Can you earn money with content, or is it merely a cost factor that does not contribute to the long-term success of the company? Many managing directors and employees in online marketing ask themselves this or similar questions.
Content is never free, but always pays off for the company in the long term. Good content pays off faster and more intensively than "bad" content. But in the sixth step of content marketing, analysis, it becomes clear which content specifically contributes to your goals and which does less.
In this analysis, you can measure operational metrics in addition to conversion and profitability. For example, whether deadlines are being met by each team member, where the bottlenecks are, how long the process takes from idea to publication, and which step requires the most financial resources.
Today, I'm focusing on the relevant figures for making money with content—and how sales psychology can help you do that.
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Create opportunities
In the first step, it is important to check whether you are giving your readers or viewers a way to give you money.
- Do you have a call to action?
- Do you have a product or other offer that matches the texts, videos, or other content formats you publish?
These options are essential for you to earn money with content. Many assume that users will continue clicking around the website on their own if they liked the blog article.
But the reality is that content is consumed in between other activities. Not everyone reads an article from start to finish; instead, they scan it, reading individual passages and then scrolling on. Only in exceptional cases do they devote their full attention to your blog. That's why it's important to remember that:
If you have an offer, communicate it. Point it out to your readers and viewers.
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Increase click-through rates in content marketing
Everyone who communicates their offer wants higher click rates. You can determine these figures on several levels: How high are the clicks from Google searches? How many people click from the ad to the landing page? How many click from the blog article to the opt-in form? How many clicks are there from the product description to the shopping cart? What are the open rates in email marketing?
No matter what content you focus on, clicks always play an important role in analysis. Below, I list a few strategies for increasing click numbers.
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Increase clicks from Google searches
Have you written a detailed blog article that has already landed among the top 5 search results? Now you surely want searchers to click on your page and not on another one.
How you can achieve this:
Ensure that you change the meta descriptions yourself. Many companies leave this to chance. But if you change them yourself, you can increase clicks and give searchers exactly the information you want to give them. When wording them, make sure you treat them as standalone headlines. For example, these elements are effective in arousing curiosity:
- Odd numbers
- Trigger words such as secret, unknown, fast, immediately
- special characters
- Highlight the biggest advantages
- questions
In recent years, green check marks have proven particularly effective as special characters, as they immediately catch the eye in SERPs. However, Google may soon discontinue this feature. Until then, I would recommend that you continue to use them.
You should include a call to action in the longer meta description:
- Find out more now
- Get more information now
- Read now
- Find out more now
- Learn more now
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Increase clicks on the opt-in field
Highly ranked blog articles are an inexpensive and relatively easy way to build your own email list. While many people do this with paid campaigns, you can simply use the traffic that your website already has. Once you've brought searchers to your website, the next step is to encourage them to sign up.
From a sales psychology perspective—and you'll already see this on most websites—a "gift" makes sense. In online shops or in the B2C sector, for example, discounts. You can also create lead magnets or freebies in the form of short e-books, a video series, a case study, or similar.
This gift achieves two things: First, it increases the incentive to subscribe to your email list, because website visitors want this free content or discount. Second, the principle of reciprocity comes into play here. This means that those who subscribe to your newsletter want to give you something in return because they have received something from you for free.
However, to encourage more people to sign up, you can highlight the opt-in form with color. Place it prominently so that no one can simply scroll past it. Many people find pop-ups with this form annoying. However, they still generate the highest number of new registrations.
You can also use language to encourage more people to sign up. For example, many people are concerned that you will send them spam, share their email addresses without thinking, or send them 10 emails a day. Add a small line to the opt-in form stating that you will not do any of these things because it is important to you that they feel comfortable with your newsletter. At the same time, you are creating a frame. (Framing comes from NLP and means that you draw a frame around a fact to make the image appear in your favor.) If you mention that you only send useful content, the chance of higher open rates increases.
The most important thing is the button that your visitors use to finally register. "Sign up" or "Register" are often used.
You'll achieve higher rates if you add "now" at the beginning. However, phrases that refer to the added value of your lead magnet are even better. So:
- Get 5% off now
- Discover 10 content marketing strategies now
- Get your free analysis now
Depending on the industry, the small word "yes" at the beginning is also suitable for bringing the user into the yes set. If they read "yes," they are more likely to click the button.
Highlight the button with color so that it stands out. Animations or a mouse pointer on the button have also proven effective.
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Focus on high-performance content
In content analysis, you divide the content into 4 categories:
- High traffic, high conversion
- High traffic, low conversion
- Low traffic, high conversion
- Low traffic, low conversion
When it comes to monetizing your content, it makes the most sense to optimize content with high traffic and low conversion rates.
Let's take a closer look at the process:
Have you thought about calls to action that appear repeatedly (when appropriate to the content) in the text?
As mentioned above, you can optimize the button with the words "Yes" and "Now."
Does your call to action or offer match the content of your content? I often see blog articles and videos where the offer doesn't match what they've written or talked about previously.
To give you a concrete example: Imagine you are reading a blog article about saving electricity and then you are asked to click on a gasoline price comparison. Yes, both have something to do with saving, but you could ensure that the text and CTA are even better coordinated.
To earn money with your content, you can use it to create a need for your offer. Therefore, you should focus intensively on your target group. (This is important in every step of your content creation process, by the way.)
- What interests you?
- What are they hoping to gain from your offer?
- Why would they prefer your offer over that of your competitors?
- What problem preoccupies you day and night?
- What is your deepest desire?
Try to mention these points in every piece of content to send a signal to your target audience:
You understand them and only produce products that really make their lives easier.
You can use so-called signal words for this purpose:
- High quality
- Extravagant
- noble
- Handcrafted
- At lightning speed
Also try to incorporate quotes from your target audience into your content. This also sends a signal that you really understand your readers and that they can feel comfortable with you.
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How far does the reader scroll?
With various tools such as Google Analytics, you can track exactly how far your readers scroll or how long your video is viewed. This value is important. Because if the majority click away at a certain passage, you can change that passage.
Open loops have proven to be effective. You tease something that you reveal at the end. This creates curiosity and the need to stay tuned until the end—and thus click on your CTA.
Do you know what else increases attention? It's (rhetorical) questions that you sprinkle into your content from time to time.
You should also review the content of this passage: Are you straying too far from the topic at this point? Is this section really relevant, or would the message of the content remain the same if you deleted this passage? Could you perhaps add an exciting new fact?
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Conclusion – How to earn money with content?
Content marketing plays a major role in achieving financial success with online marketing without spending a lot on advertising. Sales psychology can help you increase your profitability even further. For example, by using triggers, optimizing buttons, and speaking the language of your target audience. It's best not to optimize everything at once, but to test tip by tip. This allows you to check exactly which lever is the most important in your case.
With contentbird, content analysis is simple and happens automatically. You even get a graphical list of which content is worth optimizing.
