It all starts with your content
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In this day and age, it’s rare to even think about buying something without doing a little online research. It’s become a natural part of the purchasing process, for things big and small, because who wants to get a bad price or have buyer’s remorse? If a customer is buying a new pair of running shoes, they will go online to see the features, specs, and reviews before clicking “buy.” If they are looking for a new laptop, they will most likely check out reviews on top tech websites, or even better, go look at the laptops in a brick-and-mortar store and then find the best price online. When it comes to business, marketing, and software services, the buying process isn’t so different. With a wealth of information out there on the web, why would you make any purchase without being well-informed? You wouldn’t.
So, if you know that your prospects are doing their own research and forming their own opinions before you even get a chance to email or speak with them, how do you engage and put yourself ahead of the pack? It starts with your content. It has to be out there working for you all of the time. Your customers or prospects are definitely doing their own research and surveying the competition before ever contacting you or clicking that “learn more” button. By that time, they are probably pretty closing to making up their minds. With that being said, your options for engaging that prospect before that point are fairly limited. You can’t email them or call them on the phone, but what you can do is give them the content they need to make a well-informed decision, hopefully leading them back to you instead of your competitors. If not, so be it, at least they saw what you had to offer. That’s a better scenario than that prospect passing you by because of a dearth of content on your company’s site. It’s time to give in to the fact that your prospect wants to be almost sure of their decision before ever speaking to a representative. Give them the content they need to do so.
Let your content do the talking – Is there enough content on your website? What does it say about you? Think about the customer and what kind of content they want to see to help them make an informed purchase. Look at your competitor’s sites and see what kind of information they are putting out there. You may not want to give away all your secrets, but put enough out there to give prospects a good idea of what you are all about and what kind of services you offer. Fact sheets, case studies, and blog posts that demonstrate thought-leadership in your area of expertise are a good place to start. If you’re not sure what kind of content to create, start with listing out your customers biggest pain point and business problems. Consider what you would want each prospect to know if you could, in fact, talk to them. Write blog posts or e-books about those subjects to make sure they are in the loop.
Put your content out there – your content is your best shot at engaging with a prospect before they narrow down the field, make sure that content is visible. Don’t hide it in a back page of your website. Put it out there and make it easily accessible or even downloadable. Integrate your blog into your main website so that with one click a prospect can read several posts that help them understand your brand and your purpose. Stay active on social media, too. If you are distributing your content to multiple channels every day, your prospect is more likely to see that content and keep you top-of-mind. The more visible your brand is, the more likely that prospect will keep you in the running and eventually click to contact you.
If you’ve done a good job with your content, your prospect will have a lot of knowledge about what you offer by the time they make the decision to become a customer. That means they will be making an educated decision and will be a lot less likely to have buyer’s remorse or be surprised when they find out exactly what you do. An informed customer is a happy one, so let your brand content do the work for you.
– Kelly