How to generate leads for your business need not be as hard as you think and I’m willing to bet that you already know the answers or should I say the questions.
Let me explain. Every industry has questions that their customers have about their product or service, every industry has pain points that stop people from buying their products. It’s time you started answering these questions.
Content marketing and business blogging are inbound marketing techniques that have been around for a very long time but few businesses really understand how to use them correctly.
First of all you need to sit down with your sales teams/staff and brainstorm questions that they hear every day. You will be amazed by how many questions you will come up with.
- What extras does it come with?
- How do I choose?
- What is the process?
- Does it come with a warranty?
- Who will be doing the work?
These are just some example questions I came up with but I’m sure you will be able to come up with hundreds of your own. Don’t try to guess the questions, make sure these are questions people are actually asking.
Another great tip is to survey your current customers and ask them what questions they had before they bought from you. Ask them why they choose you over you competitors and ask them why your product fulfilled their needs. Questions like this will reveal the true motivations and behaviours of your target market.
You then take these questions and create content around them. Each question can be a topic for a blog post. This will inform and arm your customers with the information they seek. They will love you for it and this over time will lead to more sales.
Try to be totally transparent in what you do and create videos on how you create your product or how you provide your service. Worried about giving your secrets away? That’s an understandable, but don’t! If you don’t give your customers the information they seek they will only find it elsewhere. Better to come from you, right?
I Don’t Know How to Blog?
Did you know that you can have a blog on your website ready to go in less than ten minutes? Well you can and it is so easy to do, but if you’re not comfortable with doing this ask your web guys to do it for you, I assure you it is so easy. With a system like WordPress you can be blogging in 5 minutes flat with their famous 5 minute install.
I’m No Good with Computers
You don’t have to a computer whizz to blog. If you can use Word then you already know how to blog. All you need to do is press the publish button and your customers have answers to questions they crave.
Please do not let the fact that you’re not Bill Gates stop you from starting to blog. Your customers right now are looking for answers to questions you have. This will help them buy products from you instead of your competitor.
I Don’t Have the Time to Blog
We all have time for the things that matter and if I could show you the success your business could have in six months of blogging, three times a week, you would find the time. With a dedication to blogging your business website could see a massive increase in traffic from people who are more qualified and relevant.
Don’t think that you are the only one who has to blog. I would encourage every person in your company to do the same from your sales teams to your account managers, they all know the business inside and out and this will shine through in the content.
If you have 50 people in your business and they created one blog post a month that is massive 600 blog posts a year. It’s about changing your culture to one of providing information.
I Don’t Know How to Write
You can learn, and the only way to learn how to write great blog posts is by writing them. What do you have to lose? You need more leads, right? This is a far more cost effective way that spending thousands on tired old marketing tactics. Everyone has to start somewhere.
This is what we call inbound marketing, customers are getting very sick of traditional advertising methods and they don’t want to be bombarded with advertising messages every day. They are tuning out!
Why not empower them with the information they need to make the best buying decision. Stand out from the crowd and dare to be different and create marketing your customers will love.
There is one simple rule you must follow when creating content and that is make it awesome.