Quora Marketing Guide: How to get Visitors by answering questions

Have you ever considered marketing on Quora- the question and answer platform?

Believe it or not, but with Quora, you can highlight yourself as an industry thought leader, drive traffic back to your business’s website and build valuable relationships with customers.

But Quora is unique as well. You cannot make any business account here. So you have the chance to show your personality as well as promote your business with your personal account. This makes the platform interesting.

And due to its uniqueness, marketers are finding diverse ways to reach the more than 300 monthly active users of this platform. 

If you are missing out, then read this blog to get started!

What’s Quora Actually? Who doesn’t know?!

Quora is a platform where anyone can ask and answer questions on any topic from Aardvark to Zucchini. 

Sometimes, the questions are answered by industry experts, business owners, and even by Barack Obama!

If just Question-&-Answer doesn’t sound cool, there are other features of Quora which you might find cool:

1. Target your question to specific users
2. Publish content just like that of LinkedIn
3. Search for questions and topics related to your industry
4. Receive notifications on new questions asked related to your industry

Why Should You do marketing on Quora?

More than 300 million people come to Quora to research, view product recommendations, ask for help, and learn more about the world every month. Thus, it is a powerful channel to raise brand awareness and share content.

Unlike Facebook and other social media networks that people mainly use casually, people on Quora are asking questions about you, your product or service, and your competitors. So you can get your brand easily in front of them and talk about your brand by simply answering some questions rather than involving in costly well-planned advertising.

Answering questions related to your company and industry can help you become a thought expert in your field and build a better image of your business. This can help you influence people to think positively about your product or service.

For marketers, Quora can also be a platform to find out issues affecting their current and potential customers. This information can be used to determine the direction of your company’s future content. 

How to get started organically?

Sign up for Quora by linking with your Facebook or Twitter account. Alternatively, you can create an account on Quora without Facebook or Twitter. 

After creating an account on Quora, perform the following steps to get started organically:

Create A Quora Profile

You cannot show that you have industry expertise if Quora users search your profile and find nothing! Therefore, your first task after creating an account is to create a profile. 

Click on your photo icon in the top right corner of the menu bar (beside the globe icon). Then click on your name to go to your profile. From there, select the relevant section of your profile you want to edit.

Complete the following information so that users can know more about you:

1. A detailed About Me section
2. A profile picture
3. Your areas of expertise
4. Your interests
5. Your cities
6. Schools & colleges you’ve attended
7. Previous companies
8. Connect your other social media accounts

Write a brilliant Bio

Whenever you answer a question, your Profile Name and Bio appears on the top. Here you have the opportunity to do some branding!

Quora only shows the first 50 characters of your profile name and bio combined on the top of your answers. So make the most of the limited space. It’s a good practice to include your company name- include it as close to the beginning as possible. You can also include clickable links that will direct users to your company’s website.

If you target multiple topics, you can create a bio for each topic as well. This way, you can show your expertise in different fields and brands to different groups differently. For example, you can create a bio for the social media marketing topic as well as another bio for the digital marketing topic.

To set up a topic-specific bio, click on your profile page. You’ll then see a list of “Knows About” topics on the right column. There is a link to “Describe your experience” next to each topic. You set the topic-specific bio by clicking on the link to each topic.

Track relevant topics with notifications

Quora provides an easy way for businesses to conduct market research without the need for any survey or experiments and at no cost! You can learn what your target customers are talking about online and get such insights daily in your inbox.

To learn about what your customers are talking about, track relevant topics. Search for the topic you want to track and Quora will provide you with some autosuggestions. Click on the topic you want to target and then hit the Follow button to track.

To make sure you get notifications about your tracked topics, go to the Settings page and click on Emails & Notifications. Then set up the frequency and types of emails you want to receive.

Find the right questions to answer

Theoretically, you can answer almost any questions you want on Quora. But to establish yourself as an expert in your desired field, you need to find the right questions to answer: There are millions of queries out there, you do not want to answer all, do you?

Here are some guidelines to select the questions you want to answer:

1. Questions that are related to your topic of expertise
2. Questions that have been posted since the last month and after- you need to be relevant!
3. Questions with a lot of upvotes- upvotes signal the popularity of your question and so your answers have a higher chance to be viewed by a lot of people!
4. Questions that are new- an early answer will allow your answer to be visible on the top of the answer thread and thus more visibility!

Answer questions with authority

Now you know which questions to answer, start answering them! Make your answers stand out so that people start seeing you as an authority on that topic.

Provide value in your answer. Input information that others have not. By this, you can be different and stand out! You can also offer an insightful response by linking your answer to related content on your blog, case studies, and statistics. This will demonstrate your expertise.

Add a human touch to your answers by showing your passion for the topic as well as adding your brand’s unique voice. If it helps, you can also add pictures to your answers as people follow visual instructions better than text instructions.

Connect with Quora users

Quora is above all, a social media network. Therefore, you need to connect with your audience on a personal level. Do not think of the platform as a tool for self-promotion only.

When people ask questions about your company or industry, answer it. After all, you are one of the company’s employees and will be perceived as an expert! If someone comments on your answer, do not leave it blank. Reply the comment. This way, you can connect with users and build relationships with them.

Address any concerns or issues your customers may have as well. According to data from Sprout Social, more than half of people call brands out to get a response or resolution. Try to solve your customers’ problems in order to turn your unhappy customers into loyal advocates.

Another way to connect with Quora users is by asking questions. By asking questions, you can find ideas and experiences from an audience you’ve chosen and quickly win visibility.

