We know your pain. We’ve been there. Too many times, actually. That’s why we’ve developed this trusty guide on social media image sizes for 2025.

Social Media Image, Video, and Cover Photo Sizes

The size and aspect ratio of your visual social media elements determine how the content displays online. Anything that looks distorted, blurry, or off-center will immediately affect people’s perception — not to mention the risk of accidentally cropping out important information. Even worse, they’ll likely scroll past the post without ever engaging with it.

Crisp visuals are more likely to catch (and keep) your audience’s attention, driving increased engagement. Plus, if you can see the image clearly, you can ensure the text is spelled correctly, too.

That’s why nailing your social media dimensions is vital when creating content across all your social media profiles. But enough preamble: Let’s dive in.

Note: All dimensions and aspect ratios are presented in width x height or width : height, respectively.

Facebook

Facebook has a multitude of visual possibilities — more than any other social platform. Because of this, it can be tricky to make sure you’re designing your visual elements properly.

Here are Facebook’s current image, video, and cover photo sizes:

• Facebook Page profile images: Profile images for Facebook Pages display on a desktop at 176×176 pixels on a desktop computer and 196×196 pixels on a smartphone. For the best quality, your profile image should be 320×320 pixels.
• Facebook Page cover images: The cover photo dimensions for Facebook are an aspect ratio of 16:9. The latest Facebook image sizes guide recommends that your cover image be at least 400 pixels wide and 150 pixels tall.
• Facebook Reels: Facebook Reels should be uploaded at a 9:16 aspect ratio. The platform recommends a resolution of 1080p in an MP4 format.
• Facebook Videos: The recommended social media video dimensions for Facebook are 1280×720 pixels. Landscape videos have an aspect ratio of 16:9, and portrait videos have an aspect ratio of 9:16. Although Facebook supports multiple formats, it recommends MP4 or MOV format.
• Facebook Stories: Images published to Facebook stories can be either PNG or JPG files at an aspect ratio of 9:16 to 1.91:1. Videos should be at least 500 pixels with aspect ratio options from 9:16 and 4:5 to 1.91:1.

Instagram

Instagram has been constantly evolving to allow a variety of content types, including Stories and Reels. Getting your content to display perfectly on this highly visual platform will make a world of difference.

Here are the recommended Instagram image dimensions and sizes for other types of content:

• Instagram feed posts: For best results, your Instagram uploads for a single image or for a carousel of images should be at least 1080 pixels wide. The aspect ratio should be between 1.91:1 and 3:4.
• Instagram Stories: Instagram Stories may consist of either images or videos. In both instances, the aspect ratio should be between 9:16 and 4:5 to 1.91:1. Videos should be a minimum of 500 pixels.
• Instagram Reels: The latest guideline on social media aspect ratios indicates that Instagram Reels can be between 1.91:1 and 9:16. Your videos should be at least 720 pixels and at least 30 frames per second (FPS).

LinkedIn

Like other social media networks, visual storytelling has become vital for effective LinkedIn marketing. So, it’s important to pay close attention to how your visual content displays on the platform.

Here are the platform image specifications and other visual sizing requirements for LinkedIn.

• LinkedIn profile images: The recommended LinkedIn profile picture size is 400×400 pixels.
• LinkedIn cover images: LinkedIn recommends uploading a cover photo of 1128×191 pixels for company pages.
• LinkedIn post (with URL): The recommended custom image size when you post content with a URL is 1200×627 pixels.
• LinkedIn article cover image: The cover photo for your LinkedIn long-form article should be 1920×1080 at an aspect ratio of 16:9.

Pinterest

Pinterest is another visual-based platform, which means that the way pins are designed and displayed is of prime importance for brands using the platform.

Here are the latest platform image requirements and other content size specifications for Pinterest:

• Pinterest profile cover: For business accounts, you can upload an image as a profile cover. This should be at least 800×450 pixels at an aspect ratio of 16:9.
• Pinterest pin sizes: Pinterest recommends an aspect ratio of 2:3 with dimensions of 1000×1500 pixels.
• Pinterest board cover: The cover frame for Pinterest boards is square, so the recommended aspect ratio is 1:1 with dimensions of 600×600 pixels.
• Pinterest video pins: Pinterest requires videos to be at least four seconds long and no longer than 15 minutes. The recommended aspect ratios are 1:1 for square videos and 2:3, 4:5, or 9:16 for vertical videos.

TikTok

TikTok is one of the most straightforward platforms when it comes to social media dimensions.

Here are the latest TikTok image and video size requirements:

• TikTok videos: The optimal size for TikTok videos is a 9:16 aspect ratio. Videos should be 1080×1920 pixels. While you can upload videos at a 1:1 aspect ratio, videos that take up the full mobile device screen tend to see better engagement.
• TikTok profile images: The minimum size for TikTok profile images is 20×20 pixels; however, the image can be larger. You may want to make it a little larger if TikTok decides to make profile images more prominent at some point in the future.

X (formerly Twitter)

X is largely driven by text and opinions, but visual elements tend to feature prominently in the feed. If your brand is looking to make a significant splash on the platform, it’s important that you know how to make an impact visually as well as with the written word.

Here’s the latest social media image guide for X:

• X profile image: Profile images on X should be 400×400 pixels, and the maximum file size is 2 MB.
• X header image: The recommended size for header images is 1500×500 pixels.
• X videos: X recommends that videos uploaded to its site be at least 30 FPS, though they could reach 60 FPS. Landscape videos should be 1280×720 pixels; portrait videos should be 720×1280 pixels; and square videos should be 720×720 pixels. Recommended aspect ratios are 16:9 for landscape or portrait, or 1:1 for square videos.
• X photos: X photos should use a 16:9 aspect ratio for optimal viewing. Although you can upload a larger photo, doing so will cause the photo to be cropped in the feed.

YouTube

Although YouTube is heavily focused on video content, that does not mean there isn’t a variety of sizes and formats for these videos.

Here are the latest guidelines on YouTube image dimensions and video sizes:

• YouTube videos: YouTube recommends a variety of aspect ratios that work well on the platform: 426×240, 640×360, 854×480, 1280×720, 1920×1080, 2560×1440, 3840×2160, and 7680×4320. Videos cannot exceed 256 GB or 12 hours in length.
• YouTube Shorts: For YouTube Shorts, YouTube recommends you upload videos that have a vertical 9:16 aspect ratio at a dimension of 1920×1080 pixels.
• YouTube profile images: The proper size for a YouTube profile image is 800×800 pixels.
• YouTube banner images: YouTube’s recommended banner size is 2560×1440 pixels. File sizes may not exceed 6 MB.

Perfect Your Social Media Content Creation

Image sizing is critical to the success of your social media content strategy. But remembering all these platform image requirements can be challenging, along with balancing multiple aspects of your business. ClearVoice offers a range of solutions to take the stress out of social media content creation.

Let our team of designers and content creators do the remembering for you. Talk to a specialist today to see how our content marketing solutions can help you create a visual content and design strategy that fits your brand.

