MackCollier.com

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The Two Keys to Creating Amazing Content: Empathy and Relevance

I’ll Fly Away is believed to be the most recorded gospel song ever. It’s been covered by everyone from The Kossoy Sisters to Andy Griffith to Johnny Cash to Kanye West. This is one of my favorite versions, by Alan Jackson:

https://youtu.be/SDqTENtNvKQ?t=1m20s

The song’s enduring popularity is thought to be rooted in how it takes the fear we all have of dying, and it re frames death not as the end, but the beginning of true happiness and joy. It helps to calm our fears; simultaneously reminding us that the pain and suffering of this world is temporary, while the rewards that await are eternal:

“Just a few more weary days and then…..I’ll fly away
To a land where Joy shall never end….I’ll fly away!”

I especially liked how the site Trial and Error Collective described the song: “I’ll Fly Away” is a song, like many traditional spirituals, intended to be sung by anyone and everyone. I would argue that it demands the voices of amateurs, so that they too can join in the peace and joy that it bestows.”

But perhaps the true reason why the song has inspired for almost a century is the empathy it has for the listener. Its lyrics speak to those feeling powerless, and it empowers them. The sense of worry and dread in the face of death is replaced by strength and joy at a time when the listener needs it most.

 

If you’ve read this blog for any amount of time, you know that I often reference music and certain songs in my posts. The reason why is because good content is good content, regardless of the form it takes. Many popular songwriters have the ability to write in a way that shows empathy for the listener. Creating content that shows empathy for your audience is one of the easiest ways to arrest the attention of your audience. I use the word ‘arrest’ deliberately, because if your content is empathetic to your audience, it forces, it compels them to pay attention.

Another powerful way to show empathy for your reader is to create content that is relevant to them.

What is relevant content?

Relevant content is content that provides someone with the information they need, at the time they need it, in the form in which it is most useful for them. Notice that you need to focus on timing and form when determining if content is also relevant.

Last March I was in the market for a new smartphone. I wanted to stay with iPhone since I had an iPhone 4S at the time. So I did copious amounts of research on several models, ultimately focusing on deciding between the iPhone 6s, the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus before buying the iPhone 7 Plus. But as soon as I bought my iPhone, I stopped reading the articles that compared different models, because I had already made my purchase, the same information that was completely relevant before I made my purchase, no longer was.

You also need to consider the type of content that’s most relevant to your audience. Years ago I created a very crude Speaking page to let event planners learn more about me and (hopefully!) hire me for their event. At first, the page just featured a couple of paragraphs explaining the topics I spoke about, and the only picture I had of me speaking. Over the years, I would get feedback from companies and conferences, and I would adjust the content on my Speaking page accordingly.

“Do you have any references?” led to my adding Testimonials from past events I’d spoken at.

“Do you have any videos of your speaking?” led to my adding, you guessed it, videos of me speaking.

By factoring in the elements that made the content more relevant to my audience, my speaking page converted at a higher rate.

 

Relevance and Empathy Are Your Secret Weapons

There are two things you can add to your content in 2018 that will instantly make it resonate more with your audience; Relevance and empathy. Relevant content captures our attention. Over the holiday break I was researching a topic, and as I often do, I was using my laptop while also checking something on my phone at the same time. So my attention was fractured, to say the least. I was scanning google results on my laptop while checking notifications on my phone. Then, while scanning the google results, I found an article that looked like it was exactly what I was looking for, and I clicked over and for the next 10 mins or so I was completely absorbed by this article. I had to laugh when I noticed that I had put the phone down without even realizing I had. The relevant article had completed sucked me in and captured my attention.

Relevant content is interesting content.

 

Forget Creating ‘Better’ Marketing and Content, Focus on Creating More Relevant Marketing and Content 

‘Better’ is all the rage when it comes to customer marketing. Businesses are striving to create better content for customers, a better experience for customers. The first cousin of ‘better’ in this context is a more personalized experience with more personalized content. Even B2B marketers are getting in the game, Account-Based Marketing is one of the hottest trends in B2B Marketing, designed to focus on target accounts vs target markets, with the end goal of giving ‘better’ marketing to these target accounts inside of giving less specialized marketing to a target market as a group.

Tools and marketing methodologies, when used correctly, can help your business better understand its customers. But at the end of the day, you have to WANT to better understand your customers. You have to want to understand what a more relevant piece of content would be to them. And not because you want to improve your KPIs or move a needle. But rather, because you know that providing more relevant and interesting content and experiences for your customers WILL result in more sales.

Making the customer the priority over the business means you both win.

