Category Archives: Marketing

It’s Only Marketing When It’s Marketing

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I talk to a lot of businesses about their marketing efforts. Many tell me about the various methods they are using: websites, email, social media and so on. Sometimes I find that what they are doing isn’t really marketing, but just ‘activity’. Here’s a few questions that you can use to review your own activity to see whether it is marketing and whether you are likely to get a return for the time and budget you put in.

content marketing

Is all that marketing activity getting you anywhere?

What is marketing?

The first point to note is that marketing is not the same a selling. Marketing is a process of understanding what the market needs, developing products and services to meet those needs and then promoting them through a variety of channels, ideally backed by strong brand values and identity. Seth Godin puts it succinctly: ‘don’t try to find customers for your products – try to find products for your customers’.

The fundamental question for whatever flavour of marketing you do, is whether it is based around your customers and developed with their needs and interests at its core.

‘We have a website’

Virtually every business has a website. But what’s the focus of your content? Quite often the content is a description of what people do with the odd testimonial thrown in to gain credibility. What you have is an old fashioned product brochure on-line, rather than an effective on-line marketing tool.

  • Before you wrote your content, did you start with an analysis of your target audience, their challenges and their aspirations?
  • Do you have persuasive content?
  • Have you researched the terms that people would use to find a website like yours, and have you used these properly in the content so that you show up in real, relevant searches?
  • Do all of your pages have clear calls to action, or do you leave it up to your customers to work out what to do next?
  • Are you using analytics data to monitor how people find and interact with your content?

If the answer to any of these is ‘no’, then it isn’t really marketing.

‘We do social media’

social media marketing

Why would people follow you? And who do you need to follow?

Here are a few questions that will help you decide if you are doing social media marketing or just doing social media:

  • Do you have a core of good quality, relevant and useful content at the centre of your activity?
  • Do you have a clear understanding of the people or businesses you are trying to engage with?
  • Do you have a process for researching content from other people that your target audience would find interesting and useful?
  • Are you using your social media tools to engage in conversations and deepen your understanding of your customers’ needs and challenges?
  • Are you being generous with your retweets, comments and support for other people’s discussions?
  • Are you using LinkedIn to initiate stimulating and relevant conversations and to post helpful content – or are you just blasting the groups with crass sales messages?

There can be a cultural issue for some smaller business here but remember this: time spent on Twitter and on LinkedIn discussion groups is REAL WORK and not a way to fill a few minutes between meetings – but only if you have a focus.

‘We have a blog’

Most businesses grasp the potential of blogging; and a lot struggle with the practicalities. If your blogging has run out of steam or you’re struggling to get started, ask yourself these questions:

  • Do we have a publishing schedule identifying blog topics for at least the next 3 months and has somebody been given the time to write them?
  • Did we do an analysis of our target readers to fully understand the things they want to read about (can you see a theme developing here)?
  • Do we have anybody on the team who can write readable, interesting copy that provokes thought and stimulates interest.
  • Does your blog have all the basics in place: SEO, social sharing, email sign-up etc

‘We do email marketing’

email marketing

Spam is in the eye of the beholder

 

Emails can be a powerful tool for getting targeted content and messages directly to relevant people. They can also be a fantastic way to annoy and alienate potential customers. Which one are you doing?

  • Are people happy to receive your emails? Did they sign up or confirm they wanted them? Or did you buy a list or scoop up a load of business cards from a networking event?
  • Do you offer people an easy way to unsubscribe, so that you know your messages are going to people who value them?
  • Do you have one mailing list, or have you divided it according to people’s area of interest and where they are along the buying process?
  • Are you predominantly sending emails with helpful content or is it just special offer after special offer?
  • If you are using emails to promote offers, events etc, are you linking to a carefully designed landing page to complete the transaction?

I’ve focused here on marketing that involves written content but you can apply the same basic principles to anything else you are doing. If you’re using video or photos, think through whether it’s the sort of thing your target customers will really value and don’t just post any old thing hoping it might go viral.

Hopefully these questions will help you decide whether all those things you are doing as marketing, really are marketing and will give you some ideas for how you can do things better.

