We’ve been doing this for over ten years through our blog, social media, courses, and other content formats like Rock Content Magazine and Marketing Backstage.

Two years ago, we decided to deliver not only high-quality content targeting our persona’s main search intents but also weekly news in a marketing newsletter: The Beat.

This week, The Beat reaches its 100th edition, and it’s safe to say we’ve learned a thing or two along the way.

To celebrate this milestone, we’re pulling back the curtain on The Beat to reveal all the details of our newsletter, from our production process to the numbers we’ve achieved over the years.

Another marketing newsletter?

Marketing newsletters are not exactly a new concept. There are hundreds available, many of which are quite good.

So, before The Beat even thought about seeing the light of day (or our readers’ inboxes), we had to answer the question: how can we ensure our newsletter stands out from the rest?

We chose to make The Beat stand out from the crowd with two specific features:

1. The Beat is an interactive newsletter (yes, Rock Content is serious about content experience). Readers can interact with various elements and enjoy an experience that goes beyond written content.

If you want to know more about The Beat’s interactive design process, I highly recommend you read this article.

2. It’s more than just “news for the sake of news.” Besides covering everything that happened during the week, we discuss how each topic impacts your strategies—with insights from our experts on each subject.

Now that you and The Beat have been introduced, let’s start our behind-the-scenes tour.

An overview of The Beat in numbers

To kick off our tour, we’ve gathered some of the most interesting facts from these 100 editions to help you get familiar with our newsletter:

• 2 years of publication
• 100 editions in total, always published on Fridays
• 10,836 subscribers, gained 100% organically

An overview of The Beat in topics

We also analyzed the most frequently covered topics in The Beat and created a word cloud. Here’s the result:

The themes “SEO” and “Marketing” were the most covered over these 100 editions, for obvious reasons. But we’ve also talked a lot about social media, data, and, of course, Artificial Intelligence.

Best editions so far, according to our audience

We might be biased because we love every edition of our newsletter, but our audience has particularly enjoyed three:

#1. Welcome to The Beat: The very first edition at its official launch. We made a lot of noise about the project’s inauguration, resulting in one of the most accessed editions to date.

#83. Influencer Marketing in 2024: This edition featured a comprehensive article with data on Influencer Marketing in 2024, discussed Google updates, and included a full interview with the VP of Marketing at Aircall.

#24. Organic mobile traffic is dropping: This edition was packed with interactive elements like charts, quizzes, and reaction buttons.

Editor’s picks: Best editions of The Beat for Rock Content

I know, I know. When it comes to results, our opinion might not matter much. But as the editor of The Beat, I do have my favorite editions. Here are some of them:

#21. We tested the new Instagram feed in advance: I’m biased not only because I’m the editor of The Beat but also because I wrote the main article of this edition. It is truly amazing: interactive elements, a new podcast episode with the Senior Market Research Manager at SemRush, and exclusive interviews… it turned out excellent.

#28. TikTok now threatens Google: Remember the controversy about Google’s own data showing that Gen Z preferred searching on TikTok over Google? Of course, we covered it.

#50. Our first look into Google Analytics 4: Another edition I tip my hat to. The cover story reveals Rock Content’s behind-the-scenes look at how we were adapting to GA4, while the rest of the edition covers the launch of Bing Chat and the TikTok ban issue in the United States.

#68. 30+ questions, answered: How AI is changing SEO: Finally, the edition where we brought in the Head of SEO at Wix to chat with our VP of Marketing about the future of SEO with the AI boom, answering over 30 questions from our audience. Super informative.

It’s great to look back and see how The Beat has served as an information channel for marketing professionals on key topics over the past few years.

The Beat process: step-by-step for creating an interactive newsletter

As we continue our tour, let me walk you through the step-by-step process of our routine with The Beat.

Today, the newsletter is created by two people on our team: myself, responsible for writing, editing, and distributing the newsletter, and Creative Designer Nayara Medeiros, who designs the newsletter and its visual materials.

This was the initial process we designed, and it has remained pretty much the same until today:

Step 1. Gather the content for the edition

Every Tuesday or Wednesday, I decide which content will be included in the edition.

To create the newsletter content, I consider a few points:

• What topics have we covered on the blog this week?
• Do we have any audiovisual material worth including? For example, podcasts, social media content, or videos.
• Are there any extra interesting content pieces for this edition? For example, interviews or case studies.
• Is there any rich material that could be featured in this edition?

Step 2. Writing the content for The Beat

With that in mind, on Wednesday, I start creating the newsletter content. The Beat has a fixed structure, so I always work within that framework, dividing the content into three parts:

Interactive Experience:

• Title
• Newsletter introduction
• Content: title + author + introductory paragraph
• Interactive elements
• Closing

The content generally follows this pattern:

Email: Unlike most newsletters, The Beat’s content is not presented in the email but within the interactive experience. So, the email serves as an additional distribution point, inviting subscribers to read the full content. It follows this structure:

• Title
• Introduction
• Summary of what the subscriber will find in the edition
• CTA for the interactive experience

We’ve conducted many tests on how this email should look and are always testing changes to increase open rates and, of course, CTR. Today, this format works well.

Copies for distribution: Finally, I also create the copies for promoting The Beat on social media (Instagram, LinkedIn, and Telegram) and via push notifications, including guidelines for captions and creatives.

Step 3. Creating the interactive experience

With the content ready, it’s now in the hands of our Designer.

On Thursday, Nayara builds the entire interactive experience for The Beat (she detailed the process here) and also creates the cards we’ll use for promoting the edition. The result looks like this:

Once everything’s ready, we review each piece, test the links, and I schedule the email and social media posts.

And that’s it! By the first hour of business on Friday, The Beat is fresh in our subscribers’ inboxes!

Corporate Newsletter: The strategies that have worked best for The Beat

Last but not least, let’s talk about some strategies we’ve tested over the past two years that have delivered the best results for us (after all, I know you might want to replicate them in your company, too).

Here we go:

1. Have more than one distribution point for the newsletter

This might surprise you, but email is not the main distribution channel for The Beat today. As I mentioned, whenever a new edition is released, we distribute it across various Rock Content channels.

One of the main ones is right here on our blog: a micro-interactive experience where you can subscribe to the newsletter without even leaving the page. By the way, have you subscribed yet? 

2. Create a special monthly edition for the general leads base

First of all, if you’re thinking about creating a corporate newsletter for your brand, don’t assume your leads base will automatically be your subscribers.

This mistake can seriously harm your newsletter’s performance and even your email domain.

Subscribers need to opt-in to receive your newsletter and genuinely want to receive it. So, send editions only to those who have actually signed up for your content, agreed?

However, this doesn’t mean you can’t invite your leads base to check out your newsletter and, if they wish, subscribe for more content. We did this for a while with “The Monthly Beat,” a special monthly edition of The Beat, summarizing the most important events of the month.

The monthly newsletter was partially accessible (meaning the reader could only see the beginning of the content. To read the rest, they had to subscribe). This action alone doubled our number of new monthly subscribers.

3. Incorporate visual and interactive elements that complement the article

This is the main reason why The Beat is no ordinary newsletter, and I simply love the possibility of creating content that subscribers can interact with.

4. Special editions

We’ve had a few themed editions of The Beat, usually to promote specific material that Rock Content was launching.

Two examples:

#30. Ok, diversity sells. But how about changing the world? An entire edition on Marketing, Diversity & Inclusion, created to promote the sixth edition of Rock Content Magazine with the same theme.

#94. AI Virtual Influencers: We needed to promote the State of Marketing Report, a partnership between Rock Content, HubSpot, and other companies, so we created a special edition of The Beat with insights from the report.

In both cases, The Beat helped boost growth marketing results without losing its essence and objective of providing quality content to subscribers.

Which brings me to my final point…

5. The main and non-negotiable principle: Be relevant

Nobody wants a corporate newsletter that only talks about the company and its products.

The Beat has never been, and never will be, about Rock Content.

It’s about bringing the top marketing and content topics of the week, explaining how each topic directly impacts the lives and strategies of marketing professionals and brand owners, from the perspective of our experts as content marketing leaders.

Yes, it speaks a lot about the brand. It brings awareness, authority, and even growth results. But its content will never be about that. It’s about being truly relevant to our subscribers.

And that’s what makes The Beat so unique, for the past 100 editions, and for many more to come.

And since we’re talking about The Beat, how about subscribing now? There, you’ll find all the trends that matter in the digital marketing landscape. Enjoy!

The post 100 editions of The Beat: Behind the scenes of our interactive marketing newsletter appeared first on Rock Content.

Only interactivity can accomplish that, so well-crafted interactive content is a must-have for any digital marketing campaign. For example, software as a service can be a tough sell. But an interactive product demo is a powerful way to showcase the benefits of SaaS products and drive conversions.

Demos are self-led walkthroughs that enable potential customers to test-drive an app or program before they buy. Up to 69% of consumers say product demos are helpful when it comes to deciding on a purchase.

In this comprehensive introduction, we’ll dive into everything you need to know, including how to create an interactive product demo.

Benefits of Interactive Product Demos

Interactive product demos cut straight to the chase by showing customers what it’s truly like to use a product. Some of the key benefits include:

1. Enhanced customer engagement

Consumers who are engaged become more likely to buy. An interactive product demo helps this happen by properly introducing leads to your brand. Delivering a memorable experience also helps them remember you, even if they’re not yet ready to make a purchase.

2. Improved understanding of product features

A demo eliminates the need to over-explain when it comes to features that may be complex. Instead, potential customers can explore them firsthand and experience their value for themselves.

3. Increased conversion rates and sales

If a product is truly right for a customer, they’ll know it after participating in a demo. This gets customers to the “I’m ready to buy” stage much faster and makes closing sales easier.

4. Real-time feedback and data collection

Ethical data collection is a must these days, and an interactive product demo app makes it simple. Modern consumers are generally happy to provide contact and personal info in exchange for a demo. Interactive product demonstrations also provide great ways to collect ongoing feedback.

5. Differentiation from competitors

Once a customer agrees to try a demo, you’ve officially got their attention. Providing a top-notch experience can help set you apart from your competition in powerful ways.

