Levels of content measurement

1. Consumption

Are people consuming your content? This means tracking metrics like page views, unique visitors, and time on the page. You can use this data to understand which topics are most popular with your audience and which types of content are most engaging.

2. Sharing

Are people sharing your content? This means tracking metrics like social media shares, backlinks, and email forwards. You can use this data to identify your most popular content and the channels where it’s resonating most with your audience.

3. Action

Are people taking action on your content? This means tracking metrics like conversions, leads generated, and sales. You can use this data to understand which content is driving the most valuable results for your business.

Once you have a good understanding of how your content is performing at each level, you can start to align your sales and marketing teams and provide them with the insights they need to be successful.

For example, your sales team can use information about which content pieces are most engaging to your target audience to identify leads most likely to be interested in your product or service. Your marketing team can use this information to create more targeted campaigns and improve the overall customer experience.

How to Measure the Success of Your Interactive Content

Interactive content is a great way to engage your audience and drive results. But how do you know if your interactive content is actually successful?

Here are some key metrics to track:

• Engagement metrics: Engagement metrics, such as time spent on page, scroll depth, and click-through rates, can give you a good idea of how users are interacting with your content.
• Conversion rates: Conversion rates are also important to track, as they can tell you whether your content is actually driving the desired results.
• User behavior: By tracking user behavior, you can learn more about how users are finding and using your content. This information can then be used to improve your content distribution and marketing strategy.

Here are some specific tips for measuring interactive content:

• Use a content analytics platform: A content analytics platform can help you track all of the key metrics for your interactive content, including engagement metrics, conversion rates, and user behavior.
• Set up conversion goals: Before you launch your interactive content, be sure to set up conversion goals so you can track how many users are completing the desired actions.
• Analyze your results: Once you have some data, take the time to analyze your results and identify areas where you can improve your interactive content.

By tracking these metrics and analyzing your results, you can get a better understanding of how your interactive content is performing and make necessary adjustments to improve its effectiveness.

How to Take Your Content Measurement to the Next Level

To really take your content measurement to the next level, you need to start tracking the digital dialogue. This means understanding how your buyers are interacting with your content. You can do this by tracking metrics like:

• Comments: What are people saying about your content on social media and your blog?
• Questions: What questions are people asking about your content?
• Feedback: What feedback are people giving you about your content?

By tracking the digital dialogue, you can learn more about your buyers’ needs and pain points. This information can then be used to create more relevant and engaging content.

Additional Tips for Effective Content Measurement

Here are some additional tips for effective content measurement:

• Set clear goals: What do you want to achieve with your content? Once you know your goals, you can choose the right metrics to track.
• Use a variety of metrics: Don’t rely on just one metric to measure the success of your content. Track a variety of metrics to get a complete picture of how your content is performing.
• Benchmark your results: Compare your results to other companies in your industry to see how you’re doing.
• Track your progress over time: Track your content performance over time to see how your efforts are paying off.

Conclusion

Content measurement can be a complex topic, but it’s important to get started. Following the tips above, you can develop a content measurement strategy to help you improve your content and achieve your business goals.

Ready to take your content measurement to the next level?

Take our Content Maturity Assessment to learn where you stand on the continuum of content measurement and get personalized recommendations for improvement.

Click here to start the assessment!

The post How to Measure Your Content Maturity? appeared first on Rock Content.

It’s hard to imagine a company announcing news or product launches without distributing at least one press release, if not several.

But in the age of cluttered inboxes and instant gratification social platforms, do they still work?

According to Hubspot researcher Dan Zarella, the short answer is yes. Online press release are viewed an average of 275 times during the week and media views account for at least another 70 views.

The more eyeballs checking out your announcement, the more likely you are to gain traction with journalists and conversions with customers.

It’s not enough, though, to simply post a few words about your company’s latest news and take the rest of the week off.

Effective press releases are part art, part science.

Here are 10 things you must do for maximum press release power.

Tease and tell

Your press release should contain enough information to let customers and journalists know why your news is important, but also include a hook that encourages further questions.

Don’t be coy when explaining your announcement, though. If you tease too much without getting into details, you’ll lose people who don’t want to have to dig around to find out what’s going on.

Use visuals

Zarella says press releases that contain images and videos increase engagement by 18% and 55%, respectively.

Now’s definitely the time to put together an informative infographic or round up a collection of short videos that illustrate the concepts behind your announcement.

Visuals are a perfect vehicle for delivering concise information in easily consumable bites.

Polish your SEO skills

To increase the chance of getting noticed on crowded press release websites and in a Google search, make sure to optimize the SEO in your press release.

Don’t go overboard, though.

“Outside of keywords in your headline, press releases should be no more about search engine optimization than blogging is – you write for people first, and let the search engine chips fall where they may,” says Copyblogger’s Brian Clark.

Tailor language to the audience

It’s tempting to trot out your best marketing speak when crafting a press release but it usually falls flat with readers.

Save words like synergy, disrupt, and leader for another time and rely on straightforward phrases that educate reporters and customers instead.

“Our widget increases worker productivity by 73 percent” is much more effective than “As a leader in the industry, our disruptive new widget benefits synergy between customers and employees.”

What’s in it for the reader?

Use press releases to build relationships with journalists and customers alike.

Don’t just email copies to all your distribution lists. Take the time to include a few sentences calling attention to what your announcement means for each unique type of reader.

Customers want to know how your news directly impacts them and reporters want to know how it fits into the niche they cover. Tell them.

Be ready to answer questions

Done right, your press release will generate calls and leads from people who want to know more. Be sure your contact information is clearly displayed on all your releases and your staff is available to answer any questions that come your way. Nothing says “I don’t care” more than silence from your end of the customer service or media relations channels.

Use free and paid distribution services

Press release distribution can be expensive but it’s a critical cost of doing business.

Paid distribution channels often have tight relationships with sites like Google News and USA Today so it’s worth investing in them to reach a wider audience.

Free sites are great for the budget-conscious but typically post to lower-quality websites than you may want.

To maximize effectiveness, use a combination of free and paid services to get your message out.

Tell a story

Case studies and white papers are popular because they tell a great story that readers can interpret and adapt to their own situations.

Think of press releases as a short story that explains your news in a captivating way.

Fast Company’s Wendy Marx says the next time you write a release, ask yourself, “What makes your company tick? How do you delight your customers? What sets you apart from the pack?”

Always post releases on your company website

Don’t rely on the changing winds of the internet to keep your press releases searchable.

Always post a copy on a dedicated section of your company website.

The reason is twofold: customers reading at the source can quickly click over to your product or contact pages, and reporters won’t have to go on a scavenger hunt to track down your organization’s latest news.

Be a good Internet citizen

Link to a few outside sources within the body of your press release to let others share a sliver of your spotlight.

Google loves that kind of reciprocity and readers will know you’re plugged into thought leaders related to your industry.

“Press releases, as long as you write them in-house, also give you the key opportunity to associate your company name with relevant keywords and subjects,” says Forbes’ Jayson DeMers. “This increases the likelihood that search queries will result in your business showing up due to co-occurrence and co-citation, as well as the recent semantic search updates to Google’s algorithms.”

The post Distributing Your Press Release: 10 Must-Dos to Getting It Published appeared first on Rock Content.

How that conversation ultimately goes depends on how you approach key factors like values, pain points, and solutions.

First, just so we’re on the same page, let’s clarify B2B and B2C:

• B2B means Business to Business
• B2C means Business to Consumer

In B2C marketing (business to customer), you’re addressing the needs of a single individual, family, or household. These are everyday consumers making personal decisions solely for themselves or their loved ones.

But with B2B marketing (business to business), you’re speaking directly to another business owner or someone otherwise in charge of making a buying decision on behalf of a larger team. Consumer decisions are less personal in this context and more technical or professional.

Mastering the ins and outs of B2B vs. B2C copywriting is all about shifting your copywriting approach effectively. Here’s a closer look at everything you need to know.

Differences Between B2C and B2B Copywriting

There are several areas where the copywriter will have to make adjustments to effectively speak to their audience based on whether this audience is made up of consumers or other businesses. These are the places where B2B writing and B2C writing are the most divergent. Keep the following in mind when developing a B2C or B2B content strategy:

Tone

Tone sets the stage for how the topic will be approached. When encountering content for the first time, the customer will often experience the tone first. And that will determine for them whether they proceed and consume the content or turn and walk away. This means that it must be spot-on and have the appropriate tone for the customer.