Images: sualk61 via Compfight , screenpunk via Compfight , David Hegarty via Compfight

Content marketing South West

 

Richard Hussey 

Want to know more about online and content marketing? Email me on richard@rshcopywriting.co.uk or call 01823 674167

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What Do Christmas Cards Say About B2B Marketing in 2013?

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The way you approached your Christmas card writing might say something about the way you do on-line marketing. And might give you food for thought in your B2B marketing plans for 2013.

B2B marketing

A traditional image – but is it right for everyone?

 

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The quickest and easiest way to finish the card-writing task is to get a big box of identical cards, sign your name and then whack them into address-labelled envelopes. Job done in no time!

On the other hand, you might take a little time to find a card with a suitable image and message. After all, would you send the same card to your nan as you would to an old schoolmate? If it was somebody important you hadn’t seen for a while you could also take the time to write a brief personal note.

If you looked at your Christmas cards as an opportunity to maintain relationships, you would certainly take a bit of time to find just the right card and include a personal message.

B2B Marketing – Increasingly Personalised

OK, so what about your on-line marketing? If it consists of firing off a standard email or newsletter to a long list of contacts, isn’t this a bit like stuffing a load of cards into envelopes with no thoughts about who they are going to? What does that do for engagement?

Look through your email marketing list, you’ll soon realise that, just like your Christmas card list, it’s a diverse bunch of contacts. You will have a different history and a different level of engagement with each address on that list. As the aim of your on-line marketing is to move each one through different stages from ‘awareness’, through ‘interest’ and into ‘conversion’. The messages and content they need will be different at each stage.

For content marketing, this means a ‘one message fits all’ approach is not sufficient. The B2B content marketing world is moving closer to individualised content, targeted at people’s specific interests and based on where they are in the process of becoming customers.

B2B Marketing – Jobs for 2013

So for 2013, here are two tasks you should get started on:

1. Analyse your contact list. Make sure it is segmented according to the different areas of your business and to where people are in the sales process.

2. Devise a content plan that builds on your existing awareness-raising activities and has carefully targeted messages and promotions that help to move your contacts to the next stage.

It might be too late for your 2012 Christmas card list, but start now on your on-line marketing and 2013 should be a much more prosperous year.

Richard Hussey

I am the founder of RSH Copywriting. I help businesses to win new customers through good quality, relevant content and effective use of social media and on-line marketing.

 

 

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Do Terms like Content and Inbound Marketing Help or Confuse?

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Marketing confusion Richard Scott via Compfight

Marketing people love inventing new terms for what they do. You could trace the history of marketing just by listing a whole load of terms and arranging them in chronological order. Latest among these you’ll find digital marketing, content marketing, inbound marketing, social media marketing and reputation management.

I often wonder how helpful these terms are to somebody looking for the most cost-effective way to promote their business. Often the implied message is ‘forget what you’ve been doing – this is the way you should be marketing your business now.’ Perhaps it’s more helpful to focus on the fact that it’s still ‘just marketing’ but done in a way that takes advantage of new tools and technology.

Focus on the basics

I sometimes meet business people who have come away with the impression that social media marketing means learning how to use Twitter and LinkedIn, or that content marketing means starting a blog. That approach will probably run out of steam pretty quickly. Why? because these approaches focus on the tools rather than the purpose.

The following definition of comes from businessdictionary.com, and is quite helpful:

‘As a philosophy, marketing is based on thinking about the business in terms of customer needs and their satisfaction. Marketing differs from selling because (in the words of Harvard Business School’s emeritus professor of marketing Theodore C. Levitt) “Selling concerns itself with the tricks and techniques of getting people to exchange their cash for your product. It is not concerned with the values that the exchange is all about. And it does not, as marketing invariably does, view the entire business process as consisting of a tightly integrated effort to discover, create, arouse, and satisfy customer needs.”

Focus on the the last few words: ‘discover, create, arouse and satisfy customer needs.’ That’s what effective marketing has always been about. It’s no different now, except that we have some great tools to help us do the job better.’ (Outraged sales people, please address your comments to Theodore, by the way).

Marketing involves listening

Social media tools help you tune in to what your customers are concerned about, what they need, and the things they value. Social media is not just a way to push out your content and sales messages – it’s also about listening and genuine engagement.

