How can content operation achieve both traffic and sales?

High-quality content has three dimensions: the ability to trigger user pain points; providing different content for users at different stages; and publishing appropriate content on appropriate channels.

In mid-March 2019, the news of "P&G delisting" flooded all major platforms. Is P&G, which stood at the top of daily chemical products, going to step down from the altar?

NO. In fact, unlike the sales Waterloo in the past four years, P&G's performance problems have been greatly improved in the past six months.

According to P&G's first quarter financial report for fiscal year 2019 ending September 30, net profit increased by 12% year-on-year to US$3.21 billion. Sales performance in China has gradually recovered, growing by 7% in fiscal year 2018 and another 9% in the second half of 2018.

He Yabin, President of Braun, Innovation Investment & Consumer Insights at P&G Greater China, pointed out that the story of P&G's S-curve development in China is also a process in which the brand growth model of "big brands, big media, big channels" began to fail and personalized content and experience emerged. "Small and beautiful" is subverting big brands, social media is subverting big media, and new retail is subverting big channels.

"Small and beautiful", "personalized" and "social media" are exactly what "content marketing" means. Content marketing has become one of the important ways for companies to grow their customer base, and 81% of companies believe that the content they produce can generate revenue.

However, many companies are caught in the dual dilemma of difficulty in acquiring traffic and inability to convert traffic into sales, and content marketing is also constrained by content production and cannot be carried out effectively. Only 11% of B2B companies are currently “experienced” in content marketing, and approximately 45% of content is created ad hoc without clear planning and adequate preparation.

（Source：CONVINCE&CONVERT&CMI&IMN Inc）

Social Talent and Zhiqu Baichuan jointly launched the "2019 Content Production Strategy White Paper", starting from content production, analyzing content production strategies that have both traffic and sales, and exploring new content marketing methods in the era when the "big brand, big media, big channel" model has failed.

So what kind of content can both bring in volume and sell goods? 3-D Content Mapping proposes that high-quality content has three dimensions:

1) Can trigger user pain points;

2) Provide different content for users at different stages;

3) Publish appropriate content on appropriate channels.

1. Discover pain points and understand users better than they know themselves

Everyone has multiple social statuses in social life and needs to play multiple roles. The users that content marketing faces are also a complex of "role clusters", so we need to start from two aspects:

First, user portraits to clarify the user's corporate identity;

Second, the real needs of individuals, knowing what users think, want, and care about.

1. Users with “corporate identity”: clarify user profiles

Persona, short for user model, is a fictional user used to represent a user group.

A persona can be more representative than any real individual.

The information of a persona representing a typical user includes gender, age, income, region, emotion, all browsed URLs, content and keywords contained in these URLs, etc.

You can try to use the user role model to know WHO: who the user is, and then solve the following two problems:

1. User portrait: solve the WHAT problem, who is the content written for?
2. User portrait: Solve the WHY problem, why do users read?

In-depth user portraits to identify user pain points :

User pain points are identified through user portraits. 64% do so through user interviews, 56% through sales interviews, 47% through relevant survey reports, and another 43% through self-built databases for analysis and understanding.

（Source：priority content planning）

(1) User interviews/surveys

The most direct way to understand users’ pain points is to conduct user interviews or surveys. The most important and difficult part of this process is asking the right questions. However, many marketing interview questions are usually like this:

What do you like to read? What platform do you prefer? They thought that they could cater to users' preferences by knowing what content and methods they like. But what the other person can tell you, he can also tell others. In fact, long before you use these methods, there are already countless contents on other platforms. Where is your competitiveness?

So you should discover the above problems yourself instead of expecting users to tell you in person. All your questions need to serve to convince users to buy in the end.

Here are some good examples:

Why did you choose to use product A instead of product B? How would you describe Product A to your friends? What is the biggest benefit that Product A brings to you?

(2) Sales interview

Not all interviews are just with customers, interviews with internal staff are also crucial to understanding customer pain points.

In the internal team, sales is the person closest to the users. Through sales interviews, you can understand many pain points and problems that users themselves may not be aware of.

