MackCollier.com

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You-Us-Me; The Only Formula You Need For Creating Content That Drives Sales

How to create content that drives sales

How do you create content that drives sales? It’s an often elusive goal for many businesses. Yet one of the incorrect assumptions that many blogging companies make is that their content isn’t ‘good enough’ to drive sales.  Often, the content is fine, it’s just aimed at an audience that either isn’t ready for it.

We see this with many companies that are creating content as a way to ‘build awareness’. Yet the content that they are creating is completely promotional in nature. A complete disconnect, based on their audience and goals.

So what type of content is right for your audience? It turns out that there’s a very simple process to follow in order to figure out what type of content is right for your audience.

You – Us – Me. It turns out, there’s only three types of content you need to focus on: You (Content written completely from the customer’s POV), Us (Content that focuses on a link between the customer and your brand), and Me (Content written that’s completely promotional in nature).

Let’s Talk About You 

This content is written completely from the customer’s POV. You focus your content on select areas that relate to your products, but that aren’t about your products. The idea is to focus on areas that are important to your audience, but from the audience’s point of view.

For example, let’s say your company sells cyber-security software. At this stage, your content would focus completely on helping your customer understand how to be more secure online. You don’t talk about how your software can help with this….YET.  At this stage you are only giving the customer content that helps them become more secure online.  This content helps build awareness, because it is completely focused on the needs of the customer.

Let’s Talk About Us

Here, you create content that focuses on a link between the customer and your software. You are still focusing on cyber-security, but here you will focus on specific areas of cyber-security that your product addresses. This helps the customer become more secure online, but it also helps them understand how your software will benefit them as well. At this stage the customer is beginning to understand how your software could benefit them.

Let’s Talk About Me

Now, the behavior of your customer has shifted again, so you also shift the focus of your content. By this stage, the customer is interested in purchasing cyber-security software. So you shift your content to focus exclusively on the benefits of owning your cyber-security software. You talk about the benefits of owning your software, and also give some insights into how the software works and what problems it solves. THIS is where you sell.  You sell here because the customer is finally READY TO BUY.  The customer is doing research so at this point they WANT content that’s focused on your software because they are considering a purchase.

 

You can use the You – Us – Me process to easily determine what type of content is best to create.

If you want to build awareness, then you always create content focused completely on your audience. The reason why is because the audience has no idea who you are (which is why you are trying to build awareness with them) so you focus completely on them, in order to win their attention.

If you want to create content that sells, then you need to understand if your audience is ready to be sold to.  If they aren’t aware of who you are, then you don’t sell to them.  If they are slightly aware of who you are, then you create content that helps them understand the connection between what’s important to them, and how your products/services relate (Let’s Talk About Us).  If your audience is researching a purchase, then you talk about yourself.  You give the audience more promotional and product/service-specific content, because that’s the information they are looking for.

Think about who you are trying to connect with, and where they are in their buyer’s journey.  That will determine if your content should be focused on You, Us or Me. Once you know where the customer is, then you can create the content they need currently, and give them Calls to Action that move them to the next level. Simply giving consideration to what content the customer currently needs will greatly increase the effectiveness of your content strategy.

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How One Fan Made Marketo’s Bad Day a Little Less So

So Marketo had a bad day yesterday. They forgot to renew their domain, causing the site to be down, and plenty of frustration and panic for their customers. Believe it or not, this happens.  A few years ago here I briefly lost the mackcollier.com domain for the same reason, I thought it was set to auto-renew, and it wasn’t.

As you can imagine, twitter had a field day with the news….

But the news could have been a lot worse for Marketo, if it wasn’t for one of its customers stepping in to help out:

Yep, Travis stepped in and helped out Marketo when he saw they were facing problems. Remember that your fans see your brand as being THEIR brand too. Fans have a sense of ownership over their favorite brands, and act in the brand’s best interests. Travis no doubt understood what a mess this would cause for both Marketo and its customers, and wanted to help a brand that he loved.

And to Marketo’s credit, they gave Travis his just recognition as their Superman…

There are many lessons here and plenty of ‘how the hell did they let this happen?’ questions to answer. But one positive that may come from this episode is if Marketo explores ways to better engage its passionate fans like Travis.

Every company has passionate fans like Travis, and unfortunately, any day could see your company facing a crisis like the one Marketo faced yesterday.  When that happens, you’ll want to have as many fans like Travis helping you out as possible.  The time to start creating, cultivating and engaging with those fans is today.