The post The Definitive Guide to Social Media Image, Video, and Cover Photo Sizes appeared first on ClearVoice.

When it comes to your content marketing planning and budget, your leadership needs to know that “more is more.” More leads, more engagement, and more customers equal more success.

Consistent development of meaningful, quality content will help your organization reach and exceed your long-term goals sustainably. Here’s everything you need to know to make a business case for content marketing.

Content Marketing Business Case Glossary Terms

Before we get more in-depth, let’s quickly define a few terms to make sure we are all on the same page:

• Brand awareness: The ability of customers and potential customers to recognize and associate the content and other offerings your organization provides.
• Business case: A value proposition intended to convince a decision-maker to pursue a particular course of action.
• Content: A message or thought expressed through a variety of mediums. For our discussions, we’ll focus on digital content.
• Content marketing: A marketing approach that delivers consistently valuable content intended to attract and retain defined audiences. Rather than focusing solely on products and services, content marketers focus on providing helpful content.
• Customer acquisition cost: A critical measurement of the amount of money an organization spends to obtain a new customer.
• Customer journey: The defined path and touchpoints your organization provides to potential customers during their decision-making process regarding your products or services.
• Engagement: A measurement of the way customers or potential customers interact with your digital content.
• Lead generation: The strategies, tactics, and tools associated with locating potential customers and potentially moving them into your marketing funnel.
• Marketing funnel: The visualization of the stages of a customer’s interactions and decisions, organized from initial interactions to specific decisions related to a product or service.

How Content Marketing Ties into Your Overall Business Objectives

Ninety-seven percent of businesses say they’ve generated positive results with content marketing. But your content marketing is only valuable if it achieves tangible objectives for your business.

Here’s how content marketing aligns with and drives your overall business objectives:

• Increasing brand awareness: Consistently producing valuable and relevant content that connects with your target audience strengthens your brand’s presence online.
• Driving organic traffic: High-quality content is a magnet for organic website traffic. When you attract more visitors to your site, you increase the chances of leads and conversions.
• Lead generation: Through content, you capture leads by offering valuable resources such as eBooks, webinars, or gated content in exchange for contact information. Content marketing also nurtures leads through the marketing funnel.
• Customer acquisition: Informative and persuasive content helps potential customers understand the value of your products or services. That leads to conversions.
• Building trust and credibility: Providing valuable insights and solutions earns the trust of your audience. Which makes it easier to convert them into loyal customers.
• Customer retention: Regularly engaging with your audience keeps your customers informed and connected to your brand.-
• Data-driven insights: Content marketing provides valuable data and insights about your audience’s preferences and behaviors. Those insights will ensure your efforts align with your objectives. Here are some of the top KPIs to track.

Don’t sleep on pairing content marketing with other digital strategies for even greater results.

3 Considerations Before You Build Your Case

The reasons you invest in particular content may vary, but a few considerations apply to most content discussions. These include:

1. Audience

You must define your target audience before building a content marketing business case. The definition of your audience — including demographics and psychographics — will allow you to better determine the most effective types of content your organization should create and how to distribute them. Because to be successful, you must create content that engages your target audience.

2. SEO value

Search functionalities are ubiquitous across many platforms and delivery methods. When developing content for any platform, discussions about the findability of the content should be prominent. Focus on the most important SEO strategies and tactics to be successful.

The old adage about a tree falling in the woods with nobody around is true. Specifically, if a piece of content drops in a sea of digital information and nobody can find it, does it really exist?

Keep an eye on developing SEO trends and changes to Google’s algorithm (like its new SGE) to ensure your content aligns with the most prominent SEO factors. 

3. Organic vs. paid distribution

When considering organic vs. paid marketing, remember how your organization organizes its content distribution. You may have different paths of delivery to intended audiences based on the types of content being developed, the delivery platforms, and the intended customer journey. How you deliver your content will affect how you create it.

How to Get Executive Buy-In

The main obstacle for many marketers is convincing executives to invest in content in ways that will yield meaningful long-term results.

Yes, that seasonal ad campaign will probably generate some leads over the next few weeks — but then what?

Before you start building a content marketing business case, go through these strategies to see which ones most align with your goals. That will give you the best chance to secure executive buy-in.

• Data-backed evidence: One of the most important ways you can demonstrate content marketing’s impact on a business is data. Do everything you can to weave in eye-catching statistics highlighting the potential for increased ROI and conversions. You can highlight the fact that content marketing often delivers a higher ROI than traditional advertising. 
• Alignment with your business’s mission: Clearly communicate how your content marketing strategy would align with your brand’s overall mission. Show how it would work in service of achieving it.
• Content strategy: Present a comprehensive plan that outlines the target audiences, types of content, and distribution channels. If you need help, use our guide on developing a high-performing content marketing strategy.
• Case Studies: If you can, share success stories from companies that have achieved significant results through content marketing. Connect their success to how you plan to implement a similar strategy. Here are some of our case studies for reference. 
• Budget allocation: Provide a detailed breakdown of the budget costs, explain how it will be allocated, and project potential returns. And always make sure that your budget is aligned with your overall marketing goals. 
• Risk mitigation: Think of any potential concerns or objections beforehand. Be ready with strong answers that anticipate those concerns and turn them to your advantage.

Now that you’ve done all that prep work, it’s time to make your case.

How to Make a Compelling Content Marketing Business Case

You’ll find everything you need to build a business case for content marketing here. But don’t cannonball into the content development waters — tiptoe. Remember that it’s up to you to do sufficient marketing planning to determine the audiences, objectives, and desired goals of your marketing efforts. Once you do this, you can dive into platform-specific information related to your strategy.

Whereas the items listed in the previous section apply to almost all content you develop, the content below requires marketers to make deliberate decisions that are closely related to the platforms in question.

Pick and choose from the statistics below to make a persuasive business case for content marketing. Show decision-makers where their target audience is hanging out and the best ways to reach them through high-quality content. Doing so can help you get the buy-in — and content budget — you seek.

Social media content

Social media content includes text, images, short-form videos, GIFs, and other easily consumable content developed for platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, Snapchat, Pinterest, and other similar sites and apps.

Why should your organization invest in social media content?

Simply put, there is no other place where you can distribute content and expect others to help amplify it for you than social media. Although algorithms can be fickle and not spread your content as widely as you might like, this can be remedied by developing content that aligns with what people want and what algorithms favor.

If your content marketing strategy is focused and deliberate, you will deliver content users actually want to share. In many ways, social media is a marketer’s dream.

Quick facts about social media content to help make your business case:

• In 2023, there are estimated to be 4.89 billion total social media users worldwide. (Sprout Social)
• The amount of time internet users spend on social media is now higher than ever — 151 minutes per day. (Sprout Social)
• TikTok is the fastest-growing platform, with a staggering 100 percent user growth rate between 2020 and 2022. (Sprout Social)
• Facebook is the most-used platform by marketers worldwide (90 percent). Instagram sits in second place (79 percent). (Sprout Social)
• Social media is the highest ROI marketing channel. (Hubspot)
• Facebook is the most used social media platform in the world. Youtube is a close second. (Forbes)
• The average person spends 145 minutes on social media every day. (Forbes)

Podcast content

Podcast content marketing can be defined as the development and distribution of audio files intended to entertain, influence, or inform. Podcasts are often hosted on a variety of sites where they can be streamed over the internet or downloaded and listened to later. Popular podcast platforms include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts.

