I’ll finally get the chance to meet up with one of my marketing heroes, Marcus Sheridan (for the first time) at HubSpot’s Inbound 2014 Conference in Boston in September - and it’ll be a treat. Periodically, I’ll exchange emails with him, usually regarding something he’s blogged about.
I had an email exchange with Marcus a couple days ago and it prompted me to give a listen to one of Marcus’ old talks - on being transparent to your prospective customers with your content.
It’s really something that isn’t done. Content marketing is generally poorly done or not done at all. Personally, I’m starting to use the term “content marketing” less and less (forgive me when I use it later in this post) in favour of “education”. Because that’s what this is all about - educating your website visitors and your prospects about what you do and what you offer. This brings them closer to your brand and starts a positive relationship.
This is how it all works - but what I’ll talk about in this blog post is the importance of being honest and transparent in your content (blog posts, e-books, videos) - so that your prospects will be more comfortable doing business with you. Believe me - this is a post that you have to read because it’s vitally important to building your web presence online!
Source: Flickr - Search Engine People
Being THE Answer In Search Engines
Being honest and transparent sets you apart. People see that. If you’re giving them information that is honest and unbiased about your industry and what you do, you’re going to start a real positive relationship with them.
This information gets indexed in search engines and is accessible! Again, people are searching for ‘The Big 5’ (more on this shortly) - so create content that answers those queries.
But searching has changed! People are more fickle than ever when it comes to web browsing. Heck, I’ll admit it - I’m impatient when I search for things. Searchers want immediate answers. They know it takes Google less than a second to return a page of results. So the expectation is that the most relevant (and informative) results are going to show up on the first page. So if your content doesn’t educate and inform the searcher, you’re not going to get anything from them.
Put yourself in their shoes: If you don’t get what you’re looking for on one page, you’ll hit that ‘back’ button and go to the next credible result on a search engine results page.
So create content that answers people’s questions and solves their problems. Content is the greatest trust-building tool in the world - but you must be transparent and you must be THE answer.
The Golden Rule Of Content Marketing
Marcus always talks about the ‘Golden Rule’: They Ask, You Answer. What does that mean? Well if your prospects and in this case, your website visitors, want to know something, give them the answers - in the form of good content. In short, answer customer questions!
If you’ve been asked a question about something you do or sell, that information should be on your website. It’s as simple as that. The sad fact is that most businesses don’t publish answers to their most asked questions on their site.
‘Frequently Asked Questions’ (FAQ) pages are a good start but most customer questions can be turned into blog content. And those blog posts will likely be able to be turned into additional topics. All those blog posts help you out in search engines because they get indexed and that means more results in search engine results pages (SERPs)! What this means for your business is that people will have more opportunities to find you. But again, you need to create content that your prospects are going to search for.
What Are The Top Questions Prospects Ask About?
When you open up your web browser, ready to find out something about a need you have, there are 5 specific things that most people search for. Marcus calls them “The Big Five”:
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What it costs - “how much do fiberglass pools cost”
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Problems with it, potential objections - “fiberglass pool problems”
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Versus (comparisons) - “fiberglass pools vs liner pools”
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Reviews - “fiberglass pools review”
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Best (the best of whatever it is you’re looking for) - “best fiberglass pools”
These 5 things are THE mostly popular types of search queries. People want to know how much something costs. They want to know if there are known issues with it and they want any ill perceptions of it cleared out of the way. Searchers like comparing things, especially when it might come to brands or product lines - so they’ll search that. Moreover, they also actively search out what the “best” of something is.
Examples: “best ceiling tiles for living room”, “best love seat vancouver”, etc.
'Should I Include Cost On My Website?'
Now, let’s just take cost, for example. Do YOU talk extensively about cost and price of your products or services on your website? Most people don’t - even thought people are always wanting to know. They’re asking about cost. Heck, we at LocalTrifecta don’t talk about cost or price - at least not yet. Why don’t people talk about price? There are two common reasons:
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They don’t want their competitors stealing their “secrets”
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They don’t want to weed out potential customers with the fear that they’re too expensive for some
These are GOOD problems to have!
If someone’s looking for a sweet deal well below your lowest price point, then they’re probably not a good fit for doing business with you. If their highest valuation of the buying experience is on dollar figures, then they might not be a long-term customer if that’s what they are solely going after. Simply put - they could bail on you because of price if they find a lower one elsewhere and if they don’t value other aspects like service, shipping, etc.
If a bathtub company carries no bathtubs below $10,000, and someone wants a tub for $5,000, that person isn’t going to magically come up with $5,000 more!
This means they’re a BAD fit. If they’re a bad fit and your employees are fielding calls, you could be wasting your time and resources! You ought to spend your time on the good fits.
Moreover, they’re not customers until they’ve given you money! So if you’re scared about weeding out customers by showing price details or simply a discussion about pricing, my question is “Does that matter?”
They haven’t placed an order yet. So this is your chance to start the discussion on price - produce a blog post that talks about it!
But Price And Cost Depends!
Sometimes the answer to the price/cost question is that it depends.
Depends on what? Now there’s your chance to put it into writing - once you’ve written what it depends on, you’ve got 500-1000 words of blog content that can be indexed by Google (assuming it’s optimized, of course) and read by people looking for your products or services!
This is the process of education whereby you’re teaching prospects what goes into pricing your products or services. The whole point of this is that you’re talking about topics related to your product - topics that people are actually going to want information on. (See ‘The Big 5’)
This information helps their buying process and hopefully, weeds out all the bad fits. But it all starts with content. So if you aren’t publishing blog posts every month or every week, start doing it. Start with goal development, then create a strategy, make a schedule, and finally, write - or better yet, let us do all that for you.
Why Do Inbound Marketing?
So we come back to the overarching question of why we do Inbound Marketing? The whole point is to get people finding your business online by educating them and as a result, bringing them closer to your brand.
Get in the process of educating people about issues in your industry. Write blog posts that answer questions you get via email or website form submission. If you’re producing content that can be consumed on your site, then it can be accessed by anyone via search engines. But most importantly, you’re educating your prospects in an insightful and honest way with the end goal of simply informing them. As I mentioned earlier, content is a trust-building tool but your content shouldn’t be a sales letter. Educate, educate, educate! Do that and the sales will come.
How often do you blog? Do you talk about price on your website? Tell me in the comments section below!
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About the Author:
Ramesh Ranjan is the Inbound Marketing Specialist at LocalTrifecta Internet Marketing, where he helps businesses across Metro Vancouver increase sales and revenue through Inbound Marketing. His marketing heroes are Marcus Sheridan, John Caples and John Carlton. In his off time, he can be found playing roller hockey in Richmond, blogging on his personal website, and at the top of the office hockey pool. You can follow and connect with Ramesh over Twitter and Google+
