The top 5 things you should address in your content marketing

According to Marcus Sheridan, best-selling author of the book, ‘They Ask, You Answer’, there are 5 main things you should let your customers know about in your content marketing.

Let’s go into those principles and how you can apply them to your business. ​

Why you should address your potential customer’s concerns in your content

Last night, I went to a seminar where Marcus Sheridan and Brad Sugars gave presentations on different areas of content marketing.

Both speakers gave their views on making the most of your marketing in a simple and actionable way. Here are the key takeaways to make your content marketing better…

Marcus Sheridan: Targeted content marketing

What are the 5 things people care about the most (according to Marcus Sheridan)?

Marcus referred to himself as “the pool guy” throughout the talk and gave us examples of how he turned customer query topics into sales. He’s since sold his pool business and, in his words, “never has to work again”.

Now, he wants to share the things he’s learned to help other businesses with their content. The idea behind Marcus’ book is to simply answer your customer’s objections.

Address the potential hesitations in your content to remove all doubt.

Initially, he was called revolutionary for this approach. At the time (around 10 years ago) no one else was doing this in their content marketing. He saw a huge opportunity and used a few well-targeted pieces of content to grow his fibreglass pool business to amazing heights.

The 5 things people care about most in your content marketing

People care about the following things, no matter your industry –

1. Cost (self-explanatory)
2. Problems (how you overcome them)
3. Comparisons (you vs. competitors)
4. Reviews (what people say about you)
5. Best (is this the best option?)

For each category, there will be at least one question you get asked regularly from clients. If you write a piece of content explaining how this works, you’re removing any frustration through a lack of information from your potential customers.

Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. How annoying is it when you can’t find information on a website upfront?

How often would you call a business to ask how much something costs?

Example questions to answer include –

• How much does (your service/product) cost?
• What are the potential problems or cons with (your service/product)?
• How does (your service/product) compare vs your competitor
• Who’s the best (your service/product) in (location)
• Is it true that (common problem/assumption about your service/product)

As a bonus, he also said you should research questions customers are asking starting with ‘what is…’ and ‘how do you…’ relevant to your industry.

Marcus also reiterated the importance of having enough content to satisfy your readers. On average, people who read 30 pages or more on your website will be more likely to buy. Sounds like a lot of pages, right?

Not really. In one example, he showed the audience how one customer read over 375 pages of the pool website before buying. Yes, you read that number right.

When he showed up to meet the prospect at their house, it was an easy sale. They had the information they needed upfront, so all Marcus needed to do was to not screw it up and get them to sign on the dotted line.

Do you know how many pages you have on your website?

How much information can your customer get hold of before they contact you?

Is it enough to remove all doubt?

The premise behind it is simple. Talk about these things upfront to build that all-important trust. But many people don’t address these customer hesitations head-on due to lack of time, writing skills, and confidence it’s the right choice.

If you need help coming up with content ideas and writing regular blog posts, luckily for you I can help. Let’s answer your customer questions and remove all doubt from the buying process.

Brad Sugars: Delivering successful marketing campaigns

Brad Sugars is a force of nature when it comes to business. He’s owned multiple businesses across the world and turned them into profitable enterprises. As the owner of Action Coach, he’s now teaching others how to do the same.

Brad defines marketing as, “profitably buying lifetime customers” and in this talk, he was specifically discussing how to create marketing so that customers find you (inbound, not outbound).

The premise behind his talk and the new book is encouraging suspects (potential buyers) to raise their hands and become prospects (where you have their contact information). It’s all about getting people into a conversation with your marketing activities. As a business owner, you need to make the process of buying fun. Marketing is about making experiences.

Brad’s 3-step marketing campaign plan

1. Target – being as specific as possible with your target audience(s)
2. Offer – create an offer that attracts that audience, changing it for different segments
3. Copy – speak their language, never forget a call to action (CTA), and go for emotions

Brad is a motivational person who breaks content marketing down into simple and actionable steps. He’s all about testing and measuring, using social media to see what works. The examples he shares are practical and in each business case, different.

He finished off his talk, which was littered with real-life examples of companies he’s helped over the years, with three quotes. These were passed on from a mentor of his and go as follows –

• “Never wish your life was easier, wish you were better”
• “Work harder on yourself than on your job”
• “Read a book a week for the rest of your life”

Any time you’re planning a new marketing campaign, it’s vital to get your audience and offer right first. Then, get somebody like me to help nail the copy and create different iterations to test.

Content marketing and copywriting support

It’s hard to keep on top of your content marketing efforts, especially if you’re a small business without a marketing department. That’s what I’m here for.

I work with clients monthly to create regular blog posts, emails, and case studies that effectively address their potential customer’s concerns. Get one step ahead of your competition by daring to talk about what others won’t in a transparent way.

Build trust and authority in your space with regular content packages. Create successful marketing campaigns with professional copywriting support. Fill out the new copywriting project enquiry form to get started today.