In 2014, the Kapost blog saw a whopping 861% increase in subscribers.
In 12 months, our subscriber list grew from 856 marketers to 8,228, and is now well over 11,000.
A variety of factors led to this growth, and in the spirit of supporting other B2B marketers, I want to share with you exactly how we did it.
Quality Content
The first factor was a focus on delivering a high volume of high quality content through the blog, and promoting the Content Marketeer as a go-to resource for our target audience. In 2014, we published 386 blog posts, a 105% increase from 2013.
But as B2B marketers know, it’s not all about quantity; your content needs to be compelling.
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A Variety of Voices Writing with Relevance
In 2014, 54 different contributors wrote for the Content Marketeer. They each shared their unique expertise and experiences in thoughtful, targeted posts. By diversifying the voices contributing to the blog, yet focusing on themes and topics that were interesting to our target audience, we were able to expand our reach and and drive the right subscriptions, meaning, people who consumed our content to solve their challenges (which align with the Kapost solution) and also fit our ideal customer profile (ICP).
In fact, more than 60% of the leads driven by the Content Marketeer in 2014 fit Kapost’s ICP criteria.
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Always Be Testing
Another way we drove subscriptions was through constant testing and optimization.
For example, we began adding a checkbox on content submission forms, so people about to download an eBook, guide, or whitepaper could also subscribe to the newsletter in one click, instead of filling out a different form. Also, we conducted A/B tests for various elements of our subscribe calls to action, including color, language, and location.
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