B2B: When it comes to B2B sales, the purchasing decision usually takes a lot longer for a B2B audience. They typically prefer to research something before making a purchase so their decisions will be slower and more methodical. The tone is usually more formal or professional while the content is very detailed and heavy on information. 

B2C: The B2C audience often makes decisions rather quickly although sometimes they do research and consider their options. Because you are marketing directly to humans for human values, needs, and goals, this calls for a more lighthearted approach. Articles may be shorter, and the tone may be more conversational. Engagement is the goal here so shorter, livelier articles are often preferred.

Number of buyers 

This does not refer to the number of individual buyers, but rather the number of individuals involved in the buying decision.

B2B: The B2B audience typically has several people in the decision-making chain, so you aren’t marketing to a single person for one sale, but rather to several people who are involved in the purchase decision. This means that the copy must appeal to each of these people, regardless of their position or personal needs. 

B2C: Reaching a B2C audience means marketing to an individual consumer. Yes, there may be hundreds or thousands of “single people” out there but you will speak to each of them on a more personal level. You want to get their attention and hold it, guiding them to make their decision.

Pathos vs logos

There is always an emotional element in copywriting, even if it means the absence of emotion. When writing copy, it is essential to take into account the emotion, or lack thereof, that the customer will resonate with best.

B2B: This audience responds better to logos. Therefore, the content should be more logical and straightforward with evidence or proof to back up any claims. B2B customers usually aren’t interested in humor or warm fuzzies. Just the facts, please! 

B2C: This audience loves its pathos! Emotional appeal within the copy is more attractive to them. B2C companies that entertain their audience and make them laugh or at least feel something are the most successful at capturing the attention of their audience.

Customer persona

A target audience is a broad group of people that fit into general categories or demographics. Individual habits, interests, and similar details rarely factor into the mix. However, a buyer persona is a much more personal concept.

A persona is a semi-fictional individual designed to represent a hypothetical member of your target audience and better help a copywriter connect with the human being reading their writing.

B2B: A B2B representative will make decisions on behalf of an entire team or company. They’ll also have long-term goals in mind when considering options, so focus on their professional role when considering buyer personas.

B2C: B2C consumers, on the other hand, should be approached as individuals – people with emotions who are often looking for immediate solutions to make life better or easier for their household.

Sales cycle length

Business products and corporate solutions aren’t typically “one-and-done” purchases. They’re complex, slower to implement, and often represent a bigger investment, so the typical sales cycle is a lot longer and more complicated.

B2B: Lengthier sales cycles mean more different steps. That said, a specific piece of B2B copywriting really only needs to convince the person on the receiving end to take the next step (e.g., begin a free trial).

B2C: When speaking directly to an individual consumer about a personal decision, you want to sell them on a purchase now, if possible. Appeal to their emotions and create a sense of urgency to help things along.

It is also important to remember that within these two audience types, there are endless sub audiences. For instance, B2C audiences may include moms, retirees, or people with a specific health problem. On the other hand, B2C audiences may include specific industries, certain areas within an organization, or different education or professional levels. 

All this is not to say that businesses don’t have a human element because they most definitely do. And you have to appeal to that human, just frame it in a less emotional, more professional way. Still, there are some things that will be the same because under it all you are still dealing with human beings.

Similarities Between B2C and B2B Copywriting

Of course, understanding B2B vs. B2C copywriting is also about grasping the similarities. Here are a few to keep in mind when crafting winning sale copy.

Authenticity

Although a business owner, team leader, or corporate decision-maker will naturally have different goals than a single consumer or homemaker shopping for a small family, marketing authenticity is always important.

All buyers want to buy from credible brands invested in what they’re doing or stand for something greater than themselves. B2B and B2C copywriting techniques successfully leverage authenticity to make a genuine connection with the human on the receiving end.

Problem-solving

Ultimately, all marketing targets (B2B or B2C) are looking to solve problems and implement sustainable solutions, whether they realize it right away or not. Successful copywriting connects with an audience by naming a pain point or issue before presenting a specific service or product as the solution.

A business owner may be more aware of the problem and more likely to actively seek a solution, but businesses and individuals ultimately respond to this dynamic.

Positive customer experience

Customer service and customer experience are everything when it comes to both B2B and B2C marketing. That said, great copywriting is always people-focused and crafted with a positive customer experience in mind.

In other words, it should use appropriate but dynamic language, be formatted for readability, deliver any promised information, and include clear calls to action.

Digital presence

In 2023 and beyond, a strong digital presence isn’t just a good idea for brands. It’s a must that legitimizes a business in the eyes of a target audience.

Solid B2B and B2C copywriting approaches go hand in hand with a frequently updated company website, active social media feeds on platforms the target audience uses, and multiple choices for getting in touch with the brand behind the content.

Marketing investment

Both B2B and B2C copywriting require a willingness to invest in their quality if you want to guarantee effectiveness. Instead of trying to handle the job alone, assemble a team of experienced copywriters who understand the ins and outs of writing effective copy for brands like yours.

Use a trusted elite platform like WriterAccess that carefully vets its writers and has a proven method to ensure good client-writer matches. Try it free when you sign up for your 14-day WriterAccess trial!

What Consumers Are Looking For In Content

Consumers are looking for something different in the content they consume than a business owner, executive, or other professional would.

Content that builds trust

Consumers are looking for something to believe in. They want to trust your brand, and they want something that they can put their loyalty behind. At the same time, they are wary of people trying to sell them something. 

Give your B2C audience someone to believe in, to strive to be like. Give them a cause to champion. Give them values and a mission they can get behind.

Content that fosters relationship-building

B2C customers want a relationship. Once they know that they can trust you and that you will deliver on what you promised, they will keep coming back, time after time.

Your content needs to foster that relationship-building if you want to encourage trust and gain their loyalty. You can do this by creating content that is personal and evokes emotion.

Content they can come back to

Now, when it comes to making the purchase, there usually isn’t a very clear-cut path for many consumers. The buyer’s journey often involves going from one piece of content to another, checking out the competition, then coming back to you.

B2C customers will meander, backtrack, and surge forward before deciding to make the purchase. Because of this, they need to be able to return to the content. They may come back several times before making a purchase.

That’s why it’s important that your tone, voice, and style is consistent across your brand. When customers come back to your content, they should already feel familiar with these things. Coming back to a piece of content that’s wildly different than what they saw before can be disorienting.

Content that speaks to their needs

Your B2C content needs to speak to the values and needs of your audience. It’s worth noting that each generation has its own set of values and needs, which will require you to use different tactics to reach them.

With millennials coming into their own in the marketplace right now, it is important to keep in mind what speaks to them. This generation is tech-savvy and attracted to causes. They want to see how the things they buy impact the environment and their world. Inclusiveness and emotion are also important elements that speak to them directly.

Content that makes them think

Today’s consumers love content that makes an emotional connection and leaves them with something to think about long after they’ve walked away. Great copywriting does this so well that it actually makes the reader forget it’s marketing content in the first place.

A good copywriter understands how to go beyond the topic at hand and get to the root of why it should matter to a consumer in the first place. Give a reader something new or interesting to consider that challenges them to shift their perspective.

Content that is social

B2C copy works well on blogs and landing pages, and customer testimonials are always a hit on your web page. But things really heat up when you involve social media as one of your marketing channels.

When your customers can share, comment, and like your content, they are in their element. Keep in mind though that each platform has its own unique demographic, and you’ll want to speak to that demographic in your social media marketing campaigns.

Know the social media demographic for your chosen platform so you aren’t wasting your marketing dollars dumping content into say Facebook when the bulk of your audience is on Instagram. There is value in taking some time to research and find which social media platform your audience is most likely to frequent so you have your best chance of reaching as many potential customers as possible and expanding your reach.

What Businesses Need to See in Content

While B2B audiences are looking for some of the same things that B2C audiences are, they need different things from marketing copy to help them make the right purchasing decision.

Content backed by research

The B2B audience wants to find the product that is the best fit for their business. Given that B2B buying cycles are longer and B2B products are typically pricier than B2C products, you need to pack your content with research and evidence that shows them why your solution works best.