How to Create an Interactive Product Demo Step-by-Step

Adding interactive product demos to your digital marketing strategy is the key to making your products seem irresistible. But there’s an art to getting them just right. Here are some crucial steps to follow.

1. Identify the key features to showcase

Products like comprehensive software programs and apps can be complicated. Keep the demo experience approachable for your customers by focusing primarily on key features. Consider how you can best showcase the functionality, usefulness, and appeal of these features.

Make the experience informative while also keeping it approachable.

2. Choose the right interactive product demo software or app

You don’t necessarily need to be a programming whiz to put together an interactive product demo that consumers will love. The right interactive product demo software can really take the guesswork out of the process.

Ion is a terrific example of an interactive product demo app that’s truly user-friendly. It’s easy to build the personalized, thorough demo experiences customers love. Features like detailed data analytics and cutting-edge insights help ensure Ion demos drive conversions, as well.

3. Design a user-friendly interface

User-friendliness is the order of the day when it comes to effective product demos. Ensure your demo is intuitive, organized, and easy for users of all skill levels to figure out. Consider implementing segmentation to ensure each user gets a personalized experience that’s ideal for them.

4. Incorporate multimedia elements

Keep your demo interesting by incorporating multimedia into the mix. Prioritize options that show (not tell) users what your product is all about. Think about key interactive content options like videos, animated graphics, etc.

Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. What would help you lose yourself in the experience of trying a really fantastic product demo?

5. Test and refine the demo

It’s crucial that your product demo is flawless before you launch, so don’t sleep on thorough testing. Try a run-through or two yourself, and have other team members do the same. Refine any weak areas.

Next, release the demo to a small group of current customers. Ask them for honest feedback, and carefully analyze the results. Make more improvements accordingly.

6. Launch and promote the demo

Plan a thorough marketing campaign in support of your demo launch to get the word out to your target audience. Be sure to include all of your most effective content marketing channels, including email, social media, and your company blog.

Common Mistakes to Avoid During Interactive Product Demos

Knowing what not to do is just as important when it comes to putting together killer demos. Here are a few common mistakes to avoid.

Overloading with too much information

When a product is packed with incredible features, it can be tempting to try to include all of them in your demo. But it’s essential to avoid overwhelming users. Stick to key features and the points your customer needs to know about the product to make an informed buying decision.

Neglecting the user experience

User experience is everything when it comes to items like SaaS products. You want to position your product as something powerful and efficient but also intuitive. An interactive product demo is your chance to accomplish this.

Keep demos streamlined and thorough but also user-friendly and effortless to navigate. Show users how easy it is to integrate top-tier products like yours into their lives.

Failing to integrate interactive elements smoothly

Effective demos flow smoothly from one element and option to the next. Be sure to fully integrate each of your interactive elements into the experience for maximum impact. This is another factor that a comprehensive demo app like Ion can help with.

Ignoring user feedback and data

Candid, honest feedback from users is like gold when you’re developing an effective product demo. Always pay attention to what your users tell you about their experiences. Listen especially closely regarding elements they describe as confusing, overcomplicated, or just not what they expected.

Not updating the demo regularly

Great interactive product demos evolve to remain effective. Update yours frequently to better reflect new features, product updates, and user feedback. As your product improves and changes, your demos should do the same.

5 Examples of Interactive Demo Email Follow-Ups

Once a customer tries a demo, follow-up is important for closing sales and cultivating future relationships. The right approach is crucial, and email is an ideal delivery system. Check out the following examples to get inspired.

⇾ Personalized follow-up with key highlights

Leverage personalization to connect with the customer and underscore your understanding of their consumer needs.

• Use the person’s name in the subject line and intro.
• Remind them of key features and highlights from their demo experience.
• Maintain a warm, friendly tone of voice.
• Close by cordially inviting the customer to take the next step.

⇾ Educational content to deepen understanding

If you have additional resources that could help your customer make a decision, consider incorporating them into your follow-up email.

• Embed options like graphics or videos for easy access.
• Identify in-depth resources like long-form articles, and incorporate the links into your copy.
• Explain how these resources can help, and explicitly invite the user to check them out.

⇾ Incentives for further engagement

A knock-out interactive product demo leaves users primed and ready to take the next steps. A special offer or deal can give them the incentive they need to pull the trigger on a purchase.

• Offer discounts to help make the idea of committing more attractive.
• Create a sense of urgency by specifying a time limit for the discount.
• Including discounts and offers in the second follow-up email can be especially effective.

⇾ Case studies and success stories

Social proof is an incredibly powerful tool for nudging users toward a purchase. Use your best examples to show recipients what your product has accomplished for other users just like them.

• Include data-packed case studies to reinforce value for B2B users.
• Testimonials and reviews are perfect for everyday consumers.
• Invite the user to check out more studies and success stories on your website.

⇾ Invitations for live demos or Q&A sessions

In situations (like B2B interactions) where eventual communication with a product rep is part of the protocol, try this approach.

• Address the user by name, and thank them for trying your demo.
• Extend an exclusive invitation to ask more questions or experience a live demo.
• Detail the benefits of acting on this invitation. Offer incentives when appropriate.

Interactive Product Demo FAQ

If you still have questions about how to create interactive product demos and use them to your advantage, check out the following FAQs.

What is an interactive demo?

An interactive demo is a hands-on opportunity for a potential customer to try a product before purchasing it. Demos are popular options for SaaS products, apps, and similar items.

How do you make an interactive product demo?

If you don’t have programming experience, you can create effective demos by using dedicated software or apps (such as Ion by Rock Content).

How do you make demos more interactive?

Including dynamic content like interactive videos, graphics, animations, or tools is a great solution. Incorporate a variety of media types to boost engagement.

What should be in a product demo?

Product demos should showcase all key product features. When possible, personalize the experience to help individual users get more out of demos.

Conclusion

Interactive product demos are the key to quick, enthusiastic conversions that stick. Implement the strategies and tips above to ensure yours are effective. And leverage top-tier tools like Ion to simplify the process.

Ready to get started? Create an interactive product demo with Ion, and experience the magic firsthand—no coding experience necessary!

The post Interactive Product Demo: The Selling Power Behind the Strategy appeared first on Rock Content.

All of this, of course, followed a reliable, data-based method.

I’m not a UX expert. Despite having taken statistics classes in college, analyzing data in a structured way wasn’t something I was familiar with as a Creative Designer at Rock Content until then.

Even so, I accepted the challenge and started thinking about some hypotheses to test. In this article, I will explain:

• How I helped increase our click-through rate by 50% by changing the position of a banner on our blog.
• How, even though I’m not a Growth Hacking expert, I managed to acquire and implement a testing mentality to bring more results to my work.

This article will go straight to the point. However, if you want more context about what Growth Hacking or A/B Testing is, I recommend reading this article and this one too.

The Hypothesis

After some brainstorming, I prioritized testing the position of a CTA on Rock Content’s blog. This prioritization followed the ICE Score methodology, which involves estimating based on three parameters: Impact (how much the test result can affect metrics or the test object itself), Confidence (our level of confidence in the success of the test), and Ease (how easy it would be to implement the test).

Compared to my other test ideas, changing the position of the CTA from the sidebar to the fixed footer had the highest ICE Score.

In the following image, you can see the CTA with the message “Human Crafted Content: Find top content freelancers on WriterAccess. Try for free” on the right side of the blog.

The question I asked myself was: is there any other position where this CTA would be more visible to the user?

From this, I developed a hypothesis with the following premises:

1. The Sidebar Placement: The sidebar on the right, due to visual hierarchy, is generally a place for secondary and/or complementary content, as pointed out in this article published by the Norman/Nielsen Group:

“The right-hand side of the page consumes maybe 20% of your available pixels: the most precious resource on computers. It can serve many significant and practical purposes. It’s a place to feature secondary content — to recommend or extend the user’s journey to other areas of your site.”

2. Banner Blindness: The content contained there may go unnoticed by the user, who is used to looking away from banners and advertisements (or elements on the page that resemble them):

“People disregard colorful boxes in the margin of the page because such graphical treatments are commonly applied to ads. In fact, anything that’s overly large or colorful risks being ignored, and user attention tends toward the left side of pages. In usability studies, we frequently observe users overlooking items they need even when these items are in plain sight. When questioned after the study, they tell us again and again, ‘I saw that, but it looked like an ad, so I ignored it.'”

3. Centralized Main Content: The main content of the blog post is found in a centralized area of the page, but when there are two columns within this area, the text is in the left column. To reach the end of the article, the user needs to scroll to the bottom of the page.

These premises then generate the following hypothesis:

By leaving the CTA fixed to the bottom of the screen, we can take advantage of the scrolling action to increase our click-through rate.

When the CTA is in a sidebar, it can easily escape the user’s attention, assuming the main content is in a larger area on the left of the page and the user scrolls down to continue reading. In other words, when reading the text, the user keeps the CTA close to their field of vision at all times.

Before starting the tests, I looked for examples of websites that used a fixed bar at the base. I found some examples, of which I highlight:

Active Campaign

The email marketing and CRM automation platform already places a form field and a CTA for the free trial period in the fixed footer (highlighted in green in the image below).

WPForms

WPForms is a plugin that facilitates the construction and implementation of forms within websites made with WordPress. In the fixed bar, they placed two CTAs: one to purchase the plugin and another directing users to reviews.

The Test

The time had come to put the hypothesis to the test.

To do this, we had to establish the parameters to be tested and the success criteria.

With the help of our testing analyst (oh, right—Rock Content takes this so seriously that we have a person on the Marketing team focused exclusively on testing), we decided to comparatively analyze the click rate between the CTA on the sidebar and on the fixed footer.

We set a target of at least a 10% increase in the footer bar rate compared to the sidebar rate. Statistically, this would prove that the fixed bar is more effective in driving traffic to the trial page than the sidebar. More traffic to the trial page means more opportunities to convert. Trials are another very important metric but require a longer testing period to achieve statistical relevance. This continuation of the test is being carried out now for a longer period. For our purposes, it was enough to check whether clicks actually increased significantly with the change in the position of the CTA.

The idea was to activate the fixed bar for 30 days and make a comparison with the sidebar retroactively.

