Why a Great Content Experience is a Great Customer Experience

A great content experience is great for business. Why? Because the content experience you provide is at the heart of your customer experience and touches almost every aspect of your business. Since the pandemic, we've seen a greater emphasis on digital content investment to better serve customers who are spending more time online due to the rise in hybrid working. The greatest customer experience and content experience prevail in a world where our interactions with customers increasingly take place on digital platforms. Today, businesses have to adjust their business models to adapt to the new market reality as a result of experience transformation. 

Essentially, the right content on the right channel at the right time – that’s what creates a perfect content experience for a perfect customer experience.

Explaining the Content Experience Approach

The content experience goes beyond what’s being read or watched on a screen. It encompasses all aspects of consuming a brand's stream of information, which includes search and engagement.

So when planning your content strategy, aside from your corporate website, keep in mind that your customers will interact with you in a variety of ways via various channels and formats, all of which are part of a bigger experience.

Given this broader definition of your content experience, there are three factors to master:

• Use a methodical approach to creating the conditions in which customers consume your content.
• Organise your content to make it more discoverable. Some ways to do this include being present on social networks, not just on your website. Website load speed and mobile responsiveness are also key for search engines to rank your content.
• Guide customers through the buyer's journey, encouraging them to engage with your brand and eventually convert.

Role of Content in Customer Experience

How can you use content to help provide a better experience for customers? Create the content that your audience wants and needs by using what you learned about them during the listening and engagement stages. The purpose of content should be to inform the reader and to generate content that is intriguing and alluring enough to inspire action—whatever that action may be.

1. Driving Customer Acquisition. ​​Building an owned audience with an ecosystem of unique, high-value content that drives continuous engagement can reduce customer acquisition costs.
2. Meeting Customer Expectations. Let’s face it - expectations have never been higher. In search queries, there's an increase in the use of "me" and "I" as well as other personal pronouns. Whether they are trying to solve an issue or learn more about the world, customers want the most pertinent and unique outcomes. Content that supports a unique brand narrative that is fine-tuned for the persona(s) it serves enables your brand to stand out.
3. Using Content Marketing to Acquire New Customers. The customer is firmly in charge of the buying process today. Incorporate your content strategy into a customer journey. Investigate the pain points your target market faces and propose solutions to address them. Work your way through the buying cycle to develop content that fits into each stage (awareness, consideration etc.). Share this across with all teams from strategy, marketing, and content.

Measuring Your Content Experience

So you're planning to implement a CX strategy. That’s great. But how will you determine success? Why not use these questions to find out what to track and how to measure CX.

1. Are you satisfied with the tools and processes your company employs around creating, using and finding content?
2. Are you making the best use of your time when it comes to content development and management?
3. Is there a central platform in place to meet all of your content needs and power all your communication channels?
4. If the content is updated, can you guarantee consistent usage of the updated content on all your channels in real-time?
5. Do you only use approved content, and are you confident you have the permissions and latest licence agreements to use this content?

You can also use analytics like clicks/pageviews, social sharing, bounce rate, time on page/scroll depth, and SEO page ranking to your advantage and create more links between what customers do and how they feel. In other words, the more data points you have, the more chances you have to figure out what works, what doesn't and where you need to improve.

Content Marketing Tactics to Help Boost CX

Customers will feel more connected to your brand and willing to communicate with you if they have a positive experience with the content you share. Here are some tactics to boost the CX through content marketing.

• Reward Interaction. Customers are more inclined to interact with content if they are rewarded for it. Customers who subscribe to newsletters or share social media content are often offered incentives such as eBooks, free guides, discounts and more.
• Nurturing Brand Advocates From Your Customers. The kind of results that come from real, passionate experiences that customers share about your business cannot be achieved through any amount of advertising. You have greater control when your customers are on your side. People respect other people's opinions. Because of this, businesses must promote customer-driven brand advocacy. Reward customer loyalty with incentives, build communities, thank your customers, and empower them to share their unique experiences.
• Make Your Content Relatable. The most essential factor of improving your customers' experience is creating relevant content. To find out what your audience wants to see more of from you, try running a brief poll or survey on your social media platforms.
• Nurture Consideration With Persuasive Content. Move prospects along the funnel by highlighting the Unique Selling Points (USPs) of your brand. Your attention should now change from delivering useful but high-level information to overcoming potential objections and outlining specific features and benefits of your product in comparison to similar brands.
• Make Sure the Content Experience Is Omnichannel. It's important that customer interactions are consistent and unified. At all key touchpoints, a well-designed experience encourages increased consumer engagement and delivers an exchange of value.

The possibilities for creating content are always growing, giving businesses more opportunities to play an active role in the customer experience at every stage. That’s why it’s important to continually assess your content marketing efforts to find new ways to enhance your customer experience. Having a solid understanding of your customers and what they expect at each point of their journey translates directly into increased sales and revenue.

Experience matters. At Construct Digital, experience transformation is one of our core capabilities. If you’re feeling lost in your journey, we’d love to hear from you. We have a strong track record of helping organisations harness the best of tech, data, creativity and innovation to reimagine brand experience.