 

The Only Content Rule You Need to Follow in 2018 and Beyond

Think about all the hundreds, if not thousands, of ‘rules’ that have popped up in recent years when it comes to content creation. There’s been numerous research studies done into what is the perfect length/form/topic to drive social shares. How to write the perfect headline, how to optimize for search engines, what day to publish your content, what time of the day.

Notice how formulaic these ‘rules’ are. Also notice that none of these rules actually take into account the person you are creating the content for.

Here’s the only content rule you ever need to follow: Create content that is relevant to, and emphatic toward your audience.

Want to improve your engagement numbers this year?  Want to increase your conversions?  Want to get more people interacting with your content? Sharing it?  Contacting you to buy a product because they liked it?

Ask and answer these three questions before you create any piece of content:

1 – Who am I creating this for?

2 – Why is it relevant to them?

3 – How is it going to help them?

 

Ask and answer those three questions for EVERY piece of content you create this month.  Then check your results vs your projections and see how you did.

The thing is, we as content creators know why WE are creating that piece of content.  We know what WE want to happen, we know what OUR desired outcomes are.

But we don’t always put as much thought into making sure that the customer’s needs are met. Which often means our needs aren’t met either.  Funny how that works out, isn’t it?

 

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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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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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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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Want to Be a Content Marketing Rock Star? Focus on Your ‘Greatest Hits’

Let’s say you write two blog posts.  The first one gets 100 social shares, and you get quite a few comments from readers saying they enjoyed the post.  The second one gets 10 social shares, and no comments.

There’s two schools of thought on how to handle promoting these two posts moving forward:

1 – Spend more time promoting the first post, because that’s the one people are reacting to.

2 – Spend more time promoting the second post, because you need to get more people seeing it so it will be shared more.

 

My strategic focus is to invest more time promoting the posts that are being well-received, and less time promoting those that are not. I confine most of the promotion of my posts to Twitter, since the ‘shelf-life’ of tweets is so short.  So it makes sense to promote the same post multiple times, since most of my followers won’t see each individual tweet.

Over time, I’ve developed a core list of 10-20 posts that I consistently promote.  In rock star terms, these are my Greatest Hits.  These are the posts that always spark shares, engagement and discussion.

An added benefit from sharing these posts consistently is that I become ‘known’ or associated with the topics of the posts. Just as rock stars become known for singing their Greatest Hits, you become known for the content you create, and the content you share. But again, you have to be strategic about it. Just because a post is popular, doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily want to share and promote it.

For example, two of the most popular posts I have ever written here are ones I almost never promote or share. Why? Because the posts are related to writing and publishing a book. I wrote these posts while I was working on writing Think Like a Rock Star because I wanted to share useful content that would help others.  The problem is, this content isn’t really helpful to companies who need help with their content strategies (my potential clients). So I don’t promote these posts because they aren’t useful to potential clients, and it was also a lesson to me on not creating content that wasn’t interesting to the my desired audience.

So if you want to cultivate and curate your best content, here’s what you should do:

1 – Identify your Greatest Hits. The handful of posts that are relevant and valuable to the core audience you want to attract.  Additionally, these posts should be focused on the core topics that you want to be known for. I would suggest picking no more than 10-20 posts.  It would be better to pick 5 amazing posts than 10 ok posts. Don’t worry if you only have a few amazing posts, over time, you’ll write more amazing posts and your list of Greatest Hits will grow organically.

2 – Analyze your Greatest Hits and try to determine why they were more popular than your other posts. What topics did you cover, were the posts long or short? Did you cover breaking industry news, or were the posts all rants?  If you closely examine these posts you can probably find a few common traits that you can utilize in creating future posts.

3 – Experiment with how you promote your posts. Let’s say you’ve written a comprehensive post on the field service industry titled “Five Ways Augmented Reality Will Revolutionize Field Service”. You were convinced that this post would be a big hit with your audience, but when you share it on Twitter, you almost never get any clicks. It might be that promoting the post in a new way would make it more interesting.  For example, there might be a key research point in the post that you should promote.  If you tweet “Companies that utilize augmented reality in field service see First-Time Resolutions increase by 32%”, you may very well see more clicks vs just promoting the title of the post.  People love research, facts and numbers. These can especially be useful to your audience, especially if you are trying to connect with businesspeople. See if there are any research findings or facts that you could use to promote your posts instead.

BONUS: If you are determined to promote just the title of the post in your tweet, you could add an image to the tweet that contains the relevant facts or numbers on it.  Best of both worlds!

