How to 10x the value of content marketing traffic you’re already getting

Helloooo content connoisseurs.

It’s Perrin from Content Bites.

There’s something way too many content marketers miss. And it honestly eats me alive because it can usually 2x… or even 10x the value of content we already get. So we’re for sure going to talk about that today. Plus, we’re going to show you a company that does a profoundly good job at feeding channels with other channels

• Main course: The one thing content marketers miss that can 10x the value of existing traffic

• Snack: How one genius company generates $17.2M of dollars of revenue withy content channels that endlessly feed each other

• Morsels: Links from Moz, Ahrefs, QuickSprout and more…

Let’s dig in.

P.S. Apologies for the length of this issue; got a bit carried away (you’ll see why).

Quick appetizer: I’ll personally intro readers to marketing agencies I trust.

99.99% of marketing agencies are crap.

I know because I ran one (a good one). I also know most of the best ones.

If you’re looking for a marketing agency that’s actually good, I’m happy to personally introduce you.

If that’s you, fill out this Google form (it’s short).

This is free, of course.

If I know someone who fits your needs, I’ll make a warm intro. If not, I’ll just let you know & try to keep my ears to the ground.

So, if you need an agency, fill out this Google form & I’ll be in touch.

Main Course: How to 10x the value of content marketing traffic you’re already getting by using “conversation stacking”

This is a tactic I call (and coined, as far as I know) conversation stacking.

I’ll tell you how it works in a sec.

First, I want to help you understand why it works, and to do that, we need to understand (or for many of us, remember) the function of content marketing.

In almost all cases, content marketing lives at the top of the funnel.

It’s usually very rare for us to push a piece of content out of the nest, get it in front of people, and immediately start making sales.

Sometimes that happens, sure. I wish it happened more often. Our jobs would be a hell of a lot easier. But most of the time, it doesn’t.

So, most of the time, we hope to make the up with volume — hoping that by just doing enough content, we’ll generate some sales at some point down the line.

Or, for better or for worse, we use content to “increase brand awareness” (…I’m putting that in quotes lovingly guys; I know brand impact is a real thing, and I think it’s super valuable, but lets be honest: we all know the stories we tell ourselves sometimes lol).

And the top of the funnel is often a weird, nebulous mess.

The best of us find creative ways to measure content impact, but a lot of the time, we’re just trying to generate eyeballs, eyeballs, and more eyeballs, hoping we can produce some revenue somewhere.

My campaigns changed when I started to view content marketing as a way to start — and continue — conversations.

I’ll go one step further here. The single most valuable thing content can do is create ways to continue conversations with potential customers after they consume our first piece of content.

So how exactly do we keep conversation going?

We create a conversation stack.

Basically, as soon as someone “agrees” to have a conversation with us (by consuming our content), we create as many opportunities as possible — for them and for ourselves — to get back in touch.

Here are the best ways to do that.

1. Build a retargeting audience with a bunch of key pixels to continue the conversation with ads (on the cheap).

Most major ad platforms will let you install pixels on your website, pixel people who land there, and put them all in an audience for you to market to later.

If your company has a performance marketing function, this is probably one of the single most valuable things you can do as a content marketer.

Even if you do NOTHING else, as long as you have retargeting pixels installed, content marketing nerds can do nothing but produce dope content, and it will add measurable value for the business by allowing performance marketing teams to buy cheaper ads.

It’s also great because it’s easy as hell.

Basic pixels can be set up in an afternoon, and we’re usually not the ones to do it.

But you should do this even if your company doesn’t run ads.

Why? Because:

1. You might run ads someday

2. You can use paid traffic to promote content, and with a retargeting audience, that’s cheaper, too

Basically, any time we want to use money to keep our conversation going, it’s going to be cheaper with this in place.

At the very least, I’d recommend the three big pixels:

• Clearbit’s pixel (great for detailed audience data)

• Meta pixel

• Google pixel

Bonus: if you have a larger list of customers, do the same thing with lookalike audiences.

2. Use “spy” tools to let your sales team continue the conversation.

This is for my B2B homies.

But good GRAVY is it powerful.

If you do content marketing for a B2B company, you probably know that one of the primary goals of content is to generate leads and meetings for the sales team.

Usually, we do that by asking readers for their contact information.