Determining Click-Through Rate

The click rate would be determined through the relationship between visits to pages where the fixed bar was located and the number of clicks on the CTA in a monitored period of time. We calculated it as follows: the number of clicks on the CTA divided by the total number of page views. The result is then multiplied by 100.

Also read: What is Click-Through Rate and How to Increase Your CTR

Collecting Data

To get these numbers, we used two tools: Google Analytics and Clarity, from Microsoft.

Both the sidebar and the fixed bar were applied to all post pages on the English version of the Rock Content blog. This way, Google Analytics provided us with the total number of page views during the monitored periods.

For the CTAs, we created unique links with UTM and were able to count clicks using Clarity. In Clarity, we filtered unique sidebar and fixed bar links for the intervals in which we monitored each bar version.

Test Applied and Comparing Results

The fixed footer bar with the CTA was implemented on the blog on September 19th and, while the test ran for 30 days, we collected retroactive data from the sidebar.

We considered the period between August 19th and September 19th, and the numbers were as follows:

WriterAccess Offer in Blog Sidebar (US&CA)

Period: August 19th to September 19th

For the test to be a success, the click rate needed to be 10% greater than 0.077%, which is at least 0.084%. After 30 consecutive days of testing, the fixed bar numbers were:

WriterAccess Offer in the Blog Fixed Footer Bar (US&CA)

Period: September 19th to October 19th

Validating the Results

Our results were better than expected, with a 50% increase in the click rate, instead of the estimated 10%.

To gather valuable insights, data should never be read without context. Spikes in clicks can happen due to several factors, such as a promotional period. Therefore, a valuable tip is to always do an extra check of the data and observe whether the timing or sources of data collection are subject to any specific context.

Even with the good results in the initial test, I chose to monitor more periods in subsequent months to see the behavior of the click rate and check for any trends. I did two more rounds of testing with the fixed bar and obtained the following data:

WriterAccess Offer in the Blog Fixed Footer Bar (US&CA) – November

Period: October 19th to November 19th

WriterAccess offer in the blog fixed footer bar (US&CA) – December

Period: November 19th to December 19th

To my surprise, the click rate not only remained the same but also showed an upward trend in the following months, reaching 0.134% in Oct/Nov and 0.151% in Nov/Dec.

Lastly, I calculated the average clicks of the two CTAs during the period in which they were active. This way, we could have a more general notion of how the two versions of the CTAs performed to prove the initial hypothesis:

WriterAccess Offer in Blog Sidebar (US&CA) – July to September

Period: July 1st to September 19th (period in which the CTA in the sidebar was active)

WriterAccess Offer in the Blog Fixed Footer Bar (US&CA) – September to December

Period: September 19th to December 29th

With this comparative average, we can see that changing the CTA to the fixed bar at the end of the page more than doubled the click-through rate.

This metric is an important and positive indicator that it was worth questioning user behavior when faced with a certain layout and looking for hypotheses on how to positively impact the click-through rate. This shows how much a “simple” change in positioning can influence metrics and contribute to optimizing the click-through rate.

A test with a heat map might be a good complement to the analysis to see the areas of the screen with the most user activity in each version of the CTA (side or footer bar), even comparing the differences between the two areas dedicated to CTAs in each case.

Conclusions and Lessons

Among the lessons learned throughout this testing process, I would like to highlight that:

1. Hypotheses and tests don’t need to be complex. Straightforwardness and ease of implementation are important factors in the ICE Score. The best scenarios are those in which we can identify simple opportunities that bring major, positive impacts.
   
2. It is essential to adopt a reliable methodology, both in establishing parameters and in collecting data. Even using retroactive data in the comparison (as was the case in this test), we need to ensure that the comparison makes sense and is not biased. We should use the same data sources, the same evaluation methods, and, if possible, carry out extra checks to identify trends or specific contexts that could bias the results.

This exercise helps to end the myth of complexity in testing routines, teaching how to observe, structure hypotheses, prioritize, define evaluation parameters, collect data, and generate consistent insights.

It’s something within the reach of not only any marketing professional but also creative professionals. There will always be a new hypothesis to be tested, and doing this in a structured way brings very valuable learning.

The post Side Banner or Fixed Banner? How I Increased Our CTR by 50% by Changing the Banner’s Position on the Blog appeared first on Rock Content.

Interactive calculators are logic-driven experiences that address specific problems for the target audience, captivating users by providing practical value. These tools enhance user engagement, improve SEO, and generate high-quality leads.

They also help companies differentiate themselves from competitors, establish trust, and gain valuable insights into customer behavior. Ultimately, this leads to improved conversion rates and a more substantial online presence.

In this article, we’ll dive into how to use interactive calculators in your content marketing strategy (even if you have never done it before).

Benefits of interactive calculators

Interactive calculators are a powerful tool to help B2B and B2C marketers boost their content marketing strategy by creating a more engaging and customizable experience for their users, all that while gathering data from it.

In case you don’t know what an interactive calculator is, here’s an example:

Pretty cool, huh? Now, let’s see the key benefits of interactive calculators in your content marketing strategy:

Educate, Nurture, and Engage

Interactive calculators transform static content into dynamic, engaging experiences that educate, nurture, and engage users.

By actively involving users in the learning process, these tools make complex information more accessible and understandable. They help users understand specific scenarios or benefits through personalized calculations, increasing their investment in the content.

This heightened level of engagement encourages users to explore the website more, fostering a deeper connection with the brand and leading to more informed decision-making.

Read also: From Static to Interactive: How to Increase the Performance of the Content You Already Have

Boost Lead Generation and Increase Conversion

Interactive calculators’ ability to address specific needs and offer immediate, relevant results is a powerful tool for attracting and converting leads. They capture the attention of the target audience, who are more likely to participate and share personal information in exchange for valuable insights, thereby increasing lead generation.

Furthermore, these tools streamline decision-making, making users more confident in their choices and driving higher conversion rates. This direct pathway from engagement to conversion helps effectively turn prospects into customers.

Read also: Case Study: How I Increased Conversions on Ion by 431% In Only Two Months

Data Collection

Interactive calculators play a crucial role in data collection, providing insights into user preferences and behaviors through their inputs and results. This data is invaluable for refining strategies and enhancing offerings.

By analyzing the data collected, businesses can identify trends, understand user needs, and pinpoint areas for improvement. This continuous feedback loop supports the development of more targeted and effective content, ultimately leading to enhanced user experiences and outcomes.

Customized Content

Interactive calculators offer a unique opportunity to deliver customized content based on user inputs. These tools provide highly relevant and personalized information by tailoring the results and recommendations to the individual’s specific situation.

This customization enhances the user experience by addressing their unique needs and concerns directly. As a result, users are more likely to trust the brand and find value in its offerings, leading to increased satisfaction and loyalty.

Custom content also helps build stronger relationships with users, as they feel understood and valued.

Applying Logic to Interactive Calculators

Okay. Now that you know why you should test interactive calculators in your content strategy let’s see how to start using them.

Before getting your hands on any interactive platform (by the way, I highly recommend this one), there are a few steps you need to consider.

Identify Pain Points

The first step is to understand the specific challenges and concerns of the target audience. For instance, if the persona is a first-time homebuyer, common pain points include understanding mortgage affordability, interest rates, and loan terms.

Example pain points:

• Confusion about how much they can afford to borrow.
• Uncertainty about the impact of different interest rates on monthly payments.

What Questions Help Address the Pain Points

Crafting questions that directly address these pain points is a key strategy. These questions should provide clear, actionable insights and be simple, relevant, and designed to guide users through their concerns.

Example Questions:

• “What is your monthly income?” (Helps determine affordability)
• “How much are you planning to put down as a down payment?” (Impacts loan amount and terms)

What is the Incentive Offered to Users

Offering incentives can be highly effective in encouraging users to complete the calculator. These incentives should be valuable and relevant to the user’s needs.

Example Incentives:

• Personalized financial reports or summaries based on their inputs.
• Immediate results that provide clarity on their financial standing or potential savings.

Different Ways to Collect and Set Up Calculator Within Ion

Well, so you thought about all the steps above and have your interactive calculator all planned and ready to be built, right?

Now it’s time to get your hands dirty. And don’t worry: that can be a lot easier than you think.

I highly recommend you use a platform that doesn’t require coding experience (that way, your own marketing team can be in charge of that!). In my opinion, Ion is the best option for that.

Read also: How to create interactive content even if you don’t know what HTML is

Let’s take a look at all the steps to build an interactive calculator on Ion.

Building

Ion includes ready-to-use form elements such as text boxes, sliders, dropdowns, and much more that can simply be dragged and dropped into a form element.

Preset Data Fields and Choice Sets

It also includes preset data fields and choice sets that can be used based on calculator questions.

Preview the Collected Data

When defining the logic and testing the formula, taking the interactive calculator experience and seeing the results is helpful. Previewing the collected data allows for better insight into the data that will be collected when the interactive experience is live.

Use Ion to Create an Interactive Calculator Quickly!

Template Gallery

70 different types of interactive experiences are already designed for easy customization.

Form Elements

Various ready-to-use built-in interactive form elements can be dragged and dropped into calculator experiences to diversify input types.

Data Collection

Preview and view collected data to ensure the calculator is functioning and collect the correct inputs needed to display the results.

By including interactive calculators in your content marketing strategy, you are not only following a trend but also positioning your company as an innovative brand that is engaged with the needs and preferences of your audience.

Are you ready to take the next step? Discover Ion, Rock Content’s interactive platform, and create calculators (and many other interactive experiences) that will help you achieve your marketing goals.

Click here to get a free demo with one of our specialists.

The post How to Add Interactive Calculators to Your Content Marketing Strategy appeared first on Rock Content.

So it is expected that our clients will use WriterAccess, our content creation platform, to connect with freelance writers, and experts not only in SEO but in all kinds of market niches, from finance to education.

But what if we told you that WriterAccess is a true hub for all kinds of content pros? We have more than 15,000 specialized professionals on our platform.

And who are these freelancers? Look, we have everything: SEO writers, copywriters, strategists, editors, translators, animators, videomakers and they, the designers!