With B2B customers, it’s up to you to give them what they need to confidently decide to choose you. 

Here’s a hint: Content that is backed by heavy, solid research is always a winner. 

Content that’s educational

As for copywriting strategies, the more information you provide in your content, the better. A business that is looking to buy is concerned about two things: cost and ROI.

B2B copywriting needs should address how your product or service affects your customers’ bottom line.

Content that provides proof

Product reviews, case studies, and in-depth, well-researched articles work well to guide B2B buyers down the sales funnel. Testimonials and reviews show leads how real customers feel about your products. Case studies help your leads better understand how real customers use your products.

Comparing the positive aspects of your organization to your competitors gives your buyers a clearer picture of why they should pick you. Comparison charts that line you up against your competitors and show that you have more features, better service, or more amenities give your B2B buyers a visual that is quite powerful. 

Content focused on the facts

Keep in mind that the B2B audience tends to be somewhat narrower than B2C, meaning that your audience is more focused or closely targeted. With the B2C audience, you can romance them a little, but the B2B audience is more focused and less likely to respond to romance copy or clever ploys that touch on emotion. Facts, statistics, research with citations, and real-world solutions are all highly valued by this audience. In fact, anything that shows them how your product will affect their bottom line is a boon. 

Content that speaks their language

Take the time to learn about your target B2B customers’ culture, processes, policies, and lingo. If you can create content using their own language, this can definitely be a win for your B2B brand.

Take the time to learn your target audience’s lingo and terminology, what they do, and how they do it. Learn about buying decisions that they’ve made in the past and other products they’ve used. Find out what decisions they have to make at various points of the buying process and speak to that. Learn their problems and solve them with your products.

Content they can easily skim

B2B buyers are also looking for content that’s easy to skim, especially buyers who are at the executive level. They may not have much time to read or they are squeezing some product or service research into their lunch break.

What does this mean for B2B copywriting? You need to trim the fat or get rid of the fluff in your B2B content. This audience just wants the main points.

Benefits of Tailoring Your Copywriting Based on B2B vs. B2C Audiences

Successful digital marketers never simply put their copy out there and hope for the best, especially when it comes to ultra-precise B2B digital marketing. Here are a few key benefits of consistently fine-tuning your efforts to suit your B2B or B2C audience.

• You’ll drastically increase engagement.
• Your conversion rates will improve.
• You’ll be more likely to forge meaningful connections with your audience.
• Your audience will be better motivated to take the next step.
• Your audience will truly feel you understand them and can meet their needs.

Hiring a B2B Copywriter or B2C Copywriter

All this information is great and useful, but now you need to find a way to execute it. To be perfectly honest, a garden variety writer is not likely to have the skills and expertise necessary to craft the specialized content that is required for this type of copywriting. It takes highly specialized skills to find that delicate balance between logic and human – for either audience – and creating content that works.

Your best bet is to hire a freelancer who specializes in B2B copywriting or B2C copywriting. These freelance specialist copywriters will have the knowledge, skills, and abilities, to create content that speaks to your audience, builds trusting relationships, and convinces them to convert. A freelancer who specializes in B2B writing will know just what voice and tone to use when speaking to a business audience. While a freelance copywriter who specializes in B2C writing will know just how to write compelling content that captures a consumer audience.

At WriterAccess, we have some amazing B2B and B2C copywriters. The WriterAccess team has done all the vetting and testing, so you don’t have to. Just search for writers who specialize in your industry topics, and choose the one whose voice fits best with your brand. Regardless of the type of audience you want to reach, we have the writers who can get the job done. 

Your new freelance writer is waiting on WriterAccess. Try it free for 14 days!

The post B2B vs. B2C Copywriting: All You Need to Know appeared first on Rock Content.

The sports and entertainment industries in particular are currently utilizing marketing with virtual reality using branded content to sell frontline experiences at matches and concerts.

Offering the customer a sample of what they can experience has been effective for selling VIP packages and the ability to see a game from home and literally get into it.

However, the real estate industry is also stepping up VR and marketing by making use of VR experiences to revolutionize how people look for housing.

The Landscape of Real Estate and Virtual House Hunt

Apartment-hunting can be a thorn in people’s sides for many reasons, especially in cities with tight housing markets like New York and San Francisco where the options are endless but someone can snag the apartment before you even show up for the tour.

A rent.com survey says 56% of apartment hunts take longer than three weeks, which can be a serious problem if a prospective tenant has an emergency such as a job change or household expansion necessitating new housing immediately.

The same survey also said that 29% of apartment-hunters looked at more than 20 apartments online before moving into one.
Apps like Realtour360° are using 360 cameras and virtual reality in order to give prospective tenants and buyers a thorough and interactive apartment-hunting experience.

Photos Are No Longer Enough

Photos can only show so much whether they are professionally staged by a real estate agent or quickly taken with a phone to find someone to sublet your apartment as fast as possible.

Realtour360° offers solutions for individuals, brokers, and real estate agencies so that taking 360 shots of your property is done in a snap and people viewing it can see more than what a photo would show them.

This is especially helpful for large and small properties alike, in that photos can be deceiving and the exploration aspect using both the 360 images and VR can make what’s often a very stressful process into something fun and engaging.

The app lets you add hotspots on the screen so that if you’d like to include static images of features such as appliances, crown molding, upgrades, and more the house-hunter feels welcome and like they’re on an adventure.

Increased Insights & Interaction

“There are so many applications for exploration and story-based games and campaigns with Realtour360°,” founder Jim Prucey states.

“It’s very easy and intuitive to touch items and interact with them, then use a VR headset so you feel like you’re right there.”

Marketing with virtual reality and further innovations in the field will make house and apartment hunting much easier for both listing agents and buyers/tenants.

By eliminating the need to arrange several visits, people searching for a home can save a great deal of time looking at multiple properties before committing to seeing some of them in person.

This also saves the listing agent time, and listings will also spend less time sitting on the market as a result of getting exposed to more serious buyers or tenants.

Benefits of Virtual Reality for Real Estate

When it comes to virtual reality in real estate marketing, the benefits are impressive. Here are a few of those benefits to show you why you need to consider adding VR for real estate to boost your efforts.

VR allows you to personalize the experience

Personalizing the shopping experience is a winning approach to gaining the respect and attention of customers today. Expanding that personalization to the search for suitable and desirable real estate is now possible and can truly make a difference.

Virtual reality allows customization of the home search experience, letting the customer personalize specific details of what they see (e.g., changing the colors of walls). Doing so allows them to become more engaged in the process and boosts their desire to make a quicker decision.

VR saves both time and expense

While creating 3D virtual tours can use up a good portion of your marketing budget, the overall results can be rewarding.

You save both time and expense by making fewer trips to different properties and limiting glossy print-outs of various materials to hand out.

Plus, the potential buyer can use VR to narrow down the properties they wish to visit in person, saving them both time and money.

VR allows for a more immersive experience

By incorporating VR into your real estate marketing, you can give potential buyers or tenants a more immersive experience.

A virtual reality real estate tour, which allows potential buyers to see the layout and design of a home, includes 360-degree views of both the interior and exterior.

As such, they can virtually interact with different homes, which will help them narrow down their choices more quickly.

VR expands the ability to reach more customers

With VR, you can market your properties to a wider audience located near or far at any given time. No travel is required for buyers or future tenants to “tour” homes in your area.

Essentially, that is to say, you can generate more views of properties than would be possible if required to do in-person showings to one customer at a time.

As an even bigger bonus, more than one potential client can view the properties at the same time, increasing the chances of a sell or lease agreement.

How to Use VR in Real Estate

Four of the most beneficial ways to use VR in real estate marketing today include creating 3D tours, utilizing virtual home staging, customizing for V-commerce, and offering new construction visualizations.

Create a 3D tour of each property

Creating a 3D tour of a property provides the potential buyer or tenant with a closer view, making them feel as if they are walking through the home themselves.

These tours can be guided so that you take them through 360-degree views, or they can be interactive, allowing the viewer to choose where to go next and what to see.

The goal of these virtual tours is to showcase the physical and virtual layout of real estate. Use them for houses, short-term or long-term rentals, and even Airbnb listings.

Once you learn how to create a VR tour for real estate marketing and discover how well it works for drawing in customers, you’ll be hooked.

