What’s the 6V Conversion Canvas and how do I use it?

This is the eighth in a series of articles on growth hacking, which I’m going deep into with a minidegree in Growth Marketing from the CXL Institute. Read more: What is growth hacking? | How to run a successful growth marketing experiment in six steps | This is the successful formula for A/B testing mastery| This one mindset will make you a better marketer

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Optimization is all about efficiency. When you optimize, you are making things more efficient. You’re getting more out of the same resources by improving how they’re used or allocated.

But that’s only part of optimization. It’s also about effectiveness. As you make things more efficient, you also want to make them more effective. When you increase both efficiency and effectiveness, you fully unleash the power of optimization by not just streamlining (efficiency) but also amplifying (effectiveness).

For most of us, efficiency is the easy part. We’re great at the tweaking and fiddling that can unlock a few percentage points of improvement. It takes much more thought and experimentation to figure out the most effective way to use our resources.

That’s why I really like the 6V Conversion Canvas: It’s a clear framework for uncovering the information necessary to be most effective in your optimization efforts.

The 6V Conversion Canvas

In conversion optimization, success is pretty much correlated with research. The better you are at doing the dusk research upfront, before you start experimenting, the more likely it is that you will run effective experiments — which just also happens to be more efficient, as your waste less time and be more effective.

The 6V Conversion Canvas is a framework for desk research. It guides you through the six steps of gathering information and building a knowledge base to draw on for your conversion experiments. Even if you’ve been doing conversion optimization for a long time, the simplicity and structure of the 6V Canvas keeps you on track.

How to use the 6V Conversion Canvas

From the beginning, you need to do the research right so that you don’t waste time on experiments that don’t work because they’re built on faulty assumptions and bad data.

At the start of a new conversion optimization project, open the canvas and start at the top left. You’ll follow each prompt to help you surface useful information and valuable insights. To really excel at the research phase, think like a detective!

1. Value

First, you dive into the company values that are most important and relevant to the project. You want to carefully consider what would be most impactful to the business. This is where your understanding of the current parties comes in handy. At this stage, the objective is to be sure that your chores and projects can help the business of cheap it’s near term goals, rather than distracted.

2. Versus

The next step is to do a thorough competitor analysis. It’s quite possible that this information already exists internally. Even so, you want to be sure that you have a clear understanding of who the competition is and what they stand for. In fact, it’s almost always advisable to purchase from all of your competitors so you can experience what it’s like to be a customer.

Questions to ask yourself

To get a complete picture of your competition you’ll also want to:

  • look for any important audience overlaps
  • see how they are adapting and adjusting their own user experience by tracking their changes using tool like visualping or wachete
  • Learn what tools are using via built with.

3. View

At this stage, you’ll dive into your web analytics and get to know the behavior of your visitors.

Ask yourself questions like: where visitors again on your side, where they come from, what their journey is, and how they act on the most important pages. You’ll also want to explore any differences between segments or products, all of which can provide useful information for building effective conversion experiments.

Key areas to explore:

  • Traffic sources
  • Landing pages
  • Customer journeys across key segments, products and landing pages
  • Time on page
  • Scroll depth
  • Heat maps

After a thorough analysis, translate these insights into specific behavioral segments that track through your typical flow. These are essential, as you will be matching specific segments to each experiment.

4. Voice

You have some of the most useful information internally. Mainly, all of your customer service communications. Speak with everyone that you can, anyone that interacts directly with customers. That could be anyone from customer service reps to salespeople. Those that are closest to the customer or valuable resources direct, real-time insight into your customers.

For instance, your sales team will have a list of common objections that can help you prioritize experiments. These insights can also inform your information architecture so that you rank information in a way that directly addresses pressing problems.

Other treasure troves include social media feedback, website chat logs, user research, and interviews with actual customers.

5. Verified

Now it’s time to nerd out. A major part of successful conversion optimization is understanding the psychology behind human behavior. You always want to have a reason why you’re running a test and why are you expect there to be a result. Remember: hypothesis building that is at the core of growth marketing experiments. And strong hypotheses are based on science and not just internal data.

6. Validated

Nearly there! It’s so easy to run out of steam at this point. Just put in a little more effort to validate what you’ve learned so far through the lens of previous tests.

