If your business is not enjoying the growth it deserves, then your buyers may not fully understand the meaning of the problems for which your products and services are the solution.
I know, because my business recently made breakthroughs in this area.
Action is the Result of Understanding
Relationships between buyers and sellers develop when there is a mutual understanding. Many sellers assume the buyer understands his or her problem, and they therefore focus on the solution.
It is vital to help people understand their current condition, and what happens if they do nothing. This can be accomplished with traditional selling practices, as well as content marketing.
Assuming buyers are searching the web for SEO services for small to medium business solutions to their meaningful problems as they know them, they will be attracted to those businesses that demonstrate an understanding of their situation.
This can be accomplished when you identify specifics that would only be known to someone familiar with the problem. Cases studies are valuable for communicating an understanding of these meaningful problems, especially those where your business solutions have proved effective.
Buyers take action only when they fully understand both the problem and your solution. Give them reasons to take action.
It’s Your Responsibility to Tell The Truth
My recent business breakthrough was the result of responding to a prominent business that requested help with their blogging. They recognized they needed help, but did not fully understand the depth of what was involved for solving the problem.
After providing me with a compilation of their previously published stories, the CEO asked me to write a representative blog post. Having completed this it occurred to me I needed to explain the “why” behind my work.
Nearly 1,000 words later I came to one realization: This is crazy! I had barely scratched the surface of why I had selected the headline, subheadings, keywords, and links, not to mention the structure and so much more.
Blogging and other writing for the web requires not only writing skills, but a solid understanding of SEO, the industry, and business in general. This accumulated experience seldom runs concurrently, and it’s the reason why a freelance writer or SEO expert may be missing important pieces of the puzzle.
It’s takes time to learn content marketing and one has to accept that the learning is endless. This truth needed to be communicated to my prospective buyer for them to grasp the true meaning of why their current blog was not working.
How can your business use its marketing to communicate the truth about the meaningful problems its solutions fix?
We live in a world that wants easy and inexpensive solutions. That is the problem you and I need to address before we can engage buyers with our solutions.
Use your marketing to tell the truth. Make the problems real and meaningful. That accomplished, your solutions become meaningful and viable too.
About the Author: Jeff Korhan, MBA, is the author of Built-In Social: Essential Social Marketing Practices for Every Small Business and host of This Old New Business podcast.
He helps mainstream businesses adapt their traditional growth practices to a digital world. Connect with Jeff on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Google+
Ian Cleary is the founder of RazorSocial, which helps companies become more productive and get results with content marketing and social media through the use of technology. He is a speaker, award-winning blogger, and a regular contributor to sites such as Social Media Examiner, The Huffington Post, and VentureBeat.
