We are all customers.
So, why is it that we sometimes forget how customers think when we’re the ones selling something?
We tend to forget that customers have fears. They fear overpaying, not trusting the seller, and not being knowledgeable enough about a product or service.
Content marketing is powerful because, done right, it confronts and tackles these customer fears. That’s its main job.
The best content can solve problems for your prospects.
Content entertains and educates people at the same time. The more of your helpful content a prospect consumes, the more informed they become.
And they’re not the only ones who stand to benefit.
When you share valuable, free content, your prospect begins to trust you. They feel aligned with your brand and can imagine buying from you.
So, this begs the question - if the benefits of putting yourself in your prospect’s shoes are so great, what’s stopping some people from doing it?
What’s getting in the way of empathy?
The first barrier is simply that brands can get caught up in the details of their own product or service. And in doing so, they forget who they’re supposed to be serving.
They forget that the needs of their prospects are markedly different to their own.
Another roadblock is apprehension about confronting problems head on. Especially if there’s a chance that prospects won’t like the answer.
It’s for this reason that some brands might choose not to talk about costs, when really they should because cost is something their prospects naturally worry about. If you want to build trust with your prospects, it pays to be transparent and to acknowledge the elephant in the room.
Finally, some brands just don’t have a good grasp of what matters most to their prospects in the first place.
They haven’t gone to the effort of doing any market research, so they don’t know what keeps their prospects up at night. They don’t know what motivates them.
If you’re not sure who your ideal customer is, then there’s very little point in you creating content at all.
Listen to your prospects
A simple definition of content marketing can be found in the title of Marcus Sheridan’s book - They Ask, You Answer.
Sheridan put himself in his prospect’s shoes and came to the realisation that if he were his prospect, he’d want to be as well informed as possible before buying anything.
He saw the content that he created for his swimming pool business as the helpful answers to questions that potential customers would ask him over the phone or in his store.
His customers asked, he listened to their problems, and then he solved them in his posts.
To create compelling content, you first have to listen.
Have you or your sales team had conversations with prospects about a problem that your product or service could solve? A great place to start is by making a list of queries that come up in these interactions.
You can also interview existing customers to get some insights into their buying process and the steps that they went through before they were in a position to purchase your product.
What was on their mind before they decided to buy?
Sites like Reddit will likely have threads about products like yours, full of valuable insights into what customers worry about. And Amazon reviews tend to offer similarly-valuable nuggets.
Bring all of this research together and ideas for blogs, articles and ebooks that can solve your prospect’s problems will naturally come to the fore.
Then you can get to work writing content that solves problems for your prospects.
The more problems you solve, the more trust you build with your prospects. And the closer you move them to becoming customers.
I help brands to understand the problems facing their prospects. Then I write engaging content that solves those problems and moves them a step closer to becoming customers.
You can find out more about my services, here.
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