Stamats

Today’s B2B and B2C site visitors base their purchasing decisions on more than traditional factors (cost, style, urgency, etc.). They purchase because of the experience your content delivers.

Site visitors at every point in the user journey weigh their needs against how your content makes them feel—understood, informed, welcomed. And how easy you make it for them to convert.

The experiential content strategy considers your business goals in tandem with how site visitors want to receive desired information and conversion opportunities. It accounts for each step of the user journey through strategically placed content. This approach is not just a trend—it’s an underpinning of successful content strategy.

Implementing experiential content strategy results in highly impactful changes that can be cultivated with limited technological resources.

By examining the high-level user data you’re already collecting—and pairing it with complementary content modifications—you can create meaningful digital experiences for visitors and increase your conversion power.

“Experiential content strategy considers your business goals and how site visitors feel as they interact with your content—at all points of the user journey.”

1. Start with the Why

As in, why is the user coming to your site? While analytics can tell us a lot, we can’t always identify which user journey a user is following based on their entrance page. So, we must rely on user behavior to connect their journey with our business goals.

In general, there are three reasons a person might visit your site:

A. Pursuing high-level brand, content, service, or product interest
B. Conducting research prior to narrowing down options
C. Active decision-making resulting in conversion (or not)

Each journey corresponds with specific digital behaviors, such as frequent return visits or more clicks-through to deeper pages on your site. Data like these are marketing gold. By tracking the actions of visitors who do and don’t convert, you can pinpoint which content spurs action and which content leads to lost conversion opportunities.

From there, you can create robust content that supports the present needs and next steps of journeys A, B, and/or C—without overwhelming site visitors or creating cumbersome navigation.

2. Curate the Page Vibe

Consider this scenario: Your product/service pages attract ample traffic, yet conversion rates are low. In this situation, you shouldn’t assume that page visitors simply aren’t ready to convert. It’s probable that the emotional vibe of the page isn’t on point or the content experience lacks actionable conversion pathways.

Strategic content offerings can rectify both situations. Product/service page content must adequately convey marketability while making the visitor feel good about choosing your brand. So, you must keep the visitors’ next steps in mind.

If you were a consumer, what information would help you move from A to B to C? Curate your answers into mini content sections on the product/service page that parallel each journey.

These strategic content tips will give you a good start:

• Avoid heavy industry jargon, even for B2B sites. It’s PEOPLE visiting your sites, not the companies they represent.
• Aim for a middle school reading level. Don’t make it difficult for people to give you their business.
• Use terms your visitors use, including short- and long-tail SEO keywords.
• Choose images that feature people in action when you can.
• Showcase videos, audio, infographics, text that build understanding, demonstrate the usefulness or educate and entertain.

Relevant, engaging content can help people feel more comfortable with the idea of choosing your products or services. It can encourage them to spend more time on your site and return for additional insights—improving the odds that they will buy.

However, the key to driving conversions is more than publishing helpful content. How you present these experiential pathways is equally important.

3. Create Micro-Conversion Points

In even the most basic website platforms, you can create relevantly natural CTAs using widgets and content blocks. Pre-designed layout elements such as clickable buttons, pull quotes, and image features resonate with visitors emotionally and logically.

Paired with traditional text elements such as subheadings and bullet lists, you can create easy-to-access micro-conversion points that align with the user journey.

Micro-conversion points guide visitors through rewarding content experiences without the need to design a full-fledged personalization strategy. Adding relevant calls-to-action (CTAs) helps them picture how they would use your offerings by providing interactive next steps in the journey.

These strategic content areas provide insights on what’s working and what’s not for each user journey, revealing opportunities for data-driven content updates.

4. Strategic Changes Based on Data

Anonymous user behavior data, which you can glean with heat mapping or analytics event reporting tools, is the pinnacle of content strategy. You can see whether your content serves visitors and where new or updated content can improve the experience.

Click-tracking is especially useful. Run a report to show which features of the page were clicked most. If users are struggling to find inline links, relying heavily on top or side navigation, or clicking items that aren’t clickable, you have content strategy work to do.

Glean insights from your micro-conversion points regularly. Use the data to refresh the conversion power and visitor experience of your content.

Small Content Changes Yield Big ROI

Providing exceptional content is no longer an afterthought—it’s a leading sales and marketing strategy that is becoming increasingly quantifiable. Improving your visitor’s content experience is a win-win. Easier access to journey-specific information streamlines the conversion process. The result? Quantifiable, dynamic returns on your content investment.