Marketing is all about value

Creating and arousing needs are areas where content is critical. We used to do this (and still do) with brochures, marketing letters, flyers and static websites. We’ve now added blogs, video, email, infographics and on-line discussions to ways that we can make people aware of how what we do could add value to their lives or business. The internet and social networks mean we can reach more people. But without a clear focus on the needs of your customers, none of it works – no matter how often you blog, tweet or post things on LinkedIn.

Meeting Needs

When it comes to meeting needs, what could work better that a good content strategy?   Demonstrating that you can meet your customers’ needs and have done so for similar businesses time and time again. The simple message is that you need to build your content around the things your customers need and care about rather than the things that you do.

OK, on-line marketing does mean learning how to use some new tools effectively. But it’s just as important to keep hold of what you already know how to do: learn what your customers need and show how you met those needs. You also need good, persuasive content, but then you always did. You just need more of it now.

I’m Richard Hussey, Owner of RSH Copywriting. I’m based on the Devon Somerset border. I help businesses use written content to drive growth. Use the Contact tab on the left if you’d like to talk to me about your content marketing needs.

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We Need to Talk About You

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‘We’ and ‘you’, two very small words that make a massive difference to how well your website content connects with your customers.

website copywriting engages readers

Does your website content lock your customers out?

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Have you ever considered how welcoming your website is to visitors? The number of times you use the word ‘you’, as opposed to ‘we’ could be a good indication. Here’s the sort of website content you often see:

‘On-time deliveries, high performance standards and the approach of dealing with every project and every client uniquely puts us above the rest.  We have a highly qualified team with hands on experience in all major web technologies and frameworks and offer solutions for all business requirements. Our custom web application development can automate procedures and improve business efficiency.’

While not terrible, this approach does miss a few opportunities.  Here’s how it might appear when written from a customer’s perspective:

‘Your business needs and challenges are unique.  We work closely with you to ensure your project meets those needs, is delivered on time, and delivers real value and meaningful results to your business. Our experts match your needs to the most appropriate web technologies and frameworks to deliver customised web applications dedicated to improving your business efficiency and results.’ 

This version says much the same thing but with a completely different focus.

Website content should be written for customers, not you

The main difference when you decide to use more ‘you’ and less ‘we’ is that you have to consider everything you write from the reader’s perspective.  It naturally makes you more empathetic with your customers, ensuring that you consider their issues and challenges and find ways to match your services to those needs.

The alternative is that you write all about yourself and leave your potential customers to make the connection to their needs.  Do you take the trouble to do this when reading other companies’ websites?

Does the focus of your website content reflect the focus of your business?

Too much ‘we’ might also give people the impression that you are internally focused. Too wrapped up in your own technology, processes and issues to have much time to focus on what your customers are looking for.

The thing to remember is that website content should be written to engage a specific readership – people or businesses likely to buy from you. If you are proud of what you do, naturally you want to tell people about it. Unfortunately, that’s not what people on the outside want to know about. They want to know how you are going to help them.

So, have a look at your website or blog and see how often you talk about ‘you’, and decide whether you need to talk a little less about ‘we’. If you’re not sure how to change it around there are plenty of professional copywriters who can help. You’ll be amazed at the difference it can make, not just to how your content comes across, but also to the business you get from your website.

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Why Blogging is Good for Business

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There are many reasons why a blog should be an essential feature in your marketing strategy. Here are a few that I have found to be the most important.

blogging builds trustCreative Commons License purplejavatroll via Compfight

Your blog shows how much you know

If you tried to put everything you know and every detail of what you can do into a standard brochure website, you’d end up with a huge site that would be hard to navigate. Blog posts are small focused articles that expand on different aspects of what you do and allow you to go into more detail.  If you use a content management system such as WordPress the content is easily indexed using categories and tags so that people can find what they want. The point here is to show, not just how much you know about your own business, but how much you know about your customers’ business.

A repository of good quality blog posts can also be used to answer customer queries and follow up specific conversations that you might have had at a networking meeting.

Your blog shows how much you care

A well written blog article is not just a publicity puff for your business. To be effective it must contain information that is of value to other people. Often this means giving away a bit of your knowledge for nothing, which can take a bit of getting used to. If you don’t do this there is no value to the reader and no incentive for them to read or share your content.

