Remember “Be Useful”, don’t “Be a Salesman”
Here’s a quick tip for you to use in your content marketing. After creating a piece of content take a look at it and ask yourself this question.
After your potential customer reads this, what would they be more likely to say…?
“That was really useful, I’m glad I took the time to read it” or…
“That was just a sales pitch disguised as a blog”
Your customers aren’t stupid, they can smell a sales pitch a mile off.
The aim of content marketing is for you to become known as the go to person in your field, because you have a wealth of knowledge that you want to share. Don’t take this for granted and disguise this knowledge as a sales pitch.
We would even go as far as to avoid phrases such as ‘If you want to know more about this, buy…’ or ‘Book your free consultation with me to learn more…’ Again, in some cases that will work, but in other it can give the blog a bit of a bad sales smell. Are you sharing this to be nice and useful, or are you sharing this to simply get my sale?
Yes we are all in business to make money, and for that we need sales. We shouldn’t be scared of selling, that isn’t what we are saying, make sure you have links back to find out more about your company or subscribe etc. But have a genuine desire to help people (key word being ‘genuine’), and people will see you as the expert, be thankful of your advice, and feel inclined to give you business if and when it should ever arise.
Make a pushy sale, and you have a customer today… truly help somebody, and you have a potential customer for life.
ACTION: Look at your last couple of pieces of content marketing, and ask yourself the question at the beginning of this article.
ACTION: Think of 5 ways you can help people without selling. Use these as the basis for the next 5 pieces of content marketing you do.