How to Sell Your Product Faster With Content Marketing
Follow These 5 Rules
If you want to achieve a goal, I think it’s necessary to take time and study those that have been successful in doing so.
To make people bring out real cash to pay for something you sell, tangible or not, there’s always a solid reason behind it. Sometimes, it may be an emotional buy — people patronize you because of how your brand or content makes them feel. Other times, someone who already has the intention of buying a product you sell stumbles upon you by accident.
But if you want to have consistent sales over time, you must have some kind of formula, cycle, or plan.
In this article, I won’t be discussing any sales funnels or customer journey maps — I’ll leave that to the digital sales experts.
What I will be doing is telling you about a set of rules and methods that I have found in many business I have purchased (or wish to soon make a purchase) from, based on the nature of their content. I’ll also highlight examples where necessary, to make my point as clear as possible.
So how do you compel your audience to make a purchase using content marketing?
1. Be super specific with your value
Whenever you consume content, but you’re not moved to take action, it usually happens for one of two reasons — it wasn’t necessary to you, or it was too vague. Brands that are geared towards making sales will ensure that their content compels you to do something differently. They are providing you with information or a call to action that is clearly of benefit to you.
MoneyAfrica, a Nigerian brand I follow on Instagram for financial advice, sends out newsletters weekly that address common misconceptions about money, and challenges its readers to adopt a new money mindset/habit moving forward. When I adopt an investment habit for example, I become more likely to purchase their “Beginner Stock Investing” course.
Your content audience should see your brand as a vital part of their self-improvement/transformational journey.
If you deliver superior value, your readers or listeners or watchers would look forward to your content all the time. This is when they recognize it as a useful nugget that helps them make better decisions, learn more about a topic, and ultimately solves their need.
2. Be relatable
MoneyAfrica, at some point, delivered to my inbox stories about the steps that real Nigerians have taken in the past to increase their earnings, savings, and investments, even in a harsh economy. These are stories I can relate with myself. And I don’t think I’d be willing to part with my money if I know a brand cannot give me useful information that will positively change my current situation.
But if a brand doesn’t even know what my situation is, how could they do that?
Of course, being relatable involves developing a detailed buyer persona first. What are your audience’s pain points? What is the problem that they want your product to solve? What can you say to them that makes you look like the best solution to their problem?
Another brand that has successfully done this for me is The School of Life. I’m a sucker for improving my mental and emotional wellbeing, and this YouTube channel releases short clips that addresses some of the challenges I’m currently facing. After a while, I subscribed to their email newsletters, and I’m currently on the verge of buying one of their books (I’m yet to because of the shipping fees).
If the stories of The School of Life didn’t resonate with my childhood and the struggles I’m facing now, I wouldn’t even give them a second thought. Remember that you’re not supposed to be relatable to everybody. Choose a select tribe from your large audience, and speak their language so well that they won’t have a better choice than to listen to you.
3. Build trust
From a recent conversation with the Chief Marketing Officer, I learned that there is actually a specific formula for trustworthiness.
Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy
Self-orientation
Trustworthiness =
Your credibility is concerned with how believable what you say is.
Reliability deals with how well people believe that you will come through with your actions and solve their need.
Intimacy deals with the safety or level of security others feel around your brand, and how much of their interest they believe you have at heart.
But asides this formula, the bottom line is that your audience must develop a sense of security around your business. Make them believe you are willing to solve their problem better than others. This means less sales copy and more relatable benefits, not just using fancy words, but with language that they truly understand and can resonate with.
4. Be consistent and memorable
Out of sight means out of mind, most of the time. Think of the last time you decided to make a purchase decision on your own. Which brand did you think of first? Sometimes, it could be a brand that was referred to you by a friend. If this isn’t the case, then you probably thought of the last ad or message you saw from that brand. If a brand doesn’t come to your mind when you want to solve a need that it has a solution to, then that brans is not memorable.
Being memorable is often a byproduct of consistency. No matter what kind of brand symbols you use or the uniqueness of your content, if people don’t see your content regularly (weekly emails, daily social media posts, weekly podcasts, etc.), they will easily forget your business. The memorable aspect of your content must be consistent and visible.
Darius Foroux, a writer whose email newsletter I subscribed to always uses caricature or pencil drawings as the link image for his blog posts. Always. Now, anytime I see a similar pencil drawing at the start of an article, I think of his articles. Being memorable can also be enforced through brand logo and colour, a theme, certain image types or content types, etc.
Take care that you are not memorable for the wrong reasons. When I remember Daruus Foroux’s pencil drawings, I think of authenticity. So whenever I want to read an article that presents the hard truth in a simple and resounding way, he is my go to. Whatever makes you memorable should evoke the right thoughts and responses in your audience.
5. Offer hooks periodically– like discounts
During my short Fundamentals of Digital Marketing certification course with Google, I learned that it becomes more effective to use a discount to hook in potential customers when using Search Engine Optimization (SEO). In general, discounts are very effective when your audience has consistently viewed your offering and is seeking that extra push so they can buy your product.
Discounts don’t work for all prospects. Some people can develop interest in your business and not buy from you for years. That’s why you also need to grow your audience, so that no matter how many “spectators” you have (those who love your content but won’t make a purchase), you will also gather paying customers.
Please, steer Clear of this Mistake — At all times, make sure you avoid giving out too much information or content to your audience, up to the point that they don’t see what more they will be getting if they pay. This is particularly for brands whose product is still some kind of content.
I’ll buttress my point with two brands I know.
Brand A sells courses on stock trading and lessons on personal finance. But regarding some topics, they already give a lot of information through their email newsletters and Instagram posts. Maybe there is something more valuable they deliver in their courses. If that is the case, they have not been so good at stating that differentiating factor. For that reason, I have been reluctant to pay for the course till today.
Brand B, on the other hand, is a writer who sells a course on how to create captivating and truly compelling articles. His organic content includes his blog articles and email newsletters that showcase his compelling writing. His articles teach sound lessons, while also acting as proof that he is competent enough to teach effective writing.
Know the limit of your content and stick to it. For more help on how to make money from content creation, read my article:
Thanks for reading!
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