If you’re opening a business, whether it’s a product or a service, you may think the best way to go about launching it is with a huge TV and radio campaign supported by outdoor and flyers. And, it’s not unreasonable to assume that if you make enough noise around your brand, everyone will know what you’re about and you need do nothing more than wait while your order book practically fills itself. Yes, that would be brilliant but things generally don’t work out like that. The problem is that you haven’t reached enough people. More specifically, the problem is you haven’t reached enough
of the right people. While the mediums you’ve chosen are excellent for reaching out to the public en masse, the number of those who are interested in your product or service let alone in the market for it right now is significantly lower. So it’s exactly those people that you want to target. The great news is that they’re not hard to find. All you need to do is work out who your product is for. What problems does it solve and what sort of people aresuffering from those problems. These are known as pain points. Now, this couldbe a single person within a company, a department within that company or thewhole company itself, it doesn’t matter, the point you’re helping to solve somebody’s problem. What’s more, they’re looking for the solution totheir pain points online and if you’ve got the answer to these pain points, then you are who they’re really looking for.
Content is the way forward
People talk about content all the time now and that’s perfectly understandable – it works. Picture this scenario if you will. Somebody in an office has been tasked with finding the solution to the company’s current pain points. They begin their research and almost instantly they come across a piece of content that seems custom built for their problem. With a confident smile starting to spread
on their face, they lean back in in the chair and shout over to their manager, “I’ve found it. It’s from a company called … (insert your own company name here.)
We are getting a bit ahead of ourselves though. The scenario above is where we want to get to, not where we are now, so there are a few things that need explaining. Inbound marketing relies on content in the form of blogs, videos or help articles being found by your potential customers while they are looking for answers by going through a search engine. So, not only does your content
need to be easily findable, it needs to be available at the right time and in the right place. As we see from the scenario above, when the prospect can see that you have the answers, they are more likely to buy from you. It also does your reputation a world of good as you come to be seen as an expert in the matter at hand.
Make social sites work for you
One of the best ways to get your content seen is by putting it on social media. There are of course a whole load of social channels, but it’s not necessary to be one all of them. Just pick the ones your customers are most likely to be on and only use three or four so you’re not doing extra work for no reward. There is a general rule when getting social media to drive traffic to your site and that is to
post one paragraph of your SEO optimised copy to LinkedIn along with a link to the full piece on your site. You can do the same on Facebook but Twitter has a stricter character count, so try to just use a sentence or two to tempt people to your site.
The many benefits of content
As long as your content is of good quality and provides the answers your target audience is looking for then your readers are more likely to turn into customers. It’s no harm to make your content entertaining as well or there’s a danger people won’t read it. If you go too humorous though, people might not take you seriously. I tell you, it’s like walking a tightrope my friend. Plus, it’s worth remembering that pushing out lots of relevant, high quality, original content helps to give you a better ranking in search engines and this means even more potential customers can find you.
Inaddition to this, by providing knowledgeable high quality content, you gain trust and credibility in the minds of your consumers. And, people don’t buy from people they don’t trust or find credible, so it’s worth building these two metrics. It’s perfectly reasonable to think of your content as like having a sales conversation with your customers before you’ve even met them.
The rules are remarkably simple
Asthe saying goes, it’s not rocket science. In fact, it’s a bit like following a recipe. What you need is original, high quality content that answers the pain points of your ideal customers. This starts to give you a good reputation and people begin recognising you as an authority on the subject, further enhancing their trust in you and boosting your credibility. In turn, people start to search specifically for your content and visit your site more. This allows you to start building relationships with people who are already receptive to your brand and therefore more likely to buy from you. Any questions?
Ready to get stated?
At Branding IQ, we can build your brand from the floor up or refresh one you already have and provide you with content that will generate a loyal following and an inbound marketing plan that will boost your sales from warm leads. So, if you’d like to see how this could be the answer you’ve been looking for, get in touch.
For a no obligation consultation, just fire over a quick email to brendan@brandingiq.rocks or call +31 6 27 11 91 11.
Looking forward to speaking to you.