Orvis just did it right.

Content marketing should be about taking people from down the conversion path. From a business point of view, anything else really is a waste of time. Here’s how Orvis did it to me:

I was on Facebook and saw this:

As a flyfisherman, learning better how to swing wet flies will help me catch more fish. It was a social post focused on solving their audience’s problem.

So, I clicked and saw this post:

I watched the video, and it was instructional, entertaining, relevant and helpful. And, I saw the box for a sale on that fishing boot. Guess what, I need new fishing boots. So I clicked it.

Then I saw this:

A popup appeared with another benefit: Save an extra $10 to sign up to the email list? Now that I’ve consumed good content and was presented with relevant information and products, and extra savings, heck yeah I’ll sign up for the email list, too.

So what did Orvis do?

They seamlessly took me down every step of the funnel. From a casual fan to a paying customer who’s also now on the email list. Now they can continue to nurture me, their newest customer.

Image via SEOmoz

All done without me commenting or sharing on social

Another observation about this. None of it involved two metrics that everyone is so enamored with lately: social shares and comments. It just drove me to the desired goal. Comments and social shares have their place. But they aren’t as important as everyone says they are. Here’s an argument to support that, and here’s another one.

What do you think about the popup on the product page?

Some might think that popup would take an extra step away from buying a product. What do you think? Was it a smart move to offer an incentive to join a mailing list? Or does it distract from the main goal? For me, as a customer, it works.