This is a conversation from a sales interview:

Through this conversation, we can find that the pain point of this customer may lie in the budget part.

(3) Self-built data

To build your own user data, you need to have a clear understanding of three aspects: user business cards, user tags, and user contact behaviors.

First, the user’s business card. Based on the user's interests, hobbies, purchasing power, preferred media, format, theme, brand, etc., draw a panoramic portrait of the customer and create a user business card.

Second, automatically label users based on the rules:

• Fact tags: what user did what, at what time, and at what place. Such as behavioral tags of participating in an activity or downloading certain information.
• Group label: Group users who have certain behaviors or background information. For example, corresponding offline activities are only pushed to the "Beijing" tag group.

Third, clarify the timeline of touchpoint behavior and restore the user's behavior trajectory, so that both immediate behavior and historical behavior can be viewed.

2. The user as an "individual": his thoughts and ideas

As an individual organism, the brain mysteriously manipulates the user's behavior. To understand user behavior, we start from the user's brain.

On two pieces of paper, there are ABCD and 1234 respectively. B and 13 look the same, but we tend to think that the first one is B and the second one is 13.

Why is this happening?

Regarding human thinking activities, in "Thinking, Fast and Slow", the brain systems are summarized into System 1 and System 2.

System 1 operates unconsciously and quickly, does not require much brainpower, does not involve any feelings, and is completely under autonomous control. It creates possible scenarios on its own and makes choices based on them, without the individual realizing that he or she has made such a choice. System 2 shifts attention to brain activities that require mental effort, such as complex calculations.

It can be understood that System 1 operates automatically, but in fact the main work of System 2 is distrust and questioning. Every choice people make is determined by these two systems in the brain. If you want users to be willing to read your content, you must stimulate both systems in their brains at the same time.

What kind of content can impress the user’s two thinking systems at the same time?

First, know their way of speaking and reading habits, and present the content in the way they are most familiar and fond of. Seducing their system1.

Second, understand your users and write content based on what information is valuable to them. Bribe their system2. Based on this standard, we divide the content into four levels:

• Worst content: difficult to understand and of little value. This is "self-entertainment copywriting". The person who wrote the article has no idea who the users are or what content they want to see.
• Poor content: Easy to understand, but not very valuable. It's like content for children. This kind of content is not very valuable, but it is not difficult to read, so readers will not waste too much time.
• Better content: Although a little difficult to understand, this content can expand the dimension of knowledge. For example, university textbooks, although difficult to understand, can help you grow a lot, so this type of content is worth reading.
• The best content: speaks “human language” and provides value in the most concise and popular words. Imagine that the other person is sitting in front of you and you are chatting with him, and automatically activate System 1. At the same time, provide users with "dry goods" that can withstand the test of System 2. Products and services are cold, but what can move people and cause them to spread is always stories. The content is packaged in the form of a story that directly impresses System One.

2. Provide different content for users at different stages

Content must address user pain points; relevance, value, personalization, and novelty are essential. However, to be truly effective, it is necessary to delve into the user journey and provide different content at different user stages.

Different content should be written for users in these three stages, and the content investment ratio should follow the "442 principle": 40% of the content lets users know you, 40% of the content investment makes users interested in you, and 20% of the content investment allows users to make purchasing decisions.

1. Stage 1: “Awareness” stage, convincing users to get to know you

Users at this stage don’t know who you are. So the content needs to attract users' attention and convince them to get to know you.

According to a GroupM survey, 86% of searchers do not search for specific brands when searching for solutions online. They want answers to their problems, not your brand.

Many people believe that if the content written is not related to the product, it will be a waste of time and energy. But if you use "hard advertising" for users who have just followed you, not only will they not buy, you will also lose their attention and interest.

2. Phase 2: “Consideration” phase: let users know who you are

Users at this stage want to know who you are. Therefore, the content needs to introduce problem-solving methods in depth and answer users' questions. You can appropriately mention how your product can help users solve problems.

Content that users are unwilling to pay for usually makes the same mistake: they only think about others and forget about themselves.