 

And if you need more help on how to create and promote your content like a rock star, check out this infographic:

How to create and promote content like a rock star

 

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The A-Ha Moment When Credit Karma Discovered It Had a Powerful Marketing Department It Never Knew Existed

Fans love your brandKerry recently forwarded me this case study post from First Round on the early success of Credit Karma. More specifically, the article talks about how CEO Kenneth Lin made a daily habit of skimming Reddit. One day, the article explains, he found something that changed his life:

A thread about credit monitoring kicked off by a user suspicious that his company’s free credit check service was a scam — including a passionate response from a user defending and extolling Credit Karma. “Oh my god,” Lin thought. “That person doesn’t even work for us.” It was a purely organic moment — foreshadowing the word-of-mouth trend that would win the startup millions of users in the months to come.

Ten years later, Credit Karma has established market dominance, with more than 50% of all customers hearing about the site from other users. It’s Googled more than Geico — considered the standard bearer for companies that have managed to build sexy, personality-driven brands in patently unsexy industries. Which makes it all the more surprising that Credit Karma pulled this off with a staff 1% the size of Geico’s, a paltry budget, and no PR agency help in those early, critical, brand-establishing years.

One of the conversations I often have with companies in regards to digital marketing is about new customer acquisition. Companies want to leverage social media and content marketing as a way to drive new sales, but they want to do so often with limited resources.

One of the most effective ways to drive new sales and build awareness is to embrace your current, happy customers. As the above example proves, all companies have current customers that are out extolling and sometimes even defending their favorite brands.

The best part? A recommendation from a happy customer carries far more weight with potential customers than an advertisement from the brand itself.  Think about it: What would have happened in the above example if Credit Karma CEO Kenneth Lin had started a Reddit post promoting Credit Karma? He would have quickly been shouted down by other Reddit users for leveraging the site to advertise his company.  But when a current, happy Credit Karma user defends the company, people listen.

Years ago, I worked with a large, global brand on a brand advocacy initiative. Part of the project included sitting down with customers that were identified as being loyal advocates or ‘fans’ of the brand, and talking to them honestly about the brand and how it could best move forward.

At one point, one of customers noted that “You guys have to give us better tools to tell other people how awesome you are”. The other customers in attendance quickly agreed, chiming in with stories about how they were constantly interacting with other customers and having opportunities to promote the brand more effectively to other customers.

As this was happening, I made a point to glance around the room and look at the brand representatives in attendance. They were stunned at what they were hearing. “Wait, so you’re saying you WANT us to give you information to better promote our brand to other customers?”  “YES!” was the enthusiastic reply from the customers.

This is what you have to understand about your brand’s fans: They are proactively promoting you to other customers every single day. Right now while you are reading this article, somewhere, a happy customer is doing their best to convince another customer to buy from your brand.

Why in the world would you ignore this? Every single brand on the planet should have a program in place to identify, engage with and help its most passionate customers. These happy customers are already promoting your brand, and they WANT you to interact with them and WANT to work with you to grow your brand, so why would you not engage directly with them? You should be working with your fans constantly to not only collect feedback from the customers they engage with, but also work with them to help better promote your brand to those customers they encounter.

After all, they are the most effective marketing department you have, that you probably didn’t even know existed.

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Want More Customers? Here’s the Two Keys to Improving Your Company’s New Customer Acquisition Rate

How your company can acquire new customersNew Customer Acquisition is often the top marketing priority for the average company. And the marketing costs associated with reaching that goal are often among the largest marketing expenses that company will face. Today I want to talk about two things you can do to improve your company’s new customer acquisition rate, and greatly decrease the associated costs.

Sell the Benefits, Not the Product

You can’t sell a product unless the customer is ready to buy it. One of the biggest marketing mistakes most companies make is they try to sell their product to the customer before they are ready to buy it. When trying to acquire new customers, most companies make the mistake of making the first marketing communications they deliver be product-focused. On the surface, this makes complete sense, you can’t sell the product unless you market it, right?

The problem is, a new customer by definition is a customer that hasn’t bought from you before. Which means at minimum they aren’t familiar with your company, but often they also aren’t familiar with the product you are selling. So if you try to sell new customers on a product that they don’t understand or know why they would want, that marketing message is going to be completely ignored. You are literally trying to sell a product to new customers that they aren’t ready to buy.

So if they aren’t ready to buy your product, what do you sell them?

You sell them the benefits associated with owning your product. New customers won’t know they need or want your product, but they will be interested in the benefits that your product provides.

If you think about it, this makes perfect sense. You don’t sell the product, you sell the benefits the owner gets from the product. And many of the most successful brands in the world have been adopting this approach for years:

Red Bull doesn’t sell an energy drink, it sells what happens after you drink it.

Nike doesn’t sell shoes, it sells the activities you’ll be engaged in while wearing its shoes.

Pedigree doesn’t sell dog food, it sells happy and healthy dogs.

