There’s a trick to content marketing that, if you get it right, draws buyers into your brand and makes them want to buy what you have to offer. The key is, you’re not pushing the hard sell. Rather, you’re bringing them to your company, teaching them about your brand, and encouraging them to buy because what you have to offer is best for their needs. Content marketing is about the inbound strategy – bringing buyers to your product. How do you make it happen?
Build a Brand
Every content marketing strategy relies on your brand, and it helps to reinforce it as well. Your brand is what customers think about you and know about your product. You want them to think of your company whenever they need what you are selling. Building a brand isn’t about selling anything to the customer. Rather, it’s about educating them, supporting their needs, and creating engagement opportunities.
Content can help you to do this in a variety of ways.
- Creating effective social media posts for your Facebook account can help you to get your business in front of your target audience. If your target audience is a professional or a company, use LinkedIn. On the other hand, if you are looking to grab the attention of millennials, your focus should be on Instagram and Twitter.
- Build blogs that offer insight and detail. Creating content is about building something new and interesting. Sharing that brand-new thought or interesting concept is what’s going to get people to read your blog. If you’re sharing a top 10 list of why your product is going to benefit them, they likely aren’t interested.
- Engage directly with your target customer. You can do this on social media by responding to their questions and concerns. You can also build an email list and use content to reach your customers after they visit your site.
These examples all show how content can help you create your brand. Are you selling right now and building your brand through your content or making content strategy mistakes?
Showcase the Benefits
Another important way to reach your audience with inbound marketing is to show them the difference. Most businesses have dozens of competitors. It’s easy to fall into place with all of those other companies and offer the same thing. Why should someone invest their time and money into your product, then?
- Create videos that help to showcase your product. Be sure that your product is clearly showcased. Share those videos heavily.
- Create a fun and even playful conversation with the competition on Twitter. Get their customers to see what makes you different.
- Provide proof, evidence of some sort, or clear data that shows your point. It’s not about the sell, though. Instead, build up your brand by talking about what makes it the customer’s best choice.
When you take these steps, chances are good you are going to develop a better relationship with your clients and customers. They learn about your product by seeing why it is unique. Sometimes, the product is the same, but the quality of the service is better. The character and integrity of the company may be different. Determine what your differentiating factor is and then use it.
Educate Instead of Sell
In every piece of content you create, provide something of value. A sly video or fun pun is a great way to get attention, but when it comes to content marketing, go for the value. It’s important to value your customers’ time. You can do that by providing insight and information to them through your content.
- Teach them about their problem. Why does it happen? Why doesn’t it go away?
- Tell them about the product and why it works. Perhaps get into the science of it.
- Demonstrate the value. At the end of the day, your content needs to show people your product solves their problem.
Find Your Content Strategy in Inbound Marketing
It’s clear the inbound marketing, or attracting leads to your business, is the route to take. With the right content writer, you’ll pull in the engagement your company needs not just to sell a product but to build your brand. Every interaction is an opportunity. Make it worth it to the customer.
Sandy B is a full-time, professional freelance writer and copywriter with more than 10 years of online experience. She is also a published author of seven, top-reviewed, in-print books on Amazon. These focus on financial topics such as retirement planning, bankruptcy, business finance, estate planning, and personal credit health as well as organic gardening and clean living. She’s ghostwritten content for hundreds of clients on topics ranging from health to finance, business services, online and offline marketing and much more.