When did Noah build the Ark? Before the rains came. Over the coming days and weeks, Marketo will be doing a lot of self-auditing and examining how they handled this crisis and how to avoid similar ones in the future. If the brand is smart, they will devote some of their reflection to how they can embrace and empower all the fans they have like Travis in the future.

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I’m Letting You Off the Hook; You Don’t Have to Blog As Much Anymore

UPDATE: Here’s the transcript from this #Blogchat.

If you’re a business and you’re blogging every day, then you’re doing it wrong. I know, I know, for years the conventional wisdom was that in order to build readership for a blog, especially if it’s a business blog, you needed to blog as often as possible.

And that advice worked well, 10 years ago. Unfortunately, now every social media site had become a content stream. The News or Home feed on most major sites like Facebook, Twitter and even LinkedIn, are a constant stream of links being shared.

Here’s the problem: If your writing team is hustling to write multiple posts a week, you’re probably creating a lot of mediocre content simply due to time constraints.  That mediocre content is then competing against a sea of equally mediocre content in a sea of link-sharing on those social sites.

Nothing gets lost on social media sites faster than mediocre content. What IS getting shared these days is long-form content. More specifically, long-form content that does a deep-dive on a particular topic.  And research shows that the longer your content is, the more social shares it generates:

Average Shares by Content Length

Yesterday, the goal was to get out 2-3 posts every week, each one fairly short, 300-500 words. Today, the goal is to get out 1-2 posts a month, each one 1,000-2,000 words.  Think about the time you spend each month writing 3-4 posts. What if you spent that time on writing one comprehensive post?  How much better would that content be if you had more time for research, editing and production? How many more pageviews and social shares would it get? Let me tell you, nothing is more frustrating for a blogger to write post after post and never see the needle move.

I’ve seen this with my own blog. A couple of years ago I started occasionally writing longer posts, and these posts almost always did better as far as traffic and social shares than the shorter posts I would sometimes write.  Now, if I write a post that isn’t at least 1,000 words, I wonder if there wasn’t something that I left out or additional information that I could have included.

Now this isn’t to say that you should stop writing multiple posts every week.  If that approach is working for you, then by all means stick with it.  NEVER change what you are doing if it is working for you. I don’t care how many ‘experts’ tell you otherwise.  It’s fine to experiment and be open to new ideas, but never change what’s working for you just because it’s ‘conventional wisdom’ of the moment. But if your current efforts to write 2-3 posts a week aren’t working, then I would suggest you consider spending that time on writing fewer, more comprehensive posts.

But wait, there’s more!

Now it’s not enough to simply write fewer posts, that are longer. What we’re talking about is shifting your content strategy. You want to transition from writing many posts that give a quick, superficial coverage of a general topic, to long-form deep dives of fewer topics that are the cornerstone of your business. I’ve written before about planting your content flag and finding the 2-3 things that you want to be known for. The great thing about longer content is that it helps you really drill down into topics that are core to your business. This helps you establish your expertise around these topics, and makes it easier for your readers to associate those topics with your business.

In addition to writing longer, more comprehensive posts, you also want to beef up your promotional efforts for those posts. You want to invest more time in custom graphics for those posts, or even custom videos. For example, I used Lumen5 to create a custom video for my last post on using millennials in your brand ambassador program. That allows me to also post the video on YouTube, and there link back to the post. Check out how UnBounce even created a custom pop-up graphic for one of its more popular posts.

But I don’t like promoting my posts, it feels so….icky!

Here’s the deal: If you are creating truly great content that is USEFUL to your readers than you OWE it to them to share that content. It’s not about helping you, it’s about helping THEM. Share the content and tell your network why it will help them. One of the great ironies of social media is that it seems like bad content gets promoted too much, and great content isn’t promoted enough.

Also, despite what social sites tell you, very few people actually ‘follow’ you. I have around 46k people currently ‘following’ me on Twitter, and each time I share this post, I will be lucky if 1% of that number actually sees each share. Which is why I don’t mind repeatedly sharing my best posts on social media, because I know that most people following my updates won’t see the post being shared more than once.

So if your current blogging strategy is to write multiple posts and week, and that approach is NOT working, then try this:

1 – Write fewer posts, that are longer, deeper dives into topics.

2 – Pick topics that are core to your business. What do you want to be known for? Blog about these topics, and related ones.

