Content Marketing: How to Increase User Purchase Rates Through Inspirational Articles?

Nowadays, many conversations between girls start like this:

"I saw a product called XX on Xiaohongshu last night. It looks good and I have added it to my shopping cart."

"Ah, really? Hurry up and send it out so we can take a look."

We know that the reach and conversion rates of traditional advertising are gradually declining, and content marketing with content marketing as its core is becoming more and more important for products and brands.

If traditional marketing is like using the truth serum in Harry Potter to get the truth, content marketing is like sending a beautiful woman to seduce you into revealing your thoughts.

Nowadays, everyone doesn’t like traditional marketing because it is too purposeful and has too many tricks. So, is content marketing really just naive and has no tricks at all?

In actual business activities, we can see that some grass-roots articles have a low readership, while others can be worth millions of advertising dollars with just one article. What is the difference between them?

1. Start with causal logic

Due to information overload, according to our personal experience, we skim through 90% of the information on the Internet and only extract key words.

But it is obvious that for readers of a product recommendation article, the final purchase decision they have to make ranges from tens to thousands of yuan.

An article that they skip reading is basically unlikely to achieve the purpose of promoting it.

Therefore, a good seeding article needs to capture the reader’s attention right from the beginning . When we skip reading an article, our brain is in a wandering state.

So what is it that switches us from a wandering state to a focused state?

The answer is: sudden variables and what matters to us .

For copywriting, the more effective way to express sudden variables is from descriptive changes to causal relationships. For example, let’s compare the following two passages:

You can clearly feel that the words on the right are more "memorable".

When a lot of copywriting is purely descriptive, seeing an article that starts with cause and effect is more likely to grab attention .

This kind of opening is usually presented in the form of "Because..., so we should...", for example:

It has been cold and dry recently, and my skin is dry, and ordinary hydration can no longer satisfy my skin;

As the year draws to a close, I believe everyone has received their year-end bonuses and needs to reward themselves;

Yesterday, a certain idiot made me angry again, so I decided to use Intimate Payment to buy a lot of things to comfort my wounded heart.

The "because" here is a special event or a special time point, which makes the reason more important to the reader.

Combined with simple cause and effect, you can achieve focus.

2. Emphasis on the contrast with the current situation

After gaining the reader's attention, the next step is to create a feeling of "I really should do something."

I once read in a book that throughout history, no matter what country or nation, people who incite mass revolution have only two arguments: the future will be better or the present is too bad .

We can imagine that persuading a person to go from a comfortable life to a revolution with uncertain outcomes can be said to be a huge life change. The power that enables people to change their actions often comes from two logics:

1. The current situation is negative, and the consequences will be more serious if it continues;
2. There are situations that are much better than the current situation, but you just don’t know it.

Therefore, for a promotional article, in order to make people feel that they must take action immediately, this sense of gap must be emphasized .

We can see that the copy on the left emphasizes the most accurate description of the high technology and features of the pot, but does not emphasize "how different it will be from my current situation."

Just like that old interview question, if we want to sell a ballpoint pen, we must first make consumers need it.

When writing content that promotes a product, we also need to emphasize the gap between ideals and reality so that readers will need the product and be interested in continuing reading.

3. Tell your readers how serious you are

We have carefully observed many successful KOLs, whether it is Mr. Bao, gogoboi, or Rebecca, the greatest value they provide to readers is to explore topics that everyone is interested in but does not have time to research in life , and then give descriptions and explanations.

If a KOL spends so much time writing a copy, but I already know everything she knows, then why should I believe that what you say is good?

So to sum up the needs met by grass-roots copywriting in one sentence, it is a serious person who provides a professional solution to save me time in selection .

How to appear serious in a short article? The trick is to use simple scientific analysis methods.

a. Full sample survey

In scientific and academic research, the most convincing is the full sample survey. Imagine if I want to study the characteristics of the red-eared slider species, and there are only a hundred red-eared sliders at the time, then I will exhaust all possibilities by studying them all.

