How Content Marketing Prepares Buyers to Sign On The Line

April 21, 2014 by

www.jeffkorhan.com

Need a reason to embrace content marketing?

People tend to fear what they do not understand.

Therefore, they are unlikely to work with your business if they do not understand your process for helping them.

Your current customers are your customers because you have earned they trust. They know, like, and understand you and your business.

The others are simply not ready to step forward because they have doubts that are holding them back. Your content marketing can remove those obstacles.

You understand your current customers well, so naturally your business seeks to attract more folks just like them. They are out there in the communities your business serves, but there are challenges that may include the following.

  • They don’t recognize they need help
  • They are not quite ready to change
  • They are unwilling to do the work
  • Use your content marketing and social media to remove these three obstacles, and more.

#1 – Help Buyers Understand How You Can Help Them

In the film A River Runs Through It, Jesse asks Norman: “Why is it the people that need the most help won’t take it?”

There are plenty of buyers out there that your business can help, but for whatever reason they are not ready. Use your content marketing to help them recognize they have a problem.

If you bend to accommodate them you will then compromise your ability to help others. This often comes in the form of cutting prices, which we all know doesn’t work. So, don’t do it.

Instead, refine and share your success stories to clarify what your business does well and why it is unique. These stories create memorable and shareable content that prepares prospective buyers to be your next customers.

#2 – Increase The Pain that Your Solution Eliminates

This is probably the most important time to be committed to your process for helping your customers.

When you seek to put a “Band-Aid solution” on a big problem your value plummets. If a Band-Aid will do, then how necessary is your premium solution?

Without sensationalizing, take bold moves to help your buyer feel the pain.

Buyers are people, so they will differently respond to different stimuli. Some will have to see how your solutions work, some feel it, and others hear it.

Therefore, use the available multi-media formats to create content that reaches all types of buyers. Here’s a tip:

Help your buyer feel good about their pain; it means they care about something. Tweet this

#3 – Remove Obstacles to Adopting Your Solutions

When you build trust with buyers they will share the truth with you.

We learned early on at the landscape business I founded that many buyers wanted to upgrade their landscape, but only if they could be assured it would be properly maintained.

We quickly realized we had to launch a maintenance division to remove this obstacle. We also had to create tutorials for those that preferred to do the work themselves.

I’m sure you will not be surprised that to learn that many that initially did the work themselves later called us in to do the heavy lifting, such as the spring cleanup, tree trimming, and mulching. Why? Because our content marketing helped them understand there are no shortcuts to doing things right. (#1 above).

How about your business?

Helping is the New Selling

Your content marketing will sell more business if you design it to be helpful. Every single piece of educational content you create (such as a blog post) is either a stand-alone tutorial, or a portion of something more comprehensive (such as an eBook or printed reference guide).

Helping people understand how you can help them goes beyond answering questions. Facts and figures are useful, but they are impersonal and easily forgotten. Stories are relatable, and therefore memorable.

Your stories should help buyers understand how you can help them, why you want to help them, and why they will enjoy working with you.

When you do that you will make emotional connections that will move buyers to sign on the line which is dotted.

About the Author:  Jeff Korhan, MBA, is the author of Built-In Social: Essential Social Marketing Practices for Every Small Business – (Wiley)  

He helps mainstream businesses adapt their traditional growth practices to a digital world. Connect with Jeff on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

Photo Credit

How to Write an Introduction That Engages Any Audience

April 4, 2014 by
www.jeffkorhan.com


Jeff Korhan introducing Mark Schaefer at Social Media Marketing World

I recently had the pleasure of helping other speakers as a track leader for Social Media Marketing World.

It was an interesting experience for me because typically I am the speaker, so in this situation I was assuming the role of those that help me to look good in front of an audience.

My primary responsibility was introducing every speaker to the audience, facilitating questions, and properly thanking them. In other words, doing the necessary work to make them look good for this live event.

There is a lesson in this for all of us, because every business is serving multiple audiences.

We all know that first impressions are important for establishing relationships and building trust. Therefore, an introduction becomes a powerful tool that prepares the audience for what will follow. For speakers this is the presentation.

For your business, this is most likely your content marketing or social media.

Thus, the dynamic of introducing a speaker to an audience is one that any business can apply to situations where they are being introduced to potential buyers, which may be an audience of one or many.

It’s a simple process of helping them to get to know, like, and trust you.

#1 – Use Key Words to Help Us Get to Know You

While reviewing the speaker introductions I began to wonder which words were the most important for connecting with the audience, and therefore deserved special emphasis.

Let’s face it, most people are not good listeners, so it’s important to carefully choose the words that will reliably resonate with them. One way to accomplish this is with emphasis and repetition.

If it’s not about you (as we all know), then why are introductions and marketing messages often all about you or your business?

Make yours about the audience you serve to help them better understand how you can help them.

Review all of your social media bios, and sales and marketing messages in general, to be sure that they include key words that instantly connect with your audience.

#2 – Use Your Personality to Help Us Like You

A speaker’s personality will become evident from the first few moments of his or her presentation. Logically then, that personality should be embedded within the introduction that precedes it.

During one of my introductions the audience began applauding as soon as they heard the speaker’s name. I paused to allow the laughter and enthusiasm to breathe. When I returned to the script, that energy intensified even further.

A great introduction is powerful for engaging your audience. Tweet this.

Is there is a wow factor that your business is known for? That personality should be reflected in your social media and content marketing introductions, which are often your social media profiles.

#3 – Introduce Benefits in Advance to Earn the Trust of Your Audience

For an offer to be entertained, it’s helpful when the audience understands the benefits it will deliver in advance. This prepares them for the call to action that should be preceded by an educational message that sets it up.

This is your content marketing. For a speaker, this is the presentation.

When people know and like you, and also understand in advance where you are taking them, it’s easier for them to entrust you with their hearts and minds.

Content marketing and social media marketing are very much like a great presentation that takes an audience on a journey whose destination is even better than they had imagined.  If your business properly introduces that possibility and delivers on it, then it will achieve outcomes that resemble a standing ovation.

About the Author:  Jeff Korhan, MBA, is the author of Built-In Social: Essential Social Marketing Practices for Every Small Business – (Wiley)

He helps mainstream businesses adapt their traditional growth practices to a digital world. Connect with Jeff on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.