 

New customers often won’t know they need your product, but they will know they need the benefits associated with owning it.  So that’s what you sell them. 

Consider this example: Let’s say your company sells spark plugs. If you want to acquire new customers that don’t know why they should buy your spark plugs (or even what a spark plug is), then how do you speak to them?

One option is to create product-focused marketing. You talk to new customers about what your spark plugs do. You talk about how your spark plugs create a hotter spark that leads to less carbon build-up. You talk about how your spark plugs are tipped with platinum instead of copper. You tell the new customer that you are trying to acquire how your spark plug is made from the best materials.

And the reality is, you might as well be throwing your money away. Because the new customer has no idea why less carbon build-up is important, or why a hotter spark is important. So your marketing message is completely irrelevant to them.

The way to win the new customer’s business is to instead sell them on the benefits of owning your spark plugs. You tell them that buying your spark plugs will make their car more reliable. You tell them how it will increase gas mileage by creating a more efficient burn of the fuel. You tell them how it will result in the car running smoother and with more power.

Those are the benefits that new customers are ready to buy. So you sell them what they are ready to buy. Then, after you’ve gotten their attention by communicating the benefits to them, at that point you can talk to them about the product features because at that point, they will be interested in learning more about the product itself.

Remember:

1 – Sell the BENEFITS of the product first to New Customers. That gets their attention and makes them interested in learning more.

2 – When they are ready to learn more, THEN you sell them on the product itself.

Still not getting it? Check out this post.

 

Excited? You should be, but hold on, there’s an even better way to improve the rate at which you acquire new customers…

 

Your Best Customers Are Your Best Marketing

The best salespeople for your company are your current, happy customers. Period. There’s four reasons why:

1 – Your current customers understand new customers better than you do. While you may not have an existing relationship with new customers, your current customers do. Because those new customers are often their friends and family. As such, your current customers can promote your products in a way that is relevant to their friends and family. They understand what’s important to their friends and family, and that’s why when they promote your products, they speak in terms of the benefits associated with owning the products. They use their understanding of what’s important to their friends and family and customize their promotion based on what their friends and family are looking for. And that makes their promotional efforts more effective than yours.

2 – Your current customers are passionate about your company and its products. By human nature, we want to share the things that help us and make us happy. This is especially true when we find a product we love, that makes our lives better. We want to tell others about that product because we want to see others have the same enjoyment from owning the product that we do. When you are in a store considering buying a product and a stranger comes up to you, unprompted, and says “I have that, and I love it!”, it makes an impression on you. Because you realize that they didn’t have to say anything, and did so because they truly do love the product. You’ll likely ask their opinion, which the stranger will happily provide. If you were even slightly considering purchasing the product beforehand, a ringing endorsement from a stranger would probably be enough to convince you to buy it.

3 – Your current customers lower your customer-service costs. As current customers interact with new customers, they are able to answer questions and address complaints head on. They can also speak from the perspective of an owner, and speak to their experiences associated with owning the product being discussed. This can help overcome questions and worries the new customer may have, and can improve the chances that the new customer will become a current one. And this is an obvious cost-savings to your company, as every question that your current customers answer for you, that potentially eliminates an email sent or phone call made to your customer service department.

4 – New customers trust their friends and family more than they do your company. While your current customers know and understand the new customers you want to reach, those new customers also know and trust your current customers. So when a current customer recommends your product to their friends and family, or even to strangers, it carries a lot of weight. Perhaps more importantly, if a new customer is considering your product and a friend tells them NOT to buy it and instead buy a competitor’s product, that new customer will probably listen to their friend.

 

Here’s How You Get More Customers:

1 – When targeting new customers that have no attachment to your brand or knowledge of your products, you sell the benefits associated with the product. These customers aren’t in the market for your product because they aren’t familiar with it. So you sell them on what they gain by owning it. They will understand the benefits and how they are important.

2 – Let your current customers market for you. Your current customers are more trusted by their friends and family. Additionally, your current customers have a better understanding of how to connect with their friends and family than your company does. You should work with your existing customers to give them the tools they need to tell others about your company and its products. Research has found that customers that purchased 5 times from your company also referred 5 new customers, and current customers that had purchased 10 times from your company had referred 7 new customers. Your current customers are literally bringing you new customer at almost no cost to you. This is the type of behavior that you want to encourage.

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It’s Time to Get Serious About Understanding Social Media and Content Engagement

driving engagement with social media contentA report released last September found that 5% of brand-created content accounted for 90% of all engagement.

Is that significant?  To hear that 5% of all content accounts for 90% of all engagement, well…it sounds significant, right?  If you could see that 5% of the content your brand created drove 90% of all the social media engagement, would you find that to be significant?