3 – Don’t think of it as writing blog posts, think of it as writing a comprehensive ‘guide’ to that topic.

4 – Work on custom graphics for the posts. In general, more visual elements equals more social shares.

5 – Feel free to promote your posts.  You’ve created amazing content, you will be doing your audience a dis-service if you aren’t sharing it with them.

 

Want more ideas? We’ll be discussing this very topic this Sunday night (7-16-2017) at #Blogchat on Twitter.  For now, here’s the custom infographic I created for this post on The Rock Star’s Guide to Content Creation, Content Marketing and Promotion.

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How to Write a B2B Blog That Gets Engagement and Results

How to Write a B2B Blog That Gets Engagement and Results

UPDATE: Here’s the transcript for this #Blogchat!

Tonight’s (6-18-2017) #Blogchat will focus on B2B blogging. From past surveys, I’ve found that about half the #Blogchat audience blogs for their employer, and that employer sells to other businesses. So this should be another very interesting #Blogchat for those of you blogging for a B2B!

Blogging for a business is much different from blogging as a hobby or for your personal enjoyment. The goals that an individual has for their personal blog are typically completely different from the goals that a business has for its blog.  Tonight we’re going to look at B2B blogging through two lenses: Getting engagement and getting results. To prep for tonight’s #Blogchat discussion, I wanted to take a closer look at how B2B blogs can and should do both.

What ‘Engagement’ Means for a B2B Blog

If you’re a personal blogger and you’re writing about your passions, probably the only engagement you care about or even want are comments on your posts, and social shares. This is because you are typically creating content as a way to create or expand a conversation. You want interaction with your readers, you want to share your thoughts and you want them to share their thoughts, with a larger conversation being one of the chief reasons why you blog.

Businesses that blog are using their blog as a tool to grow their business. This changes how they measure their efforts and how they blog.  So the types of engagement that matter for a personal blogger, may not to a business blog.

Here’s an example. When I started blogging back in 2005, I was focused on creating content that drove engagement in the form of comments.  Remember this was before Twitter and Facebook at the time wasn’t open to everyone, it was only available to college students. So the idea of ‘social shares’ wasn’t really a focus for engagement, it was all about driving comments.  So as a new blogger who was blogging to grow my consulting business, the type of engagement I pushed for was comments.

After blogging for a few months, I began to notice that the majority of my new clients weren’t readers that were leaving comments on my blog. Instead, they were people were finding my content from doing google searches. To this day, about 75% of my new clients have never left a comment on my blog.

So while comments are still important to me and most B2B bloggers, we often look at other forms of engagement.  B2B bloggers often use social media in conjunction with other marketing initiatives.  For example, a blog is often used by a B2B business to help drive newsletter subscribers, or to promote downloads of a whitepaper.  Then, the B2B will track engagement metrics associated with these.  Whereas a personal blogger might track how many comments per post they get or how many Likes on Facebook, a B2B blogger would likely track engagement metrics like the number of new email newsletter signups per week, or the number of white paper downloads per month.

In other words, B2B bloggers are trying to acquire customers, so they measure engagement metrics that tie to that goal.

What Type of Results Do B2B Blogs Measure?

Sales. That’s it. B2B blogs need to help generate sales for the business, and everything it does is measured through this lens. Notice above when discussing engagement, a B2B blog measures engagement metrics that more closely align with sales versus simple interactions with readers.

So if a B2B blog’s job is to generate sales, then it must create content that helps support that goal. However, there is an important caveat that B2B bloggers must understand; You can only sell what the reader is ready to buy.  What I mean by this is, if you are creating content that sells your product, it will only be receptive to readers that are READY to buy that product. This is where many business bloggers get in trouble, because they want to blog as a way to raise awareness for their business. But raising awareness often conflicts directly with the idea of generating sales IF you aren’t thoughtful about your content strategy.

If your content strategy is to create content that raises awareness of your business, that means by default, you are creating content for an audience that doesn’t know who you are (which is why you need to raise your awareness). If that audience doesn’t know who you are, they also don’t know why they should do business with you. So if you create content that directly sells to the same audience that doesn’t know who you are, it will most likely fail spectacularly.