Utilize virtual home staging

Staging a home can be expensive, and you may or may not gain from your efforts, as potential buyers and tenants have different preferences.

An empty home, however, is often less inviting to potential buyers, and many cannot visualize its potential. For this, virtual home staging will be beneficial.

With the use of editing software, you can virtually stage a home to capture the attention of your particular customers and help them see what could be. Allow them to discover what a particular room might look like with different color schemes, interior designs, or furniture positioning.

Customize for V-Commerce

Customize your virtual tour to appeal to your particular customer, focusing on particular assets that you know are important to them, such as interior design or lighting.

You can also add features that allow them to choose different furniture, change layouts, switch colors, and more, such as introducing them to products they may want to purchase to include in their new home.

This approach, called customizing for V-commerce, can bring you success in more ways than one.

Provide New Construction Visualizations

Marketing real estate that has yet to be built is a challenge that can be met with the help of virtual reality. Many buyers and tenants have a difficult time imagining how the interior or exterior will look and will discount new construction options.

For real estate still in the planning stages, you can use immersive technologies to showcase how the exterior and interior will look, selling it before even the foundation is poured.

In other words, you help those you are marketing to visualize what is to come and help them determine what they want.

This VR approach can benefit quicker decision-making, such as which variations or upgrades are desired with the original home design.

Interactive Content Is the Future of Real Estate

Creating an immersive experience for potential customers is becoming more and more common today, so much so that people are expecting it to help them make quicker decisions. To create this immersive experience, you will need to start with interactive content that meets the wants and needs of your target audience.

Interactive content is increasingly shaping the approach to successful real estate marketing today, creating an experience that attracts more viewers and increases sales.

It is also easier than ever for anyone to take this approach with the use of interactive technologies and content creators. You can begin by working with professional content writers like those found with WriterAccess and utilizing Ion, a comprehensive online platform that allows you to easily create interactive content experiences.

All you have to do to get started is sign up for the WriterAccess free 14-day trial, become familiar with the platform and writers, and determine how best to create the interactive content you want by becoming familiar with the user-friendly Ion platform.

The post VR for Real Estate: How to Leverage This Tool to Attract Customers appeared first on Rock Content.

Content Marketing is an approach centered around creating tailored and persona-focused materials to draw visitors to your digital channels.

This strategy has proven its effectiveness and offers remarkable flexibility, accommodating various formats and encouraging creativity. 

However, it doesn’t work alone. To make it work, you need a solid grasp of its fundamental concepts and the ability to measure its results. That’s where the concept of Content Engagement comes into play.

For every digital marketer, understanding the importance of creating content with high engagement potential is crucial. Moreover, they must learn how to seamlessly integrate it into their strategy and employ tactics to encourage leads to engage with their brand materials.

With these objectives in mind, let’s use this text to provide answers to the following questions:

Keep on reading!

What Is Content Engagement?

Content Engagement refers to users’ actions when interacting with content in a broader sense.

It allows us to track and monitor how the materials we publish on the internet reach our intended audience.

For instance, on Instagram, followers can like, comment, share a post, respond to polls in Stories, or react to a video on IGTV.

By taking any of these actions, individuals initiate a dialogue with the brand and, most importantly, express their interest in more similar content.

Aside from social media interactions and sharing posts, other common forms of engagement include clicking on links and commenting on blogs.

Of course, the relevance of different engagement types depends on your strategy’s objectives.

The central point here is that this interaction establishes a connection between the brand and the consumer, often in subtle ways. Subconsciously, individuals begin associating the company with the value provided by the content experience, fostering extremely loyal and enduring relationships.

Additionally, we can’t overlook the role of algorithms that organize online content, aiming to display the most relevant materials to each user.

Why Is Content Engagement Important?

When a consumer engages with a post from your brand, they are signaling to Google, for example, that they would like to see more content of that kind. 

This makes it evident that Content Engagement is a fundamental asset for SEO strategies, which aim to position the company’s materials at the top of search engine results.

However, it’s important to note that this shouldn’t be the sole focus of your strategy. 

Currently, Content Engagement plays a significantly more crucial role in the buyer’s journey. Modern consumers prioritize interactions with brands that provide experiences they consider valuable. 

Therefore, it’s necessary to go beyond techniques solely aimed at meeting algorithm requirements. The emphasis should be on the user experience itself. 

After all, the more consumers enjoy your content, the more likely they are to return to your channels.

This necessity to create original and engaging content, designed to attract and retain consumers, has given rise to new trends. Today, a top Content Marketing strategy includes a wealth of interactive materials and unique experiences.

Interactive marketing and live experiences are examples of approaches that create highly engaging situations for consumers, generate data to optimize strategies, and position the brand as an authority on the subject.

Do you believe your content strategy is efficient, or do you see room for improvement?

It’s impossible to provide the right answer without properly measuring your engagement rates. To learn more about this, proceed to the next topic. 

How to Measure Content Engagement?

The key to the success of any content strategy is its permanent monitoring. 

From a data-based culture, it is possible to identify ways to optimize the strategy by fixing a problem or introducing new techniques. 

Therefore, to do this effectively, it is necessary to work with tools that enable data collection and analysis, such as Google Analytics. With them, you can access important information about users’ interactions with your materials, but you need to know what you are looking for. 

On websites, for example, one of the most relevant engagement metrics is the average time spent on page, provided by Analytics. 

It indicates, on average, how much time users spend on each page of your site. If the time is too short, your content is not compelling enough. 

With this data in hand, you can compare your top performer pages and find the elements that make their success possible, replicating them strategically. 

If we are talking about a blog, you may well notice that pages containing images, videos, and other visual elements achieve better results than others. 

Another KPI that should receive great attention is the exit rate of your pages. Different reasons may lead the visitor to leave your website, but an exit rate that is too high may indicate that this specific content is failing in the mission of keeping the user engaged. 

The goal is, after all, to maintain a high level of internal traffic, which occurs when the user consumes several contents in sequence. 

This situation shows that your strategy is having an effect in creating a positive connection with your lead. 

Social media engagement

Although creating a website for your agency is fundamental, you need to be present in other channels, such as social media. They are excellent channels to expand your reach and engage your audience using a variety of post formats. 

Besides, they are excellent for measuring your content engagement. 

Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn: all these platforms feature their own analysis tools, which generate relevant data on consumer behavior. 

When analyzing a specific post, you can see how many (and which) actions were taken from it.

When analyzing your social media content’s engagement, remember that each of them has its own characteristics.

On Facebook, for example, a like in a post is an engagement action usually dismissed by most marketers. This is because many people like posts on this network without actually consuming them. 

That’s why, for companies that work with a Facebook-focused strategy, it makes much more sense to track the number of times a content has been shared. 

How to Use Content Engagement In Your Strategy?

After measuring your Content Engagement, it’s time to apply the information collected to improve the results of your strategy. 

The simplest way to achieve this is by identifying standards in successful materials. 

As we have said, content that presents visual resources usually performs better, but, during the analysis process, you will notice other characteristics that stand out from the others. 

Contents that bring interactivity elements, for example, tend to be much more engaging than static content. 

By perceiving these patterns, you can optimize your other content to make them more appropriate to your consumers. 

To make the whole process more solid, be sure to use A/B tests. They allow you to compare the variables of your content, making clear which options are more appropriate. 

Imagine that you are planning an email marketing campaign to announce a new item in your e-commerce.

In this case, the content is the email message, and your goal is to make the recipient click on the link and visit your virtual store, right? But how do you ensure the best approach?

By running A/B tests, you can test different versions of the same content and identify the most appropriate.

Should the title be more or less formal? Should you use gifs in your message? How should the design be? What kind of CTA has more chances to convert the buyer persona? 

Measuring and applying improvements to your content is a long process, but it brings extraordinary results. 

With the application of the best techniques, it is possible to boost your Content Engagement and generate an audience increasingly involved with your brand. Read on to learn more!

What Are the Best Hacks to Improve Content Engagement

The content you create faces vast competition on the internet, right? But don’t worry! 

With a solid strategy, it’s viable to spotlight your brand and become a reference in your niche. 

For this, it is necessary to understand how the consumer thinks and encourage their engagement. 

Build trust around the brand

In the current market model, the client is at the top of the hierarchy. They have the power to choose between several options when searching for a product on Google, for example. 