Maybe, but that’s not the whole story. The importance that social media engagement has as it relates to your brand’s content greatly depends on if your content and social media strategies are built to encourage and capitalize on that engagement. If you are creating content with engagement as a goal, and you are leveraging that engagement to drive a more significant business outcome, then engagement can be a very good thing.

The trap that too many companies fall into with their content strategies is that they place too much importance on gaining social shares. Smart companies don’t optimize their content for social shares, they optimize it for their customers.

 

Private Engagement Trumps Social Media Engagement

Too often when it comes to social media and content marketing management, what can easily be measured, is what gets managed. Content is often judged harshly on the number of social shares (engagement) it drives because that can easily be measured. The problem has become that social shares are no longer meaningful as a measurement of content being read. In fact, research has shown that the vast majority of social shares drive little or no actual engagement with the content being shared.

Then what does matter? Whether I’m working with a client or executing my own content creation and strategy efforts, the metrics I value aren’t found in social shares and comments, but rather in Google Analytics. I look for private engagement versus public engagement.

What’s the difference? I call things like social shares (Likes on Facebook, RTs on Twitter) and comments as being public engagement.  You can easily see this type of engagement.  You can look at this blog post and at the top see how many times it’s been shared on Facebook or LinkedIn.  Those are public engagement numbers.

The private engagement numbers are ones that only I have access to. Like number of search visitors that a post sends to my blog, or the number of emails that a post generates. Or the number of newsletter signups that a post drives, or the number of trial product signups.

Keep in mind that these are all forms of engagement. We’ve become almost trained to think of engagement around our content being either comments or social shares. If I read your post and as a result sign up for your newsletter, that’s engagement. In fact, that’s probably a more meaningful form of engagement for you than a RT or Like.

 

So I Engaged With Your Content, Now What?  

There’s definitely value in social media engagement. But what’s your plan for dealing with that social media engagement around your content? If someone shares your content, do you thank them?  If someone takes the time to write a 3 paragraph comment on your post, do you take the time to write a meaningful response, or do you just peck out a quick “Great thoughts, thanks for sharing!” response? If you’re going down the road that social media engagement has value for your content strategy, then you also need to have a plan for how to address engagement when it happens. You reward the behavior you want to encourage, and one of the best ways to reward people that engage with your content is to respond to them. That communicates to them that you appreciate their taking the time to respond to your content or to share your content. It also encourages them to move from being a first-time commenter, to being a regular reader and consumer of your content. My point is that if you are going to place a value on getting social media engagement around your content, then you need to work with your digital team to have a plan in place for how they will react and respond to that engagement.

 

Your Content Strategy Should Be Built to Drive Specific Types of Engagement

Every time someone interacts with your content, you should be trying to convince that person to engage in a certain action. Maybe you want them to comment, maybe you want them to share the content.  Or maybe you want them to sign up for your newsletter or email you.  The point is that you have to decide which forms of engagement are the most valuable to you, and create a content strategy that is built toward those forms of engagement.  I have worked with many companies that never got a comment or share on their content and could care less, they were more concerned with the long-tail keywords that their articles were helping them rank for in Google.

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How to Sell With Social Media

Perhaps the reason companies cite the most for wanting to use social media is to ‘Build Awareness’. They want to get the word out via social media about who they are, and what they do. The thinking is that if people know who we are, they can and will buy from us.

There’s a fundamental flaw with this line of thinking: You are selling to a group of people who don’t know who you are, so by extension, they don’t know why they should buy from you. Yet companies do this every single day, and are confounded by the fact that their social media strategy isn’t driving sales.

So if you want to create a social media and content strategy that drives sales, when you create content you have to consider whether or not the customer is ready to buy. And if they aren’t, you need to understand what type of content creates the most value for them, and at the same time puts them in a position where they ARE ready to buy from you.

The concept of understanding the Buyer’s Journey has become a hot topic in regards to digital marketing in recent years. The idea is that most customers take a specific path before actually purchasing a product. What you want to do is create a content strategy that allows you create the appropriate type of content for your customers at each step of this journey.

For simplification purposes we are going to look at four stages of the buying process, and then discuss creating content for each stage:

Buyer's Journey, Creating Better Content

1 – Unaware, AKA Who the hell are you?. The buyer has no idea who you are, or why they should want to listen to you, much less buy anything from you. When companies talk about using social media to ‘Build Awareness’, this is the group they are targeting.

2 – Slightly aware and slightly interested. This group has begun to understand who you are, and can start to see how your products and services can fit into their lives.

3 – Interested and considering buying. This group knows who you are, knows what you sell, and knows how those products and services fit into their lives. Now they are trying to decide who to buy from, you or a competitor.