Yes, at WriterAccess (WA for friends), you will find a variety of professional designers capable of carrying out a wide range of creative tasks.

Want to learn more about it and check out a very complete step-by-step guide on how to choose the ideal designer for your project? Follow along!

Wait, can I request design services on WriterAccess?

Yes! On our platform, you will find all the talents and tools you need to scale your content production, expand your business or agency, and stand out in the digital world.

WriterAccess, as its name shows, has established itself as an essential tool for those who are looking for professionals capable of creating textual content, especially writers focused on SEO.

Actually, back in the beginning, the focus was on writers. But we have evolved!

To be honest, even thinking about the “text” category, WriterAccess is much more than writers focused on SEO. As I showed, you will also find editors, translators, content strategists, and copywriters.

And even inside this expertise, we can expand on specific roles: content strategists for blogs, content strategists for social networks… You can also find copywriters who will help you create e-mail marketing, lead nutrition, ads, and landing pages with high conversion rates.

These are just some of the specialties you can find within WriterAccess.

Then, we also have a very important category that you may not know about: designers and audiovisual professionals.

At WriterAccess, you can also count on a wide range of designers, each specializing in different areas of design.

Do you need a graphic designer, an animator, or a videomaker? It doesn’t matter: our platform has qualified professionals ready to meet your needs.

Also read: How to Kickstart Your Content Journey with WriterAccess’s 14-Day Free Trial

With specialized talent in various sub-areas of design, WriterAccess is the ideal place to find the creative support you need for any type of visual project.

And what can I ask for from these professionals?

Almost everything and I’m not exaggerating. And it’s for both the online and offline world!

That designer can help you with the layout of rich materials, for example, such as infographics and e-books.

They can create presentations, promotional materials, videos, and graphic pieces in general – such as event brochures, pieces for social media, creative ads, blog post headers, etc. You can layout your newsletter or email marketing using tools like RD Station and HubSpot. Or even build the layout for your entire website!

So, you don’t need to worry about static social media posts, or bad looks for your ads, for example, because you can get a specialized freelancer to help you with this.

So, at WriterAccess, you can do end-to-end production using our talent network.

For example: it is possible to have a freelancer writing all the textual parts of those needs and another to do the visual part.

But, as we said, we have a base of 15k freelancers. To find the perfect professional for your project, you need to research and analyze the available profiles carefully. So, let’s move on to the next step!

Step by step: choosing a freelance designer

Now that you know what you can request within WA, let’s get to the practical part: how to choose the most suitable freelancer for your needs.

Step 1: search using the ‘Designer’ category

Accessing WriterAccess home page, in the left corner menu, you will quickly find the talent network button.

There is a “find talent” option in the advanced search. When selecting this option, you will be presented with different boxes that categorize the types of talent available, making it easier to find the ideal professional for your needs.

Here you will click on designers. At this point, we can filter the talents on the list in several ways.

Step 2: Apply the appropriate filters

No filters are mandatory. When selecting ‘designer’, you already have access to the list of available professionals:

However, we recommend filters to find the ideal freelancer more quickly. There are several filters available. You can search by specialty, stars, business area, type of content, software used…

Specialty

Here you have what I mentioned: you can search for an animator, graphic designer, photographer, illustrator, video maker, or web designer.

Star rating

At WriterAccess, we categorize our talents by a star system, ranging from 2 to 6 stars.

2-Star talents are typically professionals early in their careers who have already passed our rigorous testing and are capable of delivering quality work despite having more limited experience. These freelancers are ideal if you are on a tight budget or need simpler work.

As professionals gain more experience, perform more work, and receive positive feedback from clients, they advance to 3-star or higher categories. The increase in the number of stars directly reflects the quality and complexity of the work they can deliver.

6-star freelancers represent the top of our scale. They are highly specialized and experienced professionals, known for their exceptional deliveries. Therefore, their services tend to have a higher cost.

For more details on our star rating and how it can help you find the right talent for your needs, see this full page on the subject.

Industry

At WriterAccess, you have the flexibility to search for freelancers by industry, which is particularly useful given that we work across a wide range of areas.

This allows you to find professionals who already have relevant experience in your company’s specific sector.

We understand that visual communication can be very specific and sensitive to the needs of each type of business. For example, the way an electronics store communicates visually is quite different from the approach of a beauty company or a real estate company, right?

In our search menu, you can select freelancers who have experience in the industry of your interest. Some examples:

• Agriculture
• Automotive
• Construction
• Electronics
• Energy
• Pharmacy
• Fashion
• Gastronomy/drinks
• Education
• Financial
• Government
• Health
• Technology
• DIY
• Entertainment
• And much more (really!)

It ensures that you find professionals who are already familiar with the particular needs of creating graphics or video animation for that specific field.

Thus, we optimize the alignment and effectiveness of the desired visual communication for your company.

Search by software

At WriterAccess, you can also filter freelancers by the software they’ve mastered. This is crucial, as your company often already uses certain specific tools, which facilitate communication and project delivery.

For example, if everything is already done in Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Animator, Indesign or After Effects, you know there will be no need for complicated conversions – everything will be ready and compatible.

Keyword search

Didn’t find the software, tool, or industry you want in the default list? Simply add what you need in the keyword field.

For example, if you need someone to create the layout of a newsletter or landing page on HubSpot or RD Station, simply enter these terms and the system will find the right professionals for you.

Likewise, if you need someone familiar with Rock Content’s Ion to create e-books and interactive landing pages, include this filter to find the ideal talent.

Just put it there and the system will find them for you, as in the example below:

Search by content type

You also have the option to search for freelancers by the type of content they produce. For example, if you need someone to create a newsletter, you can use that criteria to filter professionals.

Do you need someone to create an ad banner? E-book? Edit a video? Just choose.

What is cool is that you can combine all these filters to further refine your search.

For example, do you need a freelancer to create a brand for your insurance company? Just put the filters together and WriterAccess works its magic.

This way, you can find freelancers who not only have experience in creating a specific type of visual content but also for a specific niche.

Step 3: Choose your freelancer

One of the great WriterAccess benefits for you is the richness of details available in the freelancers’ profiles, which are designed to make your choice as easy as possible.

When you click on the photo and access the freelancer’s profile, you not only see the name, photo, and star rating but also a detailed summary of the professional’s experience.

This summary covers the industries they have worked in and gives a clear picture of the types of projects they have the ability to execute.

For example, in the education sector, freelancer Adriane has a high score and extensive experience, which includes everything from creating posts for social media to creating presentations, giveaways, and business training.

By clicking on each industry listed on her profile, you can find out specifically what types of content she has already created, giving you an in-depth understanding of her potential to meet your specific needs.

This functionality makes the selection process highly efficient and personalized, ensuring you find the perfect freelancer for your project.

What is a ‘sample’?

Right away, in the freelancer’s profile, you will have access to samples, which are a portfolio of what the freelancer can do.

This brings an extra layer of trust, as it allows you to see, in concrete terms, what the professional is capable of doing.

You can explore all available samples to see the quality and style of previous works.

This detailed portfolio view helps you make a more informed choice suited to your needs, ensuring that the freelancer you get is aligned with your brand’s identity and goals.

Freelancer chosen. How to place an order?

After browsing through all of these filters, you’ll be better equipped to select the talent that truly speaks to your brand.

Did you like someone specific? Now, it’s time to place your order. However, be careful!

First: talk to the freelancer you are interested in

After identifying the freelancers who seem most aligned with your needs, it is recommended to initiate direct communication before formalizing any order.

Communication is everything, so don’t downplay it. After all, the freelancer also needs to identify with the project and check the proposed deadlines and values – freelancers work with several clients and needs at the same time.

Just click ‘Send Message ‘:

In this message, you can explain in detail what your company does, the sector in which it operates, and specify the type of work required, be it creating a video, creating pieces for social media, developing your brand identity from scratch, developing ads, or designing the layout of newsletters.

This initial contact not only provides the freelancer with full context about what is expected but also opens up space to discuss deadlines and other important details of the project.

It is also possible to schedule an audio call, which involves an extra fee, but makes it easier to explain the briefing in a clearer and more direct way, if that is what you want.

Tip: after you’ve discussed everything with the freelancer, you can add them to your ‘favorites list’. This will make your next step easier!

Step 4: placing the order step-by-step

Did you have a chat with the freelancer? All lined up and ready to get started? It’s time to actually create your order.

Firstly, go to the ‘Place Orders’ tab → New Order → Designer.

Then you land on this page, where the magic starts to happen:

It’s all really easy!

The process starts with content setup, where you select the type of content you need, such as a website, a newsletter, an infographic, an e-book or an ad banner.

If the content type you need isn’t listed, that’s okay. You can discuss directly with the freelancer if your request is something more specific, or if you need a group of tasks, such as a package of ten versions of an advertisement.

You have complete freedom to adjust the details with the freelancer, whether via text message or audio call.

This flexibility allows you to completely customize your order to meet your exact needs, ensuring the end result is as you imagined.

Instructions: time for the famous briefing

In the ‘instructions’ section, you have a text editor at your disposal in which we recommend that you describe your request in detail, that is, the briefing.

Don’t know what you need to add? Nayara Medeiros, Designer at Rock Content, talks a little about the most important items in a briefing and explains why they help the professional designer deliver the best possible work based on what the client wants.

I recommend getting a pen and paper to take notes!

“First: a good briefing needs to have a clear goal. What will it be used for? Will it be digital or printed? Does it represent a permanent element in the company, such as the creation of a logo, or is it more specific, such as a flyer for distribution at an event?

The second essential point is to define the target audience. Who exactly do you want to reach? It is important to define the buyer personas and how to talk to them. Furthermore, it is crucial to clarify in the briefing who the decision makers are within the company, that is, who will approve the work.

We often hear stories of initial alignments made with one person, but at the time of approval, three or four others emerge who were not initially involved. For example, you may be aligned with the marketing team, but final approval comes from finance. These are groups that can have very different goals, so the designer needs to keep this information in mind.

Another fundamental aspect: what is the message the company wants to convey?

And if the company has a brand book, send the link. If not, what is the current stage? Are you building a visual identity? How do you want the company to be perceived in the market?