In this decision process, one thing that the user takes into consideration is the brand reputation. 

So it is important to invest in branding efforts to build trust around your business. 

A Content Marketing strategy can be effective in this sense, as long as you can position yourself as the subject’s authority. The idea is not to promote the service itself but to show that the client can count on you. 

So, you should consistently produce quality content, making the public acquainted with your brand, your visual identity, and your channels. 

This way, when seeing your content on the internet, the user will have more reasons to consume it. 

Know your audience

The internet audience is vast and diverse, making it impossible to please everyone. 

Therefore, your content production should focus on the audience that is significant to your company: the people with the potential to become clients. That’s why it’s essential to define a buyer persona. 

The persona is a character created to represent your ideal consumer and serves as a guide for strategic decisions on your content production. 

The persona’s attributes must be taken into account when deciding the channels you will occupy, the style of language you will use, etc. 

This way, you will provide experiences with great value to the consumer, boosting their will to engage. 

Offer quality experiences

More and more, the production of content on the internet focuses on creating experiences. 

Take as an example the various live performances that became famous during the period of isolation due to Covid-19. Many brands have sponsored these virtual events to engage their followers on social networks. 

By the way, this kind of live experience is a very strong trend in the digital environment. More connected, the modern internet user searches for new information practically all the time. 

This situation leads many companies to invest in live blogging tools to ensure higher engagement rates. 

Another interesting idea is to hold other types of events over the Internet, such as lectures, courses, interviews, etc. 

With a good live stream tool, you can gather a huge audience in an environment extremely favorable to engagement. 

Use interactive content

Finally, be sure to invest in interactive content across your different channels. 

Besides being excellent for educating the buyer persona, collecting customer data, and boosting your sales, interactive materials achieve incredible engagement rates. After all, they are designed around the stimulus to interaction. 

Think, for example, in an ebook. In the traditional format, the reader consumes all the content without interacting with it in any way. It’s a one-way conversation. 

However, you can add elements such as quizzes and calculators to make the ebook interactive. You can then create several points of engagement throughout the reading. 

Want an example? Take a look at this Rock Content ebook. Notice how, from a rich, concise design, the material offers an interactive user experience, allowing the reader to choose the order of reading and navigate through the document with greater freedom. 

Content Engagement is a central piece in any internet marketing strategy, but only high-quality content has the potential to generate engagement.

That’s where WriterAccess comes into play. Our network of experienced content creators can help you achieve the engagement you desire in no time.

What’s even better? You can try it free for 14 days to see the results for yourself.

The post Content Engagement: What Is and The Best Hacks to Increase It appeared first on Rock Content.

Black Friday stands out as one of the largest annual sales events, during which consumers actively seek their desired products at discounted rates. The emergence of COVID-19 has notably shifted consumer behaviors, with a preference for online holiday shopping over in-store purchases.

If you’re unsure about how to approach Black Friday email strategies, we’re here to delve into the fundamentals of email marketing for Black Friday, sharing valuable tips, tricks and tactics to enhance your existing marketing strategies.

Black Friday Email Marketing Essentials

To begin, capitalizing on the holiday season presents an opportunity to increase sales and website traffic. To provide you with a deeper insight into why it’s crucial to mark Black Friday on your business calendar, let’s examine some noteworthy statistics:

• A significant 59% of consumers aged 18-44 express a preference for online shopping.
• An overwhelming 83% of shoppers are in agreement that they intend to steer clear of in-store shopping.
• Black Friday stands out as the day with the highest email activity, witnessing the sending of 116.5 million campaigns.
• During the holiday season, cart abandonment emails achieve a commendable 34% open rate and an impressive 9% click-through rate.

Given that Black Friday holds immense importance for e-commerce, particularly due to consumers’ strong inclination toward online shopping, the development of a robust Black Friday email strategy becomes paramount. 

The extended Black Friday period

The period preceding Black Friday can start as early as mid-October. This offers an opportunity to create enticing emails or provide advance discount codes to generate enthusiasm among your audience and ignite their desire for more remarkable bargains from your enterprise.

If you choose to initiate your promotions in advance, it’s crucial to strategize on how to sustain enthusiasm and maintain interest throughout the weekend leading up to Cyber Monday. 

Personalization and its role

Enhancing the effectiveness of your email marketing strategies involves tailoring your content to match the products that have piqued the interest of your customers.

Modern shoppers desire personalization. Instead of promoting generic bestsellers or unrelated items, businesses can captivate their customers by announcing discounts on products that have been added to their shopping cart, browsed or purchased in the past.

Many brands send identical discount emails to all their customers. By recommending products relevant to each individual shopper, you establish a deeper connection and craft a distinctive shopping experience. Use email segmentation and customer data to identify products that have previously sparked the interest of your customers. 

Effective Black Friday Email Strategies 

E-commerce marketers often become engrossed in promotional planning and creative execution, neglecting the importance of crafting compelling Black Friday email subject lines, anticipation and urgency. Effective Black Friday email subject lines have the power to instill urgency, convey discounts and generate excitement.

Engagement-boosting tactics

Short, catchy, and humorous text can grab the audience’s attention. A company can, for example, create an email for Black Friday like:

Eye-catching visuals play a big role in engagement as well, as unique imagery can appeal to your audience and incorporate your brand identity. 

Creating anticipation and urgency 

Several email marketing platforms offer countdown timers that can instill a sense of urgency in your emails. This can enhance the impact of your Black Friday promotions, organize time-limited sales events or count down to Cyber Monday.

Because the period leading up to Black Friday typically starts in mid-October, giving you the opportunity to create teaser emails or share early-bird discount codes to generate excitement among your audience and fuel their anticipation for incredible deals from your company.

Here’s an example of an email that creates a sense of urgency (it was made up for illustrative purposes):

Data-Driven Approaches 

By utilizing data, businesses can extract valuable insights about the effectiveness of their strategies and pinpoint areas that require improvement, empowering them to make more well-informed choices.

Audience insights through Black Friday email campaigns can help businesses better understand their customers, tailor future marketing strategies and improve overall sales and customer satisfaction.

Audience insights through email 

One of the most significant advantages of data-driven strategies is the profound understanding they provide of your audience.

By carefully analyzing data from past Black Friday email campaigns, you can unveil valuable insights into your audience’s preferences, behaviors, and expectations.

This newfound knowledge is instrumental in shaping your Black Friday strategies to align perfectly with what your audience desires.

Optimizing inventory management

Effective inventory management is a critical factor in Black Friday’s success. Data-driven strategies offer a lifeline in this regard.

By scrutinizing historical sales data and customer preferences, you can make informed decisions about stock levels.

This ensures you have adequate quantities of the products your audience craves while minimizing the risk of running out of stock and maximizing your sales potential.

Content automation

Black Friday can be a hectic period with numerous tasks, including preparations for Cyber Monday and upcoming holiday campaigns. To simplify your operations and reduce stress, consider integrating email automation into your strategy.

By doing so, you not only eliminate the need for last-minute rushes but also increase your chances of making sales during the busy shopping weekend by reaching out to customers at the most opportune times.

Here are some recommendations to get you started:

• First purchase upsell email: Send automated follow-up emails with tempting upsell offers after a Black Friday purchase.
• Product browse automation: Set up automated emails for those who have shown interest in a product but haven’t completed a purchase.
• Abandoned cart automation: Utilize abandoned cart templates to re-engage shoppers who have previously expressed interest but haven’t finalized their purchase.
• Welcome Email: Extend a warm welcome email to new customers joining your marketing list.

Streamline Your Black Friday Email Marketing Strategies With WriterAccess

At Rock Content, our expertise lies in developing state-of-the-art marketing solutions and tailored offerings aimed at fostering scalable content experiences.

If you’re ready to hire the best freelancers and streamline your Black Friday email marketing, try WriterAccess for free for 14 days.

If you have any questions after reading this blog, know that our support team and help center are here to help you anytime.

The post Mastering Black Friday Email Strategies: Engage, Convert, and Thrive appeared first on Rock Content.

Unlike traditional forms of advertising, such as newspaper or billboard ads, which target a wide audience, content marketing takes a different approach.

It focuses on delivering your marketing message to the individuals who are most inclined to find the information, and eventually, your product or service, appealing.