4 – Ready to buy. Take my money!

 

Now the problem is that most companies create a social media strategy that’s based on ‘Build Awareness’, and then create content that’s aimed at customers that are at Stage 4 (Take my money!) when the reality is since they have an awareness problem, the company’s customers are going to be at Stage 1 (Who the hell are you?). So this strategy is doomed to failure from the start.

So let’s look at each stage and the appropriate content you should create to not only give the customer the content they need, but the content that will move them to the next stage in the buying process.

Stage 1 – Unaware, AKA Who the Hell Are You?

At this stage, the customer has no idea who you are, or why they should care. So any company or product-related content you create for this group is likely going to be completely ignored. What does that leave you? Obviously if you can’t create product-related content or company-related content, the only thing left is customer-centric content. You create content about the customer you want to connect with. More specifically, you create content that focuses on common Passion Points that connect the customer and your company.

Wait, what the hell is a Passion Point?

I’ve blogged about the power of Passion Points before. Basically, a Passion Point is an idea or theme or belief that relates to your company and products, that your customers feel passionately about. For example, dog owners are passionate about making sure that their dog is happy and healthy. So Pedigree focuses its marketing and content on these Passion Points, happy and healthy dogs. As a result, dog owners are drawn to Pedigree because the brand is focusing its marketing on ideas and beliefs that dog owners are passionate about.

Now if Pedigree was a new brand just entering the marketplace, how would it create content focused on the Passion Points of happy and healthy dogs? It could create blog posts focused these topics. Some examples of blog posts it could create are:

“Ten Games You Can Play With Your Dog Every Day to Ensure It Gets All the Exercise It Needs”
“Want a Happier Dog? Science Says You Should Do These Five Things”
“Healthier Dogs Have These Three Traits in Common”

 

Notice these topics are focused solely on the dog and the dog owner. Each post is also connected to either the ‘Happy Dogs’ or ‘Heathy Dogs’ Passion Point. By focusing strictly on the Passion Point that is important to the dog owner, Pedigree can create content that interests them. And that’s the starting point.

On the other hand, if Pedigree would have written a blog post that was nothing more than a digital coupon for 55 cents off a can of its dog food, that content would have been ignored because the dog owner already has a source of dog food. But by switching its focus to creating customer-centric content that’s married to Passion Points that are relevant to the dog owner, Pedigree has gotten their attention.

 

Stage 2 – Slightly aware and slightly interested. At this point, the content created in Stage 1 has resonated with the customer, and they are paying some attention. But you still aren’t at a point where you should create content that directly sells your product. You want to shift your focus slightly from Stage 1, where you focused solely on creating content that connected to a Passion Point that interested your customer. Now in Stage 2, you want to create content that connects those same Passion Points to your brand. In the first step you connected these Passion Points to the customer, now in Stage 2, you want to connect those same Passion Points to your brand and its products.

Let’s return to the Pedigree example.  In Stage 1, they created content that was focused on the ‘happy dogs’ and ‘healthy dogs’ Passion Points.  Now in Stage two, the content will shift to focus on how Pedigree and its dog food connects with these Passion Points.  Here’s an example of some of the blog posts Pedigree could write in Stage 2:

“Want a Healthier Dog? Science says these five vitamins will boost your dog’s immune system.”  And the post itself could explain the five vitamins, then show how Pedigree dog food includes all these vitamins.

“Support Pedigree’s Adopt-A-Dog Program and connect loving families with loving dogs.” This post explains how Pedigree supports dog adoption and shelter programs around the country.

“Wet or Dry: What type of food is the healthiest for your dog?”  This post gives dog owners vital information on how to set their dog’s diet, but also give Pedigree an opportunity to explain how its wet and dry dog food can help dogs have healthier diets.

 

Notice these blog posts are still connected to the happy and healthier dogs Passion Points, but this content also makes the connection between Pedigree and these Passion Points.  It’s also helping readers to understand what Pedigree and its products are doing to help improve both the health and happiness of dogs.

 

Stage 3 – Interested, and considering buying.  At this point, the customer has read your content, and has made the connection between the Passion Points they care about, and your brand.  They are interested in buying your products, and as a result, want more product-specific information for comparison purposes.

Going back to the Pedigree example, this could be a case where a potential customer is coming to your blog or website looking for the exact ingredients that your dog food contains.  Maybe they are looking for these vitamins or these minerals.  The point is that they want detailed, product-specific information because they are informed customers that are ready to buy.