Why should your organization invest in podcast content?

Podcasts typically include content your audience or potential audience seeks out. Because users want specific content, many niche opportunities exist to develop podcasts or collaborate with hosts or distributors.

Likewise, people often have emotional or intellectual attachments or affinities to the hosts of the podcasts they listen to. This increases trust and, ultimately, the likelihood that your brand could gain favor with listeners if the podcast hosts speak positively of your organization. Creating a great business podcast requires work but can pay huge dividends when done well. Learn how to craft great business podcasts here.

Quick facts about podcast content to help make your business case:

• There are over 464 million podcast listeners worldwide, which is projected to reach 504.9 million by 2024. (Backlinko)
• The average listener spends a whopping 7 hours per week on their podcast app. (Backlinko)
• Nearly 3 in 4 podcast listeners tune in to learn something new. Almost the same amount listens to podcasts to be entertained. (Edison Research)
• 1 in 4 Americans ages 12 and up listen to a podcast at least once a week. (Buzzsprout)
• Nearly half of podcast listening occurs at home, while 28 percent of U.S. listeners consume podcasts while they drive. (Buzzsprout)
• More Americans listen to podcasts each week (80 million) than have Netflix accounts (69 million). (Edison Research)
• Roughly 2 in 5 podcast listeners consume between 1-3 podcasts each week. Nearly 1 in 5 podcast listeners consume 11 or more podcasts per week. (Edison Research)
• Podcast listeners are often active social media users, making cross-promotion easier. Nearly two-thirds of weekly podcast listeners visit Facebook and Instagram daily. Likewise, roughly half of weekly podcast listeners visit TikTok daily. (NuVoodoo)

Email content

Email content is sent to a distribution list of subscribers or other potentially interested parties. While it can focus on several items, most messages are related to welcoming customers, promoting products or services, inviting subscribers to read blog content, rewarding and encouraging brand loyalty, sharing testimonials, inviting survey responses, or requesting feedback.

Why should your organization invest in email content?

Think of the last time you went an entire day without checking your email (work or personal). It’s nearly impossible. Email is everywhere. Not only that, email has been around for a long time compared to social media or podcasts. Because of that longevity, marketers have optimized email campaigns to have one of the best ROI’s in marketing, at $36 for every $1 spent. 

Email provides marketers with multiple opportunities to reach current and potential customers. It’s highly trackable as well. If you’re attempting to carry your target audience through a customer journey, there are a ton of email tools you can use to monitor their behaviors. Regardless of what part of the funnel your email recipients find themselves in, the data that email services provide will help you understand how to improve your efforts to foster engagement and build an effective campaign.

Quick facts about email content to help make your business case:

• The average open rate for emails from all industries is roughly 21 percent. Certain sectors fare better than others. For example, emails related to government. (29 percent), hobbies (28 percent), and religion (27 percent) all have open rates higher than the average (Mailchimp)
• Roughly 4 billion people use email daily. This amount continues to grow rapidly. By 2025, it is expected that 4.6 billion people will use email daily. (Statista)
• People send and receive more than 300 billion emails daily. (Statista)
• 77 percent of marketers have seen an increase in email engagement over the last 12 months. (Hubspot)
• Nearly 3 out of 4 marketers use emails to distribute content. (Content Marketing Institute)

Website content

From a marketing perspective, website content includes all the words, articles, descriptions, and other information published on a web page that is typically managed and operated by the sponsoring organization.

Why should your organization invest in website content?

Publishing content on social media is equivalent to building a house on rented land (the content is yours, but the platform is not). Publishing website content is building your home on land you own. That’s why web content should be a top priority for your organization.

A website is often the central hub of the majority of the content you develop. Even though you might also create social media, email, or podcast content, the purpose of all that content is often to drive traffic to your website. Why? So you can control the customer journey from there, nurture relationships, and get people deeper into the marketing funnel.

Simply put, your website should be the foundation of your content marketing efforts. And when it comes to content, blogs and long-form content are the most helpful building blocks to use for this foundation.

Quick facts about website content to help make your business case:

• 47 percent of users won’t wait longer than two seconds for a website to load. (Forbes)
• A staggering 93 percent of global traffic comes from Google. (Forbes)
• For every $1 an organization spends on UX design for its website, it sees $100 in return, on average. (Forrester)
• Organizations that maintain a blog receive 67 percent more leads each month. (Demand Metric)
• Blog articles are the number one asset B2B marketers create (at 89 percent). (CMI)

SMS content

SMS content is delivered by text message to customers and potential customers. It’s a direct marketing form (like email content). Most often, SMS content includes news, promotions, and other updates.

Why should your organization invest in SMS content?

SMS content is “low-risk, high-reward.” The effort needed to develop it is minimal, but it can yield big results. Although brands often don’t consider SMS content development a high priority, data suggests they should.

A closer look at the SMS marketing data shows that SMS marketing is cost-effective, efficient at providing real-time updates, boasts exceptionally high open rates, and has proven its ability to help close deals.

Quick facts about SMS content to help make your business case:

• 90 percent of SMS are read within the first three minutes of delivery. (SMS Country)
• 91 percent of customers willingly opt-in to receive promotional SMS from brands. (SMS Country)
• SMS is the most preferred channel for consumers to receive brand updates. (SMS Country)
• Only 39 percent of businesses are currently using SMS marketing. (SMS Country)

YouTube content

Video content is essential — but not all video content should be YouTube content. Content developed for this platform should be searchable, actionable, and provide value to the consumer. The best YouTube content often is evergreen and serialized.

Why should your organization invest in YouTube content?

YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine (right behind Google, which owns YouTube). It’s also the second most-used social platform. Because of that, the opportunity to reach audiences is immense.

Although building up a subscriber base on YouTube helps push content to interested individuals, having users pull your content through search is the most valuable aspect of this platform. Just make sure you develop a YouTube strategy before you develop content to see success.

Quick facts about YouTube content to help make your business case:

• YouTube has more than 2.70 billion active users in 2024. (DemandSage)
• 52 percent of internet users access YouTube at least once a month (DemandSage)
• YouTube is the second biggest social media in the world (DemandSage)
• 87.7 percent of all YouTube views come from a mobile device (DemandSage)

Always Keep the Bigger Content Marketing Picture in Mind

There are hundreds of reasons to invest your brand’s time and resources into developing meaningful, substantial content that builds organic traffic and engagement.

Help your executives keep sight of the bigger picture. Share small content wins along the way, but make sure all your company’s decision-makers remember that investing in organic content is a long-term strategy that can pay huge dividends for patient organizations.

