Content marketing can successfully get your name out there, drive traffic to your site, and boost conversions. In 2023, 86% of B2C and 91% of B2B marketers use content as a primary marketing tool. Blogs are an essential content vehicle, which is why 77% of Fortune 500 businesses maintain one.
As marketers, one of our goals is to move our audiences from our blog posts to our landing pages. However, we don’t want readers to feel like we’re being pushy, so guiding with a nudge rather than a hard shove is preferable.
If you feel like you’re spinning your wheels in getting readers to move from a blog post to a landing page, we’ve got your back. Let’s look closer at why pairing blogs and landing pages is a good idea and explore four ways to encourage readers to take the next step.
Source: DemandSage
Why Blogs and Landing Pages Are a Perfect Pair
No doubt, paid advertising can work. However, consumers don’t have a lot of love for ads, and paying for them can put a significant damper on your return on investment.
Pairing blog posts with landing pages gives you more bang for your buck. Maintaining a blog is less expensive than running ads in the first place.
Secondly, your target audience will likely look more favorably on an offer made in a blog or a nudge that sends them to a landing page providing additional information about your products or services. Furthermore, blog posts:
- Give you an opportunity to demonstrate industry authority
- Allow you to develop a relationship with your audience
- Provide you with a platform for giving your audience the information they need
Each of these benefits can engender trust in your brand, making it more likely that a reader will take action when prompted within a blog post.
Source: Statista
What You Can Do To Nudge Your Readers
You can write an awesome post, and your readers can think it’s the best thing since sliced bread.
However, this doesn’t mean they’ll take the next step and seek out more of what you offer. You need to link your post to your landing page in a way that makes your audience want to do more than just read to the end of the post. Here are four things you can do to give them that nudge.
1. Give Relevant Information
One of the most important elements of content marketing is to provide your audience with helpful information. Your posts should address their interests, needs, and pain points.
We hope you have a content strategy and buyer personas already. If not, you may want to complete both before trying to use your blog to move your audience further down the content marketing funnel.
You need to do more than give readers useful information, though. You also need to make it relevant to your industry and, more specifically, what you are offering.
Use your post to link the information you provide to your products or services. Show your audience why they don’t need to look further than your brand to solve their problems or meet their needs. Your posts should be relevant to your audience and your offerings.
2. Include Embedded Videos
A 2022 Wyzowl survey found that video content convinced 89% of respondents to buy a service or product, and 79% said it did the same for software or app purchases. Furthermore, 91% of participants indicated wanting more videos from brands.
Embed videos in your blog posts to interest readers in your products or services. A video can be an explainer, teaser, or testimonial.
3. Provide a Path
When you write a post demonstrating why your brand’s product or service is exactly what your audience needs, you should also provide a clear path for them to access it. One way to do so is to include internal links.
While internal links can send your audience to any page on your site, in these cases, they should connect your readers to an appropriate landing page. For example, if you are an outdoor gear shop, you might write a post about preparing for your first camping trip and include a section on buying the right tent, with an internal link taking the reader to a landing page for a tent discount offer.
4. Prompt an Action
Include a call to action in your posts. CTAs specifically prompt the reader to do something, whether getting in touch, signing up for a list, getting more information, scheduling a demo, or shopping for a product.
Your CTA can be a simple button or link. Alternatively, you can include graphics, such as the ones Divvy uses for booking a demo or subscribing to our blog. Other possibilities include:
- Banners
- Slide-ins
- Pop-ups
Most companies place their calls to action at the end of a blog post. However, you can also insert them within the body of the post (usually in the form of a button or graphic). A slide-in or pop-up works well as a CTA for visitors preparing to leave the page.
How You Know Whether It Works
Even if you implement every suggestion, getting the hang of what works for your audience might take some time. We always recommend testing approaches and analyzing performance.
Try various CTA formats and placements, then see which ones get the highest number of clicks. Record a few videos and test their popularity.
You may also need to experiment with phrasing and how to talk about the benefits of your products or services without coming across as too salesy for your audience. What works for one brand won’t necessarily work for another. You may even need different approaches for different audience segments.
Why Divvy Makes It Easier
Divvy makes content marketing easier. We provide a central hub where your team can access all the tools they need to create killer content.
Our platform allows you to craft blog posts within the system and include attachments, such as the video you plan to embed or a CTA graphic to include. You can also add tags to make your content easier to find when it’s time to analyze performance.
Speaking of performance analysis, Divvy’s analytics module aggregates data from multiple platforms, removing the headache of trying to pull and crunch all the data yourself. Hey, we’re all about simplifying content marketing for you. Request a demo to see how it works!