Are you still trying old ways of advertising and promoting your business? If so, how does that work for you? Up until recently we were talking about the Rule of Seven, which meant that it took a potential buyer about 7 times to see or hear about a product before they decided to buy. More recent statistics, however, have shown that it now takes 10.4 exposures to a product for the average consumer to make a buying decision. Seven times was tough enough, but now with over ten, it means that you’d better find a good solid way of being in your potential customer’s face over and over to have a chance at making a sale. Now that doesn’t sound very exciting, does it?
Well, don’t worry, there is a much better way to position yourself in front of your market over and over, so not only they will buy from you, but they most likely will do it again and again and even send you referrals.
Going Beyond Basic Advertising
You can’t just expect to promote your business here and there and be done with it. At least not anymore. Marketing is an ongoing process, and while it can certainly be free money wise, it will cost you time and dedication. Today, we are bombarded by more and more advertisement every day, so for the most part, we have created our own blinders when it comes to promotional messages. So, if all you did was advertising your product without any special treats for your potential buyer, you would just be an extra advertising message on the web that no one cares about. Even if someone was eventually interested in your product or service, they’ll have no reason to trust you yet. That’s why marketing is an ongoing process and it goes like this…You need to appeal to your market. You need to go the extra mile by building a relationship with your potential buyer/customer.
Build Relationships With Your Potential Customers To Grow Your Business
One of the best ways to build relationships with your target market is by creating engaging and valuable content to inform and educate your potential customers. This process is better known as blogging or content marketing. If you manage to create such content on a regular basis on your business blog, you will be able to build a following of potential buyers who will come to know, like and trust you. In time, they will become your hot target market and be willing not only to buy from you, but refer other customers to you as well. Do not under estimate referrals, because chances are that referrals will count for over 50% of your business as time goes on.
How To Create Powerful Content That Your Target Market Will Love
There are really only two main things to remember when creating content.
1-You need to know exactly what business you’re in.
2-You need to know what your market wants.
What does it mean to know what business you’re in?
It means that you should be able to enunciate what your product or services accomplishes for your market, in just a few words. For example, if someone were to ask you about what you do, you would need to be able to tell them what your service or product is all about in just a sentence or two. That’s what we call “the elevator pitch.”
Let’s say you own a gym. What business are you in, and what do your customers really want? Now if you own a gym, you’re not in the gym business, you’re in the weight loss and health business and your customer really wants to feel better, healthier, and slimmer.
Let’s say you own a restaurant. What business are you in, and what do your customers really want? You’re not in the restaurant business, you’re in the business of creating a wonderful dining experience for your customers. That’s what they want.
Let’s say you own a SPA. What business are you in and what do you customers really wants? You’re not in the SPA business, you’re in the business of making people feel good, relaxed, and free from stress with renewed energy. That’s why your customer goes to your SPA.
This is the difference between what your business is called and what business you’re in. The point to understand here is that the business you’re in is defined by what you give to your customers as a result of them buying from you. Spending some time figuring out what business you’re really in, and what your potential customer really wants, will help you create specific content that will be a strong link between your business and people who need your products or services.
Remember that what your market wants is NOT ALWAYS what you think they want.
What does this mean? It means that people don’t want a drill, they want a hole. People who read weight loss blogs, don’t want diet recipes, they want to lose weight. People who read blogs about blogging, don’t want to learn how to blog, they want to attract more traffic and customers to buy from them.People don’t want “tips” on anything. They want results. All you need to remember when you write for your business blog or anywhere else, is included in that sentence. Your job is to figure out what your market really wants. Once you do, you need to create value in your content while not giving your service or product away.
How To Create Value In Your Content While Not Giving Your Service Away
Of course, you don’t want to give away all your secrets in your writing, because you want people who need and want what you have to purchase it from you, right? So, what do you do? You learn to balance value and want. You create valuable content that shows your target market that you have the solution they are looking for, but you do not reveal all your secrets. Just like a food stand might hand you some samples for you to taste for free, but you would have to buy the product in order to enjoy a full serving of it. So, as a business owner who wants to promote his products or services through a blog, you give your readers tasty sample sizes of what you have, while inviting them to get a full size portion as a paying customer or client.
No matter what product or service you are selling, you need to define what business you’re in, and what you do and provide for your customers. Then, you need to learn to create content that will show your target market that you have what they need. If you manage to do this well, the results that you will get could be quite amazing.
This article was syndicated from Business 2 Community: How Understanding Content Marketing Will Get You More Business
More Sales & Marketing articles from Business 2 Community:
- The Importance of Marketing in Annual Planning
- The Power of Imagery in Content Marketing
- 4 Magic Customer Service Phrases (All in 4 Words or Less)
- Top 7 SEO Tools to Boost Your Content Marketing
- Getting the Most from Your Media Relationships
