As a business owner you have many responsibilities. One of them is to ensure that your products and services are attractive and value driven as possible. For most businesses these days that’s relatively easy. But what if your business belongs to an industry that’s perceived as being “boring”? You’d be surprised how often I’m asked this. So let’s break this down into bite sized chunks.
When I hear someone tell me “I have a boring business, content marketing couldn’t work for me.” I often wonder how they have come to this conclusion. I usually find that either they have been told this or have read it somewhere online.
Well the truth of the matter is that it’s not true. If marketing didn’t work, for “boring” businesses, they just wouldn’t exist. It’s been proven many times. A well managed marketing campaign is what produces sales for your business.
The reality is, most entrepreneurs are misinformed about the marketing potential for their business. It doesn’t matter whether you sell toilet seats, state of the art computers or even pillow covers. Your business doesn’t have to be a boring business.
On the surface your business will appear to be less interesting. If you sell pillow covers you will have to be a lot more creative. There’s no getting away from that but it is entirely possible. The bottom line is this.
You need to be willing to invest your marketing budgets into the right strategies. You will soon discover that a “boring” business can be as attractive as any other. You can then engage your target markets like you’ve never done before.
Sound good so far? Great! But before you start here’s some tips that you should keep in mind as you go forward:
Believe it or not, as a business that has the perception of being “boring” you have a unique advantage. Don’t believe me? Try this on for size.
Let’s say other business owners in your industry think that content marketing doesn’t work. They wont be investing much of their marketing budget into content marketing right? By making the right moves, you wouldn’t have much competition in the way of keywords and topics. This makes it more affordable to compete with the competition.
That’s an opportunity business owners in “non boring” industries would kill for!
It’s not easy to brainstorm topics or even put a content strategy together. For less attractive businesses that’s the heart of the problem. It’s even more difficult to develop engaging content that focuses on say “pillow covers”. Because of this there will always be the temptation to create off topic or unrelated content. It’s not wise to do this just for the sake of gaining popularity in the search engines and on social media.
Avoid doing this like the plague!
You will find in the long run that its more valuable to your potential buyers to focus on relevant content. Even if it doesn’t have those popularity qualities. Yes, it may not provide the popularity that you’re looking for. But, there is nothing worse than building a community who are not interested in what you sell or say.
If you want to make your products and services interesting, it’s simple. You need to focus on making your target audience feel informed. Your prospective buyers love insights and data, especially when they’re visual. The types of content you want to use here are charts, infographics and images. When you create this type of content it becomes more shareable. It also provides the traffic and the interest your seeking.
If you feel writing about your products and services is boring compared to talking about them. STOP RIGHT NOW! That in itself should tell you something is not quite right.
The usual reason for this is because your writing style differs from your speaking style. There’s a huge difference between content marketing and academic writing. Say this with me: “It’s okay to write like you speak”.
In fact, your audience wants this. When you write as you speak you’re injecting your personality, humour and emotion. They want this, it builds trust. In fact, your target audience will connect with you further if they feel engaged with you.
If you think that your audience can read through endless lines of text without losing focus. You’d be mistaken. The key to success with content marketing? Break your content up into bite sized chunks. It’s then more easier to digest and understand.
If you want your content to sell, then you will have to make it easy for your audience. Use bold words, lists, images with captions, subheadings, and videos. Breaking up your content like this, will make it more appealing.
In 2016, the emphasis is on visual content marketing, and this trend will only continue to grow. If you want to stand out and be more appealing, then you will need to align your thinking with this trend.
Tweets with images receive 18% more clicks, 89% more likes and 150% more retweets. Why? People relate more to content when you use images. It captures their attention and reels them in to consume the rest of what you have got on offer.
I would recommend investing some time into the newer social media platforms. Rather than just the traditional ones like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter etc. Social media platforms like Vine, Instagram and Periscope are gaining huge popularity these days. Studies show that 59% of executives would rather watch a video than read text.
So, the question is; is it harder to market my products and services if they’re boring? Yes, it can be. There’s many ways you can make your products and services more appealing. The best strategy to transform your sales efforts, is to invest in content marketing.
By utilising the tips I’ve mentioned. You can start building a content strategy that can bring your brand to life in a boring industry.