In many cases, you can attach Calls to Action for Stage 3 content while publishing Stage 2 content.  For example, one of the blog posts Pedigree could write in Stage 2 was “Want a Healthier Dog? Science says these five vitamins will boost your dog’s immune system.”  This post could explain what these five vitamins are, detail how Pedigree dog food includes those five vitamins, then also include a link to a more specific product page that includes all the vitamins and minerals included in Pedigree dog food.  This could be for a customer that reads the blog post, and decides they are interesting in learning more about exactly what ingredients are included in the dog food (meaning they have moved to Stage 3, they are interested and considering buying.)

 

Stage 4 – Ready to buy, take my money! This is pretty self-explanatory, you want to give customers a clear Call to Action for how they can buy your product.  If you are selling your product on your blog or website, give them a link to where they can purchase directly.

For the Pedigree example, this could include a link on where they can buy dog food on the main Pedigree website, or a link to where they can find a local dealer or grocery that sells Pedigree products.

Note: If you want to use social media to sell your products, you have to actually give customers a way to BUY your products! I know this sounds simple, but think about it: If you were a customer and came to your company’s website, how would you buy a product or service?  How simple or difficult is the buying process?  Are you actually selling anything directly on your website?  This alone could explain why you are having difficulty selling with social media!

Want to know How to Sell With Social Media? Here’s all 4 steps!

sellingwithsocialmedia

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Your Complete Guide to Becoming a Rock Star Brand

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Often when I talk to someone about or speak on Think Like a Rock Star, they will say ‘I love the concept, but we’re not Lady Gaga or Katy Perry. They are actual rock stars, we’re just a brand.  We can’t have fans like they do.’

When I started writing the book, I set out to answer that question.  Do actual rock stars simply have some natural advantage that brands do not?  Are actual rock stars able to create fans, passionate customers that literally love them in a way that most brands cannot?

What I discovered, to my delight, was that rock stars do certain things to create fans that are easily replicated by brands.  It’s not that brands can’t do the things that rock stars do to create fans, it’s that most brands aren’t willing to do the things they need to create fans.

But we’re not Taylor Swift, we sell (insert seemingly boring product that no one can see anyone being a fan of HERE)

First, let’s accept that your brand would love to have passionate customers that considered themselves to be fans of your brand.  Rock stars have raving fans that love and support them, and your brand wants that as well.

The problem lies in calling them ‘rock stars’.  Because when you do that, it’s easy to say ‘they are rock stars, we’re a brand, it’s two totally different things’.

Really?  You think Taylor Swift isn’t a brand?  Lady Gaga isn’t a brand?  Katy Perry, Pearl Jam, Blake Shelton, these are some of the biggest and most bankable brands on the planet!

The other trait that’s common to these rock stars? All of them are exceptional marketers.

So if you accept that these performers and bands are also excellent brands and marketers, then that means they are just like you in that regard.  Which means you can learn from how they market themselves and apply it to your own brand-building efforts.

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So if rock stars are really brands, why does The Zac Brown Band have more fans than my brand does?  What is he doing that I’m not? 

Six years ago I got on an airplane for the first time.  And I had the normal fears of a first flight, and was pretty worried.  My anxiety got worse as we prepared for takeoff and then as we rose and I was pushed back in my seat I just knew that I was about to fall out the bottom of the plane and I couldn’t understand WHY NO ONE ELSE WAS UPSET!  Then I looked over and saw an older woman sitting across from me, and she had taken out a magazine and was reading it without a care in the world as the airplane climbed and the ground became harder to see clearly.  At that point I realized that she knew something I didn’t.  So I immediately calmed down, assuming if she wasn’t upset, I shouldn’t be either.

I tell this story to preface the rest of the post.  Rock stars do a lot of things, especially in their marketing efforts, that seem counter-intuitive and even completely scary to most brands.  But the end result cannot be argued, rock stars have raving fans that drive real business growth for their brand.  If you want to have the same, then you need to trust that the rock stars have a valid reason for doing the ‘scary stuff’.

If you want to understand why rock stars have such passionate fans and your brand does not, then you need to understand why the average rock star markets the way she does.  You need to understand The Loyalty Graph:

LoyaltyGraph2Yep, at the end of the day the reason why rock stars have fans comes down to simple marketing.  But the key is that rock stars understand the true value of their most passionate fans, and your brand likely does not.

To the average brand, it’s great to have a fan, a passionate customer that praises the brand to others.  But most brands don’t look to actively engage those fans.  While they are happy to have fans, the average brand leaves their fans alone, with the thinking being let them keep doing what they are doing.

Rock stars literally focus their marketing efforts around their fans.  What’s worth noting about this approach is that rock stars are based their marketing efforts around connecting with less than 5% of their customer base.