Send visual references of what you have in mind. You know, you can just type into Google whatever comes to mind of what you want and show the ones that make sense to you. It may seem silly, but it helps a lot! The designer will not use these references directly, but they will help to understand the final result desired by the client.

Think of it this way: what is ‘classic’ for you may not be the professional’s definition of classic. So, these visual references help a lot to align this issue.

Finally, also define the deadline for the project and, of course, budget. It is also nice to define in advance the number of changes allowed so that the deadline is met.”

Does it seem like a lot? It’s because this instruction step is one of the most important! It helps ensure the most aligned delivery possible.

If you’re still unsure whether you need to be so detailed, Nayara explains the importance of a good briefing:

“The more detailed the information about what you want is put there, the better our work is. You know, imagine that you go to a bakery and ask at the counter: ‘I would like a cake’. That’s it, no more information. They will be able to give you either a beautiful red velvet cake, made with flour from the countryside of France, or a cornmeal cake.

In both situations, she followed the briefing you provided. They’re both cakes, aren’t they? However, you sure had some more specific preferences. Can you see that, without precise communication, we greatly open up the range of delivery possibilities? With a designer, it’s the same thing!

When the briefing is very well aligned, we guarantee that the client and designer are saying the same thing and are on the same page from the beginning. We start from the same place and walk towards the same destination. This avoids rework, saves time and reduces expenses.”

Here’s a summary of what a good briefing should include:

• Goal: clarify the purpose of the project and where it will be used.
• Type of content: determine whether the content is digital or printed.
• Type of project: identify whether the project is long-term, such as a logo, or one-off, such as a flyer for events.
• Target audience: define whether the audience is internal or external and specify the buyer personas.
• Message to convey: what message do you want the project to communicate?
• Decision makers: list who within the company will approve the project, whether it is just you or members of other teams.
• Visual style: describe whether the company’s style is more modern or classic.
• Brand book: provide the brand book, if you have one, or indicate that it is in the developing phase.
• Colors and fonts: specify the colors and fonts that must be used (and those that cannot be used), if there is no brand book.
• Visual references: provide visual examples of the desired style.
• Deadline: define how long the project has to be completed.
• Number of changes: establish how many changes can be made to meet the deadline.
• Budget: inform the budget available for the project.

Ah, it is also essential that the freelancer understands when the work he is carrying out is not isolated, but part of a larger set, which requires harmony with the other campaign elements.

Structure and clarity in the briefing are essential to ensure that the final result is perfectly in line with what you want.

However, rest assured: if you wish to make adjustments to the delivery, you can order as many as you wish until everything is perfect. The idea of taking care of the instructions/briefing stage is to make the process more fluid and avoid redoes that could be avoided, okay?

Give your order a name: here, we indicate a name in a very friendly tag, to make it easier to search and view later. Examples:

• [CREATIVE] Meta Ads [MOTHER’S DAY CAMPAIGN]
• [EMAIL MARKETING 1/3] [THANKSGIVING]
• [BLOGPOST IMAGE HEADER] X reasons to get out of rent

It makes things much easier later, believe me!

Also read: Best Practices for Briefing and Guiding Freelancers Through the WriterAccess Platform

Design Copy

Just below the instruction field, we have another field: design copy, another essential part of the process. After all, the designer will work based on a specific copy.

For example, if the freelancer is working on an ad, they will need specific text for that ad, right? If the project is a website, it will need copies of the various pages and sections of this website.

Likewise, for e-mail marketing, it is necessary to provide the email content, including subjects, header, pre-header, and indications for the CTAs (Call-To-Action).

All of this can be specified in the design copy field.

This allows you to divide and detail all the necessary elements so that the freelancer understands exactly what is needed and can work effectively and in line with your expectations.

Talent: time to choose which talent to send the order

Remember I mentioned putting the talent you’re interested in on your favorites list? That’s because it’s easier to find them at this stage.

Just click on ‘Favorites List’ and all the freelancers you added to it will be shown, like in the image below.

You can place a solo order, choosing just 1 freelancer from the list, or send it to everyone, or just a few.

You can also create teams.

If you like more than one freelancer and already know the quality of their work, you can send requests to all team members at once.

This is very useful, especially when there are many simultaneous demands, allowing you to distribute tasks among several freelancers to keep the workflow efficient and on schedule.

For example, if you have 20 pieces that need to be delivered quickly, you can choose to distribute these tasks among several freelancers on your favorites list or on your team, dividing them to optimize time.

However, if you prefer consistency and unity in the style of the work, you can choose to assign all 20 tasks to a single freelancer.

Teams x favorites list

And what is the difference between a favorites list and teams? Well, on the favorites list, you can put your favorites, those who you love what they do, who are that perfect match, you know? Teams are more general, with professionals who work together on demands.

This separation usually comes over time, as you gain more trust in freelancers and after a greater number of deliveries have been made.

This approach depends entirely on your needs and preferences, allowing you to customize project management to best meet your requirements and deadlines.

It’s customizable like that!

I didn’t choose a freelancer. What do I do?

But what if you still don’t have an ideal freelancer chosen, or you haven’t been able to make that careful assessment with the filters and everything, and you need some art ‘for yesterday’?

No problem! We know it’s not the ideal scenario, but you can choose to place your order without choosing the freelancer. Just click ‘Smart Match Me Up’:

Our algorithm, Style Metrics Matcher, analyzes a sample along with other components of your application to identify and select the most compatible talent.

Once a qualified and available talent is identified, they will automatically begin working on your request.

Sending to the freelancer

Once you have entered all this information about the demand and chosen the freelancer (or the option to do a smart match), you decide the price to be paid for the service, which is adjustable based on the complexity of the work, the deadline, and the freelancer’s qualifications, as indicated by the star rating.

Remember that we mentioned that it was essential to have a prior conversation with the freelancer to align these expectations? So, here, you can simply enter the amount already agreed with them, in order to formalize all of this, ensuring that everyone is on the same page.

When defining the order, you also establish a delivery schedule. Here, you can determine the delivery date and, if necessary, make this deadline more flexible.

This is in case something unforeseen arises, such as a problem faced by the freelancer. In those cases, it is possible to extend the deadline after communication and mutual agreement.

Additionally, on the right menu, the platform allows you to monitor your available budget, ensuring transparency about service costs and available funds. This helps you manage your budget clearly and efficiently.

After everything has been arranged, just click “Place order”.

And that’s it, you’ve just placed your first design order on WriterAccess! 🎉

By following these steps, you can easily request design and other services, adapting the process to your specific needs.

Bring your digital marketing strategy to life at WriterAccess: end-to-end

Well, you saw that we have more than 15,000 freelancers on our platform. They are certified professionals, who undergo rigorous quality tests and provide star ratings based on customer feedback.

As I mentioned at the beginning, at WriterAccess, you will find a wide variety of freelancers to meet all your content needs.

In addition to design services, if you don’t have an in-house team, or if your team is small, in WA you can also find strategy, writing, editing, and translation freelancers.

WriterAccess for Strategy

Think of it this way: it all starts with the content strategy!

Building an effective social media, blog content, and e-mail marketing strategy can be a challenge, especially when you don’t have a team dedicated to just that.

Often, in your company, you may feel overwhelmed by the need to think about all aspects of your digital strategy, such as the type of posts to make, themes according to the funnel stage, the frequency of posts and the best engagement practices. This is exactly where WriterAccess can be a valuable ally.

On the platform, you have access to strategists specialized in all these segments. They can help you define and refine your content strategy.

WriterAccess for Writing

And once the strategy has been decided, we have to write the content for all of this, right? Because you need copy for marketing e-mails, newsletters, rich materials, blog articles…

So, also in WA, you can hire a copywriter to carry out this step.

WriterAccess for translation and proofreading

After the copy is ready and approved, you can, directly through the platform, send it to another stage, such as to a translator or proofreader, and then to design.

For example, you can ask the writer to write your infographic and, once approved, send it to the translator.

Once approved, you send both versions to a designer, directly through the platform. This saves time in the instructions section, as the platform pulls all the information and delivers it automatically.

For example, at Rock Content, we produce content in Portuguese and English, as we work in these two languages. Much of our content, such as ad copy and artwork, Instagram posts, blog articles, and our interactive newsletter, The Beat, is created in one language and then translated and localized into the other.

So, all within WriterAccess, you can create a copy in English, for example, for an Instagram post, and, after review, send it to a translator who will prepare the Portuguese version.

With both versions ready, you can request the designer for the pieces in both languages. This entire process can be carried out right there in WA, with our talents.

WriterAccess: the best of humans with the best of AI

In addition to a vast talent network, WriterAccess also offers access to cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) tools that facilitate and improve every step of your content strategy planning.

These AI tools allow everything from developing buyer personas to final content publication, optimizing the content creation process in an efficient and innovative way. Check it out:

• AI Persona Builder: Essential for quickly creating or improving buyer personas with AI. Analyze real data to set up personalized personas, facilitate audience segmentation, and optimize content customization. Organize and improve your personas continuously, all in a simple and intuitive interface.
• AI Content Idea Generator: need new ideas for your content? This tool creates inspiring suggestions based on your website domain or previous interactions with WriterAccess.

• AI Backlink Matcher: your essential tool for link-building strategies. Discover opportunities to exchange backlinks and obtain links from reliable sources relevant to your industry.
• AI Content Wizard: an essential tool for those looking to optimize content creation. With advanced artificial intelligence, it analyzes your competitors, targeted keywords, and the characteristics of your audience to identify untapped content opportunities. Furthermore, it generates detailed briefings for each article suggestion, facilitating the production of relevant and well-targeted content.

With WriterAccess, you combine the best of human talent with the most advanced AI solutions to ensure a cohesive and impactful end-to-end content strategy.

Want more information? Ask one of our specialists for a demonstration and get all your questions answered live!

The post WriterAccess for Design Services: How to Find the Ideal Freelancer [step-by-step] appeared first on Rock Content.

One of these approaches is the use of interactive content, which allows direct interaction with the user, increasing engagement and even conversion of your audience.

A frequent question we receive here at Rock Content is: “How can I use interactive content within my niche?”, especially in areas where the strategy is not that common.

We guarantee that the benefits of interactive content can be gained by companies in any segment.