Instead, your content should be focused more on the potential customer, in order to gain their attention and attraction for your content. After you’ve gained their attention (built awareness), then you can start creating content that more directly sells to them. Here’s an example: In doing a content audit of my blog, I realized that recently, I haven’t been creating enough content to support my consulting services that are focused on helping companies launch and build brand ambassador programs. So I’ve been building out a content calendar of future posts that will focus on connecting with readers that I want to hire me to help them build brand ambassador programs. But this audience is one that doesn’t know who I am, so my content doesn’t need to sell my services directly.  Instead, my content will be focused on the customer, it will be educational and instructional, with the goal of helping the customer so that the customer will be open to engaging more with my content and learning more about my consulting services around brand ambassador programs.

So for B2B blogs, the result they are seeking is more sales, but you need to understand your audience and craft a content strategy that moves the reader from unaware, to aware, to ready to buy.  Check out this post for a deeper dive on this issue from the content strategy side.

Whew, that’s a pretty meaty prep post for tonight’s #Blogchat on How to Write a B2B Blog That Gets Engagement And Results! Please do join us tonight on Twitter at 8pm Central. Also, #Blogchat is being sponsored this month by Marketing Profs, who was kind enough to offer #Blogchat a FREE writing toolkit, just click here to get yours, all for free!  See you tonight at #Blogchat, you can follow along here on Twitter.

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Ann Handley Joins #Blogchat to Discuss Storytelling in Marketing!

Ann Handley joins #Blogchat

UPDATE – Here’s the transcript from Ann’s #Blogchat!

I’m thrilled to announce that Ann Handley, the world’s first Chief Content Officer will join #Blogchat this Sunday (June 4th, 2017) to discuss Storytelling in Marketing!  Marketing Profs is June’s #Blogchat sponsor, and they have a great freebie for you!  Click here to get their FREE 37-page writing guide!

Here’s our topic: Storytelling in Marketing: how do I do it? How do I tell MY company’s story?

Here’s the questions we’ll be discussing:

Q1 – What does it mean to be a ‘storyteller’ when it comes to marketing, and which brands do this well?

Q2 – How does a company figure out what its story is? What should it share?

Q3 – Which social media tools are best for storytelling? Can it just be a blog?

Q4 – If a company only has 1-2 people that ‘do’ social media and marketing, how do they effectively use storytelling?

 

That’s what we’ll be discussing! All this fun starts at 8pm Central on Sunday! As an added bonus, Ann will be giving away 3 copies of her bestselling book Everybody Writes to participants in the #Blogchat!  Marketing Profs will randomly select 3 people that signup for the 37-page writing guide to win a copy of Everyone Writes.  Void where prohibited.

So by joining #Blogchat this Sunday, you’ll learn a ton about how to tell your company’s story with marketing, you can get this wonderful 37-page marketing guide AND you’ll have a chance to win a copy of Everybody Writes.  All this for the price of…..FREE!  Can’t beat that deal! Make sure you are following @MarketingProfs on Twitter and we’ll see you Sunday at 8pm Central!

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A Quick Overview of Lenny and Larry’s Brand Ambassador Program

Lenny and Larry's cookies brand ambassador programI am constantly looking for nutritional snacks and such for when I travel. I am an extremely picky eater, plus I had my gall bladder removed a few years ago, and if I don’t eat regularly, it can cause headaches and slight nausea. So having tasty and ideally nutritious snacks while traveling is a must for me.

About a year ago I discovered Lenny and Larry’s nutritional cookies. The problem with most ‘nutritional’ cookies or bars is that they taste terrible. Lenny and Larry’s cookies actually aren’t that bad, in fact they taste great when compared to similar products. Additionally, they are very easy to digest, with a great protein to fat ratio.  Each cookie (4 oz) is massive and enough for 2 servings, with 6 grams of fat per serving and 8 grams of protein.

Needless to say, The Complete Cookie is now my go-to snack when traveling. So the other day when I was on their site, I noticed they have a page that explains their brand ambassador program. I want to review their program because I know a lot of you are curious as to what a brand ambassador program looks like ‘in the wild’.

Before I discuss Lenny and Larry’s brand ambassador program, I wanted to review some of the key elements that a good brand ambassador program will have:

1 – A process for helping ambassadors better sell your products to the potential customers they will interact with regularly.  This could be coupon codes or samples that ambassadors can share with potential customers to encourage a purchase.

2 – A process for letting ambassadors collect and share product feedback from their interactions with potential customers, as well as their own product feedback. This is especially beneficial for letting ambassadors share feedback from potential customers on why they don’t currently buy your brand or its products.

