This is the second part of our coworking content marketing guide. In the first installment we talked about goal setting, strategy and infrastructure. Missed it? Find the first part here. In this section, we’ll dive straight into content production, optimization, and conversion.
Create Valuable Content
A content marketing strategy can be as simple or complicated as your business requires, but the content on your website is its core. If you use the right keywords or spend enough on advertising, you can get as many potential members as you want. But, all of those pageviews will be for naught if readers don’t ultimately engage with your coworking space.
There are two types of content to consider when it comes to the duration that a blog post will be useful:
- Evergreen: These posts will be helpful or entertaining to users indefinitely, even if they require some updating (as is the case in educational posts, where new trends can change your perspective as they appear). eBooks and white papers also fall into this category.
- Timely: These are posts that will make a big splash briefly in the moment. They might focus on your own news or piggyback on hot topics or breaking news at a national or local level.
Your content can also come in many different shapes and sizes:
- News: Give updates about your coworking space brand, like new amenities or a new location.
- Think Pieces: Share your or other experts’ thoughts on trendy topics or core issues in the freelancing space, for example.
- Checklists: Create helpful checklists for people to use in certain situations, such as moving from one office to another or solving conflicts in a shared space.
- Listicles: Offer lists of tips and tricks or purely entertaining listicles, such as “7 Things Every Freelancer Hates about Working from Home.”
- How-to’s: Write practical guides on subjects that are of interest to your audience, such as the blog post you are reading now.
- Interviews: Interview people you think your members admire as well as your members themselves.
- Infographics: Provide useful or entertaining information with your audience in a visual format.
- eBooks & White Papers: Exchange these valuable documents for the user’s contact information. These types of content are different from the rest because they provide more value to users and are more challenging to produce. They may also serve as a last line of defense to stay in contact with the user; for example, if they don’t sign up for a tour, try offering a useful eBook or white paper in exchange for their email.
To make your content attractive:
- Adopt the right tone. The coworking audience demographics lend well to a “friendly but professional” approach. Speak directly to the prospect and their relatable workspace experiences.
- Use the right language. If you’re writing for digital freelancers, for example, incorporate informal language and tech industry terms.
- Include attractive visuals. Steer clear of the biggest stock photo websites; instead, use smaller services to ensure the photos aren’t overused on other blogs, or even professional quality photos of your own space.
- Make sure your content is positive. Infuse it with elements that stress how pleasant it is to work in a coworking space, and why it’s better than having your own office or working from home.
Get Users to Read Your Content
Producing content your potential members will find useful or entertaining isn’t valuable to you unless they read it. So, how do you get users to your blog, aside from sharing your posts on every social network where your brand has a presence?
First, learn the basics of SEO. Reaching people who search for information relevant to your coworking space entails optimizing the content for a few keywords with decent search volumes—and then inserting them in the title, headers, and body of your posts. Don’t stuff these keywords wherever you can, focus on quality first. Also, be sure to place the keywords in the URL of the post, as well as in the meta description.
Utilize online tools to compress the pictures for your blog posts, and place keywords in the alt text when you upload them. Additionally, make sure your blog is mobile-friendly and link to other internal articles if it makes sense in your post.
Another technique to generate blog traffic is to advertise your posts on social platforms and search engines. Facebook and Instagram Ads and the Google Search Network can all help you drive traffic to your posts. Each of these platforms has extensive, beginner-friendly guides to help you get started according to your objectives. But, keep in mind that traffic from these website visits will cost you, whereas SEO traffic is essentially free if you produce it yourself.
Convert Users to Members
You attracted users to your blog; you offered them valuable content; now, it’s time to turn them into members.
Techniques to convert users into members depend on your goals. If you want them to schedule a tour, use banners that open into forms. Then, ask them for their contact details or to leave a message for an appointment. Similarly, if you want them to sign up directly, use attractive call-to-action buttons to get them to the sign-up page.
To design a form that converts:
- Incorporate action words. Exciting verbs—like try, see, or join—are appealing to users.
- Use as few fields as possible to make it quick and easy to sign up.
- Apply positive, bright colors and easy-to-read fonts.
- Offer an incentive (if you have the budget).
- Take advantage of conversion techniques, such
as:
- Social proof (having a quote from a happy member near or on the form)
- Scarcity (for example, saying limited spots are available)
- Urgency (using words like now, today, or in minutes)
Forms and buttons will need continual improvement, so use a tool that allows you to split or A/B test them. For instance, you might change a piece of copy, a color, a shape, or a form field and test it against the initial version. In doing so, you’ll learn what your potential members respond to sooner than you think.
At the end of the day, simply starting a blog on your website can influence how your potential members view your space. Blogs build trust and allow you to communicate your strengths and brand values. Using it successfully for conversions will result in a content marketing strategy that will continuously fuel your sales efforts with new leads.
To engage your current and potential members efficiently—and access analytics and accounting software that will allow you to focus on your business development strategy—book a Yardi Kube demo today.