Almost every piece of content you create should sell. Your content doesn’t all have to look like a sales page, but there’s no reason why you can’t sell on every piece of content that you publish, whether it’s print, video, audio or images.
First of all, it’s important to understand that it’s okay to sell. You have knowledge and experience to offer that’s valuable to other people, and if you don’t sell you’re doing a disservice to your audience because they won’t get the help they need.
And, if you’re not making money you won’t be able to continue and that will be a huge loss for your audience. Remember, it’s not about you, it’s about them.
Know Your Audience
I know we’ve said this before, but it really matters for everything you do, from blogging to product creation, to selling what you offer. If you don’t know who you’re crafting content for, you can’t make it interesting to them.
Create an audience avatar for each piece of content you’re creating whether it’s a blog post, an eBook, or a sales page. Give them a name, perhaps even choose a photo to represent them, and write just for them.
Know Your Product
You should be so familiar with your products and services that you can easily state their benefits and features for your audience. That’s the best way to be able to create content that sells because, whenever you write, you’ll be conscious of the value of what you provide and that will inform your writing.
Describe the Benefits
Especially if you are writing a sales page, what you need to remember is that initially your audience doesn’t care about the features. They only care about the benefits to them.
List the benefits first, bearing in mind the pain points and problems of your audience and what they need help with. Then, if it’s relevant, you can mention any features that might matter to potential buyers.
Think about how your product or service can make a difference to your audience. Does it save them time, save them money, improve efficiency, solve a problem, etc?
Create Controversy
This might seem risky but the controversy doesn’t have to be earth-shattering. It must just be enough to make your audience think. For example, does your product go against the common advice given to people regarding the topic? If so, bring that out right away so they know you’re different.
Show Proof
If you’ve already had successful clients using your product, it’s easy to show proof with stats (if relevant) and testimonials. But, if you don’t have customers yet, then you’ll need to find other ways to show proof of concept.
Perhaps other people have used something similar to get results. Or can you find stats that help explain why your method or product works better than others?
Demonstrate Your Expertise
The best way to demonstrate expertise is to tell the audience something about you that makes them think about themselves. Show that you get your audience and understand where they are coming from, and that you thoroughly understand your subject.
In what way are you like your audience? How did you become an expert on the topic? Did you write a book? Have you worked with a lot of experts? Think about how Oprah became known as such a smart expert? She interviewed a lot of smart experts.
Explain the Next Steps Clearly
In everything you create, it’s important to explain in clear detail the steps that you want your audience to take next to gain the benefits and rewards of your product or service. Include a clear call to action (CTA) in every piece of content.
Crafting content that sells your products is something that you can do without appearing like a pushy, stereotypical sleazy salesperson. Content marketing done well is an ethical way to sell, by helping your audience find solutions that they need.
You can develop content that shares your knowledge in a way that develops trust in your audience. And that will give them the confidence to buy what you’re offering.
Action Point!
If you haven’t already done it, list the features and the benefits of each product and service you offer, and look at your content to see if you’re really putting over the benefits to your audience.
If you’ve never really thought about using calls to action before, check out CoSchedule’s excellent article on how to write a call to action.
How’s it going? Drop me a comment below and let me know how you’re doing!
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Day 18 is done and we’re almost two thirds of the way through! Tomorrow, we’re talking about creating content around keywords and key phrases.
Don’t want to wait? Prefer to get all of the 30-Day Content Marketing Challenge posts in one place, so you can work through at your own pace? Here’s a link to all of the challenge lessons: https://creativeblueberry.com/30-day-content-marketing-challenge-catch-up/
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