How Can Freely Sharing Articles You Author Help You Build Business?

Make friends with your customers, both potential and existing, by giving freely.

Summary: Customers ignore advertisements because advertisements saturate our lives and we've learned most of them can't be trusted. So how can you reach ad-weary customers? By freely educating them. If a customer can learn something valuable from you, they are more likely to respect you, trust you, remember you, and recommend you. This technique is often called "Content Marketing." To help you better understand what Content Marketing is and how it can help your company, I thought it would be helpful to share an excellent definition I found on Wikipedia today.

Which is a customer more likely to ignore, a helpful article or a traditional advertisement? Which is a customer more likely to show to colleagues, an educational video or a video advertisement?

Freely sharing helpful articles, videos, etc. to grow your business is an effective method called "Content Marketing." Below is a definition of Content Marketing from Wikipedia.org:

"Content marketing is an umbrella term encompassing all marketing formats that involve the creation or sharing of content for the purpose of engaging current and potential consumer bases. In contrast to traditional marketing methods that aim to increase sales or awareness through interruption techniques, content marketing subscribes to the notion that delivering high-quality, relevant and valuable information to prospects and customers drives profitable consumer action.

The idea of sharing content as a means of persuading decision-making has driven content marketers to make their once-proprietary informational assets available to selected audiences. Alternatively, many content marketers choose to create new information and share it via any and all media. Content marketing products frequently take the form of custom magazines, print or online newsletters, digital content, websites or microsites, white papers, webcasts/webinars, podcasts, video portals or series, in-person roadshows, roundtables, interactive online, email, events. The purpose of this information is not to spout the virtues of the marketer’s own products or services, but to inform target customers and prospects about key industry issues, sometimes involving the marketer’s products. The motivation behind content marketing is the belief that educating the customer results in the brand’s recognition as a thought leader and industry expert.

Marketers may use content marketing as a means of achieving a variety of business goals, such as thought leadership, lead generation, increasing direct sales, improving retention and more.

Content marketing is the underlying philosophy driving techniques such as custom media, custom publishing, database marketing, brand marketing, branded entertainment and branded content." (Wikipedia, 2008.)

Put simply, Content Marketing allows you to build a closer relationship with the customer than mere advertising can provide by freely giving him with educational articles, audio, video, that address his problems and also demonstrate your company's value and expertise.

So do not delay. Start sharing your expertise with your existing and potential customers by writing articles with solutions to their problems and placing them prominently on your website, sending them out in email, and using any other reasonable method. If you share your expertise freely, you will generate goodwill and will gain the potential customer's attention, respect, and business. However, if you do not share your expertise freely, customers will incorrectly assume that you don't share information because you don't have their interests in mind, or worse you don't have the expertise you claim to have. As a result, they will take their business to a more convincing competitor. So apply this saying to your expertise, "Practice giving and people will give to you."

References

Wikepedia. 2008. "Content marketing."

This definition of Content Marketing was shared under the terms of the Wikipedia Licensing agreement.

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How Can I Use Video to Increase Website Sales?

Roof Life Oregon effectively uses video to help the visitor learn more about the CEO of the company.

Summary: The web is a very insecure and impersonal medium. Customers fear identify theft, unfulfilled orders, and other fraudulent activity. Hearing a human voice on your website, especially a video of you or an employee can calm customer nerves.

Have you ever heard of someone being defrauded online? Of course you have. There are email scams, phishing scams, stolen credit card numbers, etc. Though you or someone you know may never have been defrauded, no doubt you are very aware that it happens. More importantly, your customer is also aware of the real risk of fraudulent activity on the internet. Fear of fraud is a major reason that customers don't buy from websites they don't already know. How can we use video to calm the customer's nerves?

We all know that most con men like to hide who they are. Criminals don't like to give away their real name and they don't like to show their faces. When we see a person or company exhibit similar behavior, red flags go up. So, to build trust, you need to do the opposite on your website. With video the customer can see your face, he can hear your voice, and learn your name. This makes videos a great way to build trust.

What makes websites feel untrustworthy is that they appear anonymous. Fortunately, video of company executives or employees can remove much of this anonymity. To see an example of how this is done successfully, look at Roof Life Oregon's website. Roof Life Oregon is a successful roofing company in the state of Oregon. They effectively use video to introduce the customer to the company CEO.

Commenting on Roof Life Oregon's use of this technique, and the use of video in general, Tom Wanek, of Marketing Beyond Advertising comments: "Nothing bridges that chasm of anonymity on the web like real pictures/video."

You may wonder, what if customers don't like the person they see in the video? This is a natural concern. But everyday we do business with people at grocery stores, restaurants, banks, etc. Usually a friendly smile and caring tone of voice is all that's needed to satisfy us. It is no different with your video. Just make sure to be friendly and show that you care about the customer and you won't need to worry about customers seeing your video in a negative way.

Again, why is it worthwhile to build trust? Because for a customer to turn over his contact information or billing information to you, he has to trust you. It doesn't matter if you sell the best product or service ever invented. If the customer can't trust you, he can't do business with you.

So, you do well to ask yourself, "Can my website benefit by building greater trust?" If you answer, "Yes," then by all means start planning when and how you are going to incorporate trust building videos into your website.