The fact that you take the time and trouble to understand the challenges that other businesses are facing, and to produce content to help them meet those challenges, says that you care. Sincerity is the key. If you are a business that genuinely cares about what your customers are doing you will probably find it easier to find suitable blog subjects. You can always hire somebody to turn your ideas into engaging copy if that’s not something you’re good at or you lack the time.

Your blog helps you build relationships with future customers

In business, timing can be everything. People don’t always need your services immediately. A well designed blogging strategy will nurture relationships so that you become the natural choice when the time comes to make a purchase decision.  Without useful regular content you could be starting from the back of the grid rather than pole position.

To illustrate, imagine you run a care home. It’s not unusual for old people to be cared for by relatives for some time before going into a home. A care home that is providing you with useful information on caring for the elderly and supporting you through what can be a difficult time is nurturing a relationship. It’s also saying ‘we are concerned that elderly people receive good care, whether they are our residents or not.’ How’s that for a brand value?

None of this is a marketing trick or clever ploy. You are earning people’s trust, and their business, by helping them in a meaningful way.

Your blog makes your web content dynamic

How often do you find that your website content gets out of date and doesn’t fully reflect your business? That’s why I always recommend periodic content reviews on brochure websites to keep things fresh.  When you combine this approach with a blog, you are continuously adding new content, keeping your on-line presence live and dynamic. I talked about the dangers of web content that never changes in this recent post.

Without content that is continuously refreshed you are missing opportunities to let people know about all of the things you can do for them. Also, people make a judgement about companies with web content that is obviously out of date.

And finally, your blog will get you noticed

New blog posts give you a reason to contact people, whether this is through social media or ‘old fashioned’ email, there’s always something new for people to read and hopefully share. If your posts are properly optimised for search engines and you use social media your content will reach a much wider audience than you realise.

And, of course, Google loves content that is continuously updated and it loves content that is shared. Forget page 1 if you don’t have a blogging strategy, need I say more.

So what are you waiting for? Get blogging.

 

Have you used a blog to grow your business?

It would be great to share your experiences of how blogging has helped you grow your business through the comment section below.

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High Value Blogging

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Growth strategies and content marketing plans can sometimes be complex. Often you need a much simpler statement to help you focus on what really matters when you’re making day-to-day decisions. Here’s mine: I focus on giving my customers something they value and then look for more customers and give them something they value also.

content marketing needs direction

Does your content marketing lack direction?

Lori Greig via Compfight

OK, I know the above approach sounds a bit like those trite maxims, loved by business gurus, that you see littered all over Twitter. But focusing in this way helps to guide business development and provide a direction for content marketing.

If you’re lucky or talented enough to have invented a killer product or service, a marketing message should be simple to create.  If I’d invented a car that performs like a Ferrari and runs for a thousand miles on a litre of petrol, I wouldn’t need to think too hard about how I’m going to market it. For most of us it’s a bit more tricky.

Content marketing: focus on value

If you’re stuck for things to blog about, have a think about how you add value to your customers. Write some blog posts about how people can add value to their business or lives by using the things you provide.  So, if I were in the Customer Relationship Management systems business I would be illustrating, in a multitude of ways, how a structured approach to prospecting and communicating with potential clients works much better than an uncoordinated scatter-gun approach, without overtly saying ‘buy my CRM system’ (that’s called advertising).

Content marketing: focus on the future

Thinking about the customers you want to have in the future also helps give you a focus. It clearly makes sense to focus your content creation around the needs of the customers you want to have.

You might also want to centre your content creation around the products and services that you think will be your most profitable lines in the future, rather than now.  How much effort do you want to put into marketing lines that will show gradually decreasing margins?

So, if you want a focus to help you decide what content you should be creating and sharing, think about these 3 questions:

1. What do we do that our customers particularly value, why do they value it?

2. What sort of customers do we want to win, what will they value?

3. Which of our products or services do we most want to promote?

This may sound simple, and I make no apology for that. Working through the detail will still require serious thought. Compare this to the approach you often see, with people jumping onto a blogging and content marketing bandwagon without too much thought of what they want to get from all this activity, other than vague notions of increased profile or unspecified new business opportunities.

Other posts you might find interesting:

Don’t let content marketing suck up all your time.