Pull up your experiment tracker and review your past tests to see if there is anything you can learn from them. More often than not, a quick refresher will prompt learnings that can make your next round of tests better.

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Of course, this process is much longer than a block us. And not every experiment will require a lengthy research process. However, it’s best practice to pull up the canvas for each round of experiments. Things change quickly, especially at start ups. You’ll likely uncover fresh insights by going through this process regularly!

7 transformative strategies for blog bliss: How to give your company blog the foundation it deserves

For those who manage a company blog, there’s a certain level of despair that comes with trying to figure out what to say how to say it to say it and where to publish. The “content crush” — or the feeling that you must always be publishing content out — causes even the most stalwart brand marketer to publish content that’s not really up to snuff.

It could simply be bowing to the pressure from business unit to publish an article that’s boring. Or perhaps it’s ghostwriting a byline from an executive who is hard to work with, and so you publish something that you don’t think is right for the blog’s target audience. Or maybe it’s the “curse of the blinking cursor” staring back at you, reflecting the fact that you’re just not quite sure what to write about!

Whatever the situation, it’s a painful and frustrating one that’s all-too-familiar for those who manage company blogs.

We decided to compile our seven essential strategies for that elusive blog bliss: A blog that delivers strong editorial content with the brand’s voice, building an audience of prospects and engaged fans. From sales and enablement to internal communications to public relations, a healthy blog equals a healthy brand. Here’s a quick check-up for your company’s blog.

#1: Think like a journalist

JournalistAre always paying attention. The most annoying things about being one! The best journalists are always looking around for connections between things that others may not see, or finding interesting stories that might be unaddressed. Journalists are also really good at asking probing questions to get into the meat of the story. It’s this curiosity That separates an editorial approach from a commercial approach to content.

When it comes to B2B blogs, it’s especially important to focus on the why: Why is this important to the reader? How can this knowledge be applied in their everyday professional lives?

So be curious, persevere, and never forget the reader. Self-obsessed content has its place — but it most certainly isn’t (often) on the company blog!

#2: The strategy IS content

Now that you have the correct mindset, let’s pivot to strategy. Oftentimes, Brand marketers want to rush into the company blog just because they have a fear of missing out. However, without a strategy, execution is set up to fail. But one thing people forget is the actual content. In this rush to get it done, the content often becomes an afterthought. Either the content is terrible Because too much time was spent on strategy, or there was no strategy at all. At any point along the spectrum between these two endpoints, a content marketing initiative focus on the company blog is more likely to fail.

So even if you don’t have time to create a robust content marketing strategy, consider a basic framework that explains why you’re doing it (objectives), who you’re talking to (audience) and what you’re going to talk about (topic pillars). This ensures that the strategy IS the content.

Content for content’s sake never works — it’s a waste of time and resources, and rarely delivers enough return on investment to merit continuing.

Avoid ‘the set up to fail syndrome’ and be sure to leave plenty of time and resources in your plan to actually create a compelling content that builds audiences and creates a fantastic company blog.

#3: Plan ahead

You’d be shocked at how few brand marketers plan ahead. From business pressures to competing priorities for time and resources, Sometimes it seems like fine by the seat-of-the-pants is the best way to go. This is most definitely not the case for content. While it’s possible for an experienced journalist to turn around great quality content in a short window, there’s almost no point in trying without an understanding of why the content is being created or who it’s being targeted to.

When it comes to your company blog, an editorial content calendar is the way to go. Not only does it get you organized, but it offers a quick view of your content marketing program for any potential stakeholders.

And if you use the right tool to manage your calendar, it works as a collaboration tool to ensure that you have the most relevant perspectives from around the company included in your content.

#4: Be consistent

Select a publishing cadence and stick to it. This is by far the thing most brand marketers get wrong. They start off with a cadence that is too ambitious or unrealistic. And once they set an expectation for a certain number of articles each week, the audience can be disappointed or internal stakeholders can be demotivated. Momentum is a precious and delicate thing, and it’s important to not start out of the gate too strong.

Consistent brands are worth 20% more than those that aren’t consistent.

-Techipedia, Lucy Hunt

Make a sound assessment of the resources available to you — including your own time — and set a conservative publishing schedule at first. Start understanding how your audience is responding and growing, then you can adjust accordingly.

Especially if you are the one vetting and managing freelancers, as well as brainstorming new topics, there will be a lot more to do than you expect. The last thing you want to do is stress yourself out so much that you end up abandoning the project!