Talk to a content specialist today about creating a content strategy that uses data points and SEO research to attract and convert.

The post How to Make a Compelling Business Case for Content Marketing That Gets Executive Buy-In appeared first on ClearVoice.

They often don’t appreciate the strategies, trends, and tactics it takes to make a brand relevant.

This doesn’t mean you can’t get them to buy into your content marketing strategy — however, it does mean that you should not (and must not) assume they appreciate content marketing the way that you do.

Why is executive buy-in for content marketing important?

The most important thing you can do to get executives to buy into your content marketing strategy is to focus on the bottom line.

A lack of buy-in at the executive level can be catastrophic for your long-term content marketing goals. Before you pitch a content marketing strategy that identifies all the tactics and trends that you know will make your brand relevant, you need to do your homework and be able to answer the following six questions that executives are going to ask before they give you money to implement your strategy.

How much will this content marketing strategy cost?

As a content marketer, you’re also thinking about how much your content strategy will cost but from a different perspective. While you may be thinking of this from the perspective of your budget allocation, your C-suite executives are thinking about which parts of the company will get less money if they give you more. Operations? Product management? Research? Christmas bonuses?

It is vital that you define the ROI of your content marketing strategy. It is very possible your ROI won’t be fully realized in a quarter or even in a fiscal year.

Make sure when you seek executive buy-in for content that your executives know what their up-front investment needs to be for you to be able to successfully implement your strategy.

You do nobody any favors by not accurately stating precisely what is required. Likewise, make sure you elevate your content strategy tactics to fully focus on what your brand needs.

Of course, the budget desired is negotiable depending on what the desired outcomes are. If your organization is new to content marketing, proposing executive buy-in for a huge budget may not be the best strategy. First, help your executives understand the content marketing vision. When you ask for more funds in upcoming quarters or fiscal years, they will be better versed in what a successful content marketing strategy looks like and what it requires.

As you prepare to meet with your leaders, list the executives you would need buy-in from and note their personalities and decision-making tendencies. Knowing how they like to receive communication will benefit you in this process.

How much money will your content marketing strategy bring in?

OK, you know this question is going to come. You need to be prepared to answer it. Because content marketing is different from product marketing, you need to redirect this question and answer the question your executives “should have asked.”

And what question should your executive ask?

“What will be the long-term benefit of this content marketing strategy?”

This is where you pounce and discuss all the value gained from an effective content marketing strategy. Share these insights if you have tested aspects of content marketing and have found that it has paid immediate dividends.

However, your best answer will lay out the full ROI — which is much larger and more expansive than only the immediate results.

What is the full ROI of content marketing?

Now that you have shared that there is more to the ROI than an immediate cash flow, you need to meticulously define the full ROI of content marketing.

You should be prepared to speak about the following to get executive buy-in for content:

• Quality lead generation: When content marketing is done well, your ability to find leads greatly increases.
• Sales: Sales has a direct correlation to quality lead generation. The better the leads, the more likely you are to make a sale.
• Increased web traffic: A solid content marketing strategy will likely include inviting people to visit your site or read your blog, and you will see enhanced web traffic.
• Social media engagement: Social media is where you take people who are interested in your brand and its content marketing efforts and you make them brand advocates through the development of useful, engaging content and meaningful interactions.
• SEO benefits: If your content marketing strategy is intended to show value to your audiences, your brand will naturally increase in search results. Learn about how pillar pages and topic clusters will also help your SEO strategies.
• Brand recognition: Brand recall and recognition will increase as your content appears more often on social media, web searches, and influencer and micro-influencer channels.

Do we need to hire more employees to implement the content marketing strategy?

You must ensure your content marketing strategy proposal is scalable. Your leadership will want to see evidence of progress before they agree to hire additional staff to facilitate your content marketing efforts. In most instances, don’t propose additional headcount until you have proven success through some basic initial efforts.

Once you have proven the strategy can work — and once you have shown how it can grow over time — and your leaders are supportive, explain that you don’t currently have the staff to make your content marketing efforts as successful as they could be. Clearly define roles and responsibilities and jobs to be done for additional staff.

You can outsource much of the work needed. Using outside vendors is likely to make it easier to receive executive buy-in for content marketing from stakeholders because it costs less to hire a vendor than a full-time employee. ClearVoice can assist with many aspects of your content marketing needs.

What makes you confident your content marketing strategy will work?

If your executives have never been actively involved in digital marketing campaigns, you will likely have to spend more time answering questions about the efficacy of your content marketing approach. Yes, employing a few tactics on your own before asking for an increased budget is important, but don’t rely solely on your own efforts.

There are a ton of examples that show how content marketing has worked for other brands. Take a look at ClearVoice’s “20 Incredible Content Marketing Examples to Inspire Your Marketing Team.”

Some of the examples you will find in the article include:

• A children’s book from Zillow for kids who fear moving
• Domino’s homemade film festival
• Home Depot do-it-yourself projects and ideas
• Ikea’s Snapchat game that challenges users to declutter a room with Ikea furniture
• Ben & Jerry’s “What’s New” web page
• Fiverr Guides that teach freelancers writing, designing, and marketing skills

Be prepared with specific examples from other brands and organizations who have been successful with their content marketing efforts, and you will help alleviate concerns from unsure executives.

Can we implement your content marketing strategy for less money?

When your executive leadership balks at the amount of money you are proposing to fund your content marketing strategy, know that they aren’t necessarily saying no to the strategy — they are doubting that the cost of implementing the strategy is worth it. When this conversation comes up, you should be prepared to show exactly what they will get for different amounts of money.

Come into your discussions with executive leadership with three tiers of funds being requested. Tier 1 would indicate your blue-sky thinking. Tier 2 should indicate what you need to be successful. Tier 3 indicates how much money you would need to get by.

But don’t just propose a budget for each tier and leave it at that. You need to focus on the full ROI of content marketing when attempting to get executive buy-in for content. Add the business outcomes you expect to see for each level of spending. For example, you could talk about the number of quality leads, sales, web traffic, social media engagement, and SEO benefits for each of the three tiers of spending.

Providing options that include estimated results makes it easier for your executives to provide you with the funds you seek because you are showing value in specific and measured ways.

Getting executive buy-in for content efforts

Be prepared to answer these six questions, and you will likely receive executive buy-in for content marketing. Ambiguous answers will lead to frustration for you and your leadership. However, specific answers to the questions above will get your organization on the right path to content marketing success.

Need help creating a winning content strategy? We are available to help you accomplish your content marketing goals. Start building your content plan today!

The post 6 Questions to Ask When Building the Case for Content Marketing appeared first on ClearVoice.

You may pride yourself on great prices, quality customer service, amazing employees, and a commitment to excellence, but you must ask yourself — how will people know about all of these wonderful things your brand stands for?

Word-of-mouth conversations can help, but these conversations can only do so much. The content your company develops will allow your brand to be on people’s minds at every part of the day and on many different platforms.  Content is the modern business solution that your modern business needs to continue to be successful.