What Are The Types of Audiences?

Not all audiences are alike. Knowing the differences can help you better write to their specific needs. Jharaphula breaks down internet readers into six distinct groups.

1. Friendly audience.

These are your loyal followers. Your marketing to this group doesn’t have to focus on the value of the brand and, instead, can focus on sharing news about things like new products, VIP sales, and upcoming events. 

Interactive content works best with this group since these people are the ones most likely to share a post, leave a comment or reply to a question.

2. Apathetic audience.

This group is interested enough to follow your content but rarely responds to posts with questions or comments. 

These are your lurkers.

3. Experienced audience.

This is the group on which you want to focus the majority of your marketing efforts. 

They have likely been following your content for a while, but require a connection with your company to take that final step to become a regular customer.

4. Uninformed audience

This audience has little idea or has already developed an opinion about your company or product. This can be an untapped market, especially if you are looking to add to your customer base. 

Just be aware that this audience will require more time to make a buying decision since they first need to familiarize themselves and feel comfortable with your brand and product line.

5. Hostile audience

These are people who have a negative attitude towards your company or product. Maybe they had a bad customer service experience or their neighbor or brother-in-law has shared a bad experience with them. 

These can also be people who have no need or desire for your product. 

For example, vegetarians would be a hostile audience for a meat distributor. Your marketing dollars would be better spent focusing on other groups.

6. Opportunistic audience

The opportunistic audience is looking to make a profit from your content or product. This could be a good thing, depending on what you are offering. 

For example, if you are offering a sales opportunity or wholesale pricing, this is the group to target. Just be aware that they are looking for a way to make money from their transactions with you.

How to Define Your Content Marketing Audience

Once you know what type of audience you are going to target with your marketing efforts, it’s time to further define your content marketing audience. 

Use your own customer data and your keyword research to see who is looking for (and buying) products such as yours. Look at age, geographic location, gender, education, and income. 

You might even consider their politics, since this influences where they choose to look for information online. 

Keep in mind that the more specific your audience, the more successful your content marketing will be.

There are several good online tools to help you with your research. Google Analytics can provide good information about who visits your website, their age, and gender, where they live, and how they arrived at your website. 

SEMrush also offers a useful research tool as does Audiense.

The Connection Between Target Audiences and Content Marketing

Successful content marketing depends on finding a niche audience for your content, and your products and services. The more tightly-defined your audience, the more successful your SEO efforts can be. 

For example, there is a lot of competition for people looking for information on “gold jewelry”. 

However, if you further define your market to target those looking for “gold earrings for teenage girls”, you’ll likely be able to attract more readers for your pages, and ultimately get more sales.

Successful Content Marketing with WriterAccess

WriterAccess makes it easy to connect with more than 15,000 talented writers who can help further your content marketing efforts.

Armed with your clearly defined target audience, our talent pool can craft well-written, targeted, and optimized articles, blog posts, social media posts, ebooks, and white papers.

Working with a content marketing partner, such as WriterAccess offers a number of advantages. 

For example, you don’t have to add a staff member to produce your content. You pay our writers for the work they produce. This not only saves having to pay a person during slow content periods but also having to pay for benefits and taxes associated with a staff person. 

When you work with WriterAccess, you also have the trusted and reliable WriterAccess name and reputation behind your writer, giving you peace of mind you may not have if you hire a freelancer on your own. 

We’ve vetted and tested our writers, so you don’t have to.  

WriterAccess track record is pretty impressive. To date, our writers have completed more than two million projects for customers with a 99.97% success rate. 

We make it easy to give us a try. WriterAccess offers a two-week trial period, and we invite you to visit us today to get started.

The post Target Audience: How to Create the Best Content Marketing Strategy for your Audience appeared first on Rock Content.

Our current landscape encompasses a wide range of devices, reliable internet connections, and forward-thinking brands looking to harness all these elements through their websites and digital platforms.

We’re witnessing a wave of innovations that empower businesses to enhance their results, maintain consistent sales growth, and provide more choices to consumers, all while delivering an improved customer experience.

However, even in this evolving landscape, many companies still lack a website and struggle to achieve their expected outcomes.

Perhaps the primary reason for their online struggles is the absence of technical expertise required to create and manage web pages and online content.

This is where the Content Management System (CMS) becomes a definitive solution. Don’t worry if you’re not familiar with the term.

We’ve put together this comprehensive article to educate you on everything you need to know about it. In this post, we’ll cover:

Are you ready for this gigantic dose of knowledge? Let’s go!

What Is a CMS?

CMS stands for “content management system.” In simpler terms, it’s a system that makes it easy to get a website online.

However, that alone doesn’t set a CMS apart. After all, you can accomplish the same task with minimal technical knowledge.

What makes a CMS special is its ability, as the name suggests, to effortlessly publish and manage dynamic content. This means you can maintain a blog, e-commerce site, or virtually any kind of website that requires regular updates.

Just imagine having to manually update a website every week. That wouldn’t be practical.

However, you should be aware of the fact that CMS tools are valuable for managing and optimizing content, but the creative aspect of content creation still relies heavily on human input.

A CMS is the perfect solution for anyone in need of a well-structured and continuously updated website.

How Does a Content Management System Work?

Imagine this: you’re working for a newspaper or a magazine.

Your readers eagerly anticipate staying up-to-date with the latest news, which means your team must churn out fresh content almost every day.

But here’s the challenge: for every new piece of content, you have to revamp the entire structure and overhaul your website’s infrastructure.

What’s worse, your only option is to make these updates manually.

In such a scenario, can you fathom how expensive and time-consuming your work would become? Maintaining your communication vehicle would be nearly impossible in terms of both cost and time.

And let’s say you somehow manage to work that way and keep your website running. You’d need highly skilled experts, which could limit your potential for new business opportunities.

Thankfully, our reality today is far removed from that scenario. To tackle these structural and operational challenges, the CMS came into existence.

The concept of a CMS typically involves free software created and maintained by developers worldwide. With this support, any user can effortlessly create websites, blogs, or other types of web content.

It’s worth noting that we mentioned “typically” because not all options are free. We’ll delve into those free alternatives later in this article.

One of the most significant advantages of a CMS is its user-friendly nature, allowing individuals to focus more on strategy and less on the nitty-gritty operations.

Users don’t need to fret over technical intricacies; they simply need to regularly upload new content.

This enables people to efficiently manage all their content, while the structure ensures exceptional performance, a superb user experience, and scalability for future website growth.

What Are The Main Functions of a CMS?

It may look simple, but there’s actually a lot going on in the creation and publication of new content on a website. Each of those components needs a CMS’s support to appear online.

That becomes even clearer when we look at some of the main functions of the system:

• creation and publication of pages;
• text and code editing;
• commentary moderation;
• stock control and sales system (for e-commerce);
• installation of plugins and add-ons to extend the functionalities of the website;
• library of media, to upload images and videos;
• and much more.

How To Choose a CMS?

The task of choosing a CMS can be a little challenging. After all, there are a lot of alternatives out there. Besides, those options are very much alike. 

When we look at 10 of those options, we will see that all of them have the same promises. So, how do we choose the best? The truth is you only need to understand a few aspects to make the decision.

The choice is essential. We’re not saying otherwise. But, instead of spending too much time questioning yourself, follow these practical tips:

• what’s the system’s history? Find out if the user community is big enough and active if the system has a good reputation, and if the support team is well-praised;
• what’s the system’s purpose? If the central focus of the CMS is very different from what you’re looking for, try something else. For example: you want to create a blog, but the CMS seems to concentrate on e-commerce;
• how’s the user experience? It doesn’t matter if it’s the best CMS on the market if it doesn’t have a good experience. Try to understand which option fits your company’s needs.

We, at Rock Content, have a favorite CMS: WordPress. It’s the most commonly used in the world, and it has solutions for pretty much any kind of project.

But that shouldn’t stop you from searching for more options and choosing what’s best for you.

How To Migrate Your CMS?

What should you do when you realize that your CMS doesn’t make sense for your business anymore? The answer is: to migrate to a new CMS.

If you’re wondering how to do that, we’re not going to provide you a step-by-step solution, because even we can’t do it here.

The number of options for a CMS is large, which makes it impossible to know which one you should use today, and to which you should possibly migrate.