In this article, we will demonstrate how, as well as talk about the importance of content distribution within a Digital Marketing strategy. To do this, we will explore interactive content in the construction sector, analyzing the distribution strategy of one of our clients (whose name will not be disclosed here for confidentiality reasons).

Interactive Content: A Powerful Engagement Tool

Before we delve into the main point of this conversation, it is essential that we understand the concept of interactive content and why it is so effective.

We define “interactive content” as any material that allows users to actively participate in its consumption, whether answering questions, calculating results, or exploring different scenarios. This interactivity not only increases audience engagement, but also offers valuable insights into their preferences and behaviors.

Some examples of interactive content include quizzes, calculators, feedbacks and solution finders. These formats not only provide a more engaging user experience, but can also optimize qualified lead generation and strengthen the connections to your brand.

The Importance of Content Distribution Strategy

Interactive content exponentially expands your strategy’s chances of success, but it is clear that, like any content, creating it is just the first step.

To achieve significant results, it is also crucial to develop an effective distribution strategy. This involves identifying the appropriate channels to reach your persona, establishing clear goals, and measuring the results to adjust the course as necessary.

Now that you understand the potential of this type of content and the importance of distributing it accordingly, let’s look at a case study of interactive content in the construction sector to illustrate these concepts in practice, regardless of the niche.

Case Study: Interactive Content in the Construction Sector

In this case study, we analyzed the performance of three interactive experiences developed for a client in the construction industry, both before and after distributing them as blog content.

💡 Important: all experiences and interactive content were created using Ion, Rock Content’s interactive content platform. You can request a free demo of the tool here.

[Quiz] Find out if you are eligible to participate in the program

The first interactive experience is a quiz about the Brazilian government initiative designed to improve access to affordable housing for low-income families. Look at the content details below:

• Target audience: Users on the attraction stage.
• Goal: To engage the audience interested in purchasing a home and who are learning about the “Casa Verde e Amarela” program.
• Conversion: “Start Quiz” button (experience unlocked).
• Results:
  • Traffic: 3.7 thousand visits.
  • Conversion Rate: 31%.
• Highlights: Spikes in traffic and conversion observed after being incorporated into blog content.

Note the traffic spikes, especially after March 16th, when we incorporated the quiz into the client’s blog content.

[Quiz] What documents are needed to apply for a program?

The second interactive experience was also a quiz about the same program but aimed at an intermediate stage of the funnel.

• Target audience: Users in the consideration stage.
• Goal: To engage the public interested in purchasing a home and who is considering what documents are necessary for applying.
• Conversion: Sign up form.
• Results:
  • Traffic: 8.7 thousand visitors.
  • Leads Generated: 120.
• Highlights: Significant traffic and generation of qualified leads.

Just like the previous example, traffic for this quiz spiked after we incorporated the content on the client’s blog, consequently resulting in more leads.

It is important to highlight that, while the distribution strategy increased traffic and leads, presenting interactive content in the construction sector resulted in more qualified leads compared to other types of content.

[Calculator] How much are you spending on rent?

Finally, the last interactive experience is a calculator focused on the attraction stage. Let’s analyze the results:

• Target audience: Users on the attraction stage.
• Goal: Engage the public who are considering leaving rent and purchasing a home.
• Conversion: Sign up form.
• Results:
  • Traffic: 3.3 thousand visitors.
  • Leads Generated: 49.
• Highlights: Consistent traffic and generation of qualified leads.

As with the previous experiments, we observed an increase in traffic after incorporating the experience into blog content. 

Furthermore, the quality of the leads generated was also superior because interactive content was able to capture attention at each stage of the journey with useful content that created a valuable experience, helping educate and engage the audience about what they needed. And Ion was the perfect platform for creating this content because it was:

• Easy and fast to create the experiences without having to hire a developer;
• Integrated with the client’s CRM, making nurturing and moving leads to sales easier;
• Included sell-side experiences that enriched sales conversations.

Conclusion and Recommendations

This case study highlights the positive impact that a well-designed distribution strategy can have on the performance of interactive content. By integrating these experiences into blog content, we saw a significant increase in traffic and qualified lead generation.

We also note that using interactivity in different industries is viable and encouraging, as demonstrated by this use of interactive content in the construction sector.

For companies interested in exploring the potential of interactive content, we recommend considering Rock Content’s Ion Adoption Program. This program provides expert training and guidance to effectively create and deliver interactive experiences, maximizing lead engagement, acquisition, and qualification.

In short, a well-executed distribution strategy is essential for the success of any content, and when combined with interactive content usage, it has even more potential to drive outstanding results.

By understanding the target audience, establishing clear goals, and measuring results, a business can harness the full potential of these powerful Content Marketing tools.

The post Interactive Content in the Construction Sector [Case Study] appeared first on Rock Content.

In a world where people’s attention is a precious currency, everyone has the same question: How do I make my content stand out?

And, more than that, how can we find the time to create meaningful experiences when so much has already been done?

I’ll try to answer that question for you with some magic pill, also known as interactive content. Moreover, I’ll explain how to go from static to interactive with a piece of content that you already have.

First of All, Consider Your Behavior as Someone Who Consumes Content

Think about a subject that really interests you. It can be marketing or something more personal, such as fashion, cars, or music.

How much time are you willing to spend reading an article about it?

Do you prefer having a lot of detailed information and taking around 30 minutes to read it, or are you more likely to scan the page for the most relevant information and take around 5 minutes?

You’re most likely in the second team. According to Adobe’s research on content consumption, around 61 percent of people feel their attention span is shorter than it used to be. Around 53 percent of the people interviewed said they prefer to spend up to 5 minutes engaging with a post or video.

We must make that 5 minutes count.

The idea is to make the customer associate your brand with a positive feeling. A great way to do it is by creating experiences that can be both live (such as events and pop-up stores) or digital.

In that vein, there’s much that can be done. From digital tours and demos to our favorite here at Rock Content: Interactive experiences.

If you’re into games, you might have heard about Devolver Digital’s “marketing simulator” game. To promote their products, they’ve created a first-person immersive experience where the gamer can go through a game expo and have access to trailers, demos, and other assets from multiple different games.

While most companies cannot create a game from scratch, nor do they need it, interactiveness can add value to most marketing campaigns.

Imagine that, instead of a full-blown PDF report with all the initiatives from last year, you could offer an interactive site to your stakeholders where they could check each chapter, interact with your graphs, and maybe even answer a quiz or two about your company’s performance last year.

On top of that, you could log how much time the readers spent in each section and which data engaged them the most.

Now, I imagine some of you have a new question for me:

How to find the time and budget to create an interactive experience from scratch?

The quick answer is: you don’t.

Calm down; this is not bad news! You don’t need to create something from zero: You can take something you already have. And better yet, no coding experience is needed.

Read also: How to create interactive content even if you don’t know what HTML is

How to Choose Which Content to Repurpose?

This is not an easy decision, but a few criteria might guide you. First of all, I recommend looking for content with a couple or more of these characteristics:

• You feel that it directly tackles a pain point of your persona;
• Didn’t perform as well as you hoped it would;
• Is long (around 8 or more minutes of reading time);
• Have information that can be better displayed interactively;

Also, keep in mind that interactive content can have many different formats. You can have anything from a simple infographic or ebook to a whole product tour. So, for you to choose the best format to use, think about your goals for the quarter: which metrics are you looking to improve?

If you’re aiming to increase lead generation, opt for content that is focused at the bottom of the funnel. Here, case studies and calculators work wonders. However, infographics might be a better bet if you’re looking for brand awareness.

Read also: How do we use interactive content in Rock Content’s marketing strategy?

The logic here is simple: The less the customer knows of you and your solution, the less they’ll want to read it, and the less data they’ll be willing to input on your site. That is why you need to focus on being illustrative and using interactivity to show them they have a need or problem.

On the other end, a customer at the bottom of the sales funnel already knows what you have and how you can help. Now, you just need to convince them you’re the best partner for their needs.

Lastly, consider how much time you have to repurpose this content and how extensive it would need to be. If you’re looking at a short deadline, consider choosing content that won’t need a full remake. Instead, it could go with just the addition of an interactive graph, a short calculator, or the inclusion of a few quizzes along the post.

Going for a Full Repurpose: A Case Study

We tried doing an in-house experiment and repurposed one of our own materials, the “Ultimate Buyer Persona Generator.”

How was it before the optimization?

Here is how the Ultimate Buyer Persona Generator home page looked like before:

It’s beautiful, in my opinion, but it’s still a common static page to download a static ebook. Regular and ordinary.

How does it look after turning static into interactive?

This simple GIF is just a sample; you can click here to live the complete experience.

While Pedro, our Digital Marketing Analyst, detailed the whole process in his article, where he goes from the choice of material to the final results, including how he processed the data, I’d like to summarize a few interesting points:

• We opted for a material that was very important to our persona but that wasn’t performing as well as expected. It was also aligned with our goal of increasing lead generation.
• Then, we looked at the whole of the material: How well the copy worked and if it needed any tweaks, the design, and the data he wanted to gather from the experience.

The results were clear: By implementing these adjustments, he was looking at a 178% increase in traffic and a 431% increase in conversions.

Just Adding Some Flavor: Embedded Micro-Experiences

If you don’t have the time or the need to revamp your content, micro-experiences might be a good idea. It’s a quick and easy way to add more interactivity to your content.

If you need an example, this very article has some interactive points created through micro-experiences. Can you spot them?

One of your customers did the same with one of their articles. They’re a big company that works with higher education, and they embed interactive quizzes on their blog posts as a way to help their readers understand what the best career path is for them.

Out of the 25 posts that received this update, 84% showed a decrease in bounce, and 88 percent improved their engagement rates. Not only that, but this also allows this customer to understand which courses have the highest demand and to gather first-party data.

The Creation of the Experience: No-Code Solutions

I mentioned before that you didn’t need any programming skills to create interactive experiences. Tools such as Ion allow you to create it just by clicking and dragging elements to the screen.

If you’re curious to learn more about no-code solutions, consider reading this article.

Increased Results with Minimal Effort

By now, I hope to have convinced you that adding interactivity to content you already have can be easy, cheap, and quick, and it will lead you to increased performance. Give it a try.