Let’s explore some of your potential business needs and identify how quality content can help you fulfill those needs:

Content helps you build trust

Nobody knows your products and services as well as you do. Likewise, nobody has as much of a vested interest in your company’s success as you do. But just because you are an expert on your products and services, don’t expect consumers will automatically trust what you have to say.

About one in three consumers trust the brands they buy from, so your products and services can help in some ways to build trust. However, perhaps the most effective way to use content to build trust happens when brands allow others to develop content for them—including consumers, influencers, and micro-influencers.

28 percent of consumers say they learn about brands through influencers. Gen Z consumers are the most likely group to learn about brands and products through influencers. On the other hand, baby boomers are less likely to learn about your brand through influencer content. Consider your target audience before you develop an influencer content strategy.

Content builds brand recognition

Content raises the profile of your brand. A more recognizable brand can increase the likelihood a consumer will think about you when making a purchasing decision.

In many instances, it is unlikely that an individual will search for your brand — but if you push content through targeted ads, search results, and other personalized efforts, consumers will start to associate your brand with the items and services they are thinking about and searching for.

If you develop content — including content for personal branding — that amuses, inspires, or intrigues the audience you are trying to reach. They are more likely to engage with it. This can lead to direct or residual brand recognition.

Content makes your brand stand out

More than two-thirds of all web experiences begin with a search engine. So make sure your content is search engine friendly. For example, if you are a B2B marketer and are developing SMB content, keep in mind that searchable and findable content is likely going to yield more attention than anything else you can do.

In fact, three out of five B2B marketers say their organic and SEO marketing efforts generate more web traffic than any other marketing activity. Another benefit is that good SEO doesn’t require any ad spend so it can be more cost-effective.

Content invigorates your customers

When the Boston Red Soz hired CTP Boston to promote an upcoming season, the agency knew its main task was to reignite the fans’ passion for the team. The agency knew that using content marketing for brand awareness could inspire fans in ways that even a new superstar might not.

The company created the “More” campaign with the purpose of developing content to help the team’s existing fans connect with the idea that in Boston, baseball is “more” than just a game.

The agency created content that gave fans a more intimate look at the players to try and build a connection to the team and the organization as a whole. Within the first two weeks of the “Opening Day” spot airing, the video was viewed more than one million times.

Content educates your customers

Even if you have a great product or service, you still need to educate your customers about its benefits. It can be as simple as a blog — but it also can come in the form of a tutorial video.

For example, here’s a video from Ikea that walks the customer step-by-step on how to assemble a bed frame. The purpose of educating your customers isn’t really to get them to buy something right now.

You’ve probably already bought the product if you are looking up how to assemble this specific bed frame. But this level of customer care can help improve retention and repeat purchases.

Content establishes you as an authority on a topic

High-quality content helps establish your business as an authority on a specific subject or in a particular niche. But your content needs to be really good. You also must develop the content in a clear and understandable way.

For example, if you are creating content for a clothing brand, the content should show that your brand understands fashion, retail sales, how to care for the clothing, and best practices for producing stylish clothing. When you develop content, it is OK if you don’t know everything. You can link and refer to other sources that support your claims.

Content helps you generate leads

If you are involved in SMB content marketing you already know how quality content can directly lead to more leads and more sales for your business. Content promotion and distribution are really important here.

Share your content across social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Google, and YouTube. Consider publishing content in different formats – both video and audio.

With most of these platforms, you can include calls to action. In some instances, the calls to action are built-in parts of an ad unit. In a very real way, these pieces of content can directly lead to new opportunities for your brand to better connect you to existing and potential customers.

Takeaways

Content not only helps you promote your brand — it actually helps you build your brand. If you are seeking opportunities to generate leads, build brand recognition, educate consumers, build trust, and invigorate consumers, content can help you do all of these things and more. If you need help developing the content you’ve always dreamed of, let us help.

The post Why Every Business Needs to Create Quality Content appeared first on ClearVoice.

Social media is all about connection.

Sure, it can be useful for helping your business accomplish a myriad of goals — but if you aren’t connecting with your social media audiences, your foray into social media will not be nearly as successful as it could be. Perhaps the worst thing a business or organization can do is develop a social media presence and then ignore all the followers and customers who want to engage with you. Your customers want to converse with you. They want to share their insights. They want to connect.

The most successful organizations on social media understand this and embrace it. It isn’t rocket science to engage with customers on social media, but it does require you to have a deliberate and intentional plan. Here are nine recommendations to follow to help you improve your social media and customer relations goals.

1. Study user data and get to know your audience.

One of the beautiful things that social media provides that isn’t as prevalent with other types of media is the amount of user data available. In recent years, the amount of data that social media platforms provide has decreased as user privacy has become more of an issue, but the amount of information you can get about your followers on apps like Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter can still prove to be very helpful to you.

Consider exploring user data to be part of the “getting-to-know-you” process that you have in any relationship. Before you dive into deeper discussions and conversations as part of your customer relationship management, first understand as much as you can about your audience. Your engagements moving forward will be richer thanks to this data and information.

2. Be personal with social media content.

Individuals on social media are more likely to engage with other individuals than they are with nameless, faceless brands. That’s why you should consider encouraging company executives to have social media presences in which they (or staff on their behalf) share messages and content on social media in more personal ways. Social media algorithms often prioritize personal accounts over brand accounts.

However, even if your best option is to continue to use a brand account, you can make things feel more authentic and natural by using pronouns like “I” and “me” rather than “us” and “we.” Another idea is to pick your social media manager or brand manager and grow their personal brand on social media. They could become the face of your brand and help your audience relate to you better.

3. Be a part of the conversation.

You should consider every post that you publish on social media simply to be an opportunity to invite further engagement with your social media followers. If you only publish posts, but don’t engage with your followers in the comments, you are missing a huge opportunity to enhance your social media and customer relations strategies.

Be an active member of social media conversations. Participate in the conversations that praise your organization as well as the ones what aren’t so favorable. Participating in potentially problematic conversations is one excellent way to improve relationships that are in need of some TLC as well as to foster positive social media brand awareness.

“One of the most viable ways of outflanking your competitors is not necessarily with price or with product, but simply by caring more about your customers than the other guys do.” — Jay Baer, best-selling writer and marketing influencer

4. Encourage and answer direct messages.

As much as you would like all your consumers to respond publicly on your social media posts, the truth is that many people will scroll past a post long before they would stop to leave a comment on it. Some people don’t always want to be as “social” on social media as you would like them to be. However, you still have a prime opportunity to bring together social media and customer service as you encourage customers to send direct messages and as you prioritize responding to them.

5. Comment on others’ posts.

If you are waiting for current and potential customers to flock to your social media accounts unprovoked, you may be waiting for a long time. The social media accounts who have the best relationships with customers are those accounts that customers want to engage with. You can potentially attract more customers to your social media pages by following other brands and individuals.