3 – A way for ambassadors to directly communicate and connect with each other around shared ideas and beliefs that are core to them, that also relate to your brand and its products. For example, if your company makes cooking utensils, it might be a good idea to create a message board that unites ambassadors around the idea of cooking.

 

Based on what I see on this page, Lenny and Larry’s brand ambassador program is focused on having its members drive sales.  Period. There’s also a passing mention of driving digital WOM with the #TeamLL hashtag, but it’s obvious that the main focus of the program is additional sales.

From the page:

“Our Brand Ambassador program is our way of saying thank you.

Every ambassador gets a personalized landing page with a unique URL. Every time someone purchases after following your tracking link, you are handsomely rewarded. The more you promote, the more benefits you’ll receive.

Rewards:

Free cookies
Monthly discount codes
Official Lenny & Larry’s swag
$$ Commissions $$ (extra income)”

Which is a good start. A solid brand ambassador program should absolutely make it easier for its members to generate new sales from the potential customers they will interact with. However, if the main/only focus of the program is to encourage members to sell products, it can create problems. For one, the members will start to have sales-oriented interactions with potential customers, as you see here:

So let’s say that I am a fan of Lenny and Larry’s, but not interested in becoming an incentivized salesperson for the brand.  In this case, it appears the program doesn’t offer much for me. Here are some things I’d like to see added to the program (and to be fair, Lenny and Larry’s could be offering some or all of these elements now, but I don’t see any mention of them on the brand’s website):

1 – A way to directly connect with other brand ambassadors. I would like to see a forum or maybe a private Facebook group or some digital mechanism to let me interact with other members of the program.  Lenny and Larry’s creates healthy snacks so I am sure there are many fans of the brand that also have a lot of knowledge of the brand’s products as well as healthy eating and living that they could share with other members.  This type of knowledge-sharing would benefit all members, as well as bring them closer together.  Which also creates a better experience for the brand ambassadors, and this gives them another reason to be loyal to the brand.

2 – A way to directly connect with the brand and share thoughts and ideas. Think of this as a brand advisory council or similar.  Members no doubt have ideas and opinions on how to improve the program or change it based on their interactions with potential customers.  It would be great if Lenny and Larry’s had a mechanism in place to directly connect the group with the brand. When crafting a brand ambassador program remember that while leveraging ambassadors to drive new sales is important, leveraging their feedback from interactions with other customers can also pay huge dividends.

3 – Give the members early access to new products that are in development. If you’re already a fan of Lenny and Larry’s products, you’ll probably be interested in any new flavors to existing products, or any new products in development.

 

The point here is, if you’re going to create a brand ambassador program, give members multiple ways to participate. Not everyone wants to sell your products, even if they love your brand. Give your ambassadors special access to what’s happening with your brand, and multiple options for how they can participate and extend the relationship with your brand. I think Lenny and Larry’s brand ambassador program is a good start, as long as they are open incorporating new elements, starting with giving existing ambassadors more input into the future of the program.

Having said that, I know how hard it is for the boss to sign off on launching a brand ambassador program without there being a direct impact to sales, so I totally get the focus on attempting to drive sales through existing ambassadors. This is typically one of the first and biggest roadblocks I encounter when working with clients, the boss can only see a brand ambassador program’s value through the lens of how many new sales it will immediately generate. This affects execution and roll-out and if not carefully positioned, can negatively affect the progress of the initiative.

If this post has piqued your interest in launching a brand ambassador program, here’s a bit more information on how to get started creating an amazing brand ambassador program.

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How to Write Like a Thought Leader (Even If You Don’t Think You Are)

How to write like a thought leader

UPDATE: Here’s the transcript from our #Blogchat discussion on How to Write Like a Thought Leader.

On Sunday (May 28th, 2017), our #Blogchat topic will be How to Write Like a Thought Leader (Even If You Don’t Think You Are).  The discussion starts at 8pm Central, and #Blogchat is sponsored in May and June by Marketing Writing Bootcamp.  You can save $200 on the 13-class writing course by clicking here.

To prepare for this discussion, I’m going to share my thoughts on how to write like a thought leader. First, what does it even mean to be a ‘thought leader’?  To me, it means that you spark new ideas and conversations. You share your opinions, but you also offer a new or unique take that makes people view an idea in a new light.