Something like an interactive map with tooltips can be the only thing standing between your blog and 100 percent more engagement.

Check this page to see how interactive content can help your company meet your consumer’s expectations.

The post From Static to Interactive: How to Increase the Performance of the Content You Already Have appeared first on Rock Content.

While understanding that visual branding encompasses a comprehensive strategic approach to using visuals for storytelling and conveying brand values, we will specifically zoom in on visual identity.

Visual identity pertains to the specific design elements—such as logos, color palettes, typography, and visual styles—that form the visual cornerstone of a brand’s overall identity.

These elements play a pivotal role in establishing brand recognition, consistency, and emotional connection with the audience.

By focusing on visual identity, we aim to provide actionable insights and tips on how businesses can refine and strengthen their visual presence to effectively communicate their unique identity and resonate with their target market.

This approach enhances brand visibility and reinforces brand loyalty and differentiation in a competitive landscape.

What is Visual Branding?

Visual branding refers to the strategic use of visuals to communicate a brand’s values, personality, and messaging to its target audience.

It encompasses not only the visual elements themselves (like logos, colors, typography, and imagery) but also how these elements are used consistently across different channels and platforms to create a recognizable brand image.

Whether you’re a B2B SaaS or a start-up organic snack company, strong visual branding helps you stand out; consistent brand visual identity helps you build relationships with your prospects and customers.

Key Elements of Visual Branding

Key Elements of Visual Branding encompass a range of design elements crucial for establishing and maintaining a distinct brand identity.

These elements include the brand’s logo, color palette, typography, imagery, and overall graphic style. Each component plays a significant role in shaping how a brand is perceived by its audience.

For example, the logo serves as the visual symbol of the brand, instantly recognizable and representing its core values. The color palette not only enhances visual appeal but also evokes specific emotions and associations tied to the brand.

Typography ensures consistency in messaging and enhances readability, while imagery and graphics convey the brand’s personality and resonate with its target audience.

Together, these elements create a cohesive “look” that strengthens brand recognition and fosters deeper connections with consumers across various touchpoints.

The Importance of Visual Branding

How important is visual branding? According to the Pantone Color Institute, 90% of a prospect’s instant decision about a brand can be made based on color alone. A State of Brand Consistency Report revealed that consistent branding can increase revenue by 33%.

Building brand recognition

The core concept of Pre-suasion by marketing and psychology expert Robert Cialdini is that you can make prospects sympathetic to your message before they experience it.

In this way, visual branding, like brand awareness, lays the groundwork for future targeted efforts by helping to get a prospect to know, like, and trust you. However, prospects will not make the connection if your visuals are inconsistent.

Differentiating from competitors

Many industries suffer from a sameness among the competitors in a vertical, like promising to “save time and money.”

Create a professional image using visual elements to disrupt your category with a completely different look, color scheme, and tone.

That’s how you set yourself apart. A perfect example is Astro Nomical, the adorably cuddly mascot from Salesforce.

What Is a Good Visual Identity?

A good visual identity is consistent, adaptable to different uses, from branded water bottles to landing pages, and emotionally connects with your target audience.

Consistency across all platforms

Having visual branding standards is one thing. Enforcing them is another. After developing your brand standards, the first step is ensuring that your entire organization uses them consistently.

Many of today’s tools, even Canva, allow you to set up a brand kit.

Consistency means when someone sees your webinar, social post, or retargeting ad, they immediately recognize it came from your company.

Adaptability and scalability

Include logos, colors, fonts, and guidance on using the brand assets in different channels in your digital brand standards guide.

You risk killing your visual branding momentum if you don’t create visuals that work on various mediums and scales.

Emotional connection

Visuals can evoke the right emotions in your target audience. For instance, you can leverage emotional marketing strategies like choosing colors that align with trustworthiness (blue, for example) to help prospects perceive you as trustworthy. Or you can infuse orange into your palette to communicate playfulness and creativity.

Visual Branding Process

Where do you start when creating or updating your visual branding? Start your journey with research. Explore your competitors, then get outside your business vertical.

Check out your favorite brands to find examples of strong brand identity, especially those that use a blue ocean strategy to stand out from competitors.

Developing your visual identity

Developing your visual identity can be daunting without skilled guidance from experts on color theory and design trends.

An expert designer, like the ones on the WriterAccess platform, can help you create a modern visual identity that uniquely represents your brand.

Start by communicating your unique selling proposition (USP) to a designer who will create initial design concepts, including a color palette, typography, a new or refreshed logo, and visual examples.

Visual and graphic elements within a brand guide help guide your “look.” Will you use only photos of people at play, manga-style avatars, or icons? Give your creatives the freedom to be flexible while ensuring prospects still recognize your visual branding.

Develop an understanding of color theory and its impact on consumer behavior. Choose colors that best represent your brand while being perceived as modern and contemporary. Color trends change just like fashion, so ensure you’re on the leading edge of a color trend.

Then, work with your skilled designer to refine those options into one working set of visual branding that ultimately will become the backbone of your visual identity.

Implementation and testing

Implement as many visual branding elements as you can as quickly as possible. Start with your most highly visible assets, like your website, packaging, social media headers, best-performing content, and ads.

Decide which assets need updating and which can stay with the “old branding.” During the initial rollout, be open to feedback and changes. Build a clear feedback system to make it simple for stakeholders to share.

Be flexible and evolve your visual branding as needed. Mix and match to extend your “look.” A palette of 5 colors can be mixed into 10 different pairs or trios of color combinations.

Maintaining Visual Branding in Content Marketing

Integrate your visual branding into all your content creation moving forward. A well-developed visual identity can remain relevant for a long time.

New CMOs often change branding sooner than necessary to place their stamp on an organization. However, new visual branding may be unnecessary, or worse, as was the case with the Gap’s disastrous new branding effort that lasted 6 days.

Brands that stay attuned to the times know when to change, just like doing a content refresh. If your visual identity starts feeling dated and no longer representative of the essence of your company, it may be time to explore recapturing your relevance with a fresh look.

Storytelling Through Visuals

Fresh visual elements can help tell your brand’s story and resonate with your audience using more modern colors, imagery, and tone.

If you and your team haven’t yet infused strategic storytelling into your marketing toolkit, now is the time. Renowned StoryBrand author Donald Miller describes its importance as “Everybody wants to be taken somewhere.

If we don’t tell people where we’re taking them, they’ll engage with another brand.”

Visual Branding Examples to Get Inspired

Need some additional inspiration to get started? Check out these three brand identity examples.

Apple

Apple could deliver a masterclass in visual branding. At the time of their iPod launch, when tech went complex, Apple went simple.

Apple stood out visually and made their brand “cool” by making earbuds white and products in color (not tepid tan or boring black).

Apple even made the unboxing a unique experience in that bright white box engineered to fit tight and open with a slight “whoosh” noise.

Every piece of content, from their boxes to their web pages, immediately lets you know it was Apple because of the type, tone, and white space. And they’ve mostly kept that look throughout their ecosystem for 15+ years.

McDonald’s

The iconic fast-food chain, known for its golden arches, has maintained its color palette of red and yellow for decades. Why? Because red and yellow make you hungry.

McDonald’s maintains its visual brand identity across its 41,000+ locations, having modernized their look through modest logo changes and font styles over time.

HubSpot

Brands without colossal awareness budgets can still own a space with strong visual branding, like HubSpot. The familiar HubSpot logo with the coral-orange sprocket for an “o” is easily identifiable to marketers.

This logo has remained essentially unchanged since its inception in 2006. According to Similarweb, HubSpot uses a massive amount of helpful, visually consistent blog content to generate over 8 million monthly views.

Additional Tips for Effective Visual Branding

First, resist the temptation to pack too much into any one design. Remember, a confused mind doesn’t buy. Keep it simple.

Secondly, know who you are and what you stand for before building your visual identity. A quality designer will be able to reflect that in your visual identity.

Accelerate your process by finding an expert like the designers at WriterAccess who can guide you. As marketing guru and ClickFunnels founder says, “It’s not the how; it’s the who.”

Visual Branding FAQs

What is visual branding?

Visual branding is the term used to describe all the visual pieces representing your brand identity that work together to support your USP and value proposition.

What are the visual elements of branding?

The core visual elements of branding include your logo, color palette, type font, and visual imagery.

What makes a good visual brand?

A good visual brand perfectly reflects the core personality of a business or business unit. It simply and elegantly appeals to the ideal customer while repelling those outside the target audience.

What are the visual branding techniques?

Visual branding techniques represent the process of building a comprehensive brand guideline for all company visuals, including logo, color palette, typography, images and graphics, and templates.

What is the power of visual branding?

The power of visual branding is its ability to influence prospective buyers. It’s a critical part of a first impression. Through color choice and consistency, companies can get prospects to know, like, and trust them before ever making a sale.

Final Remarks

Visual branding is a powerful tool that can distinguish your business in a crowded market, create a lasting impression on your audience, and drive brand recognition and loyalty. Here are some key points to keep in mind:

• Key elements such as color palette, typography, and imagery must be used consistently across all platforms to ensure a cohesive brand identity.
• The importance of adaptability, emotional connection, and strategic implementation of these elements cannot be overstated.
• It’s clear that high-quality, visually appealing content plays a crucial role in conveying your brand’s story and values.
• Integrating strong visual elements into your content marketing efforts not only enhances engagement but also reinforces your brand’s identity.

To elevate your visual branding and content creation, leverage the expertise available at WriterAccess. Connect with talented designers and content creators to bring your brand vision to life.

Start your journey today and enjoy your first two weeks for free!

The post Visual Branding: Actionable Tips to Enhance Your Brand’s Identity appeared first on Rock Content.

Usually, our focus when creating a digital strategy is on the quality of the content, SEO techniques, and social media management, which makes us forget technical points that matter when it comes to WordPress.

In this article, we will teach you everything you must know to get your email newsletter working and start reaping the best results. In this content, you will learn:

What Is a Newsletter?

A newsletter is an email subscription in which messages are triggered with a certain frequency, such as once a week, once every two days, or whenever a subscriber takes a specific action.

