.

Thirdly – the product page is a great place to put trust badges too.

Best-Digital Marketing Services - product page with trust badges

They create confidence for the customers to continue with their transaction without the fear of risking their information.

Try to use not too big or too many trust badges here since they can drive the buyer’s attention away from the product itself.

Conclusion

Personal information is a valuable asset that no customer wants to compromise so businesses need solutions to avert customer’ fear.

Whether it is their credit card information, name, address, email address or phone number – by adding trust badges you can make the buyers more comfortable especially when dealing with unfamiliar brands.

To increase impact on sales and conversions you need to implement and install trust badges into your online store today.

The long term boost in revenue is the reward for your investment and some badges are even free.

Experiment with them and if you have any questions – Contact us today and we will come back at our earliest to resolve your issue.

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How to Increase E-commerce Conversion Rate using Trust Badges