How content marketing leads to sales

PS. If you want regular, well written content for your marketing activities have a look at my monthly budget plan options HERE

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Fred has a Bash at Content Marketing

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Fred has a business. It’s not huge but it makes him a reasonable living. He has big plans
to grow from his current £400k turnover. He knows marketing is the key to improving market share and targets a new website and content marketing as the way forward. Let’s see how he gets on.

CMS not designing with real data

Latin - great for Ancient Romans - not great for websites

Photo Credit: Juhan Sonin via Compfight

January – commissioning a website

Fred realises that he needs to hire a web designer: ‘I can do most things but I know my limitations.’ A few whiz-bang presentations later he chooses Barney, who he knows will give him a great looking site, content management system and bundles of functionality.

February – website development starts

Barney puts together a detailed project plan and a few design ideas to get things moving. He also asks the question he has been dreading: ‘What about the content – who’s doing that?’

‘Don’t worry’ says Fred. I can take care of that. ‘I can describe what we do and get a few testimonials, no problem. Anyway, by the time I’ve briefed somebody else I might as well do it myself.’

‘Hmm’ says Barney.

March – now, about that content marketing idea

Fred has told Betty, one of the sales staff, that she’s going to write blog posts (she usually has an odd half-hour free every week), and needs to learn about Twitter. ‘Oh and get yourself some more LinkedIN connections, pronto – we’re going to need those.’

Barney reports that most of the site is built and asks how the content is coming on.

April – the website is built

Fred is very happy with how the new site looks. ‘I’m a bit busy this week, but I can knock the words out for you by the end of next week.’

‘Hmm’ says Barney.

May – Betty does her first blog post

Betty is a great salesperson and loves meeting customers face-to-face. Great at building relationships and closing deals. She hates writing. Eventually she forces herself to put aside a couple of hours to write the first post for the blog. It’s all about the company and the great things they do. It’s tweeted and posted on LinkedIN. Nobody reads it.

June – still no website content

Fred: ‘By the end of the month – I promise.’ ‘OK’ says Barney. ‘And don’t forget to include those keywords we discussed.’

Betty has a major proposal to write for Wilma, a regular and valued customer. So no time to write a blog post this month, ‘phew!’

July – the web content arrives!

Fred made sure he got this done before he went on holiday – the night before in fact. ‘I put plenty of those keywords in – hope I didn’t overdo it.’

August – the website goes live

Barney had to edit the content a bit as the keyword density was about 10% and he knows that Google won’t like that. He doesn’t think the rest of the content is very strong and is concerned that this will make the site less effective.

‘Don’t worry’ says Fred. ‘Just get the site up – we can tweak the words later using that content management system.’

‘Hmm’ says Barney.

September – back to the content marketing

Not having enough time to write blog posts, Betty is concentrating on tweeting to raise the company profile and build relationships, tweeting about all sorts of things. The weather, where she’s going for the weekend, the pedestrianisation of Exeter Fore Street – fascinating stuff.

December – time to review progress

There have been a few more hits on the website – mainly out of curiosity following emails and letters to existing contacts. There are 200 Twitter followers – mostly people who feel strongly about pedestrianisation in Exeter.

Increased sales £0

Staff time cost: £4000

Web design cost: £1500

Net effect -£5500

‘What a failure’  says Fred. ‘Thank heavens we didn’t waste even more money on a copywriter or somebody to look after the content marketing’.

‘Hmm’ says Barney.

And Finally…  there is another way

If you prefer an approach to content writing and content marketing that will bring results look at my cost-effective solutions HERE, spread the set-up costs over the first year. Complete the contact form by clicking the tab on the left or call me on 01823 674167

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Content Marketing is a Waste of Time

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content marketing

Time flies when you are on social media

Seductive thought isn’t it? Knock out a few blog posts, tweet a couple of times a day, garner as many LinkedIn connections as possible and, before you know it, you’re inundated with people wanting your services. Hopefully your approach to content marketing is a little more structured than this, otherwise your efforts really will be a waste of time.

Email was supposed to save us hours every week – before it became a monster that consumed vast chunks of our working, and personal, time. Social media could turn out to be even worse, which means that content marketing without planning, structure and great content could turn into the biggest waste of time ever.

Just be be clear, I love content marketing. It really does have the potential to transform the way you promote your business and build sustainable relationships with customers. The critical thing is not just to do it, but to do it well.