Inside a newsletter, the content can be anything that makes sense to your Digital Marketing strategy. For example:

• Ebooks
• Recently published articles
• Product offerings
• Discount Coupons

(Speaking of newsletters, are you subscribed to ours?)

What Does WordPress Offer for Newsletter Creation?

Transforming curious leads into happy paying customers is about more than just creating great digital marketing content. It’s also about serving up relevant messages at precisely the right time.

WordPress’s Newsletter function helps take the guesswork out of crafting incredible newsletters a target audience never forgets. Here are a few key examples:

• WordPress doesn’t limit users to a certain number of subscribers or sends. You can grow your audience and publish on an unlimited basis. You choose what’s best for you and your readers.
• A sleek, user-friendly editing interface helps you craft dynamic newsletters while minimizing distractions.
• Features like WordPress Reader, built-in RSS support, and easy social sharing help users connect with audiences.
• There’s more than one way to monetize your newsletter. Users can create gated content, set up subscriptions, create an integrated store, and more.
• WordPress makes it easy to migrate existing subscriber lists from one WordPress site to another.
• You own your subscriber list and content on WordPress. It’s yours to take with you or reuse at your discretion.
• A wealth of themed templates makes it easy to create or customize the rich and impactful newsletter of your dreams.

Why Are Newsletters Important In a Digital Marketing Strategy?

To understand how to build newsletters using WordPress and why it’s a good idea to invest in this tool, first, we need to understand the role a blog plays in a Digital Marketing and sales strategy.

The role of a blog is to make quality content available to visitors and to convert them into leads. That is why it’s so important to know how to make your WordPress blog appear among Google results.

After a visitor has reached your content, your focus should be on converting them into a lead to, eventually, make them your customer. That is usually done by using newsletters in an email marketing strategy.

If you think that using a newsletter in your Digital Marketing strategy is an outdated tool, you might be inclined to change your mind. Email marketing is very much alive and still brings plenty of results.

Take a look at a few stats from the Email Marketing Trends 2018 research that show the importance of email newsletters:

• 76,7% of companies adopt email marketing strategies
• 94,3% of companies that do not have those currently have a plan to do so in the future
• 96,1% of companies that use email marketing believe the strategy brings good results
• 58,1% of companies that use email marketing build their audiences using sign-up forms in their blogs

How To Create Newsletters on WordPress? 9 Facilitators

One of the biggest challenges faced when building a Digital Marketing strategy on your own is understanding how to code a WordPress blog, even though you are an entrepreneur and have no coding experience.

However, to know how to create a newsletter on WordPress, you don’t need to have advanced programming skills. You can have good results knowing just the right tools.

Here are 9 excellent plugins and tools to have on your WordPress dashboard that will help you in your work building a newsletter!

1. Rock Stage

Rock Stage is the best WordPress solution for companies and professionals that want to create Digital Marketing strategies for a blog or WordPress website.

In addition to all its excellent features, the tool also has a direct integration between WordPress and MailChimp, which is the best newsletter service.

MailChimp is the most complete newsletter tool out there, allowing you to do A/B tests, segment mailing lists, create landing pages, posts on social media, and sign-up forms to generate leads. It automates the triggering of emails, and lists audiences that are similar to yours.

2. Newsletter WordPress

Newsletter WordPress is an application with paid and free versions, which allows you to create content and send unlimited newsletters to your contact list.

Besides that, it has an interesting function to send emails with notifications of new content from your blog, which works in a slightly more intimate way than an RSS Feed.

3. OptinMonster

OptinMonster does not send emails, but it helps to build your newsletter by creating signup forms for user registration. It uses exit-intent technology that pops up whenever a visitor signals they will close the page.

4. Thrive Leads

Thrive Leads allows you to create contact capture forms for your email marketing list, in addition to having a built-in A/B testing tool. One of its highlights, however, is the SmartLinks tool, which allows you to understand whether a visitor is subscribed to your newsletter or not.

5. Popup Builder

PopupBuilder is another form-building plugin that uses exit-intent technology to capture more emails to your list. However, its highlight is the possibility of using video pop-ups, in addition to having an integrated email sending system.

6. Icegram

Icegram is another complementary plugin for your Email Marketing strategy, allowing you to create registration forms within your page. Because it has a very simple interface, you will not need any programming knowledge to use it.

7. WP Subscribe Pro

WP Subscribe Pro is a form plugin that stands out from the competition for presenting good ranking results when used in conjunction with SEO plugins. This is possible because it was programmed to optimize the speed of the website in question.

8. Mailster

Mailster is yet another comprehensive WordPress plug-in that helps take the guesswork out of producing and distributing amazing newsletters. In particular, it’s a great choice if you’re looking for a reliable way to automate your campaigns.

Mailster lets you send newsletters that correlate to specific posts, events, or products. It also gives you over 400 different templates to try, making it easy to tailor newsletters to suit your audience. Segmentation capabilities further help you boost open rates and audience engagement.

Last but not least, you can enjoy detailed real-time insights into your campaigns.

9. Mailchimp for WordPress

If you use Mailchimp to manage your email list and send newsletters via WordPress, this option is practically made for you. Mailchimp for WordPress helps users craft enticing sign-up forms to grow their mailing lists. It also integrates fully with WordPress and any existing forms you may have created.

Users interested in this plug-in can take advantage of invaluable features like quick connection with Mailchimp and fully customizable sign-up forms. It also integrates seamlessly with various existing WordPress plug-ins and can be customized to integrate with others. You can even use it to handle WooCommerce orders for more user-friendly functionality.

[Bonus] How to Write Newsletter Content

Quality is always critical for successful content creation, but it’s especially so for newsletters.

Your newsletter recipients have plenty of emails vying for their attention. It takes creativity, finesse, and attention to detail to ensure yours is must-open content.

Here are a few tips and best practices sure to help you hit all the right notes with your readers.

Know your audience

When creating a successful newsletter in WordPress, it’s impossible to know your audience too well. What matters most to your readers? What topics do they consider must-reads, and how can you align them with your products and services?

Look for creative ways to address key subjects from new angles. Brainstorm new topics that might appeal to your unique audience. Use audience feedback and data analysis to zero in on ideas with the most potential.

Personalize your content offerings

Are you more likely to respond to a generic newsletter or one about a niche topic important to you? Personalization is essential to the high open rates you’re dreaming about for your newsletter.

Avoid sending generic, cookie-cutter messages. Instead, ensure you’re thoroughly segmenting your mailing list. Then, craft tailored content to match each of your audience segments. Consider factors like past behavior, demographics, and past purchases.

Add visuals to your content

Visuals are the secret sauce that truly helps well-crafted written content come alive. They can be especially effective for turning newsletters into must-reads and making them more fun.

Although stock photos are fine, original graphics and branded imagery are even better. Use options like these to help break up long stretches of text and illustrate important points. Video links can also illuminate your content.

Place important information strategically

Most people don’t read marketing content in detail from start to finish. They skim it, at least at first, scanning for content that’s helpful to them. However, they’re most likely to read and notice the beginning and end of a newsletter.

So, for the greatest impact, place the most relevant information at the beginning or end of your newsletter. Use headings and subheadings to make the rest of your content easy to comprehend at a glance.

Weigh in on hot topics

It’s valuable to address evergreen topics that are always important to your audience. But it’s also useful to weigh in on timely subjects and hot topics related to your niche or industry. Keep an eye on what everyone’s discussing, and consider ways to elevate your approach.

Level up with expert-written content

Coming up with incredible newsletter content that turns heads is far from a one-person job. Consider assembling a team of professional voices and topic experts to help level up your content. Expert-written content is informative and high value, lending authority to your brand.

Use a top-tier content network like WriterAccess to eliminate the hassle of finding the right people. WriterAccess is home to thousands of experienced writers and designers, each pre-vetted for quality assurance. Connect with a few in your niche, and watch your content transform.

Check out top-level newsletters

Read and analyze top industry newsletters to get a sense of how great execution looks in action. Our digital marketing newsletter, The Beat, is a good example to take in.

Note how posts in The Beat are well-organized via plenty of headings and subheadings. Visuals, including custom-created options, add value and appeal to the text. At Rock Content, we also make it a point to showcase meaty, expert-written content when it counts.

Create a Newsletter in WordPress FAQ

Can I create a newsletter on WordPress?

Yes, you can create a newsletter on WordPress by using various plugins like MailPoet, Newsletter, or Mailchimp. These tools help you design, send, and manage email newsletters directly from your WordPress dashboard.

How to create an email subscription in WordPress?

To create an email subscription in WordPress, install and activate a plugin such as Mailchimp or MailPoet. Configure the plugin settings, create a subscription form, and add it to your site using widgets or shortcodes to start collecting email addresses.

How do I add a newsletter block in WordPress?

To add a newsletter block in WordPress, you need to use a plugin like MailPoet. Once installed, go to the post or page editor, click the “+” button to add a new block, and select the newsletter block provided by the plugin. Customize the block as needed.

How to create an email plugin in WordPress?

Creating an email plugin in WordPress involves writing custom code using PHP and the WordPress API. You’ll need to develop functionality for sending emails, creating subscription forms, and managing subscribers. Alternatively, you can use existing plugins to achieve these functions without coding.

Can I create an email on my WordPress website?

Yes, you can create and send emails from your WordPress website using plugins like MailPoet or WP Mail SMTP. These plugins allow you to compose emails, manage mailing lists, and send newsletters directly from your WordPress site.

Does WordPress have a subscribe button?

WordPress itself does not have a built-in subscribe button, but you can easily add one using plugins such as Mailchimp or MailPoet. These plugins offer subscription form widgets and shortcodes that you can place on your site to capture email addresses.

A Final Reminder

Now that you know how to create a newsletter on WordPress, you can start using the power of email marketing to make your digital strategy more effective.

But don’t forget: your email content must stand out before you take any other action.

WriterAccess is the ideal platform to help you streamline your content production, combining the efficiency of AI-powered tools with the creativity of human writers.

Enjoy 14 days of free access to our network of expert writers and discover what great content can do for your business.

The post Learn How to Create a Newsletter In WordPress to Engage With Your Audience appeared first on Rock Content.