Connect with other Quora users in order to become a thought expert by answering questions, addressing customer issues, and asking questions.

Ask questions for ideas

Quora marketing does not stop at answering questions of your customers and audience, you can do the reverse as well. Ask questions on a topic and you can crowdsource ideas for your next product or service!

You can ask customers for stories and experiences related to your business. Examples of such questions can be:

1. What are the common problems you face when using this product or service? 
2. What does the [insert industry name] industry still lack?
3. What makes you choose this product or service over others?

If your question needs answers from a subject expert, you can use the Ask to Answer system to ask specific Quora members. You’ll see this option after posting on Quora. Once the answers arrive, with a good variety of sources and input, you will have the basis for an excellent roundup post.

Review Quora Analytics 

To see the impacts of your efforts on Quora, you can use Quora’s free analytics tool. You can find all the metrics for the questions that you have answered. You would be able to analyze anything from how many times your comment has been shared, and how many upvotes you have. Use this insight to decide what works best on the platform so you can focus on distributing content that engages the community.

To see Quora Analytics, click on Stats after clicking your profile picture icon (beside the globe icon) on your Homepage.

If you are a funnel geek then here’s my suggestion

In Quora, it is important for marketers to relate the intent of the questions asked on Quora to the buyer’s journey. If you are such a kind of marketer who wants to analyze the sales funnel on Quora, here’s my recommendation:

Create a funnel for quora questions

First, create a funnel for all types of questions you will encounter on Quora. You can divide the  journey of a person asking questions on Quora into three sections:

1. Top of the funnel (TOFU) questions focus on brand awareness and increasing site traffic. For example: “What tools I need for my business’s digital marketing business?”
2. Middle of the funnel (MOFU) questions focus on lead generation and nurture. For example: “How can I integrate my CRM to my sales team’s work?”
3. Bottom of the funnel (BOFU) questions focus on conversion. For example: “How is your experience working with this CRM software?” or “How is this CRM software better than others?”

Answers questions according to your funnel roadmap

Now that you know the questions asked on each stage of the funnel, answer them. 

Answer the questions based on the customer intent at each stage of the funnel. For example: People asking TOFU questions have the intention to know about several brands at once before shortlisting for the next stage. So try to answer their questions by grabbing their attention.

On the other hand, people asking MOFU questions intend to buy a product or service from their shortlisted brands. So try to educate about your product offerings in your answers.

Tips to succeed in Quora

Content marketing in Quora is different as it focuses on providing high quality answers to questions regarding your company or industry. So to succeed in Quora, you need to provide the best answers to every question you answer.

We talked a bit about providing high quality answers on Quora a bit back. Here are some more tips on giving the best answers on Quora:

Look what’s trending

You already know how to track relevant topics on Quora and be notified on mail. Keep track of the questions to see what’s trending among your audience.

Look at the answers provided for these trending questions. This will help you give an idea on how to answer further questions. 

You can also provide information missed out by the previous answers. In this way, you can offer value!

Add visuals in your answers

Like anywhere else, Quora users are naturally attracted to pictures, and this will make them click through and read what you’ve got to say. 

This is because in a list of answers, a post that appears as a thumbnail beside the text preview is the one that appears on top.

Use images that will help build your point. You can also make images for each post.

Push People To Upvote your answers

Answers with more upvotes appear on top of the answer list. 

Therefore, your answers need upvotes. People naturally will not upvote. So you need to give some sort of push.

To achieve that, you can ask people to upvote as a call-to-action at the end of your answer.

Back up your Quora answers

The best answers on Quora include facts, sources and references — specific, factual information to help your point. Personal stories are also fantastic strategies (and often the most effective answers), but they take a great deal more time to create.

For each fact or figure, link to the reference source. If a blog post or whitepaper with this info has been published by you before, link back to it to earn even more visits!

Use google analytics for analyzing quora referral traffic

Is your website traffic coming from Quora or not? You can check it out using Google Analytics. In Google Analytics, when you view your Referrals under Traffic Sources, you see the URLs that send traffic to your company’s website.

If a lot of traffic is coming from your answers on Quora, Google Analytics will show that as well. If you notice traffic coming from Quora, click through to see the URL and find out what answers of yours are driving the most traffic. This will help you pinpoint to the types of questions that will get traffic to your website.

Paid Advertising on Quora?

Not sure whether to advertise on Quora? Here are some reasons:

1. It provides an opportunity for marketers to advertise during the consideration phase of the buyer’s journey, making its ad platform ideally suited to impact future decisions of buyers.
2. You can select to target specific content on Quora or select an audience showing an interest in your product or service.
3. On Quora, your message will only appear besides content that’s relevant with your brand. So you have a better click-through-rates.
4. Quora’s ads platform makes it convenient to calculate the ROI of your ads. See standard metrics in ads manager and track conversions using Quora Pixel.

Upon making a Quora account, and signing into the website, you will see your Ads Manager in your profile under the Create Ad option. To get started you need to build an ad account. From there, you’ll be able to see your ad summary, separated into four parts when you head to the Manage Ads page:

1. Clicks
2. Conversions
3. Impressions
4. Spend

Conclusion

While there are many tricks and tips for Quora, the most important one to remember is that you need to deliver value. Offer yourself as a helping expert and your customers will go to you in search of answers!

Quora can be a fun and interesting place for marketing. It is also a great investment for your business. So if you haven’t thought about marketing on Quora till date, now it’s your turn!