Treat Content as a Branding Tactic — First, Marketing Tactic — Second
The secret to winning the content game isn’t quantity but intention, especially for small businesses. The need to produce content in branding and marketing has grown as today is more about being found—earning attention—and less about going out and hunting. If you’re interested in branding and marketing your business effectively (and who isn’t at this point), you can’t escape hearing about content. It’s everywhere you look, or listen.
Content for a small business is educating people (with free information) so that they know, like, and trust you enough to do business with you. The best way to produce content that achieves business objectives is to have it focus on two core things and in this order:
- brand positioning
- problems and desires of prospects and customers
It’s all about branding your business as the go-to resource for ideal customers and delivering independent value with content before you attempt to make the sale.
The Framework is Simple:
Don’t focus on making the sale or generating leads. But do focus on positioning your company as the ONLY solution for your ideal customers.
NOW, I DO use content as an SEO tactic sometimes, especially with local clients.
BUT as a tactical element for creating engaging, helpful content that resonates with ideal customers.
Experience tells me that for some of you this is going to be a challenge because content must be created for every aspect of the customer journey by matching different kinds of content with the customer life cycle.
You Must Build Loyalty and Create Relationships With Information
The Internet has disrupted the traditional sales process, allowing prospective customers or clients to begin research on their own terms via search and social media. This means savvy business owners or marketers must adapt to the information-empowered prospect in a fashion that more resembles courting than it does selling.
The Brochure Car Salesperson
Recently, I was talking to someone in the market for a pick-up truck, who was very disappointed that he knew more about this specific vehicle than the sales rep. And for him to buy, he wanted a sales rep that had deep knowledge of this specific vehicle, not a brochure-reader. (This reminds me why—even as a car salesman you should be a meaningful specific rather than a wondering generality.)
When car buyers come into auto dealerships knowing more about the vehicles than the salespeople because of information on the internet. That creates a new dynamic because then the buyer is in control of the shopping process.
Which ultimately means, then the role of the salesperson shifts entirely. And the whole auto dealership industry is one that’s living through this “relationships created by information” revolution.
4 Important Components to Build Loyalty and Relationships With Information:
- Create a Blog. Blogging is about creating, writing, recording and/or contributing information of value to your niche market (a segment of mainstream). Blogs position you as the expert. Blogs communicate ideas, expertise, news and announcements. Blogs allow for relationship-building and one-to-one relationships.
- Understand your prospects and customers. Know their pain points, dreams, and desires. How can you create a relationship with someone you don’t understand?
- Avoid routine common sense. You won’t win loyalty with your breathtaking grasp of the obvious.
- Educate, and inform before you sell. Educate your prospects, inform them, and help solve their problems. Become a trusted source of information and those prospects will more readily buy from you.
- Have a clear call to action. Tell your prospects exactly what you expect them to do next, and remind them why it’s in their best interest to buy, click or subscribe.
You must establish positioning, trust, provide expert advice, and dish up the insights they crave.
Contact Your Marketing Consultant at Indispensable Marketing
If you’re a small service based business that needs help with developing content in a strategic manner or your business’s online presence on Google and other search engines, at Indispensable Marketing we can help. We offer marketing strategy consulting, marketing audits, monthly marketing packages, consultations, exploratory calls or monthly local SEO services. Contact us for more information.
Indispensable Marketing takes a process approach to developing and installing your small business marketing.