But there are two golden rules for CMS migration:

1. Do a backup of your information and database: in case everything goes wrong, you will still be able to restore your site on your old CMS with the database 100% safe;
2. Contact the new CMS support team: in general, every quality CMS has great documentation and user communities. This can lead you to migrate without trouble. 

What Are The Benefits of a CMS? Check 7 of Them!

The CMS presents several benefits for business people who wish to create pages on the internet. Here are 7 of them!

1. It’s easy to create and maintain pages

The most significant benefit of using a CMS may be the fact that it makes it easier to create and maintain pages daily. 

You can access the system directly through the browser, and that means you don’t need to download any specific software. So, there’s nothing to take up more space in your computer or smartphone.

That allows you to create your page quickly, so you can leverage the business opportunities by delivering excellent content for your users.

2. It’s easy to use

Everyone who has a website knows that you need to pay attention to the news and trends in the market.

So, your pages have to be flexible enough to ensure the use of those new possibilities and innovative features to the fullest.

With a great content management system, any member of your team can help manage and maintain your digital strategy.

That includes creating pages on your site, adding images, adding videos, adding testimonials from your customers, and much more.

All that can be done quickly and easily, without the need for technical expertise in programming, design, or diagramming. 

And there’s more: one essential aspect of the CMS is, as the name implies, the capacity to manage the content instead of only creating it.

In other words, it doesn’t matter if it’s possible to use the system, without monitoring the progress of results.

Once more, a good-quality CMS makes that part easy. After all, everything can be tested and optimized to provide the best and fastest results. 

3. It offers a large number of additional features

The leading CMS on the market presents an extensive range of additional features. Those can be included on the website with only a few clicks in order to foster the best experience for clients and make the management even more efficient. 

However, this is something you should take into consideration: it’s necessary to analyze the characteristics of the chosen software, so you can be sure that they match your needs.

If you notice that something is missing, look for plugins and additional tools. In case you still haven’t found what you need, maybe it’s time to search for another CMS.

4. It offers support for organic search optimization

Every business manager who seeks to establish a website as a reference in the market knows that: it’s crucial to understand and apply the techniques and strategies for organic search optimization, the so-called SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

SEO’s role is to increase the chances of your page being found online via search engines, such as Google. 

And the more that people find your site organically (without ads), the better your process of customer acquisition is. At least as long as you have a solid content strategy and a well-structured marketing plan. 

You can use different techniques, such as:

• link building to improve domain authority and the positioning on rankings;
• image optimization to make your content visible in visual search;
• strategic use of keywords, especially the long-tail ones;
• redefinition of the layout to make it more pleasant for readers and therefore increase the retention time.

It’s necessary to take care of every page on your site if you want to optimize SEO properly.

If the website is complex, and built with specific software, it can be hard to keep optimizing it correctly — and that’s even more challenging when the site grows. 

With a CMS, though, users can do it without further problems. A few minutes per day is enough to make your pages visible in the first positions of SERPs. And there’s no need to invest 1 cent on paid advertising.

5. It offers versatility for projects

It doesn’t matter what you want your site to be: you can achieve it with a good CMS. 

Do you want to create a blog to publish relevant content every week? Ok. Do you need to create pages for your e-commerce with a lot of features? No problems.

Those are only some of the possibilities. You can develop an area for members, a landing page, and even create your own social media. 

That is another good point about the CMS: it can help you with different projects, of various sizes, by providing the same functions and structure.

All you need is: to mold the features according to the demands of your specific project.

6. It offers a good loading speed

Another incredible benefit is that the CMS contributes to improving your pages’ loading speed rates.

That is crucial to offer an extraordinary experience for your user. Not to mention that it’s also relevant for SEO. 

The slower your pages are — and we’re talking about seconds here —, the greater the odds of your potential client closing the tab and going for another option on the internet.

That’s why it’s necessary to monitor your pages’ loading times in order to optimize them.

That becomes even clearer on mobile devices — and they are getting more attention from Google in the new ranking strategy. 

The algorithm, known as the mobile-first index, prioritizes pages that load faster on mobile devices. Fortunately, every high-end CMS out there offers support for mobile-first websites.

7. It offers low cost

Last but not least, we can’t forget to mention the maintenance costs.

Imagine that you built your website with a specific developer, in a complicated language that only a few professionals know. 

Can you realize how keeping the structure functioning and updated in this case can be way more expensive? After all, the lack of expertise will raise the prices for the service.

However, if you use a CMS, everything is cheaper: from the setup to the update and maintenance. 

Most CMS are free because they were created by developers scattered around the world.

Of course, you can still hire a developer or designer to adapt the site to your interest and needs. But that’s different than creating a completely personalized website.

Even the changes for a CMS usually tend to be cheaper than creating something from scratch.

So, what makes a difference in the cost is the update and maintenance. That makes the CMS a more cost-effective option.

How To Choose the Best Hosting Service for a CMS?

The CMS is not the only critical component for site maintenance. 

The hosting service has a special role in this too, even because if the host doesn’t offer support for the CMS you use, nothing will work.

Once more, we’re getting into the matter of the number of available options. We can’t analyze them all one by one in this article, but we can give you a step-by-step on what to take into account while choosing:

• decide first which hosting service you want. There are 4: shared hosting, cloud, VPS, and dedicated server;
• narrow the list down to the well-known options that also offer support for the CMS you’re looking for; 
• compare features, client support, and prices of those alternatives left on your list.

What Are the Best CMSs in The Market?

Now that you know what a content management system is, we’re going to show you the best options on the market. Let’s kick off with our recommendation, WordPress:

WordPress

WordPress (WP) is the most used CMS platform in the world. But that’s not why we like it so much. First of all, it’s a free alternative, used by blogs, e-commerce, and a variety of other projects.

There are various additional features, such as plugins and templates already built so users can customize their solutions according to their needs and business strategies.

One of the most significant advantages is its active community. There are thousands of developers with the necessary expertise to keep the system up to date, providing changes and improvements.

In addition to that, security is also a key factor. Since WP is an open-source alternative, crackers can seek security holes in the system to attack private information. So, we recommend using extra resources to ensure the CMS reliability. 

Joomla

Another outstanding CMS is Joomla. It’s been used by many prominent companies around the world. One of them is the renowned Harvard University in the United States.

Like WordPress, it’s a free system, based on PHP, with a lot of additional functions.

Even though the community and the support are not as good as those of the most famous options, Joomla is a robust and reliable CMS.

Drupal

What can we say about the CMS that’s used by the government of the United States? That’s right! The North-American government chose Drupal as its content platform. 

The software encompasses modules that interact with one another, which allows personalization. 

When talking about Drupal, it’s essential to mention the large community of experts on the system — also one of the principal WordPress advantages.

TextPattern

Those who aim at creating simple pages and seek high-speed page loading must consider TextPattern as an option.

It’s a little behind the first alternatives we’ve mentioned because it doesn’t offer a massive variety of pre-configured templates. But there’s still a lot of extra features. 

Radiant

Finally, we can’t finish the list without mentioning Radiant. It’s a content and permission management system based on Ruby, recommended for smaller-size projects. 

It has its own language, very similar to HTML, and it offers excellent plugin options.

What Are The Differences Between CMS, WCM, ECM, DAM and DXP?

CMS is a system that encompasses several kinds of software. Each one of them exists to match different needs. 

That’s why we will show you some of the categories and their differences.

WCM – Web Content Management

WCM is an ideal tool to create, manage, store, and display content on web pages. 

It provides the capacity to plot and organize sites, so the content is always up-to-date and easy to access at any given moment.

Besides, it allows control and content preparation for publication, with review and approval before putting anything online.

WCM also permits automation for content publication, which generates better performance.

ECM — Enterprise Content Management

ECM is the technology behind the capture, management, preservation, and distribution of the content and documents related to business processes. 

The ECM tools and strategies allow users to organize information throughout the life of the company. 

Amid those tools, there are the WCM, which we’ve just seen, and the DAM, our next topic. 

DAM — Digital Asset Management

Digital Asset Management is a similar concept to ECM. 

The main difference, though, is that the DAM has a specialized focus on rich media management, such as videos, audio, images, and others.

However, the ECM works on file management, in general. So, if you need a solution to store multimedia files efficiently, the DAM is relevant.