#5: Be visual

If you’re anything like us, these sorts of ‘best practices’ articles become exhausting. It really just seems like more things to add to the to-do list! And yes, that is the case. That’s what we try to stay as organized as possible — with this point (‘be visual’), We recommend taking the time to think about what visuals accompany your blog articles.

First, you want to have a captivating featured image that fuels are authentic and not stock. There’re many resources out there, like Unsplash, that offer high-quality photographs for free. Ideally, you have access to a stock photo bank that would allow you to go deeper into imagery And avoid some of the tired tropes the role so used to seeing. If you’re on a budget, then go ahead and search for high-quality images online. Just be sure to source only images that are Creative Commons approved for commercial use.

Remember that the featured image is especially important because it is the image that shows up on social when someone shares your article.

Beyond the featured image, consider what other graphics and imagery can be used to support your perspectives. Most people are visual, and many readers skim through articles.

By providing visual anchors, you allow skimmers time to digest and understand your key points — even without reading the full article. This could be as simple as peppering your article with images, or as complicated as creating an infographic that covers the material you’ve written about. We like to use Canva for our graphic design needs.

These images also serve another purpose: They can extend the life of your article as individual social media posts. Once you’ve published your article a few times on social media, then you post the individual graphics as well. This can extend the life of your article from a few weeks to a few months — or more.

#6: Practice 4-1-1

The beauty of content marketing is that it not only gives you a great brand-building opportunity but offers a wellspring of things to share on social media. The content gives you an opportunity to contribute to the conversation on social media without seeming like a leech or a lurker. And you can never go wrong providing value to potential prospects, current customers, and employees.

In addition to posting your own content, we recommend that you follow the 411 rule. The best conversationalists ask questions rather than talk about themselves. The same is true about social media.

Brands that only post content about their own achievements are far less interesting to audiences. Most people would rather read compelling content that teaches them something or offers insights they otherwise wouldn’t get.

So when you’re planning your social postings schedule, definitely include your company blog’s articles. But also share links from third-party sources that are of interest to identify target audiences; This is called content curation. Out of every six posts, only one should be directly promotional. The others are a blend of your own original content and content written by others.

We recommend this weighting of original content because we believe that the most successful marketers brand through their blog. There are plenty of professional journalists and publishers that curate analysis and news, so it can be much harder to break through the noise and provide value through curation. You have the most control over your own original content, and that’s why we recommend the 4-1-1 ratio.

Even so, there are a variety of rules suggested by experts (we really love this breakdown from CoSchedule about the various approaches to social media and content curation). It’s about finding the blend that works best for your brand and the audience you’re targeting. Doing a quick audit of your competitors and others that are in your niche is a great place to start.

#7: Go live

This final tip is perhaps one of the easiest temperament. Thanks to the technologist site YouTube, Facebook/Instagram, and Twitter, it’s now possible to broadcast live video to your audience from anywhere in the world.

The beauty of this format is the lower production values are expected. In fact, slick broadcasts are distrusted by users. So rather than stress out about having high production values, focus on delivering compelling live video to your audiences.

The increased engagement was the number one reason why respondents continue to invest in my video, according to the 2018 BrandLive live streaming benchmark survey. Live streaming has now moved far beyond just social media, and has become an entire content channel on its own.

It could be as simple as interviewing a customer for LinkedIn, or as complicated as doing a team interview that showcases a remote sales team. There are many situations, such as trade shows or company events, that are well-suited to live video. Test a few, learn from the results, and integrate those learnings back into your live videos.

Each of these live videos not only offers direct engagement with whoever joins live but also offers an article opportunity down the line. You can write about the context of the video, pull out some relevant quotes, and then embed the video in the article.

This is called ‘content atomization’ and it is the backbone of any successful and efficient content marketing strategy for a company blog. As far as results, the BrandLive cohort saw a return on investment in the following categories, each of which provides ripple effects for a brand’s perception, revenues, and employee engagement.

 

In conclusion

Yes, there’s lots to do. We sympathize! Thankfully, it’s never been easier to create quality content and support that content with interesting graphics and intelligent perspectives.

Technologies are affordable and blogging is much easier than it used to be. Keep it up, because your brand will be stronger and more profitable than ever if you do!