If you’re a business owner focusing on your marketing strategy, it can feel like there are always a million things to do in order to hit the nail on the head.
You are expected to have great products / services to offer, automate your marketing, manage customers, create various types of content (Buyer’s Guides, email series, newsletters, blogs) and much more.
Each piece of the puzzle is equally as important as the other. In order to be successful you need to hone in on them all. Today however, I’m going to be focusing on content.
The content that you create and distribute to your target market will play a massive role in how triumphant your marketing will be. We live in a digital world and so, we have to play the game.
In this blog, I’m going to be giving you a tonne of information surrounding content. We’re going to look into:
Why content is important
What is a Buyer’s Guide?
Why every business should offer a Buyer's Guide
By the end of the blog, you will be crowned the content king (or queen) and will be creating smashing content that adds value, piques interest, increases ROI and swiftly moves your customers through their customer journey.
Why is content important?
‘’Content is king’’ is a phrase that is repeated often in the marketing community. And for good reason, too. Content marketing generates over 3x as many leads as outbound marketing and costs 62% less according to Demand Metric. It’s not only statistics such as these that bolster the importance of content in your marketing.
1. Moves your prospects through their customer journey
If you’re unsure about what a customer journey is and why it is important that you’ve mapped one out for your customers before you even begin content creation, take a peak at this blog and join me back here when you’re finished.
In order to move your prospective customers through their journey, there are a few things that you need to do.
- Speak to and validate their pain points and symptoms
- Show them that you have the solution to their problem
- Educate
- Nurture
- Add value
The great thing about strategically created content is that it will move your prospects through their journey swiftly and successfully. This means that you will have a whole bunch of educated, nurtured leads who want to stick around for the long haul. All thanks to your great content!
2. Shows that you are the expert
As I mentioned, one of the most important things that content will help you to do is educate your audience. By showing that you are knowledgeable, you become the expert. Your leads and customers will look to you to help them find solutions to their problems.
And, when it comes to a new product or service that you might release, they will trust that you know what you’re talking about. This makes the buying cycle easier for you both.
3. Helps to build trust and form relationships with your prospective customers
It’s no surprise that if you’re consistently sending content to your leads that validates and educates them, they will begin to trust you and trust in the things that you have to say.
Of course, content isn’t all about sales. In fact, I encourage you to make sure that you have variety in your content.
Your leads want to build a relationship with you. People enjoy putting a face to a brand or name. Some of the content that you send should include information about you and your business. This makes room for your clients to form a relationship with you! And, strong relationships with them directly link to higher customer lifetime value (CLV) and ROI.
4. Allows you to educate your leads
We know that your leads have found their way to you because you have a solution to their problem. This puts you in a brilliant position to be able to educate them. What knowledge can you share with them that will help them out? What can you teach them that will make their life easier or increase their awareness around a particular topic?
5. Improves brand recognition
Have you ever had a really positive experience with a brand and you just want to talk about it with everyone you meet? As humans, we love a little gossip, And, the word of mouth is one of the best ways that people can be referred to you.
Creating decent content won’t only improve brand recognition by word of mouth though. If it’s good, people will want to share it around online. And so, your name, logo and branding become commonplace as people recognise you and your content more.
6. Influences conversion
The conversions speak for themselves as content marketing continues to demonstrate that content is king.
About 74% of businesses are confident that content marketing is to thank for their increased leads. Content directly influences conversion, with reported rates at nearly 6x higher for content marketing adopters than non-adopters.
When faced with statistics of this kind, it’s easy to see why content has the crown.
Keeping the importance of content at the front of our minds, it’s time to take a little dive into a piece of content that is essential for each business - Buyer’s Guides.
What is a Buyer’s Guide?
A Buyer's Guide (BG) is a piece of content that you will create that helps your prospective customers to make the right decision. Think of it like an ‘all you need to know about x’ guide.
A buyers guide will be created around one particular product or service. If you have various products on offer, you will want to create a BG for each.
If created well, your Buyer’s Guide will educate your leads on all things to do with your product.