This is inbound sales.

But we can also use content to enable outbound sales.

Take a quick look at the following tools (no affiliate links or anything):

• Clearbit 

• Snitcher

These tools allow you to see who has visited your site.

They won’t give you names and emails, but they will tell you:

• Which companies website visitors work at

• How many people from those companies visited

• Whether or not they visited high-intent pages (like a pricing page)

In other words, as we’re out there hustling and doing our content marketing team, our sales team can get a steady stream of companies who might be interested — and some measure just how interested they are.

Then, they can reach out to them.

Outbound sales is tough. This makes it significantly easier.

It’s also great to be able to prove the value of content.

3. Push them to another page that converts well to continue the conversation immediately.

You can continue the conversation right now if you push people to another page. You can push people to pages like:

• More content (to continue the conversation with content)

• A lead magnet (to continue the conversation via email)

• A product (to continue the conversation with them as a customer)

Usually, I push to more content first, but if you have a product under $100 (or a free offer) and a landing page that converts well, you pushing to a product or squeeze page can be an option.

Lots of people really overcomplicate this.

Fancy buttons, popups, etc.

The best I’ve found to get people to move from page to another is isolated hyperlinks.

That means plain text with a hyperlink somehow separated from the rest of the text on the page and a reason to click it.

The two best ways to isolate a hyperlink is to (1) put it in a bullet list and (2) just put it on its own line of text.

Here’s an example.

Suppose we run a camping shop, and we’re running a content campaign about ultralight camping.

In that article, we could include a list of tools, and we could put that list in bullets, like this (**by the way, all these links just go to the Content Bites homepage, so no need to click)…

“If you’re new to ultralight camping, I recommend these basic tools:

• Ultralight Tent 900

• Ultralight Sleeping Bag With Bear Armor

• Compact Cooking Set Mach 4

• Foldable Hiking Sticks “

The other option is just to put a hyperlink on its own line in the next, like this (again, no need to click this link, demonstration purposes only):

> If you’re new to ultralight camping, see my list of essential tools.

I’ll even include the little carrot > whatever it’s called.

This works because it looks and feels like a natural part of the content (and if done well, it really is an important part of the content).

But it works. I built a personal affiliate site that generated $100,000/yr in revenue, and this is the only way I generated clicks.

Works just as well for any other business.

4. Chat with them directly as they’re reading the content to start an actual, live conversation.

This is embarrassing.

My first ever content marketing client was a testosterone clinic.

They made a deal with me: they’d buy my services, but I had to use their live chat to convert visitors into leads.

The “face” of the LiveChat rep was a young, attractive person.

So, in addition to my regular content marketing, I’d sit on this live chat and talk to (sigh… flirt with) old men to, well, continue the conversation.

Not my favorite thing in the world. I was damn good at it, but not my favorite lol.

But did it work? Oh baby, did it ever work.

We generated lots of leads from very little (but highly targeted) traffic.

Here’s the most important thing about live chat: when it triggers on a user visit, it has to open directly into a chat window as if the conversation has already started.

Conversions are way higher that way.

The cheapest software I’ve found that does that is LiveChat (not an affiliate link).

As long as you have the manpower to handle a live chat, you can use it to continue a conversation in whatever way you want: collect emails, recommend products, etc.

Super powerful.

5. Get them on an email list to have a conversation whenever you want… forever.

Oldie but a goodie.

Email is THE absolute best way to continue a conversation with a reader, and THE best way to readers into customers long-term.

Email just does so much:

• It buys time because you can contact someone forever (as long as they don’t unsubscribe)

• It allows you to build trust & provide value before asking for a sale

• It allows you to have a 2-way conversation and ask questions

• It allows you to promote more content

• And more

We all know the value of a strong email list.

They’re just hard to build.

And most people get it wrong.

How many times have you seen a generic “Subscribe to our newsletter to get updates!” CTA?

Who. Cares.

We have to be better.

Here are 3 good ways I’ve found to build a list with content.

•  Give something away (report, discount, etc.). The best version of this is actually giving away a super high-value freebie: low-cost product, 15-minute consult, etc. (it’s just often hard to do)

• “Gate” some of the content. A few of my fellow marketers even get 100% of a blog post & then promote it. Anyone who lands on it has to either exchange their email to read it, or leave. It’s a bit extreme for my taste (I’d rather just gate a portion), but it works.