Similarly, if a brand launches a series of 30 different colors of lipstick, then if I put them all out for trial, it will give the audience a high sense of reality and the conclusion drawn will be more convincing.

b. Random sample survey

When the sample size is too large, for example, when the research is not about the product itself but other consumers' evaluations and opinions of the product, random sample surveys will come in handy.

A typical example is to use screenshots of Weibo comments to prove the trend of people's comments on this product.

If you want to appear more professional, records of random street or home interviews will appear more authentic.

Some friends may ask, wouldn’t it be more scientific and rigorous to conduct statistics through a questionnaire?

What we need to note here is that what a grass-roots article needs to be infectious rather than absolutely correct .

For example, Stalin once said, "The death of one person is a tragedy; the death of ten thousand people is just a statistic." This is because the public is far less sensitive to numbers than when they are presented with vivid examples.

So you are smart, you know what to choose, right?

c. List celebrity examples

Celebrities, as people we often see, are very representative. Whether studying the casual outfits of celebrities or comparing the differences between different celebrities, it can give the audience a strong sense of reality.

This feeling comes from stripping away and restoring each individual with a halo effect, giving the audience the illusion that these embellishments make them big stars. If I have these embellishments, I can also have the feeling of a halo.

This kind of research actually requires very keen insight and careful analysis to draw conclusions. This tactic is also often used by many accounts with large traffic, and it has always worked.

In general, in order to increase the conversion rate and page views of grass-roots articles, a serious attitude is essential, because this is the greatest value of grass-roots articles to readers.

4. Create a clear personality

You may ask, since it is a grass-roots article, the focus must be on the product being introduced, so does it matter who introduces it?

My answer is, “ Who is the author of the product promotion article” is very important, even more important than the product itself . Otherwise, why do we see such huge differences in conversion rates when the same product is promoted by different accounts?

I wonder if you have ever had this experience:

I saw a product online and thought it was okay, but not something I particularly loved (such as a new model of drone).

The next day, you found out that Xiao Zhang, who has a similar income to you, actually bought this drone. This guy never said that he likes to take aerial photos.

At this time, you will think, "Even Xiao Zhang, who is not a fan, bought one. I usually like to think about this, so what's wrong with buying it?" Then you will happily place the order.

Similar experiences may occur with a certain brand of shoes, clothes, lipstick, perfume, electronic products, headphones, etc.

How did this happen? It’s actually because we experience cognitive dissonance .

In our opinion, we are more interested in drones than Xiao Zhang and others, but Xiao Zhang bought a new type of drone but we did not.

Our behavior is inconsistent with our original cognition, which leads to cognitive dissonance. In order to balance our cognition and behavior, the most efficient way is to go to the drone official website and place an order immediately .

Back to the grass-planting article, only a character with flesh and blood and clear senses can give consumers the feeling that this is someone around them, and it has reference value and comparability.

This kind of character setting consists of two parts: relationship character setting and characteristic character setting .

a. Relationship character refers to the social relationship with the audience. We see that many of the big names who promote products are actually close friends, caring older sisters, and enthusiastic younger sisters in terms of their relationship settings. The characteristic of this type of personality is that the psychological distance between them and the viewers becomes very close, making the grass-planter and the viewers a community of interests in a sense.

b. Characteristic personality refers to the objective identity characteristics of the author of the grass-roots article. These characteristics are varied, including age, gender, occupation (OL white-collar worker, student, backpacker, etc.), zodiac sign, region (Shenzhen/Beijing/Shanghai, abroad), hobbies, etc.

For example, Li Jiaqi’s character is a best friend (relationship character) + a young and professional male makeup artist. Rebecca’s character is that of a caring older sister (relationship character) + a busy fashion blogger with a broad vision.