Let’s imagine for a moment that you are the owner of Rolls Royce. You and your team have been hard at work designing and creating your newest car. With so much to consider before someone would commit to a purchase of this kind - you create a guide to give to any prospective buyers.
This guide would outline the specifications of the product, including functionality, size, maintenance, price and it would compare it against other brands and models that are available on the market.
Remember, this guide is to help your prospective customer make the right decision for them. So, keep it unbiased and informative!
Should every business offer a Buyer’s Guide?
Now that we are clear on the importance of content and we’re aware of the benefits that content can bring to your business, I don’t think it’s very bold to state that I think every business should offer a Buyer’s Guide.
In fact, if you are a business owner and you don’t have a BG that you can give to prospective buyers, I am begging you to find that content hat, stick it on and get to work.
There is no time like the present! (Or maybe, in five minutes after I’ve told you why Buyer's Guides are so brilliant).
Every business should offer a Buyers’ Guide because:
- It helps you attract customers that are right for you.
A Buyer's Guide will outline everything your lead needs to know about what they’re planning to purchase. This means that you will be talking to prospective customers who are engaged and knowledgeable.
If you follow my advice to keep it informative and unbiased, your lead will have chosen your product or service over your competitors for good reason. Not just because you have flashy marketing and a great cart abandonment campaign. But because they know your business is the right choice for them.
Shows you as an expert in your field
If you’re creating a Buyer’s Guide for a product or service of yours, usually it is because that product is of a higher price point and your lead requires the knowledge to feel comfortable in their buying decision.
Even if you’re a millionaire with money to burn, you're not going to feel comfortable parting ways with your money only to leave it in the hands of someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing.
So, rule that out completely and use your BG to show that you’re the expert. This doesn’t mean flooding them with jargon related to your industry just for show. Speak to them in a language that they will understand. Establish your position and allow your consumers to feel comfortable, for they know they’re in safe hands.
- Builds trust
Because you will have written your BG in an unbiased way, you are allowing your prospects to have complete clarity over their buying choices.
You’re not pushing them to buy your product because you want the sales. The reality is that every business owner is chasing higher ROI and an increase in conversion. That we know to be true. But, when your leads know you’re giving them this information so that they can make the right decision for themselves, you begin to form a relationship that is built on trust.
- It makes the buying process easier.
With your Buyer’s Guide, your customers need not search the internet looking for answers. All they need is a copy of your guide.
This reduces the time they would usually spend looking for information that will validate their feelings. And so, the buying process becomes more streamlined and less confusing. No more going back and forth, they will be afforded clarity because of your kick ass content.
- It is a lead magnet
Lead magnets are another form of content that should be utilised by every business in their marketing strategy. In a nutshell, a lead magnet’s purpose is to bring in more leads and prospective customers. A BG is a lead magnet, too.
Not only will it bring more leads to you, it will allow you an insight into the behaviour of your current leads. If any prospective customers download the BG, it shows buying intent. At this point, they would move from being marketing qualified to sales qualified and this would be your time to start sending then content that relates to sales.
To make the writing process a little easier on you, Stretch Creative has a brilliant blog outlining 13 essential tips on how to write a Buyer’s Guide. You can find that here.
Are you ready to write?
So, there you have it. If you weren’t in the know already, you now know why the content that you create and distribute to your leads and customers is so important. It allows you to:
- Move your leads through their customer journey
- Shows that you are knowledgeable
- Build trust and form relationships
- Educate
- Validate
- Improve brand recognition
- Increase conversion and ROI
You also know what a Buyer’s Guide is and why it is absolutely essential that each business has one.
It seems to me that the next thing to do is get your head in the game and get to work on your buyer’s guide.
If the world of content and Buyer’s Guide’s is still a little mystical to you - never fear, because the ninjas are here! (It’s a good thing I write blogs and not poetry, huh?)
Awful poetry skills aside, our team of knowledgeable ninjas are ready and waiting if you have some questions.
We would be more than happy to lend a hand. Book in a call or have a little browse at our Marketing Automation Academy. An academy filled with a community of business owners alike who are creating their own content and managing their own marketing.
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