If you want to Write Like a Thought Leader, keep these tips in mind:

1 – Don’t be afraid to share what you know. We all have expertise around some topic. space or idea. Don’t fall victim to the ‘you can’t self-promote’ blame game.  Sharing what you know isn’t self-promotion, it’s helping others. From my experience, the people that claim you can’t self-promote are often the people that are wanting to be better self-promoters themselves. In other words, don’t listen to these people, listen to the people you want to reach and connect with.

2 – Stay up to date on what recognized experts in your space are saying and highlight their views on your blog when relevant. This not only helps you become more informed (and helps you boost your claim to thought leadership), but it also makes your content more interesting and relevant to your readers. And along with this, you can also…

3 – Incorporate the ideas of other thought leaders into your content, especially when they agree with your points. Let’s say you are a SME in the automotive manufacturing industry. But the problem is that you aren’t well known and you are blogging to get your name out there and to establish your expertise with an audience that doesn’t yet know who you are. One way to do that is to incorporate the thoughts and ideas from other, more well-known leaders in your space. For example, you could write a blog post that makes a point about a specific topic, then reference quotes from other, more well-known industry leaders, who agree with your stance. By doing this you are effectively leveraging the credibility of recognized experts in your space to make your ideas look more credible.

4 – If you don’t think you are a thought leader, you won’t write like one. How you view yourself comes across in your writing, whether you realize it or not. If you feel your opinions are valid and worthwhile, you will write in a way that reflects their importance. Don’t feel that you have to convince the reader that your thoughts matter, write as if they do, and the reader will become convinced.  Educate yourself, share what you already know, and you’ll be fine. Remember, everyone knows something and you are making your readers smarter and more prepared to face their world by sharing what you know.

 

So those are some ideas to keep in mind and make sure you bring your own this Sunday when our topic will be How to Write Like a Thought Leader (Even If You Don’t Think You Are), starting at 8pm Central.

And we’ll also announce who our surprise guest host will be for the #Blogchat on June 4th, you’re going to want to be there for that!

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Kerry Gorgone Joins #Blogchat to Answer Your Legal Questions About Blogging!

Kerry Gorgone Legal Blogging

UPDATE: Here’s the transcript from an AMAZING and insightful #Blogchat on the legal issues of blogging with Kerry Gorgone!

I’m very excited to welcome my great friend Kerry O’Shea Gorgone back to #Blogchat this Sunday (5-21-17) to answer your legal blogging questions! Kerry is an attorney and also one of the most decorated business podcasters on the planet! Her Marketing Smarts podcast is acknowledged by all as one of the best podcasts on the internet.

The topic we’ll discuss is The Legalities of Blogging: Protecting Yourself and Your Content, starting at 8pm Central on Sunday, May 21st!

We’ll have a slightly different format for this #Blogchat. Since I know many of you will have specific legal questions in regards to blogging, we’ll split the conversation into two 3-minute blocks:

8:00-8:30 PM – We’ll cover Protecting Your Content. This will include how to copyright your content, what to do if someone steals your content, etc.  Kerry has already written a great post on this here.

8:30-9:00 PM – We’ll cover Protecting Yourself. This will include discussing proper disclosure of sponsors and ads around your content, etc.  Kerry has also written a great post about this on her site.

 

And remember, #Blogchat is sponsored this month and next by Marketing Writing Bootcamp from Marketing Profs. Click here to learn more about the 13-class course AND get a special $200 discount just for #Blogchat participants!

Hope to see everyone at #Blogchat Sunday night at 8pm Central! Make sure you are following Kerry on Twitter and bring your legal questions about blogging!

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The Complete Guide to Writing Useful Business Blog Content

How many times have you heard that as a business all you need to do is write ‘useful’ content for your customers?  Probably about as many times as you’ve heard that all you need to do is write ‘awesome’ posts.

The problem is that all the ‘experts’ tell you to write useful content, but don’t tell you what constitutes content that is ‘useful’.  I’ve already addressed the issue of how to write an awesome blog post, now let’s talk about how to create ‘useful’ content on your business blog.

What Exactly Is ‘Useful’ Content?

First, we need to tighten our definition of ‘useful’ content.  For the purposes of this post, useful content on a business blog is any content that creates value for both the reader AND for the content creator.  Too often, blogging businesses focus on creating useful content for itself, or its customers, but rarely does a business create content that nails both.  In short, with each post you publish on your business blog, you should be able to point to the value being created for your reader, and for your business.

An easy way to do this is to ask and answer three simple questions before you write every post:

1 – Who am I writing this post for?

2 – Why will they care?