Now some good news

The good news for SMEs is that effective content marketing is achievable and doesn’t need a ‘big agency’ approach or budget.

Fundamentally you need the following:

  • A strong set of brand values.
  • An understanding of your customers’ needs, challenges and interests
  • Knowledge of the channels and social media tools that your customers prefer
  • The ability to produce interesting and useful content
  • Somewhere to store your content and methods to get it to the right people

I put the bit about content in bold for a reason. The quality of the content is the cornerstone of everything that you do. Arguably, it is also the most challenging bit to get right and might be the area to focus your budget on.

Your Content Marketing Plan

The main elements of your plan will be the following:

1. Research. 

Why do you customers buy from you? This is not always as obvious as you think. Sometimes customers’ purchasing motivations are quite different to what sellers imagine they are. Make sure the intelligence from sales staff and existing customers is fed into your content so that you are addressing the issues that make the most impact.

How will potential customers find it easiest to access your content? Are they on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter, or do they prefer other tools? Will you need to email or post information directly? Probably you will need a mix of channels. You also need to think carefully about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to make sure potential customers can find you.

2. Media Selection

The media you use will be determined by what you need to say and how customers prefer to receive the information. You might need a brochure website (your existing one might not be appropriate), you will almost certainly need a blog. For some businesses or subjects videos and animations will be effective, for others it will be written content.

3. Establishing an on-line presence

Social media tools offer massive opportunities for organisations wishing to reach a wider audience and reinforce other relationship building activities such as networking. Your plan needs to be clear about the tools you will use and who in your organisation will be responsible for maintaining your presence on different platforms. Make it a priority to make it easy for people to share your content by including social sharing buttons.

4. Content

The most important part. As more companies adopt a content marketing approach, it is the quality of the content that will determine who is successful. Content needs to be frequent, relevant and well produced. Excellent copywriting is critical. Have a look at my copywriting services if this is the area where you need most help. Effective copywriting is not necessarily about perfect grammar – it is about communicating a clear and relevant message.

5. Measurement and Feedback

Like any other effective marketing programme you need to measure what works best, experiment with different messages and continuously refine your approach to get the best possible return from your effort and budget. Your plan needs to include the use of on-line and off-line analysis. You might consider using specialist content marketing tools if you are managing a lot of content and a lot of channels.

Time is a vital commodity in any business. For smaller businesses it is probably the most critical commodity of all. If you’d like an informal discussion to see how I can help you use time efficiently and deliver results through a structured approach to content marketing, get in touch using the contact tab on this page.

More information from RSH Copywriting you might find helpful:

Selling through content marketing and social media 

Getting the right sales message in your content 

Copywriting tips for effective blogging 

 

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Make Selling Easier Through Content Marketing and Social Media

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Content MarketingAre you unclear about what content marketing or inbound marketing mean? Are you wondering what a social media strategy looks like?  Think of them in terms of what you already know about a fairly classical sales process, and you’ll see that you’re better placed than you think to harness these emerging techniques.

Sales Process 1: Get noticed

Any business needs a way to be found by potential customers. Historically this would be through networking, advertising, trade shows etc. Don’t stop doing these if they are working for you. Social Media tools like LinkedIn, Twitter etc offer more opportunities to get noticed and to build relationships that could lead to a sale. Joining the right on-line groups and monitoring Twitter hashtags that relate to your industry are great ways to build awareness of what you do.

Be careful to observe etiquette and understand that people are resistant to tweets that are overtly trying to sell. Think of it like being at a trade show. When somebody comes on to your stand you normally have a conversation about what they do and what you do. You don’t start selling the second you meet them.

Get known through your marketing content

Rich content is increasingly important for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), which will also get you noticed if you have a clear understanding of how potential customers will search for you. Creating new content and pushing this out through social media keeps you in people’s minds and builds your credibility (if your content is good and relevant, that is).

Also, if your content is useful, people may want to share it with other people in their industry. This is the ideal scenario as others are effectively marketing what you do. Get this right and potential customers will be contacting you rather than the other way round.

If you’re blogging on WordPress install the All in One SEO plug-in to make sure you get found by anyone looking for information on your chosen blog topics. Make it easy for people to share your content by using one of the many plug-ins, such as Shareaholic, which automatically adds email and social sharing buttons to your posts.

