Marketing Plans 2014: Mobile, CRO and Content Marketing

The list of “hot topics” in marketing goes on and on. We are constantly being told to jump on the bandwagon of the “latest and greatest” marketing innovation. Like a lot of marketers, chances are you are feeling overwhelmed trying to keep up with the rapidly and constantly changing world of digital marketing.

Are you trying to decide what your Marketing plans are going to be for this 2014?

We'll talk about three marketing actions that you don't want to ignore in 2014; many marketers consider these to be true “must haves”.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

Online marketing is very competitive. In today's tight economy, to the greatest extent possible, you want to avoid squandering opportunities to turn site visitors into customers. But that's what many marketers do. They invest large sums of money and lots of hard work into driving traffic to their websites through SEO or SEM and then do a poor job of turning those visitors into customers.

Their websites often “drop the ball” when it comes to keeping visitors engaged and making them want to take the leap from shopper to buyer. If you have trouble converting site visitors into customers, the problem could be

• Content
• Graphics and Design
• Complex, confusing website navigation
• A combination of any or all of the above

The end goal of marketing is customers, not website traffic! Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is the art and science of turning as many visitors into customers as possible. And it can be a major boost to your online marketing success.

A deep “how to” discussion of the details of a successful CRO program is beyond the scope of this article. CRO is a complex, time-consuming marketing discipline. It's often best to hire a qualified, experienced CRO professional.

But there are a couple of steps website owners like you can take to improve CRO results. You can install and thoroughly monitor a website analytics program like Google Analytics.

You can also conduct A/B testing on different parts of your website – content, content headlines, call to action buttons, etc. Remember that's is easiest to start small on A/B testing, and it's important to test one element at a time. Make a small change; test that change. Make another, and test it...

Content Marketing

As we've said repeatedly on this blog, the words you use in your online marketing are very important. Great copy is so important that it can help put an online marketing campaign over the top in terms of results. On the other hand, poor copy can cause your conversion rate, and your sales, to plummet.

Remember this as we discuss content marketing in the next few paragraphs. Copywriting can add a lot of persuasive power to marketing content.

According to The Content Marketing Institute,

“Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.”

Content marketing can providing outstanding value to potential customers while also subtly selling you and your services or products to them.

The most effective marketing content aims to give readers solutions to problems related directly or indirectly to the product the content marketer sells. An example of effective content marketing could be when a creator and marketer of a physical fitness e-book that tells readers how to obtain “6-pack abs” sends to his email list members articles on foods to avoid to help maintain a low bodyfat percentage.

Those who receive the article may or may not already own the fitness information program. If they do, the email could make them more likely to use the program, meaning they may be more inclined to become repeat customers when the marketer produces followup programs.

If they don't already have the program, seeing the email in their inbox and reading it might remind them about the program, make them want to get serious about their fitness goals and go ahead and invest in it.

A Caution About Content Marketing 

Some in the content marketing field believe that all content has to do is educate and inform. I think this is a dangerous misconception. I believe that marketing content at some point in the process also needs to persuade the reader to take action.

In a B2C scenario, that action might be to buy the product now from your e-commerce store. In a B2B long cycle, multistep buying situation, that action might be to download the next white paper, register for your new webinar or contact a sales rep through your online form.

Yes, I'm convinced that content marketing needs to not only educate and inform, but also to persuade.

Legendary copywriter Bob Bly, one of the world's most successful content marketers, agrees.

According to Bly,

“...if all you do is give away free content, you are not going to close many sales. Content marketers need to remember that we are in the business of selling, not giving away free stuff. The prospect is there not merely to be educated. You also have to sell him on why he should buy your product vs. other alternatives – including doing nothing.”

Mobile Marketing

Let's talk about a popular marketing phenomenon that a lot marketers would do well to pay attention to and adopt wholeheartedly in 2014: mobile marketing.

Every year, more and more consumers buy smart phones and embrace their use as an integral part of their lifestyle. It's no surprise that people pay very close attention to their smart phones. Here's a statistic to drive that point home: text message open rates are over 99%!

Shoppers want to use their mobile devices to help them in the buying process. This presents a golden opportunity for retail marketers. Yet many retail (e-commerce and local brick and mortar) businesses don't have strong mobile marketing strategies they diligently follow.

Those that do may very well find themselves way ahead of their competitors; they can expect to win a lot of new and repeat business.

It's not just B2C retail businesses that can cash in on mobile marketing. B2B firms can too. B2B  buyers and decision makers are just as glued to their mobile devices, both smartphones and tablets, as B2C consumers, maybe even more so. Smart marketers will want to reach out to their potential buyers through the media they prefer, and B2B buyers use mobile devices a lot.

This Mattered In 2013. It Will Matter In 2014

When you are doing mobile marketing, content marketing and CRO (obviously), conversions matter. You have to turn website visitors into customers. One of the most effective tools to do that in online marketing is the landing page.

A weak landing page can stop your conversion momentum in its tracks. When you are making content marketing and persuasive copywriting a priority in your online marketing, you don't want your landing page to be the “weak link” in your marketing “chain”.

You want to include persuasive copy, a compelling offer, clean, simple, relevant graphics and a very noticeable call to action button. Used together, these can give your online marketing results a nice boost.

You want a well-engineered landing page, one designed for a pleasant user experience, whether you are running a B2B multi-step content marketing campaign or an e-commerce store where your objective is to get site visitors to buy your product NOW! You want your landing page to help you accomplish your goals.

Landing pages are a staple of an effective e-commerce or B2B mobile marketing plan. If you've decided to do mobile marketing, you will love the easy-to-set-up landing page platform from Lander. We offer a mobile-optimized version for each of our landing page templates.

Have you made the decision to focus on CRO? You'll love how Lander

• Is engineered to help you maximize conversions
• Offers advanced A/B testing capabilities

The Lander landing page platform is loaded with valuable features that provide marketers like you a whole host of tasty benefits.

But here's the feature you just may like the most: You can set up an account with Lander and start getting familiar with our landing page platform for free and with no obligation!

Any questions about Lander and about how it can help you enjoy more online marketing success? We've got answers, and we'd love to hear from you!

Happy Marketing!