Why You May Be Spending More on Marketing and Getting Less
Traditional marketing has grown ineffective. Businesses are spending more on marketing and getting less value in return. Unless your business adopts a different approach to marketing, you probably won’t be around for long.
Traditional in this context doesn’t mean traditional marketing platforms like newspapers and television. It is possible to be using YouTube and blogs to market in the traditional way.
Traditional marketing focuses on the marketer. So, if your company sells shoes, you come telling us how good your shoes are and how great your company is. You will most probably have gotten our attention by rudely interrupting an interesting video on YouTube.
Consumers are fed up with that approach. It has become a nuisance, which is why customers can’t wait to skip ads on YouTube. It is also why most searchers on Google will ignore the advertised websites and go straight to the websites that naturally rank first.
There’s Only One Way to Go When Marketing: Focus On the Consumer
There’s a better approach to marketing, one that is focused on the consumer.
The moment you decide on a customer-centered approach to marketing, you are immediately forced to consider the question: Who is my customer? This is because you can’t target someone if you don’t know who they are.
In the process of knowing your customer, you’ll learn about what interests your consumers, what they care about and which problems they face. That is the first requirement if you’re to connect with your audience and be relevant to them.
Once you’ve learned about your audience, the next step is to align your business goals with their interests and concerns. For example, by actively focusing on their consumers, Netflix learned that quite a number of people fall asleep when binge-watching their movies. They came up with a product based on that: Netflix socks. The socks notice when you fall asleep and pause the movie for you.
Now that you know your audience, you can attempt to market to them in a smart, cost effective and sustainable way: Content Marketing.
Content Marketing Effortlessly Attracts Strangers To Your Business
Want to cut through all the noise and be listened to by your target customer? Simply provide content that is of value to them. Such value can be in form of entertainment, education or solutions to their problems.
For example, at the advent of YouTube, there was a series called, “Will It Blend?” The series host would take anything, including keys, stones and an apple phone and attempt to blend it. YouTubers would see someone attempting something strange with a blender and would instantly click on the video to see what happened.
To date, the “Will It Blend” series has over 500 million views across platforms. It was a massive marketing success for a company called BlendTec. Their sales grew 1000%!!!
What is even better is that they didn’t use any money. They simply took videos and uploaded them on their YouTube channel.
Your content marketing strategy may not get to 500 million views but it will definitely attract a lot of people to your business in a cost-effective way.
Don’t Sell To People Who Are Not Ready – Nurture Them With Content
As a business, once you’ve gotten people’s attention, it’s natural to want to sell to them. But selling to everyone you are in contact with is usually a mistake because not everyone is ready to buy.
Your audience at any one time will always be divided into 3 stages:
- Awareness stage – These people are still trying to make sense of their problem
- Consideration stage – These ones are figuring out the best solution and weighing options
- Decision making stage – These ones have already made the decision to buy
To keep all 3 groups engaged, you should ensure your content caters for each.
For example, if you sell cars you can cater for awareness stage followers by publishing a video series of what to look for when buying cars. The aim is to nurture such potential customers by continuing to provide them with valuable content. This builds trust and when they’re finally ready to buy, they’ll buy from you.
Even After They’ve Bought From You – Continue Delighting Your Customers With Valuable Content
You can be tempted not to spend as much time and effort on people who’ve already bought from you. However, these can be a great asset. Delighted customers will be a never drying spring of new business. They’ll pull their friends, family and anyone else they can to you.
Often, all you need to delight customers is great content. You can educate them, solve their problems or entertain them. It can be as simple as a guide to your product or a blog series that focuses on answering questions that users of your product raise.
Problem-Solving Beats Selling Any Day
If your business can be the best at solving your customers’ problems through content, then you really don’t need any other form of marketing. Content marketing is so successful – remember the 500 million views – because it places problem solving and value to the audience at the center of marketing efforts.
Follow me as we explore the beautiful world of content marketing. For a free content marketing strategy consultation, click on the following link. You will answer 5 questions that will help me understand your business and come up with a customized strategy.
