How to use Content Campaigns to increase Conversions

As consumers spend more and more time online, businesses are looking to increasingly connect with them (and promote their products and brands) through online content campaigns.

How exactly do content campaigns work? And how are consumers interacting and sharing this content?

Surveys show that adults consume plenty of content online and often share that content with friends and family members in the following ways:

• Consumers who read and share online content: 75%
• Nearly half of consumers who share on a weekly basis: 49%
• Main route for content sharing for consumers over age 35: Email
• Main routes for content sharing for consumers ages 18-34: Email and Facebook

For marketers to benefit from content campaigns, they need to understand how to first attract customers, and then what happens after a person receives a shared content item.

If you want people to read and share your content, make sure it's interesting, useful, educational, or amusing. This will not only capture their attention, but prompt them to pass it along. For all surveyed populations, email (86%) leads as the chief form of content sharing while Facebook comes in second (49%). Consumers share content because they find it interesting (45%) and believe their friends and family will have a similar reaction.

Generally, when consumers receive information via social network channels like Tell-a-Friend or Twitter, click-through rates tend to be higher than for email. However, it's important to remember that emails contain all of the information necessary to understand a discounted offer while a Twitter user must click through to get this information. It's also important to know that conversions, the goal of an online marketing campaign, are higher for email shares than for shares that stem from social networks. If you really want to measure the return on investment of a content campaign, then look at conversions.