The contemporary business world is competitive. Businesses today are fearful of exhausting their consumer bases. The era of marketing technology means that companies today have many options to reach end-users.
Modern forms of business today are lucky to have various options available to explore different spectrums. However, businesses guilty of not choosing the right channel of communications often don’t succeed in attracting customers. This is where the problem lies for fledgling businesses. In this article we will discuss 6 Marketing Tips that will help you and your business.
Businesses focus on understanding the needs of the customers and the target audience. Doing so allows them to create content that will attract the customers’ attention, eventually fulfilling their needs. Producing and churning out mediocre content is the biggest let-down for all consumers.
In addition to attracting new customers, using creative content to pitch special offers also helps in avoiding the reduction in the current customer base. Good quality content marketing will help you in sustaining the success you have earned from a neighborhood. Therefore, the only way to maximize sales and ensure that there is no drop in the number is content marketing.
Given the nature of marketing, it is imperative to understand why the tool is an efficient way to outreach and improve the overall sales and profits in your business. The following are the two main ways for understanding the significance of the tool
1. Assistance over Force
A standard method employed by businesses is to provide customer’s benefits and praising your own product. Keeping in mind the modern trends and styles, the strategy is both flawed and outdated.
Customers today have your attention when you apply subtle means of persuasion. Offering discounts and lower prices will not work their magic on today’s customers. Rather than using this outdated method, it is better to create a need for the product. Creating content that emphasizes and highlights the common problems users face establishes the need for the product.
Whether it is through blog posts, case studies, or podcasts, reliable content for the average customer is the need of the hour today.
2. Multiple Media
With many interactive platforms available today, it is foolish for a business not to use them. Businesses that don’t invest in creating interactive content for potential buyers using these platforms are bound to fail.
Using different media channels to reach the customer is integral to the success of the business. When providing customers with important information about the business, don’t push too much content with basic functions of the business.
Since different demographics are present on major social media platforms, using compelling content marketing is the key to the success of your business.
Now that you are aware of the significance of content marketing, the following are some of the methods you can use to generate more consumer interest using the tool.
3. Extensive Market Research
Like all other business decisions, the strategy of using content marketing should be backed by thorough research. Like all successful entrepreneurs, smart decisions are based on in-depth market analysis.
Finding commercial keywords is the result of conducting extensive market research. Market research lays the foundations for the success of your business.
With users looking for answers to their day-to-day problems on Google, the key to finding more leads is the use of search keywords.
With the biggest search engine and the search priorities of many users at your disposal, you can find out the keywords that will assist you in attracting more customers.
Conducting extensive market research will allow you to create landing pages with high conversion rates. Before doing so, have a set purpose for your website and plan the information that you want to present. Creating a compelling headline and giving a strong, captivating opening are the few essentials required to keep the readers hooked to your landing page.
Conducting market research and making an effort to connect with the customer demands will allow you to create gripping content on your landing page.
Another factor that owes to market research is the pace of the landing page. If the load time of your landing page is slow, you are bound to lose readers.
4. Lead Bait
The next thing that you need to cater to is the creation of lead bait. For those who are not aware of the terminology yet, lead bait is the method used to draw unsuspecting buyers into giving up their contact information on the web form.
All settled businesses that are well aware of content marketing will vouch for the fact that emails trump social media marketing. Emailing the users of special discounts and packages is generally more successful because it gives users the notion of significance.
Regardless of likes and dislikes, personalized emails and messages are bound to have an impact on the user. Let’s be honest here: at the end of the day, we all like to feel important. Now emailing customers and using the medium of digital mail does not mean that you should completely ignore your social media presence. You should find the right balance and, more importantly, find a target audience that will bring lead generation.
The key to creating successful lead bait is being aware of your target audience’s preferences, behaviors, likes, and dislikes. Find out what is attractive to your target audience and focus on that in your promotional efforts. This means not just generating content that caters to the audience’s tastes but also promoting it on platforms that the audience prefers.
For example, let’s assume your target audience is truck drivers and importers. Creating videos and e-books for such an audience is a waste of time because the users are away from home, driving most of the time. This audience doesn’t have the time to sit back and read articles and blogs. Making podcasts or audiobooks is your best bet to get their attention.
