Stuck for ideas of what to write about for your business? You’re not the only one.
It’s a common problem for many companies. Usually the response is to write a post which is salesy or shouts about how great the business is. To transmit.
If this is your approach, readers of your blog, social media profiles, or emails will find themselves on the wrong end of a one-way conversation.
You’ve had those conversations, with someone who doesn’t stop talking about themselves and shows zero interest in you. It’s a big turn off, and in business, as in life, pretty soon people will stop wanting to listen.
Done right, however, writing material to engage with customers can be a great boost for your business. Content marketing is 62% cheaper than traditional marketing but creates almost triple the number of leads (Demandmetric). At the same time, 91% of consumers are willing to reward brands for their authenticity (Social Media Week).
So how can you reach your customers with content that they want to read?
Make it about them; it’s what the pros do. 90% of B2B content marketers prioritise their audience’s needs over their sales message when creating content (Content Marketing Institute).
Come along and find out how you can do it for your customer.
A Hard Day’s Work
If you’re a B2B business, you should know your target customers pretty well. After all, you’ve created your product or service to satiate a specific need of theirs.
So, you know what they’re trying to achieve and have knowledge that can help them get there. Make that the ground zero for your content creation; write content that helps them complete their tasks and reach their goals.
This works because people are focused on themselves and the things that affect them.
By talking about the tasks, jobs, and goals that your customers already have an interest in, you meet them where they are. The alternative is the pushy, salesy approach of trying to get someone to be interested in your thing, which they probably don’t care about.
This leads you onto the next stage...
Tell Me Where It Hurts
Every business encounters pains and wants to do things better. The place to find answers nowadays is online.
There’s a sliding scale of pains, from ‘whoa, we’re about to go down in flames and need a solution NOW’ through to the little annoyances that can be fixed with a small tweak.
Regardless of where your customers’ pains are on that scale, if you can help ease or solve them with your expertise then that’s a great content opportunity for you.
When you demonstrate you can help someone solve their company’s pains once, they’ll come back the next time they have a similar problem. If the problem’s big enough, they’ll be more likely to seek your help to fix it for good.
Would-be customers will also be more willing to pay for your product or service when your content has helped them previously, as you’ve demonstrated you know you understand their pains and the ways to solve them.
To Infinity, and Beyond!
When companies aren’t overcoming obstacles and avoiding hazards, they do actually have ambitious plans for growth and success.
That’s a good thing, and one that you’d love to help your customers achieve, right? Helpfully, it’s also another area where you can provide value to readers, generating goodwill and trust with every paragraph.
If your insightful content helps someone unlock growth, the message they take away is ‘if these guys are willing to give this advice for free, imagine how much I could benefit by actually paying!’
There are many different methods for you to deliver this content: how-to guides, whitepapers, and case studies are all ways you can help would-be customers succeed.
Even something like a guest post on your blog from your CEO offering an insight into their experiences can help others in a similar position. That simple action can then generate interest in your offerings from a new angle.
Have a think about how you can set your customers up for success through your content.
Give and Ye Shall Receive
Worried about giving away too much free advice? Don’t be.
You’re not going to put yourself out of business by writing a few blogs or posting helpful advice on your social profiles. And if you jealously guard your knowledge, you lose out on opportunities to showcase how great you are at what you do!
By giving without expectation of anything in return, you show your business is genuinely interested in helping others. That builds trust in both your expertise and your principles as a business; you’re not just in it for the cash (even if you are).
Before I Go, There’s One Last Thing...
When you’ve written a piece of content that focuses on helping your customer solve a problem, it’s still important to give the reader somewhere to go, either to learn more or to buy your products or services.
That’s why a call to action (CTA) is an essential part of any piece of content you write for your business. Your article, blog post, guide, or white paper might have made your potential customer realise that actually the challenge is too big for them to handle, so the next step should be for them to speak to you.
If you don’t finish up by confirming this message to your reader, you haven’t fully solved their problem. They might not understand how your business can help, and subsequently head elsewhere to find someone who can. Sale lost.
It might sound obvious, but a CTA is how you need to finish up all your content.
Turning the Dial
So if you’ve been stuck on transmit with your content creation, now you have a new approach to take which can help build your brand reputation, generate positive associations with your business among potential customers, and set you up as a thought leader within the industry.
Go out and give it a try!
If you think your business would benefit from speaking to your customers more but you need some professional help, get in touch with Prize Content. We’d love to see how we could work together.
