Most business people know that content-based marketing has become an essential ingredient in any successful effort to attract attention and increase sales. Businesses that rely on advertising or marketing agencies are naturally turning to those experts to help them devise smart, strategic solutions to draw traffic to their websites and provide the kind of content that keeps people interested and converts them into buyers.
If you’re part of an agency team, your job is to help clients get it right. Here are five ways you can boost their ability to connect with customers:
1. Help them develop personas for their various audience segments.
Inbound marketing helps clients learn more about their customers, which enables them to develop stronger in-personal relationships as well as digital ones. In the end, people still want to do business with real people.
You’ll do clients the biggest favor by helping them present an online persona for their own company that prospects and customers can comfortably relate to. But you’ll probably have to help them contemplate realistic personas for their top customer segments, too.
2. Keep tweaking their SEO.
You know that keyword selection is an ongoing process, not a one-shot deal. Carefully selected keywords, especially long-tails that drive traffic to specific products or information, require ongoing research and evaluation. So do the ongoing work to keep your clients at the top of relevant search trends.
Help them identify the most telling metrics. And review their marketing results with them frequently. Aside from ongoing agility in managing and tweaking marketing details, the review process allows you to celebrate small successes with them on an ongoing basis. That’ll help them recognize the value of working with your agency.
3. Ensure they have a truly valuable blog.
Help them create an editorial calendar. That way you’ll both be sure they’re publishing diverse blog posts aimed at the personas that represent each audience segment and that they’re speaking directly to them. Regardless of their type of business, prospects have a universal need to know “how can this help me?”
Remind them their blog helps empower searchers and shoppers, by outfitting them with detailed information they need to make an intelligent buying decision. That gives potential customers confidence in themselves to make the right decision. And it builds confidence in your client’s ability to provide the right solution.
Remind them that building “authority” requires providing authoritative material. Content has to be worth reading. Articles have to be well-written. And they have to be “presentable” because they reflect on the author and the company itself. So no grammar, spelling or punctuation mistakes.
Show them SocialMedia Examiner’s short video interview with business owner Marcus Sheridan, the one where he talks about how he transformed his business with great blog content. He’s especially on-point if you have balky clients who aren’t convinced it’s a good idea to address problems or other negatives about their company, products or services. Remind them no one’s product is perfect.
4. Tell your own stories.
You’ve undoubtedly talked with them about the value of storytelling to showcase their company and products. Stories humanize in ways no other marketing technique can.
So use case studies, testimonials, examples, etc. from your other clients who are successfully marketing online with content. Tell them stories about companies that aren’t your clients but who are in a similar line of work or industry. You’ll help them see how to tell their own stories themselves, and in the process you’ll add that all-important third-party credibility to your recommendations. If it’s working for others, it can work for them, too.
5. Do it for them.
Marketing is your area of expertise, not theirs. It’s your job to help them -- with research, strategic recommendations, tactical implementation details like creative and placement. You don’t expect them to produce their own TV commercials or design their own collateral. Why should digital marketing content be any different?
So write their blog articles for them, or hire a freelance professional. Have your design team create great-looking infographics for them. You’re providing the greatest benefit if you can make it happen for them, rather than just telling them what to do. And they can stay focused on what they do best -- growing their business and developing stronger one-on-one customer relationships.
Doing everything you can to show clients the way, with real-life examples and support, will go a long way toward helping them become more successful and more self-sufficient content marketers. Their bottom line will benefit, and that means yours will, too.
