Content Marketing Institute

• Stephanie Tilton

  Scott, would love more detail on the three other types of optimization you mentioned.

• http://www.webfadds.com Scott Frangos

  Hi Stephanie – good to hear from you.

  What you are looking for will be covered in the first of 4-5 follow up posts which will focus on each of the sections in the post above. For now, there’s a longer outline of my approach to VBO — Visitor Behavior Optimization here: http://www.webfadds.com/2010/01/vbo-the-missing-piece-in-your-optimization-puzzle/

  I will look forward to your questions and comments on the next article will compare and contrast the “other” types of Optimization beyond SEO.

• http://www.facebook.com/people/Patricia-Redsicker/1153901224 Patricia Redsicker

  Hi Scott,

  Thanks for a great article – Two things: Tell me more about Visitor Behavior Optimization (how do you measure that)? Also, I like your comment about the effect of content on sales. That is SO important – I think content creators must work closely with sales to develop content that is appropriate for every stage of the sales cycle. That way content is feeding into the overall objectives of the organization.

• http://www.webfadds.com Scott Frangos

  Hi Patricia – Your question is similar to Stephanie’s below, and I gave a link to a more in depth article about how we approach VBO at WebFadds. After you hear from your customers to answer “WHY” they do or do not complete business outcomes, then you strategize and deploy tactics to optimize based on what you learned.

  One way to test, and measure is that as a result of your research, your copy writer may come up with 2-3 headlines to better appeal to visitors, and you could rotate them and find which one results in more desired behavior. Interestingly, this relates to your comment on sales directly since good sales people will tell you that modifying a simple way they say something can have a big effect on sales. Years ago I sold office furnishings, computers, etc. I thought people would buy different fabric upgrades on chairs because of the range of colors. But sales actually greatly increased when I changed from “pitching” colors to the durability of certain fabrics. It can be as simple as a one word change that does the trick after you understand what customers want better.

• http://twitter.com/addoway Addoway.com

  Really great article and nicely written. Thank you. I am glad you discussed other types of optimization outside of just SEO.

• http://www.webfadds.com Scott Frangos

  Hi – thanks for stopping by and commenting, and of course I agree that we need to bring focus to other types of optimization. I have to give credit to the Editing team here, led by Michele — they did a great job of helping me clarify the concepts in the article… another benefit of writing for CMI. Kudos Editors.

• http://twitter.com/SeanPlatt Sean Platt

  I love your closing.

  It’s true, many content marketers are writers, and writers have a difficult time closing the deal. But the truth is, if we’re not closing the deal, we’re wasting our time.

  Whether we’re asking readers to click the buy button or turn the page, our content MUST serve a purpose.

• http://www.webfadds.com Scott Frangos

  A big high-five to that, Sean. What you wrote is exactly what this article series is driving at — the need for the web creative team to follow their work through what visitors do and don’t do, and onward to if and how the final sale is made. Then, optimize based on feedback (internal and external) and testing results.

• http://twitter.com/acSellerant Bob Leonard

  Scott – this is so smart. It’s a template for ‘closed loop marketing’. You’re getting into the area of marketing automation. You probably know the tools to use re feeding lessons learned (which landing page out performed, which blog post garnered the most comments, which call to action delivered the most conversions, etc.). That intelligence can then guide the content developers in making design, topic, etc. choices in the future. I’m looking forward to more posts on this topic.

• http://www.webfadds.com Scott Frangos

  Hi Bob – Thanks for the compliment and I like your notion of closing the loop. I agree with you that decisions should be made based on intelligence, instead of “Faith” that a particular design, or content item will do what it needs to do without any tweaking. But I am not exactly sure this means “automation” in the strictest sense of the word. Each site, its visitors (personas), design, processes, etc. are different, so that what works on one site may not work on another. You can’t really “automate” via benchmarks. What did you have in mind?

• http://twitter.com/acSellerant Bob Leonard

  I was talking more about automating the interface between the analytics and monitoring tools (which you know can throw off tons of info – some of it irrelevant) and a CRM. The intelligence gathered needs to be stored where it can be searched, sorted, massaged and managed.

• http://www.wiz4biz.co.il Edith

  Hi there,
  I am Edith and I am a content marketer from Israel in my own company. I loved the cycle idea, yet, did we not say that content marketing in a long term strategy, that aims to built connections for the long run? And were we not told that in facebook we should not press sales, but nurture a social conversation? I would love to read more about what connect authentically means, practically?

• http://www.webfadds.com Scott Frangos

  Hello Edith – Good to see you here, and thanks for making an “authentic connection.” You ask great questions, and part of the answer is in the first sentence I wrote. An authentic connection is when two people form a regard for each other based on conversation in which they feel they know each other a bit. People buy from those they feel they know, and students of advertising will tell you that sales are almost always driven mostly by emotion. This is why Content Marketing, done correctly, can be so powerful in both helping you uncover the passions of another person, and to lead you into extended conversation. But, you have asked about when and where to press sales? I had a communications professor once who proposed that “all of communication is an attempt to persuade.” Hard to argue with that. So, I would tell you that in business communications of which Content Marketing is a major piece, you are always persuading either a prospect that it would be good to do business with you, or a client that they should keep the business relationship going. In this light, Content Marketing draws the people you need to meet out so you can make authentic connections which lead to sales.

  Cheers -
  Scott

• http://twitter.com/KatieMcCaskey Katie McCaskey

  I like your cycle model, Scott. I also agree it is important to think of content in terms of “closing sales”. It’s been my experience that too few marketers track the correlation.

  Love, this, too: “TIP: Think more in terms of optimizing what your prospects think instead of optimizing your “site”.” It’s what I emphasize in the CMI post “Warning! SEO Bubble Bursting!”

• http://www.webfadds.com Scott Frangos

  Hi Katie — Thanks for your thoughts and comment. I read the post you referenced and you shared some ideas right on point. I would add that the “SEO Bubble” is bursting a bit, since in addition to the onset of Content Marketing, there are other marketing factors rising up the priority list including social media marketing, and all of the sales connection work done after people interact with content. SEO is also “fragmenting” a lot as the search engines continually and frequently add features (maps and reviews), and change tactics. Interesting time we’re in… reminds me of a book title, “Playing Ball on Running Water.”

• Pingback: Three Tests to Optimize Your Website: VBO, LPO and CRO

• Pingback: 9 Steps to Continuous Content Marketing Improvement

• Pingback: Actionable Analytics – All These Numbers, Now What?

• Pingback: How to Turn Your Analytics into Actionable Tasks for Content Marketing