Content marketing is the best way to get information to your clients or customers. This is also the perfect way to gain the trust of your customers and increase your sales. The problem is choosing the most effective type of content and presenting it in an attention getting manner.
Here are some tips on choosing the most effective content for your content marketing.
1. Point out the competition’s mistakes. People, in general, want to avoid painful experiences as much as possible. Pointing out all the ways your competitors fail to make life easier for your potential customers works to your advantage.
Top ten lists on this kind of thing such as “10 most common mistakes” or “10 things you don’t want to do” are especially effective in driving people to you, rather than your competitor.
I’m not saying you should specify or point fingers at specific competitors here. That’s not professional. Instead, use general statements and point out what makes your company better than others.
2. Give out industry “secrets.” They are not really secrets but if you let people think they are then their trust in you grows. Create content with bulleted lists showing how to do things faster and easier or how to make something work better. People love lists about things because lists are easy to filter through and pick out those points that pertain to them specifically. They also help people retain the information.
3. Organize it for them. One of the biggest hurdles for some people is the organization of certain things. Do the work for them by giving them plans and ways to organize things to make their life simpler.
If you can make something straightforward and easy for someone, they will appreciate it and repay you with their business.
4. Answer common questions. When you're discussing a common problem or situation, people tend to have the same questions. By providing the answers before someone even asks the questions, you make them feel more comfortable. It gives them the impression your company truly cares about them and their needs because you’ve taken the time to learn what they want or need.
5. Latest trends reports. This is a way to help your clients and customers keep up to date with the latest information from your company. This type of content lists the newest information or technologies and explains them in an easy to understand fashion.
Effective content marketing is all about continually giving the client or customer whatever information they deem useful. It demonstrates to prospects your company is paying attention to the needs of their clients and responding in an resourceful and expeditious manner.
If the frequency and/or quality of information begins to slow down, your client base will begin to find another source of information, taking their sales dollars with them.
Making use of a freelance writing service is a good way to fulfill the needs of consistent and effective content writing. By using writers to help create your content, you can easily continue to provide fresh, new content. Once you have the articles, reports and other documents, offer them to your customers freely through email or a blog.
Not only will your customers thank you in replies and comments but, more importantly, with their continued loyalty.
Want to put content marketing to work in YOUR business?
While we're at this sort of thing, it seems that these days we also need to keep in mind the potential of social media marketing. Putting up a page on Facebook for people to become "fans" of can improve your relationship with your customer base. Similarly, putting up videos on YouTube and AdWido will help customers become closer to you.
Posted by: Matt | July 22, 2009 at 01:09 PM