Actively comment on the posts that are published on the accounts that might have a similar customer demographic. Be clever, creative, and helpful in your comments and people will naturally tap on your profile to learn more about you.

6. Create and participate in Facebook groups.

If Facebook is an important platform for you to utilize to reach your desired audience, develop and participate in a Facebook group. The group doesn’t need to be directly tied to your brand—though it could be. Facebook has prioritized distributing content from groups over distributing content from pages. Not only will the almighty algorithm be in your favor, but the quality of the potential discussions will be much higher than what you might see on business pages.

Join as many groups as makes make sense if the conversations in those groups relate to your product or service. There will be natural ways to discuss your products in these groups in ways that provide value to you as well as to other users.

7. Teach your social media followers something they want to know.

Ultimately, your social media followers choose to follow your account because they think it will bring them some sort of value. So you should develop content that helps them solve problems, learn, or explore. It is important that some of the content you produce be beneficial and helpful for your audience without any thought by you to try to sell or promote a product. Provide enough value and put your audience first. This is positive brand building.

8. Publish live videos.

Live videos on social media get a higher engagement than pre-recorded videos and help you build better customer relationships on social media. With every live video, your customers can make comments and ask questions in real time. Likewise, you can respond to those comments and questions nearly instantaneously. This leads to prime customer engagement. Social media live videos should be the most engaging media opportunity for your brand as well as for your customers because of the real-time engagement.

9. Share inspiring customer stories on social media.

Make your audience part of your story on social media. As you are responding to direct messages, engaging with comments, and reading unique posts in Facebook groups, keep your content creation cap on, because some of the best content ideas and some of the best stories to be told come from your loyal audience members. If something that someone says piques your interest, reach out to them and explore how you can work together to help them to tell their story.

Takeaways

Social media will continue to be a valuable tool for your brand as you continue to help your followers — not simply expect them to help you. Create content that’s valuable, use live video, use Facebook groups, respond to DMs, and comment on others’ posts. If you execute these tips you will surely see your engagement on social media skyrocket and you’ll be able to build a strong brand.

If you want to improve your content strategy, check out our managed content creation solutions. Additionally, you can easily speak with a content specialist on how we can assist you in your content marketing efforts.

The post 9 Ways to Build Customer Relationships on Social Media appeared first on ClearVoice.

Developing a marketing plan is similar to planning a well-balanced diet.

Yes, you have your favorite foods and others you might rather stay away from, but for your diet to be truly balanced, you’re going to need a bit of both.

The same is true of marketing plans. You might love organic social media and could publish Instagram Reels all day, every day. Likewise, you may dislike creating Google search ads and would prefer to never need to deal with them. However, the best marketing plans include a pinch of paid marketing and a dash of organic marketing.

Developing a paid and organic content strategy will prove to be most beneficial for your brand.

What is organic marketing?

Simply put, organic marketing is a type of marketing in which brands and individuals provide value to customers and potential customers through efforts to build relationships, promote the brand, and increase conversions. Essentially, organic marketing can be any sort of marketing a brand doesn’t spend money on to distribute the content or to generate leads.

Some of the tactics involved in organic marketing may include:

• Social media posts and discussions
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Blogging
• Link building
• User-generated content efforts
• Email marketing
• Newsletters
• Personalization
• Podcasting

Organic marketing shouldn’t necessarily be considered “free marketing.” With any of the aforementioned tactics, an organization still must invest time and resources into strategy implementation and content development. However, with an organic marketing strategy, you do not need to set aside funds to pay a third party for the distribution of the content you develop.

What is paid marketing?

Paid marketing involves many of the same ideas as organic for developing content and strategies, but the content distribution is fueled by funds set aside to assist in the delivery of the content or information. Return on investment (ROI) is often more applicable and easier to define in paid marketing efforts. This is because paid marketing often has specific, targeted calls to action, whereas organic marketing often is broader and not fully measurable.

To develop a paid marketing campaign, such as a paid search strategy, you would coordinate with a third-party platform to distribute the content. In many instances, this is a social media platform or a search platform. Google and Meta are two of the major names in paid marketing efforts that marketers often use.

What are organic marketing best practices?

To be effective with your organic marketing efforts, you must focus on long-term goals. Consider some of the following best practices for your organic marketing efforts:

Develop evergreen content.

When developing organic content, keep the long game in mind. If you create content that’s tied to a specific event or year, its ability to be relevant past that year or past the completion of an event decreases significantly.

When you seek to develop evergreen organic content, ask yourself if an individual will be able to use this content one year from now. How about five years from now? If the answer is no, the content may not be the best fit for an organic marketing strategy.

Make mobile-friendly content.

According to Google, nearly 55 percent of web traffic comes from mobile devices. For your brand, this means that if you aren’t optimizing content for mobile, you are neglecting a huge opportunity.

Google also states that 3 in 5 smartphone users are more likely to make a purchase with a company that offers personalized or relevant recommendations for products. Likewise, nearly the same number of individuals have a greater affinity toward companies that feature mobile sites or apps that remember their customers.

Blog and guest blog.

Maintaining a blog is an effective way to keep a consistent stream of content flowing from your organization. With this consistent stream of content, a natural improvement in SEO also comes. However, you can boost the effect blogging has on your organic marketing efforts by employing a guest blogging strategy as well.

This guest blogging strategy would involve you writing blog posts for other sites as well as inviting others to write content for your blog. Doing so gives you more content to publish, increases potential reach, helps your readers see additional perspectives, allows you to build topic authority, and improves your SEO.

Engage with your customers and potential customers.

Your organic social media efforts will be more effective if you look for and take advantage of opportunities to engage with your customers and potential customers. One obvious way to do this is by inviting feedback and conversations on social media.

When customers or potential customers comment or send direct messages, don’t let their comments simply float out there, never to be acknowledged or answered. Individuals who follow or engage with your brand on social media are searching for opportunities to connect. You should be thrilled to have the opportunity to build on these connections.

Optimize your content for search engines.

More than half of all web traffic can be attributed to organic search results. If your brand is focused on B2B-specific content, the percentage of web traffic attributed to organic search is even more pronounced — 76 percent. With the more than 5 billion searches that occur on Google each day, surely many opportunities exist to optimize search results in ways that favor your brand.

Paid search is a part of this, but when you consider paid search versus organic search, you would do well not to neglect the organic opportunities. Perhaps the best way to look at organic SEO is more of an operational business cost rather than a “marketing” effort. Because good SEO pays so many dividends to your organization, you can’t afford to miss out on the benefits. Invest time and resources into your organic search strategy.

Be active on social media.

Avoid the temptation to make your organic social media efforts about sales. Your organic efforts on social media should be about building relationships and providing content that inspires, is helpful, and intrigues your audience. You will have opportunities to sell and to be more aggressive with some of your paid social media efforts.

If you are too aggressive with your organic efforts, you will never get the engagement or get the account growth that you seek. Make your social media content-development efforts about your customers rather than about your bottom line and you will see success.

What are paid marketing best practices?