DXP — Digital Experience Platform

With the growing number of access channels for customers, integrated strategies to improve the purchase experience are not an option anymore.

The DXP (Digital Experience Platform) turns it into reality and unifies the experiences and sensations at every point of interaction, which strengthens the brand identity.

We’re talking about a platform that was made to create and offer integrated and optimized experiences for users.

Those optimized experiences must happen in several channels and always have to consider not only the customer’s preferences but also his lifecycle. 

Why Should Companies Adopt a Content Management System?

In the virtual realm, brands face fierce competition.

Business managers continually seek novel ways to enhance user experiences on their websites while introducing innovations, all while maintaining a firm grip on their strategies.

To achieve these objectives, a content management system (CMS) can be your ally. However, as we’ve discovered, the market offers numerous options.

So, don’t rush into thinking that choosing a system is something you can do haphazardly.

The primary challenge for companies lies in aligning their needs with the available resources. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all platform that can solve every problem. It’s crucial to discern what the company requires in terms of supporting its clients and providing tailored solutions.

Thus, it’s imperative to analyze which CMS possesses these characteristics and which one comes closest to meeting your criteria.

But remember, not even the finest CMS can perform miracles if you’re not producing high-quality content. That’s where WriterAccess comes in.

Our content creation marketplace can assist you in finding top-notch professionals to craft content for your brand. I invite you to try it out for free for 14 days and witness the transformative power of exceptional content for your business.

The post Why Do You Need a Content Management System (CMS) For Your Company? appeared first on Rock Content.

With the wide variety of companies competing for the same audience, the consumer is in an unprecedented power position. 

If they are not satisfied with a brand’s experience, a quick search on the internet is enough to find another one offering similar solutions.

Therefore, your Digital Marketing plan must give great attention to this metric, seeking to transform the customer experience into a brand differential. But how does one do that? In this text, we will discuss:

What Is Customer Satisfaction?

Commonly represented by the acronym CSAT, customer satisfaction, as the name makes clear, is a metric designed to measure the level of contentment clients have towards a product, service, or experience. 

By mapping it, your strategic team gains insights into ways to optimize the strategy.

How you calculate customer satisfaction varies greatly according to the company’s objective and the specific situation. Generally, surveys are offered to consumers, who are encouraged to evaluate the element in question.

And remember, not only the qualities of products and services influence these responses. Yes, a quality product is important to generate satisfaction in the people who consume it, but it does not guarantee it.

After all, there is no point in offering a product full of features and benefits if, when the user starts using it, they are not sure how to do it.

Therefore, more than thinking about the development of solutions, it is necessary to focus on the consumer’s general experience.

Thus, in the end, we can define customer satisfaction as a direct reflection of how a person feels when interacting with your brand, not necessarily at the time of purchase. 

The consumption of free content, for example, can be a factor that raises this feeling of contentment.

In other words, in the relationship with the modern consumer, profit is far from being all you should worry about.

In fact, this is a mistake often made by companies. Deceived by good business results, they fail to keep up with customer satisfaction, which can damage in the medium and long term.

But, after all, why is it so important to know if your consumer is satisfied with the experience offered by your brand? Isn’t it enough to know that they are spending money on your solutions? 

No! And we explain why in the next topic.

Why Is Customer Satisfaction So Important?

To begin with, if you don’t measure customer satisfaction, how will you locate dissatisfied customers? Hard, isn’t it?

The possibility of finding and regaining those people can generate even more revenue for your company. More than that, it’s a way to avoid damaging your image.

That’s because we live in the age of digital transformation. Today, all shopping experiences pass, in some way, through the internet.

With fast navigation and efficient search engines, the user has access to basically any type of information, including the opinions of other customers about your company.

There, we need to remember the concept of consumer 4.0, coined by professor and marketing specialist Philip Kotler. 

According to him, relations between customers and brands are marked by some suspicion in the face of large advertising campaigns.

Currently, what is most valuable in the customer’s decision-making process is precisely the opinion of friends, family, and even strangers on the internet.

That said, you don’t want a dissatisfied customer talking badly about the experience provided by your company, right? Have you ever thought about how many sales you could lose because of that? 

So, this metric’s importance is in maintaining a positive image for your business, which enables its growth. 

But that’s not all. Check out some other benefits of putting customer satisfaction at the center of your strategy.

You can also identify happy customers

If it is important to identify dissatisfied consumers, it is also essential to find those who are happy with the relationship they have with your brand. 

They can become brand advocates, organically increasing the reach of your company and attracting more business opportunities.

Besides, these clients tend to return more easily. Therefore, it is interesting to conduct campaigns aimed at them. 

For example, email marketing messages focused on these people can achieve much higher conversion rates.

You can enhance lead generation

Remember we mentioned that feedback from satisfied customers is fundamental for the modern buyer’s journey? 

Studies prove that 71% of people declare themselves more likely to purchase after reading positive reviews about the company.

A more audacious strategy, but very effective, is to get in touch with customers with the highest level of satisfaction and collect testimonials about their experience with your brand. You can then insert them into an interactive landing page and watch the lead generation increase.

Sales teams become more effective

Did you know that 55% of customers are inclined to spend more money on experiences that they are sure will be good? 

If your company has a good reputation in this matter, imagine how much easier this will make the work of your sales team!

Also, companies with high levels of customer satisfaction have this as a great competitive advantage, which generates interesting elements for the sales pitch of their representatives. 

The use of graphics and other visual elements to express how satisfied the company’s customers are is highly convincing.

You gain the ability to upgrade products and services efficiently

To stay competitive in an increasingly dynamic market, you need to understand the product lifecycle and make upgrades where applicable. But to do so, you must adopt a strategic process, or the full potential of the solution may be wasted.

By tracking customer satisfaction metrics, you can identify which items in your portfolio need to be updated and why. 

This way, the whole process becomes more efficient, increasing the return on investment.

How to Improve This Metric in Your Company?

At this point, you understand that ensuring a good level of customer satisfaction is vital to your business’s success.

 So, what can you do to improve this metric? 

The first step, of course, is to decide how to measure it. One of the most common methods is the Net Promoter Score (NPS). 

The popularity of NPS comes from its efficiency and simplicity. It’s a one-question survey that should be very straightforward, like: “How likely are you to recommend us to your friends?”. 

The scales go from 0 to 10 and are interpreted in the following way:

• 0 to 6: detractors, who are unhappy and can cause damage to your reputation;
• 7 to 8: passives, who are satisfied, but not so much that they will recommend you;
• 9 to 10: promoters, who are happy, enthusiastic, and tend to recommend your brand to others.

Then, a simple calculation is enough: the percentage of promoters — the percentage of detractors. 

From this understanding, you can direct your strategy to reward and retain promoters, improve the experience of passives, and find out what makes the detractors unhappy.

Monitor your social media

Social media channels are important meters of consumer contentment. 

From the comments they leave on your posts to the variation in engagement level, there are several ways to find out if your followers find the experience valuable.

So, in addition to producing qualified content for networks such as Instagram and YouTube, for example, monitor their results and stay alert to what consumers are trying to tell you.

Ask for feedback

There are several ways to ask for feedback, and we have already covered one of them, the NPS. 

However, this effort must extend to other channels in your company. An Instagram story, including a question sticker, may encourage followers to voice an opinion on how your brand can be improved.

In the same way, it is interesting to make room for your website users to leave reviews, especially if we are dealing with e-commerce. 

Think about Amazon. All the products listed are accompanied by stars that indicate how satisfied consumers have been with it.

Provide solutions

After receiving feedback, it’s time to present solutions. The variety of methods that can be implemented is as wide as the possible reasons for consumer dissatisfaction. 

It may be that your customer service is faulty, that your products are fragile, or even that your content lacks interactivity.

The key is for you to be ready to receive criticism, interpret it, and come up with solutions to reverse it. This way, the client will realize that you really care about their experience, which can result in an extremely loyal relationship. 

Customer satisfaction is one of the most important metrics for the ongoing success of your business. By measuring it, you can elevate your consumers’ contentment, increasing your brand reputation, and, consequently, the maximization of your revenue.

Do you want to start improving the level of contentment of your consumers? So, check out this post and find out how to run a customer satisfaction survey!

The post Customer Satisfaction: Boosting Revenue with Effective Strategies appeared first on Rock Content.