In short, once you have a clear character positioning, you can inadvertently strengthen this character at the beginning and end of the article in subsequent pushes. This way, the character will become more and more real and credible in the minds of readers, and become someone around them who has reference value.

5. Use pictures to express real usage scenarios

After reading many successful promotional articles, “multiple pictures” is probably the most common feature we can summarize.

Compared with words, pictures have a more direct and intense impact on our brains. If we look at the following picture

Your first reaction would definitely be blue, not yellow.

For a promotional article, we need to stimulate the reader’s brain emotionally, so more pictures will be more influential.

So can we just upload a few beautiful photos of the products?

The truth is not that simple.

There is a routine in the graphic and text expression of grass-roots articles, which is also a big difference between content marketing and traditional marketing. I call it the lightning rod rule .

Specifically, traditional marketing uses an ideal state to influence consumers, making them desire to achieve this ideal state or integrate into this group. It's like thunder in the sky, but it's actually uncontrollable which consumer it hits.

Content marketing inserts a medium between the ideal state and consumers, making the ideal state appear more down-to-earth and real . Just like a lightning rod, it first draws lightning to the ground, converts it into useful electricity, and then passes it to consumers in need.

Therefore, a successful product recommendation article should not only give readers space to imagine the ideal state through pictures, but also eliminate readers’ doubts about whether the product can help them achieve this ideal state through personal trials of KOLs (people similar to them). (A bit like the after-sales reviews on e-commerce platforms)

For example, if you want to sell a pair of shoes, you will first see pictures of various celebrities wearing them:

Then here are our bloggers’ own try-on photos:

Similarly, many articles promoting popular tourist destinations first post the beautiful scenery of the destination, and then post some beautiful photos taken by the blogger at the destination.

In short, in addition to introducing how good the product is under ideal conditions in their recommendation articles, KOLs also need to act as a bridge so that consumers can see the scenarios in which they use the product themselves.

6. Start with the readers’ interests

It is very easy to list the benefits of a product, and it is not difficult to package these benefits to make them seem technological or real. The difficult part is to make readers feel "what's in it for me" at once.

In the previous article, we talked about using pictures to tell readers what a certain usage scenario will look like.

This paragraph talks about what our products can help them achieve in this usage scenario.

This concise explanation of the benefits to readers can clearly let readers know why they need this product, which is very effective in getting them to finally buy it.

7. The next easy step

The last step to achieve a high conversion rate, which is also a link that is easily overlooked, is to make the action of "planting grass" as simple and easy as possible .

As for seeding articles, most users read them on their mobile phones, so there are generally two ways for readers to seed a seed:

1. Mobile phone screenshots;
2. Add directly to cart.

The first method is aimed at high-end products that are not affected by discounts, such as light luxury, niche brands, or intangible products (travel destinations, hotels, certain services, etc.).

For this type of recommendation, the best way to increase conversion rate is to allow readers to remember what it is, what the price is, and what it looks like after seeing the screenshot in the future, even if they forget a lot of other background information.

So the best way is to put keywords directly under each recommended product picture, such as brand + product name, or destination + hotel name, so that readers can easily capture the picture and keywords at the same time when taking a screenshot.

The second method is applicable to products that already exist in e-commerce trading platforms and are greatly affected by promotional prices. The promotional article for this type of product needs to clearly indicate when the discount will be available, and then leave a clickable link to the product page so that readers can add the product to the shopping cart within 3 clicks.

Summarize

This article shares with you what elements an excellent seeding article should have. Specifically, there are 7 aspects:

1. Start with cause and effect logic to gain focus;
2. Emphasize the contrast with the current situation and create a gap;
3. Tell your readers how serious you are.
4. Create a clear persona and become a reference;
5. Use the lightning rod principle to express the usage scenario with pictures;
6. Start with the interests of readers;
7. Create next steps that are simple and easy.

The above 7 elements can be said to be the basis of grass-planting articles. After they are perfected, you can create interesting content according to your personality.

Source: Mr. He