The right kind of content can help people find you, accelerate your sales process, and cause your potential customers to be the ones seeking a conversation with you. The key to creating the right kind of content is to make it valuable to your potential clients. To provide something that helps them, something that increases their knowledge, something they can use.
Here are some examples of why creating valuable content makes good business sense.
It lets people get to know you from a distance. That means they don’t feel under any pressure to buy, and can take their time to get to know you. Some people like to take on some information and let it sit for a while. Creating valuable content lets them do that in their own time, without feeling like they’re being sold to.
It demonstrates that you know what you’re talking about, providing evidence of your knowledge, skills, experience, and approach. Nobody has to take your word for what you’ve written in the rest of your website: providing valuable content is the proof of it. By the time you get to speak to someone who’s been following you for a while, there will already be a level of trust and goodwill from their perspective. Which is a great place to start any relationship.
It helps people to form a connection with you. Because you’re providing valuable content, they’re more likely to remember you, and feel goodwill towards you. And because they have experience of the value you give, they’ll be more likely to become a client in the future, and recommend you to others who need the service you provide.
When you provide a service, people buy people, and creating valuable content helps people to understand if yours is the type of business they want to be working with. There will always be people who want to do it themselves: they may even use the content you provide to do that, and that’s perfect. Some will make a good go of it, and others will discover it’s not as easy as they thought it would be, or that they don’t have time to be doing something that’s not in their wheelhouse. Who do you think those people are going to go to for help first? A complete unknown, or a business they’ve seen demonstrate knowledge, skills, and experience, and who they already feel like they have a relationship with? Creating valuable content makes good business sense.
What kind of content do your clients find the most valuable?