This is curious, because the average brand not only all but ignores its fans, it spends millions marketing to the other 95% of its customers.  With a premium placed on marketing to New Customers, customers that have little or no affinity toward their brand.  At the same time, rock stars are all but ignoring New Customers, from a marketing perspective.  Think about that for a minute: Brands are investing the majority of their marketing dollars on connecting with a group of customers that rock stars are literally ignoring.  Again back to the airplane example, what do rock stars know that your brand doesn’t?

Rock stars understand that your fans are the best salespeople your brand has.  And if you take your branding hat off for a moment, you know this to be true as well.  Let’s say you are making a trip to Switzerland this Summer and you want to buy a simple point and shoot camera for under $300 for the trip.  Before making your purchase you’ll do the following:

1 – Get recommendations from friends and family online.

2 – Get recommendations from friends and family offline.

3 – Check online reviews (Amazon as well as photography sites)

Note that your buying decision was influenced not by marketing from any camera brands, but instead by friends, family, and other customers.  Because we trust other customers more than we trust the brands marketing to us.

That’s what rock stars understand about marketing that your brand does not.

So rock stars literally shift their marketing message and put it in the hands of the people that you are most likely to trust.  They connect with their fans and cultivate them as salespeople for their brand.  This is why they don’t have to spend 95% of their marketing budget on trying to acquire new customers.  Instead, they connect with their fans that love them, and those fans then acquire new customers for them.

The key is to put your marketing message in the hands of the people that other customers trust the most 

The reason why most brands don’t want to do this is because most brands want complete control over how its marketing messages are shared and spread.  This is exactly why television, newspaper and radio advertising has been so popular for decades.  The brand can communicate directly with many people at one time.

The problem with this approach is that as a result, any communication from the brand is viewed as being ‘marketing’, and as such, less trustworthy to the average customer.  So to make sure that your marketing message is actually heard, it needs to pass through a source that the customer trusts, such as another customer (fan).

But again, we are back to the point that most brands don’t trust their fans enough to give them control of their marketing messages.  And yet, most rock stars do.  This is because most rock stars understand who their fans are and what motivates them.

Fans want to see their favorite brand, rock star or sports team succeed.  So they will act in what they perceive to be that brand/rock star/sport team’s best interest.  But the important point to understand is that since they are fans, they trust their favorite brand or rock star.  So if that brand connects directly with them and asks them to spread their marketing message in a certain way, they will listen.

Which is exactly what rock stars do.  They are constantly connecting with their most passionate fans because they understand that by doing so, their fans will better understand who the rock star is, and the message the rock star wants them to spread.

Your brand’s fear that your fans won’t spread the message that you want is mostly unfounded.  If they don’t spread the message that you want it’s probably because you haven’t communicated to them what message you do want them to spread!  What features of your product do you want them to tell others about?  What are the selling points that you want other customers to know about?

Participating in a conversation changes that conversation

Conduct this simple experiment: For the next 5 customers that mention your brand positively on Twitter, tweet them back and say Thank You.  Then note what happens next.  The odds are that at least one and possibly all five people will respond back saying you are welcome.  One or more of them might try to extend the conversation with you.  The point is that whatever happens after you reply happened because you replied.  By simply interacting with customers that self-identified as being fans of your brand, you gave them a reason to think more positively about your brand, and a reason to create more positive word of mouth about your brand.

Here’s your primer to becoming a rock star brand:

1 – Understand the business value of your fans.  Your fans are your brand’s best salespeople.  They are the real rock stars, treat them as such.

2 – Focus on ways to increase interactions with your biggest fans.  This galvanizes them and validates why they love your brand to begin with.  Plus, it gives them a better understandng of your brand and your brand a better understanding of your fans.

3 – Communicate to your fans how they can help you.  Remember that your fans are different from your average customer.  The average customer has little to no interest in helping you spread your marketing messages but your fans are actively looking for ways to help you grow your brand.  They want to help you, work with them to make that happen.

4 – Ask your fans for feedback.  Ask them what they think about your brand, and ask them what they are hearing from other customers they talk to.  Specifically, ask them what reasons other customers are giving them for why they do not want to buy from your brand.  This is incredibly valuable feedback that you need to seek out.  Once you learn why some customers don’t want to buy from your brand, you can work to correct those issues, and drive more sales.

5 – Remember this is doable.  There’s no reason why your brand, no matter what industry you are in or products you sell, cannot have passionate fans that love you.  It’s not about the product, if it were you would never see companies that create commodity products like scissors and industrial lubricants with passionate fanbases.  It is about how you relate to and understand your customers.  This is exactly why rock stars place a premium on having constant interactions with their fans and being as close to them as possible.

6 – Build the stage for your fans. They are the real rock stars.

Pic via Flickr user LunchboxLP