All digital marketers know the value of creating great content, but even if you create something that generates a buzz and drives traffic, are you doing enough with it? That’s where data capture comes in.
The key is to identify your top performing pages on your site and optimize them. This could be a landing page for a product or service or a popular blog. Why waste that valuable traffic and any high-quality backlinks if there’s an opportunity to generate leads?
In this blog we’ll focus on using data capture on blogs, though the insights can be used for any top-performing webpage,
Data capture is a method of collecting information from visitors to your website or blog. The aim is to get their personal information in return for something of value so you can retarget them in the future with relevant messaging or content to turn them from a prospect into a customer.
First-party and zero-party data has become more important than ever with the demise of third-party cookies and new data privacy regulations. Data capture on your owned assets - like a website - can help you generate leads in the absence of a channel many companies relied on.
“We're not trying to sell to them, we're trying to engage and create a meaningful relationship.”
There’s a reason why you should use data capture on your blogs; it works! We know that from experience (along with a lot of experimenting and testing).
So what are the real benefits of using data capture, on top of providing you with personal information?
Provides web visitors with extra value - Everyone likes something extra so if someone is reading a blog they are interested in, the idea is they will want something related for ‘free’
Give insight into what content people want and need - You might be surprised by what people download and that could inform your content.
Top tip: When visitors get to the website you should give them a valuable piece of content to capture their data. Then you can re-engage them through email marketing or retargeting if they show intent.
While data capture content should be part of your content marketing strategy, it’s often overlooked in marketing teams, particularly on blogs.
The good news is that this type of content can be produced easily - especially if you have a library of content that you can repurpose.
What content types work well for data capture?
Let’s look at some examples to see the different content types and layout.
While there are a few recipes on offer on Jamie Oliver’s website, the CTA prompts a visitor to sign up to the site to get a book of recipes featured on the TV series. A great example of repurposing existing content that’s already been in the public realm.
Here’s an example from a blog that shows a data capture asset after the intro paragraph prompted by a ‘Download Free’ button.
This example uses two data capture points on the blog homepage. The first is on the banner which directs you to a custom landing page with a form while the ‘Sign In’ CTA prompts a visitor to give details to access an SEO tool and other resources.
This original research piece focuses on trends in 2024 and has two areas to capture data; the first as a button on the above the fold section and the second as a pop-up on the right.
There are some great tools out there to help you capture data on blogs. These tools will help you to gather leads and funnel them into your email database or retargeting campaigns.
Content is a powerful channel for any marketer. Our short certified Content Marketing course will teach you the basics of content marketing and content research and explore key areas such as storytelling and creativity along with how to create content for SEO, email and social media. Get started today!