Organic marketing efforts often help you get your foot in the door, whereas paid marketing initiatives should be designed to help you close the deal. Consider employing some of these marketing best practices:

Run pay-per-click campaigns.

Pay-per-click campaigns are often viewed as the most effective paid marketing efforts for good reason. Approximately two-thirds of customers click on PPC ads.

If you are developing a PPC campaign, focus on high-performing keywords while filtering out low-performing keywords for best results. When developing PPC ads, remember that the same elements that make any piece of content compelling apply to PPC ads as well. Make sure the content speaks to consumers, then let the ad unit do the heavy lifting.

Create social media ads.

As we mentioned earlier, organic social media should be an important part of your marketing efforts, but don’t neglect the opportunities that come with paid social media ads.

Half of U.S. adults say that when brands use their data in social media ads, it helps them find products or services that they find valuable.  Likewise, almost half of internet users say they are more likely to purchase from brands they see in advertisements on social media.

Perhaps the greatest value that comes with paid social media ads is the amount of user data available to you as you develop ads and content. Social media platforms can provide you with data that helps pinpoint your audience demographics, interests, and how they like to engage with content. Equipped with this information, your ability to reach customers with content you know will resonate with them is higher on social media than on other ad platforms.

Engage with influencers.

Depending on the size of the influence of the individual, engaging with influencers isn’t always an exclusive paid marketing strategy. For example, if you partner with an influencer with tens of millions of social media followers, then you almost certainly will be required to pay a fee for them to promote your product or service.

However, if you partner with a local vlogger or someone with more of a targeted, niche audience, it is possible you can agree to an exchange of products or services for the “influence” the individual will provide. Marketers who use influencers find it a compelling strategy — with a full 90 percent of marketers saying they believe influencer marketing is an effective type of marketing.

Next Steps

If you have an organic marketing strategy, that’s great. Now develop a paid marketing strategy as well. And if you have a paid strategy — but not an organic — you know what you need to do. Combining both strategies will make your marketing efforts part of a well-balanced plan and you will see results.

The post Organic vs. Paid Marketing: Differences, Benefits, and Best Practices appeared first on ClearVoice.

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Yes, we are aware there are many tactics you can take to increase blog traffic, but today we are going to focus on specific writing tips that will speak to your audiences — as well as the Google ranking factor — to allow for your blog to receive the traffic you want and provide your audience the content they seek.

Before you get started, ask yourself the following questions:

• What is it about your words that will bring people to your content?
• What is it about your words that will make people want to share your content?
• What is it about your words that will invite people to come back?

These are the questions we intend to answer. By the time you finish this article, you will have a more solid understanding of your blog architecture, why it’s paramount to focus on specific audience segments, and how developing long-form content can be an excellent addition to your marketing strategies.

Blog Writing Tips that Increase Traffic

Let’s jump into these seven blog writing tips that will make your blog posts gain both traffic and traction.

Write blog content that people are interested in

How well do you know your audience? Seriously, do you know anything beyond age, gender, and geography? How about psychographics? Before you write a word, you first need to really know the group you are trying to attract to your blog — and then you need to create content for them. If you don’t know what to create, ask your audience. Your audience can be your best blog topics generator — if you listen.

If you focus first on developing blog niche ideas that your target audience values, blog ideas that make money will come. Conversely, if you focus first on making money, you likely will not produce content your audience wants to consume.

Use SEO in natural ways in your blog articles

The days of keyword-stuffing articles are gone (thankfully). But SEO is as important as ever when writing blog articles.

Keep in mind the following blog writing tips when writing your blog content for search engine algorithms:

• Write content in ways that Google can include in featured snippets
• Developing content for conversational search queries
• Insert your keywords into your meta descriptions
• Use alt text to identify images in the blog
• Include FAQs in your blog posts and related questions that people ask in your blog content.
• When considering the internal & external links to include, make sure they are helpful and are from reputable sources.

Write your blog content for humans, and improved search engine rankings will be a natural result.

Create blog headlines that attract and invite readers

Just like your readers love headers and subheads to guide them through a blog post, so do search engines. Create headers and subheads in your articles and you’re likely to see increased traffic.

Here are a few blog writing tips to keep in mind:

• Place keywords in the headlines and subheadlines (H1, H2, and H3s).
• Create accurate headlines. No clickbait. Give your readers what they came for.
• Include numbers. Odd numbers tend to stand out more than even numbers.
• Keep your headlines concise.

Grab your blog reader’s attention

This is one of the blog writing tips that apply to all topics. Every blog article you write should grab the reader’s attention from the very beginning. You can accomplish this in a few different ways. For example, a quick, short, impactful sentence is a great tool for inviting readers to read more. Another way is to start your post with a story or an anecdote.

Additionally, asking a thought-provoking question will make the reader stop and will intrigue them to read on and learn the answer.

You also can take the opportunity to invite readers to think outside the box by evoking their imagination. For example, consider starting an article with “Picture this . . .” or “Do you remember the last time you . . .” or “Pretend that you . . .” This forces the reader to become more personally involved in the content.

Keep blog writing simple

The best blogs have engaging content that is easy to consume. Don’t artificially increase the word count of your blog posts for the sake of SEO. First, seek to make your blog enjoyable to read. The other issues will fall into place afterward. After writing your blog, read through it carefully. Can you say it in fewer paragraphs? Fewer words? Shorter words? If yes, do it.

Consider reading your blog content aloud. How does it sound when you speak the words? Does it flow? Is it easy to understand? If not, adjust it until it is. Don’t increase word count unless the content you are developing warrants additional words.

Make your blog text aesthetically pleasing

Remember that the aesthetics of your text layout is just as important as the text itself. If your blog is full of long paragraphs and long sentences, only the people who are 100 percent invested are going to stay with the blog to consume the content.

Use short paragraphs.

Use white space.

Develop sentences that vary in length.

A good blog should have a good flow and ample white space. Find opportunities to use bulleted lists, numbers, subheads, and other visual elements that help break up the monotony of the text on the screen.

Inspire the reader and evoke emotion

Writing with emotion also makes your blog content easier to consume. Yes, your readers want to be informed — but they also want to laugh, smile, and feel inspired to take action. Your words have the power to make this happen for your readers.

The freshness and frequency of content should be an important element in your creation process. Track recent events or hot topics and consider how they relate to your blog. Curate content that is performing well in other places and put your own spin on it. Repurposing content allows you to reframe existing conversations in ways that might be more relevant to your readers.

Get rid of fluff in your writing

Consider this writing advice from Mark Twain:

“I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English — it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them — then the rest will be valuable.”

There is a reason why people consider Mark Twain’s writing timeless. He knew how to write in the ways people wanted to read. Now consider your own blog writing. Are adjectives a major element in your content? Do you deliberately look for opportunities to include vivid verbs and concrete nouns? Do you abhor cliches and keep them out of your blog?

Blog Writing Takeaways to Increase Your Traffic

Writing a blog that increases traffic requires diligence, deliberation, and devotion to the craft of writing. As you build and adapt your blog, analyze it for traffic and conversions. Continue to make minor tweaks or significant adjustments as you learn. Your blog should be a living, breathing content channel. Internalize the blog writing tips listed above, and you will get closer to your content goals.