3 – What do I want to happen after they read the post?

Answering these three questions ensures that your content will be useful for your reader (#1 and #2) and useful for your business as well (#1 and #3).

Creating Customer-Centric Content

Now let’s talk about the content-creation process.  You want to create content that is focused on the needs of your customer, not your brand.  This is one of the most basic, and misunderstood, rules of online content creation.  Many businesses believe that their blog should effectively be a dynamic website, ergo another way to promote the business.  In other words, many businesses believe a blog should basically be brochureware.  Instead, customers are used to reading blogs in order to get valuable information, which is exactly what your business should be creating via its blog.

So how do you create useful content for your customers?  Start by writing content that teaches them a skill that’s associated with the products you sell.  Instead of writing content that focuses on the product, you want to write content that focuses on how (and why) your customers use your product!  If you sell lawncare products, don’t blog about your products, blog about maintaining a beautiful lawn.  If you sell high-end audio components, don’t blog about your tweeters or woofers, blog about how to properly position speakers in your living room to create perfect acoustics.  It’s not about your products, it’s about how your customers are using your products.

So what if you sell services instead of products?  Then you want to create content that teaches your customers how to do the same services you sell.  This sounds counter-intuitive at first (Why would I want to teach my customers how to do what I do?  I’ll just lose business!), but it works because you are creating content that establishes your expertise, and makes it easier for customers to trust you.

For example, here’s a recent blog post that appeared on Sucuri’s blog:

Sucuri Blog

This blog post is designed to teach me a skill.  It’s going to teach me how to read my blog’s code and recognize when hackers have inserted malicious code that’s added malware to my blog.  Instead, all this post is going to teach me is that I have no clue how to read my blog’s code, and I need to hire an expert like Sucuri to handle that for me.  And I did, Sucuri handles security for this blog, and they are fabulous.  As I wrote about last week, good content is the best commercial for your business.  Posts like this that ‘give away’ Sucuri’s secrets are actually leading to new customers for the company.  Why?  Because this content is helping to establish Sucuri’s expertise, and validate to people like me why I should hire them to handle stuff that  I can’t do, like protect my site against malware attacks.

But How Do I Make Content That’s Useful For My Customers As Well As My Business? 

The goal for your content should be that it is consistently creating value for both your customers, and your business.  That’s a win-win, and as long as that’s happening, your customers are motivated to keep reading your posts, and your business is motivated to keep writing them.

So how do you create useful content from a business perspective?  Scroll back up and long again at the three questions I said you should ask before writing every post.  The third question is important here: What do you want to happen after someone reads your post?  What action do you want them to take?

That action is how your customers create value for you, and your content is the channel to make this possible.  For example, going back of the previous example of the post from Sucuri’s blog.  Note the banner running alongside the post to the right:

Sucuri Blog2This banner is working along with the post to help drive leads.  You’re going to read the post on spotting malicious code, you’re going to realize that Sucuri knows its stuff when it comes to Malware detection, then you’re going to see the above banner giving you a chance to learn more about Sucuri’s Malware detection and removal services.  This works because as long as you have created valuable content for your readers you have earned the right to ask for the sale.  Too many businesses want to ask for the sale without having created any value for their customers.  That rarely works, but what does work is to first create value for your customers, then ask them for their attention in presenting a relevant sales pitch.  Relevant is the key, in the above example, Sucuri created content that was valuable to its readers, then married a relevant call to action to that content.  A banner about malware-removal services makes sense next to an informative post about spotting malicious code that’s been inserted into a blog’s code.  A banner ad for an automotive salvage yard, does not.

So before you write a blog post, ask and answer these three questions:

1 – Who am I writing this post for?  Current customers?  Potential customers?  New donors?  New partners?  Current partners?  Each audience is different and has different needs.  Tailor your content for the audience you are writing for.

2 – Why will they care?  This is where you really address whether or not your post will be useful to your readers.  Think about what value this post will create for your readers.  Will it teach them a new skill?  Will it solve a problem for them?  By putting yourself in your reader’s shoes, you are creating content that creates value for them.  Which leads to…

3 – What do you want to happen after they read the post?  This is where you really address whether or not your post will be useful to your business.  What action do you want your readers to take after reading your post?  Do you want them to contact you?  Do you want them to sign up for an email newsletter?  Do you want them to request a custom services quote?  Remember if you have created valuable content for your customers, then you have earned the right to ask for the sale.