The article contains a lot of practical information, but it has nothing to do with the company’s products. Although the number of readers has increased dramatically, the conversion rate is extremely low.

Content that makes users willing to pay must be content that they are interested in and also contain the value of your product, which is the intersection of the two. This kind of content can not only make users willing to read on, but also create demand for the products or services you provide.

However, if you mention your product too frequently in your content, it can backfire. Make sure your content can provide real value to users, so that they can solve their problems according to the methods you introduce even if they do not buy your products.

Some people may ask: "How can anyone buy my product when I've already taught them how to do it?"

Although these practical contents can teach users some methods, your products can allow users to solve these problems more quickly and conveniently.

So, generally speaking, the bottom line is this: if you can teach people to solve problems without you, they’ll be more willing to let you get something in return.

3. Stage 3: “Decision-making” stage, dispelling doubts about the product

Users at this stage are already sufficiently interested in the product. So this is the best time for sales promotion. The content at this stage can introduce the product in a targeted manner to dispel their doubts about the product.

Case 1:

Users have different needs at each stage of their buying journey. What should be written specifically in these three stages? Take car brands as an example:

Stage 1 users are looking for answers to everyday problems and buying a car may not be on their mind yet. Providing them with the information they want makes it easier to build trust with them.

When they want to buy something later, users will choose your product as their first choice. Users at stage 2 will make comparisons in various aspects, so it is time to introduce some features of car models to help them make decisions. Users in stage 3 have a strong interest in purchasing your product, so you should explain in detail why your product is the best choice for users to make them excited.

Case 2:

The content marketing strategy that penetrates deeply into the user life cycle runs through the entire process from the user's first contact to the final order. It is not achieved overnight, but rather creates a closed marketing loop.

• For users in the “awareness” stage, use industry white papers, free live courses, etc. to attract their attention.
• For users in the “consideration” stage, use more professional white papers, product case studies, etc. to give them a deeper understanding of the product.
• For users in the "decision-making" stage, use customer operation videos, detailed product introductions and case studies to give them a reason to buy.

From "awareness" - "consideration" - "decision-making", the content used in the three stages must be in-depth layer by layer. For those users who have no interest in the content, we cannot give up directly, but put them in the traffic pool and cultivate them slowly.

3. Diversify content types and put them in the right place

Different types of content stimulate different brain systems. Visual content activates the right side of the brain (emotional), while verbal expression activates the left side of the brain (rational).

The more content types you use and the more you stimulate the user's senses, the more impressed he will be with your content.

In 1969, American scholar Edgar Dale proposed a "learning pyramid" theory, which also confirms this point of view.

The theory holds that two weeks after the initial learning, 10% of the content can be remembered through reading; 20% through listening and speaking; 30% through pictures; 50% through videos, exhibitions, demonstrations, and on-site observations; 70% through participating in discussions, asking questions, and speaking; and 90% through reports, teaching, simulation experiences, and actual operations.

In addition to the commonly used WeChat pictures and texts, we can also use online live broadcasts, pictures, posters, videos and other forms to present content, allowing users to use multiple senses and have a greater impact on them. The type of content we need to use varies depending on the user's stage. We divide content types into 4 categories:

• Entertainment type: emotional, suitable for users who don’t know much about the brand. Including small games, videos, small tests, etc.
• Incentive: Emotional, suitable for users who are willing to buy the product. Including customer reviews, forums, communities, celebrity testimonials, etc.
• Educational: Rational, suitable for users who don’t know much about the brand. Includes chart reports, industry trend forecasts and more.
• Persuasive type: rational, suitable for users who already have purchasing intentions. Including online conferences, case studies, product introductions, etc.

Delisting is a new way of life for P&G.

If we look closely behind the scenes, we can see that small and beautiful brands and social media communications are gaining momentum, the maturity and success of "content marketing" are constantly improving, and generating revenue through content marketing is no longer a myth.

However, there is still a long way to go in content production. According to the 3-D content mapping method, it is necessary to have both traffic and sales, trigger user pain points, provide different content for users at different stages, and publish appropriate content on appropriate channels.

Source: Zhiqu Baichuan