We hope these blog writing tips help you create content that engages your target audience, keeps them around for longer, and leads them to conversion. If you need help creating high-performing content, talk to a content specialist at ClearVoice today. Our team can create ready-to-publish content for your blog, website, and much more.

The post 7 Blog Writing Tips That Increase Traffic appeared first on ClearVoice.

Imagine you are sitting on an Adirondack chair on the beach, your feet being tickled by the waves as they wash in and out. Imagine you listen to the seagulls as the warm summer air dries the sand and water from your skin. Sounds nice, right? That’s the beauty of e-commerce copywriting.

Let’s go on…

Now, imagine, you are on that same beach, but you are also devoid of every care. You watch your loved ones frolicking in the sand with huge smiles and boisterous laughter. The burdens placed upon your shoulders are evaporating with every minute under the sun. You feel at peace.

These two paragraphs above perfectly illustrate the difference between simply creating copywriting for your web products and optimizing your copy for conversions.

Yes, there are many tips and tricks to help you optimize for conversions in your e-commerce copywriting; however, the absolute most important thing you can do is to help your audience feel something when they read your writing.

Our first paragraph above is nice and seems pleasant. It is appealing. However, our second paragraph touches your emotions. It pricks hearts. This leads us to the key to developing e-commerce copy:

Knowing is good. Feeling is better.

How to convert customers with stellar e-commerce copywriting

You may wonder if customers actually read product descriptions and product details online and if you can boost your online sales with solid e-commerce copywriting.

The answer is yes — if you create copy that sizzles. People are more likely to act when they feel something rather than simply when they know something.

You should make the goal of helping your audience feel something a part of your pre-writing, writing, and post-writing processes. We’re going to give you some tips on how.

Pre-writing

When you are in the pre-writing phase of e-commerce copywriting, you first need to answer these three key questions:

1. Who is my audience?
2. What is my objective?
3. What is the desired outcome I hope occurs?

Audience

Demographics are important to know. You know, things like age, gender, location, income, etc. However, if you want to make your audience feel something with your e-commerce copywriting and optimize for conversions, you need to focus on psychographic.

Psychographics are based on why a person does what they do. It is based on a person’s opinions and interests.

Some examples of psychographics include:

• Attitudes
• Lifestyle
• Social class
• Personality type
• Culture
• Values

You can never have enough data about your intended audience. Create copy that touches a person’s core values — rather than a person’s age or gender — and your ability to convert with your copy will increase.

Objectives

For what purpose are you creating content for your audience? What do you want your audience to do? What are the pain points you want to address for the audience? Why is it important for you to share this content with your audience? Before you write a word of copy, you must first answer these questions.

Desired outcomes

Don’t confuse the desired outcome with the objective. The objective details why you are creating the copy, whereas the desired outcome is specific in what you hope happens because you created the copy. For example, you might say that you want to “expose more people to your product” (objective) by getting them to “register for your monthly newsletter” (desired outcome).

The call to action in your e-commerce copywriting should ultimately be specific in inviting people to do something associated with the desired outcome. This call to action is instrumental in allowing you to increase conversions/sales.

Writing

OK, but how precisely do you create good e-commerce copywriting? Whether you are an established brand or an e-commerce startup, the principles of effective e-commerce copywriting apply across the board. The types of media we use change over time — but the principles of good storytelling persist across all media.

Here are some precise tips for creating ad copy and other content that caters to your audience’s attention span and creates conversions:

Be a storyteller

You should never tell anybody their job is to “write product descriptions.” Bleh! No! The role of anybody who develops content is to be a storyteller. You can do this by:

• Telling your brand’s story.
• Sharing customer success stories.
• Encouraging users to create their own user-generated content to tell the stories themselves.

Remember to “show” don’t “tell” with your e-commerce copywriting. This, again, will help your potential customers feel something in your copy. Don’t just tell customers your product or service is good — show them through your descriptions. The user experience on your website should be pleasant.

Write a solid product description

Now, you can help your audience feel all the wonderful feelings in the world, but if you haven’t actually explained the product’s benefits, you’ll have an elated — but confused — potential customer.

A good product description should include the following six elements:

1. Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? Don’t overlook the simple elements that make good writing… well… good writing. The purpose of your writing should be to answer the questions about the product that customers may have. Ensure you are always answering the basic questions.
2. Be quick and simple. If your copy starts to approach the same length as a John Grisham novel, it might be time to tone it down a bit. Short is good. Simple is great. Use subheads and bullets to make it easy to scan your copy for key elements that help readers more easily find answers to their questions.
3. Connect with your readers. Remember, your job is not to simply inform your readers — your job is to make them feel something. It is that connection that will allow your copy to optimize for conversions. A friendly, knowledgeable tone of voice will help.
4. Use powerful words. A vivid verb and a concrete noun are your best friends. An adjective is your enemy. Keep your prose tight and choose your words meticulously.
5. Develop urgency. Create copy that informs the reader that a deal is only available for a certain time or why it is most valuable now. The sense of urgency makes a reader more likely to convert.
6. Make it short. Remember, web consumers don’t read — they scan. Make it easy for consumers to find the information they seek by making the copy short. Never use three words when two words will do.

If you follow the e-commerce copywriting guidelines above, your product descriptions will no longer be boring for your readers to consume — or for you to write. Likewise, you will significantly increase your potential to convert.

Post-writing

The worst thing you can do is write something, cross your fingers that it works, and then never look at it again. Check up on the writing on your product pages frequently. An eye-tracking heat map software can help you learn where people are looking on the page.

Likewise, doing some A/B tests with the copy on your page can help you better understand if one description better resonated with your target audience than another. You can hire freelancers to provide multiple versions for you to test. Just remember to measure, report, adjust. Repeat.

Fine-tune your e-commerce copywriting

• Now that you have a better idea about how to create copy that converts, you also will want to know how to create a high-converting sales funnel in which your copy can reside.
• Regardless of if you are representing a B2B company or a B2C company, the principles included above will relate to the work you do. Conventional wisdom says that B2B content can’t be spark emotions, but recent changes have shown this simply isn’t true.
• Focus on solving problems for your customers. When the content you develop makes it clear how your product will solve your customers’ problems, they will have a greater incentive to make a purchase.
• Avoid jargon or cliches. It can be easy to fall into the trap of using lazy language, but the extra effort you put into your work with solid writing will be rewarded.
• Pay attention to SEO. Just because you are writing to optimize for search, that doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice content quality. You can write for SEO and evoke emotions.

Effective product descriptions, engaging headlines, and persuasive call-to-actions can make all the difference in converting potential customers into loyal buyers. If you need help creating persuasive e-commerce copywriting, talk to a content specialist at ClearVoice today about our managed content services.

The post E-Commerce Copywriting: Optimize Your Copy for Conversions appeared first on ClearVoice.