Another key to ensuring that you get the lead bait is by writing more case studies. Writing uninspired blog posts will never get the response you want from the reader. On the contrary, writing about how the vision of your business and the skill of your employees helped a client in solving the problem they faced will help in generating more trust in the reader.
If case studies help in pulling the strings of the users, then they can be the sole factor for the improvement of sales and attracting more leads.
Another thing that is the talk of the town today is the use of interactive visual assets when creating a case study. Using photos, memes, videos, and gifs is a great way of keeping the audience interested in your case study.
Regardless of how successful the other ways you employ for lead generation are the hallmark of lead generation is an attraction. Developing an interest and an attraction results in the users clicking on the case study and consequently on the lead bait. This is where the whitepaper comes in handy.
Another term that you may not be aware of, whitepapers are documents used by sales and marketing with the object of enticing the user to purchase a particular product, service, technology, or methodology.
Ensure that the whitepaper is catchy, enticing, and audience-specific; this will attract the attention of the user. Make the pages of the whitepaper engaging because this is where you will gain the attention of the audience.
The key to making the whitepaper engaging is to sync and deliver the right message to the readers. You also need to be wary of not converting the whitepaper into a bald sales pitch. Educate the users while ensuring that the whitepaper is persuasive; this will hold the audience’s attention.
5. Content Creation
All of the hard work done before the main exercise will fall flat if the content you churn out is poor. All factors that lead the target audience to this point are part of content marketing. However, the content you create is the cornerstone of converting the target audience into loyal customers.
The market research conducted in the initial stages of content marketing will help you identify the content users want.
After analyzing the results of market research, there are two ways to go about creating content. The first is to rely on intuition, and using the results of the market research to predict the kind of content that users will appreciate. The other route is to use existing data; this will help you to find out the content that the users are reading currently. A web page that attracts the most views is an indication of the interests of the customers.
A crucial part of content creation is content headlines. Many existing successful online pages make great use of the headlines. Use Google for inspiration when writing headlines that can compete with other content on the internet.
Headlines may get you clicks but for meaningful results, write and create in-depth content. This is one of the biggest challenges faced by businesses.
Regardless of the business type, it is necessary to have a clear outline for content creation that you can follow. It can be challenging to gain the interest of the user for a detailed article. However, given the fact that Google ranks specific and data-driven content higher, it is imperative to do so.
To get the best results out of content marketing, many businesses today are investing heavily on a content team. It is very normal for a business to run out of ideas for quality content. This creates the risk of content drying out which consequently leads to a massive drop in sales.
This is where a business needs the assistance of a content team. The ability of these teams to explore different options will surprise you. You can create a team that comprises of freelancers, full-time employees, writers, designers, and filmmakers that will offer their expertise to the business in one way or another.
6. Consistency
Businesses often make the mistake of considering content marketing as a one-time strategy. Mere presence on social media is not enough to get the customers flowing. Customers like consistency!
Like all other functions of business, consistency in decision-making is the key to ensuring success. Keep track of the traffic on your social media and blog posts daily. Content marketing is not an annual or monthly job; it is an engagement practice that needs daily attention and looking after.
The trouble with long-term strategy is that businesses start feeling the pressure of investment. Yes! There will be times when it will feel that the investment is going to waste since it is not yielding enough clicks or views. However, it is at times like these that you need to stay true to your identity and remain confident of the potential that you and your team have.
Remember! Potential customers will only begin to accept the regularity of content once it is delivered by your business. Therefore, keep looking for new ideas and conducting market research with patience.
Starting a blog is simple; the challenging part, however, is building an audience that trusts you. With the information overload and noise on social media for generating more leads, you need to focus more on the needs of your target audience.
If implemented appropriately and consistently, these 4 steps will create leads for your business via relevant, meaningful content.
Chris Giorgio is the President of Fully Accountable. Fully Accountable is an outsourced accounting firm specializing in eCommerce and digital businesses. Chris has served as a CPA, CFO and has over 14 years of experience in the accounting and finance industry. Chris has dedicated his career towards helping entrepreneurs and high-level business owners achieve greater profitability through specialized outsource accounting functions.