• Ask them to join, but sell it properly. Tell them what they’ll get. Tell them who the readers are. Explain the free value. Give them social proof. You can do this simply: “Join 30,000 cybersecurity professionals who read our newsletter daily.”

Building a list & continually providing value is probably one of the single best content engines in existence.

6. Invite them to a high-value community to be able to have conversations with a large, loyal group.

Lastly, something a bit more nebulous that I haven’t really cracked, but I’ve seen it work for other people.

Community.

The hard part is: you need a great reputation and a community that is already worth joining, creating a kind of chicken-and-egg problem.

But if you have those things, it’s reasonable to argue that a community may be even more valuable than an email list.

Bark, a parental controls company, does this really well. They have a Facebook group called Parenting in a Tech World that has nearly 400,000 memebers.

But when you can make yourself the watering hole, you can build an actual, loyal tribe.

But Remember… the most powerful version of this is to make a stack.

You can do any of these. You might be doing some of them.

But the way to realize a 10x-level of power is to eventually do all of them. Or as many as you can deploy naturally.

Tough, but powerful.

How do do this TODAY:

• Set up retargeting pixels

• If you’re doing any of the above, audit them and see what can be added from this issue

• If you’re not doing any, pick one to execute on

• Build a plan to add all of them

• Chop any that just don’t work

• Measure and double down on the best ones

Snack: How About.com grew by 50x by breaking itself up into smaller niches

Who here’s old enough to remember About.com?

Good GRAVY that thing was a monster back in the day.

If you don’t remember About.com, it was crazy. It was launched in the early days of the internet, and it was meant to be a site about everything.

Literally.

The whole goal of that site was to literally have content available on every topic anyone could ever ask about.

It was a monstrously big site.

But then, something started happening in the landscape of the internet…

Search engines started to reward topical authority.

It became much more difficult for general sites to rank for specific stuff. This was especially true for important stuff, like health and finances.

Likewise, it became easier for smaller, nichier sites to rank for hyper-specific things.

So, in about 2014, About.com’s traffic, which came almost entirely from Google, started to take a dive.

The earliest traffic measurement I could find for the site was 2015, when they had about 29M monthly organic visits (screenshot).

And they were falling fast. By early 2016, they’d dropped to 24M monthly organic visits. By the end of 2016, they were at 14M. And so on…

They had to do something.

So, in 2016 and into 2017, they launched what is, to this day, one of the absolute nuttiest content moves I’ve ever witnessed.

They broke every major vertical of their site into their own separate sites with separate teams, experts, authority, and so on.

And it worked.

They now operate a massive portfolio of sites that includes:

• The Spruce (19.5M traffic)

• The Spruce Pets (5.8M)

• The Spruce Eats (9.5M)

• Very Well Health (24.7M)

• Parents.com (5M)

• … and 20+ other properties

I happened to be watching it in nearly real time back in the day.

It was bonkers.

But they pulled it off, and it really drove home the power of topical authority for content and content marketing.

How to do this yourself:

• Don’t. Not without extreme caution and a literal army of experts. Most business are already specific enough.

Morsels: Content marketing links

• Referral Traffic: 7 Ways to Drive It (link)

• The TikTok Algorithm Exposed (link)

• If Your Marketing Mix Doesn’t Match Your Customer’s Journey… You’re Gonna Have a Bad Time (link)

• 5 Must-Read Books for Building Brands and Wealth by Entrepreneurs of Color (link)

• How to conduct a speedy social media audit (link)

Dessert: If you need some extra muscle, I’m offering coaching calls

A lot of folks have been asking for extra help, and I think this is the best way to do that.

I’m now offering coaching calls. These are not free, but I’m trying to keep them reasonable.

Currently, they’re $100 (30min) or $200 (1hr). In a call, we’d cover stuff like:

• How to optimize what’s working

• What you can add

• How to better distribute

• How to better convert

• Anything else you want

Then, you’ll get actionable notes.

The links again: 30m call | 1hr call.

That’s the issue.

If you missed the last issue, you can check it out here: 3 Lesson From the Worst Content Campaign I Ever Ran.

Go forth & conquer.

—Perrin