 

The quick n dirty version is this: How do we create content that’s valuable to our readers and at the same time valuable to our business?  In a perfect world, those goals will play off each other, as they did in the above Sucuri blog post with the post and the relevant banner alongside.  Always be able to explain how the content will benefit the reader, and how it will benefit your business.  Both need to be present.

 

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Your Big Brand is Already Doing Influencer Marketing, Whether You Realize it or Not

airlines customer serviceLast week, I wrote about how social media isn’t hard, companies make it hard. The idea being that a lot of opportunities fall into the lap of companies every day in regards to their digital strategies, and often these opportunities aren’t capitalized on.

For example, right now there’s a mad rush by brands to get on the Influencer Marketing train. Brands want to know how they can work with influencers, and how they can get those influencers talking positively online about their brand. Big brands are paying millions of dollars to consultants and agencies to help launch Influencer Marketing campaigns.

And yet, they often miss capitalizing on free opportunities to interact with influencers that fall into their laps.

I was thinking about this as I read about my friend Ann Handley’s recent traveling nightmare with Delta airlines. The story was a breakdown in customer service that’s unfortunately all too familiar to those of us that fly frequently. But I wanted to pick this story up when Ann, after getting no help (or empathy!) from Delta reps at the ATL airport, decided to turn to Twitter and the @Delta account.

At this point, I want to back up for a minute. When a customer has a problem with a brand, they will typically try to contact the brand via offline or online channels BEFORE going to social media. I’ve been educating clients on this for 10 years, I’ve been blogging about it here for years, hell I even wrote a book about this. So when a company encounters what they might perceive as a ‘complaint’ from a customer on social media, they need to understand how the customer got there. Typically, as Ann did, they tried to contact the brand via other customer support channels, and did not get the help they needed. So they turned to social media, and at this point, they just want someone to LISTEN to them and show EMPATHY for their situation. In short they want the brand to say “I’m sorry you’re upset, help me understand what has happened so I can see what can be done to help you”. The point is, you have a customer that’s typically frustrated, who is upset with the treatment they have gotten from your brand, but if you show empathy for their situation and work with them to resolve it to the customer’s satisfaction, you have a chance to convert a ranter, into a raver.  Nothing creates an advocate faster than a brand that listens to the customer that has a problem, and who goes the extra mile to solve that problem.

Now that we’ve covered that ground, let’s turn our attention back to Ann’s situation with Delta. I’m not going to really comment on what happened with Ann at the ATL airport (because you should read the post) but suffice it to say that Delta’s customer service efforts in person at the airport were less than satisfactory as far as Ann is concerned.  So she’s upset, and a bit frustrated by the time she decides to try the hail mary of contacting Delta on Twitter for help.

And the second she did, whether Delta realized it or not, but they were engaging in Influencer Marketing. A quick click of Ann’s Twitter account tells you the following:

  • She has nearly 400k followers
  • She’s a bestselling author

In other words, she’s an influencer. And I’m not sure what the social media equivalent of a Q Score is, but Ann’s would be off the charts. Everyone loves Ann.

So Delta had a rare opportunity to interact directly with an influencer fall in its lap. According to Ann, here’s what happened: She tweeted to @Delta saying she needed help.  Approximately an hour later (see the problem?), she got a reply, and an exchange began. Ann was offered a voucher or free miles, but really wanted someone from Delta to explain to her exactly what had happened and how her situation was allowed to reach this point.  Delta told her on Twitter that they were dispatching a customer service rep to her location in the airport to talk to her.

Eighty-five mins later (see the problem?), she was still waiting for the CS rep to reach her when her name was called for standby for another flight and she left the airport. Still frustrated and upset, she squeezed into the back of her flight, and started writing what would become her blog post.

Again, brands like Delta will spend millions if not hundreds of millions on Influencer Marketing in 2017. Yet when they have a chance to connect with an actual influencer for free, they blow it.

And the great irony of this story? Ann is a professional speaker, and as a fellow speaker, I can tell you that one thing we love is new case studies to share with our audiences. So there’s at least one positive Ann can take from this last week.

The moral of the story is that there’s no sense in your brand chasing the Shiny Object of the day if you can’t nail basic customer service. Empower and train your employees to have understanding and empathy for your customers and 95% of your customer service issues will magically disappear.

And for extra credit: Understand that every customer is an Influencer to someone. Your brand is engaging in Influencer Marketing every day, whether you realize it or not.