Build a Microsite for Better Content Marketing Results

Stay Out Of The Trash Bin – Build A Microsite

The ultimate goal of every marketer and salesperson is to convert a lead into a sale. Optimizing this process and thereby improving conversion rates are some of the most obvious ways to grow a company.  However, consumers are constantly flooded with content. They could not possibly open every email or read every social media post that they receive. So how does a marketer ensure that their material ends up in a consumer’s hand, or on their computer screen, instead of in the trash bin? The easiest way is to create content marketing campaigns with marketing automation software and build a microsite at its core.

View Slides – How to Generate Leads with Content Marketing

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Content Marketing: Today’s Lead Generation Programs

A look at content marketing’s explosive growth in recent years (Blue)

According to research done by the Accuity Group, this year, a record 94% of buyers researched before they made a purchase. Before reaching out to salespeople or going to the store, nearly all consumers are getting on the internet and doing a quick search. This thirst for information is a relatively new, rapidly growing trend in the consumer’s process. Marketers have responded with content marketing – supplying a lead with valuable content and information in their marketing campaigns. They are seeing significant improvements in lead generation, nurturing and conversion.

According to the Aberdeen Group, marketers that use content marketing outperform those that do not by a factor of 6 (2.9% conversion vs .5%). Content marketing’s success speaks for itself, and its popularity has soared as a result, with a reported 93% of B2B companies using content marketing in 2012 (Content Marketing Institute). Now, content marketers are looking for efficient ways to distribute their content. They want to drive more people to their content, and they want to keep interested leads in their sales funnel.  These dynamics have lead marketers to invest in marketing automation software that is designed to optimize content delivery to leads throughout the funnel.

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Content Marketing Strategies that Drive and Protect Organic Leads

Presentation at the New England DMA Conference by Boingnet CEO Dennis Kelly

Marketing Automation Software: A Better Way to Nurture Leads

As marketing teams and agencies have created vast amounts of content to give their targets plenty of information to absorb, they’ve been continually searching for better ways to organize, distribute and present their valuable content. Marketing automation software has solved this problem for many, especially through the use of personalization and drip campaigns.

Personalization is one of the fastest ways to improve content, and marketing automation packages make it incredibly easy. For example, inserting a contact’s first name into the subject line of an email increases the open rate by a whopping 16% according to Experian Marketing Services. But attention grabbing subject lines are just the tip of the iceberg. Variable Data Logic makes different content available to different leads.  Leads can be grouped based on any type of data (purchase history, financial background, favorite color), and this segmentation allows for a much more targeted, and therefore effective, content marketing campaign.

Marketing automation software also enables a new lead nurturing process with the drip campaign. Drip campaign features allow lists to be further segmented during a campaign based on the profile or behavior of the individual leads. With these features, marketing automation software greatly simplifies the nurturing process.  For example, when a lead completes an action in a campaign, such as filling out a web form, a drip campaign can automatically send the user a new piece of content that represents the next step in the marketing process. Alternatively, the same campaign can be set up to send periodic email blasts to every lead that has not yet viewed a certain piece of content. These processes keep contacts engaged and immersed in your content marketing campaign, thereby ensuring that the maximum percent of leads are being ushered through the sales funnel.

Even when adhering to all of these marketing best practices, marketers are losing leads. The problem is that interested leads want more information. The first place that people go for information is Google, and once leads have hit the open web in search of information, it’s already too late. There is no longer a way to control the information they see; as they will likely be lost in a sea of competitors.  The best defense for marketers is a good offense – build a microsite or landing page with the right content for the chosen target audience.

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Protect Your Leads From Competitive Content Marketers: Build a Microsite

A dedicated landing page or microsite is a URL that exists on the web specifically to provide information and details on one of your marketing campaigns.  As they’ve been used for years as a part of online ad campaigns, now they are used to showcase content across all channels, including email, direct mail and other offline media.

Dedicated microsites have been shown to increase conversion to as much as 50%, and it is easy to see how it could have such an impact. For one, a properly utilized microsite or landing page takes the pressure of finding online content off of the consumer. This makes them more likely to follow through and view content. Additionally, microsites keep your leads away from Google and, consequently, away from competing advertisements and offers.

Marketing automation makes microsites easy to create and embed into campaigns. With a strong platform, it takes little effort to make a webpage you design go live. From there, the microsite you created can be added to any piece of content you send to your leads. Emails, text messages and any other form of electronic communication can easily be formatted to include a link, while personalized URLs and QR codes can be featured in any direct mail campaign.

Microsites are also an effective way to ensure consistency and continuity in a cross-channel campaign. Matching the creative design and specific content of a direct mail or email campaign to that of a microsite allows for marketers to hammer home calls to action and key product details. Marketing automation further complements microsites by making their personalization easy. The software will generate Personalized URLs, or pURLs, for each contact in a list.  Each pURL will then display information specific to that contact and will track exactly what they do or don’t do within the campaign. Personalized URLs are often used as the foundation of a multi-page microsite .

These personalized microsites are some of the most powerful marketing tools available today. They allow marketers to provide different graphics, product information and calls to action depending on the profile they have of the viewer.  For example, a car dealership may make better offers to customers that have better credit histories, and therefore the microsite would vary based on the viewer’s credit score. The use of personalized microsites is another simple way that marketing automation improves content quality throughout a campaign.

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Conclusion: Generate Leads With Content Marketing and Marketing Automation

Combining marketing automation software with content marketing strategies is a great way to generate more leads and convert them into sales. Marketing automation uses personalization and drip campaigns to distribute personalized, captivating content throughout the entire content marketing process in order to move leads through the sales funnel. Microsites and pURLs then keep leads in your sales funnel by providing a safe place for them to access personalized information about the product or service. For more information on how marketing automation complements content marketing, take a look at this presentation made by Boingnet CEO Dennis Kelly at the NEDMA It’s All Direct conference, or contact Boingnet to discuss how lightweight marketing automation can help your marketing team without breaking your budget.