how to DRIVE MORE CONVERSIONS WITH A USER-FOCUSED TOPIC MATRIX with
carolyn lyden

Here's where the issue start…

Topic clusters work well for search engines… Because they ensure internal linking, they make sure everything's cohesive, we just assume that it's structured well so USERS can also find what they need.

However, the actual process of navigating a topic cluster isn't always a great user experience for real, non-robot humans. As marketers, in the process of optimizing for what works well for search engines, we often become detached from our target audiences.

And we end up optimizing our sites for us, people like us, and what we think our target audience wants. Which is what Michael Aagaard, Conversion Rate Optimization Consultant calls, "the imaginary audience." Or as I like to say, "Oops! We optimized for ourselves!"

In an article about confirmation bias in marketing, Aagaard talks about how it's actually REALLY common for marketers to create content and format our websites for ourselves and what we assume our target audiences want. And that's not always true.

The key to overcoming our biases and targeting our ACTUAL audiences is to focus on what our buyers want and need. We need to stop marketing our product and service and instead market what it can do for our audiences.

This is all about creating BENEFIT-focused copy. Features are just a slice of business functionality that has a corresponding benefit or set of benefits for that product's end user. The benefit is the VALUE those features bring to your customers.

One of the easiest ways to break this down is to think of the features on your face. You have eyes, a nose, a mouth. But if you were to market this face, you wouldn't just say, "Comes with deep brown eyes, a functioning nose, and a mouth with teeth!" You'd tell your audience what those features can do for them--and how their lives would be better by having them.

You can see your favorite foods being prepared by a family you love, you can smell how delicious your favorite thanksgiving side is, and you can taste the magnificent feast before you next week at this time.

One sounds A LOT more appealing than the other.

In the content matrix, you'll see there's a customizable template for figuring out your particular product or service's features and their benefits. This content matrix exists as a Google spreadsheet. You'll get a link to be able to create a copy of your own and customize it to your business.

In the content matrix, you'll see there's a customizable template for figuring out your particular product or service's features and their benefits. This content matrix exists as a Google spreadsheet. You'll get a link to be able to create a copy of your own and customize it to your business.

But it's important to tie your content to metrics. If you're creating content with no goal in mind, you're wasting YOUR time and your users' time. With tools like Google Analytics, you can easily tell how many people are coming to each of these pieces of content, flowing to the next stage of the funnel, and converting from the CTAs on your Bottom of Funnel content pieces.

In today's imaginary scenario, I've created this matrix for an accounting software company. And their Q1 2020 goal is to drive more subscriptions to their small business accounting software.

If your business type generally has a single target audience, think of ways to subdivide them into categories and get as granular as possible about their needs and pain points. The deeper the dive, the more tailored and useful your content will be and it will speak better to your target audience. This can also be a way to test out new target audiences or delve into smaller audiences that you want to grow.

For our accounting software, we're choosing the Target Audience of small businesses and entrepreneurs and discover their pain points.

A pain point is an explicit or implicit issue or obstacle your target audience is experiencing. This part is truly key to the whole matrix's effectiveness and measurability. The key to the most compelling content is figuring out what users are searching when they don't know your product or service will solve their problem (a.k.a., mind reading and magic).

According to WordStream, there are 4 main types of pain points:

Paying attention to these pain points is how you write for a buyer persona while trying to rank for keywords/phrases. People will search their problems and questions.

So what are the main pain points for your target audience? How do you figure those out?

There are 3 main ways:

From there, it's important to address EACH pain point at EACH funnel stage.

Some clients may have all or just one of the pain points, some may be at the top or bottom of the funnel, so it's crucial to cover all your bases.

This means STOP FORCING PEOPLE DOWN THE FUNNEL. There's nothing worse than looking for general information on something and feeling like you're being forced to buy before you're ready.

So, I'm gonna look at this from the perspective of my small business goals for my accounting software:

In the matrix, you'll put the funnel-focused solutions to the audience's pain points in the corresponding Solution cell. From that solution, you'll create a content topic idea that corresponds to that funnel-stage solution:

1. So I've discovered what are the pain points for my small business customer.

2. I found a solution that corresponds with the stage of the funnel.

3. And so I create a piece of content that answers each pain point at the top of funnel, middle of funnel, and bottom of the funnel.

Once you have the pain points, solutions, and content assets mapped out for each stage of the funnel, it'll be easy to see what calls to action you need to use to move your audience from one stage to the next for each specific issue.

Don't try to skip from 0 to 100. Each row color corresponds with the same row color in the next funnel stage. This means that if one pain point resonates with a reader, you can point them to the content in the next funnel stage for the same pain point.

Don't skip ahead and try to get people to buy before they know what they're buying. Once your reader has converted into a customer, the Delight phase of content gives them tools to actually iron out those pain points with your solution.

Make them happy, and your next call-to-action is to ask for reviews!

This is the content matrix you can go in: just make a copy and then get to creating content and converting!