Sales Process 2: Qualification

A potential customer has become aware that you offer something of interest. They then want a bit more information about your business to be sure that you’re really worth talking to. Who have you worked with? What’s your service like? Do you really know what you are talking about? Here’s where content-based marketing offers big advantages. How many face-to-face meetings has it traditionally taken to establish your credibility? Build a relationship through providing useful, relevant content through blogs, emails, video blogs or an ‘old fashioned’ brochure website – whatever media your customers prefer. What you’re saying is ‘I understand your business, I want to help you, and I am capable of helping you’.

It’s not enough for you to say that you are qualified, the customer has to agree that you are, which means you have to write content with them in mind.The more content you have that reinforces this message the better. Remember though, this is all about what interests your customer, not what interests you.

Sales Process 3:  Needs

At some stage you need a conversation to show that you understand and can meet the specific needs of a customer. A good content strategy will ensure that the more general issues are already dealt with; you’ve helped similar organisations with similar issues and already answered several queries through your rich content. The aim of a content marketing strategy is to make customers as sales ready as possible – but avoid consciously trying to sell too early on.

Think of this stage as the preliminary meetings that you usually have. Normally you’re trying to find out what the customer wants to achieve and describing how your products, skills or experience can meet those needs. A good content strategy will cut down the number of those meetings you will need.

Sales Process 4: Closing

Closing a deal is probably not something you will be doing through social media or through your blog. Effective content marketing, however, should reduce the time and effort needed to finalise the sale. Because customers will have greater confidence in your capabilities they should be able to move more quickly to a position where they are able to sign on the dotted line.

Hopefully, thinking about content marketing and social media in terms of the sales process will focus your efforts and direct the content you create. If you want some help with this I would be happy to hear from you – use the ‘Contact’ tab on the left or go to my main website to get in touch

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The More Your Website Content Pleases You – the Less Effective it Could Be

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Who decides what goes in your website content? You? A select group of senior managers? Delegating the content to a small, focused group of decision makers is great for consistency and efficiency. And possibly the worst decision you could make.

Let me explain.

The purpose of your website is to communicate with the outside world. Write it to please yourself and you’re missing the point. Worse still, you’re probably missing countless sales opportunities too. The people who really understand what needs to be in your website content are your customers – and the staff who are dealing directly with them.

I was recently looking at the website of a company selling telephone and communications systems. The content was clear and gave all the information you could ever want on the capabilities and specifications of the systems they were selling. But I’m willing to bet that such things are not the main reasons why customers choose one service provider over another – particularly when there are dozens of providers who could meet their technical requirements.

Website content is for customers

I’m convinced that a bit of research with existing customers would yield a different story and a different message for the website content. If you understood the critical factors that made your customers choose you over a competitor – wouldn’t you want to emphasize those for anyone else that looks at your site?

And what about your sales team? Every sale - particularly solution sales like IT and  telecoms, will have some critical decision points during the process. Taking the time to analyse and document these before chasing the next sale provides a rich seam of persuasive website and marketing copy. How often does this happen? Yet a relatively simple debriefing process could be all it takes.

One argument for hiring a freelancer to write your web content is that they come to the project with no preconceived ideas about your business. It’s often easier for an external, impartial professional to get to the heart of why people really choose to do business with you.

Good marketing is specific

Say you were looking for an accountant to look after your tax returns. Most of them say ‘we save our clients money by ensuring they claim all their available allowances.’ Another says: ‘On average we save our clients £457 on their tax bill by identifying allowances they didn’t realise they could claim.’

The second is clearly more persuasive. The actual figure is irrelevant (but must be true, obviously). The fact that a specific figure can be quoted adds weight to the claim and differentiates you from the mass of companies making similar claims.

If your product or service saves customers money, find out how much they have saved and make sure you tell anyone else who might be considering doing business with you. Perhaps what you sell is more expensive than your competitors – people may still buy from you because you provide better overall value. If so, talk to your customers to understand fully what ‘value’ really means to them and build your website content around that message.

A final thought;  phone a couple of recent customers today (or get me to do it for you) and ask them to give a couple of specific reasons why they did business with you. The difference between what they tell you and the message that you are giving on your website is a measure of the opportunity you are missing.

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