D2C companies have the unique opportunity to build true brand devotion in an accessible, frictionless way. How do you maximize this? Become the company with all the answers, says, David Greenberg, Act-On Software’s SVP of Marketing.
Your laptop just broke. If you’re like most American customers, your next step is jumping into the dizzying world of online reviews to find a new one. At first, you may have thought your choice was as simple as choosing between a Mac or a PC. Think again – customers have literally thousands of options for products every time they go online, and companies are clamoring to win your purchase using social media, email campaigns, content marketing, and so much more.
The wealth of knowledge we have at our fingertips online makes it much easier to be discerning about where we spend our hard-earned cash. But, after spending the right amount of time and energy online, most of us are confident we can find the product we need with all the specs we are looking for. At the end of the day, this innate “buyer power†is worth its weight in gold – customers are in control and companies can’t ever make that final decision for them.
Today’s savvy consumers operate much like investigators when they’re searching for products they want. Usually, they know what they’re looking for and where to go to learn more about the product. This often starts with customers searching relevant keywords in Google and scoping out some of the round-up lists claiming to rank the best products in the space. But, can customers even trust rankings lists for objective information? What if lists are sponsored posts?
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Due largely to the fact that social media and search engines can link end-users to thousands of reviews within seconds, buyers can source great insight on products from their trusted peer networks (this includes influencers, favorite websites, or even trusted Reddit threads). Therefore, diligent shoppers inevitably turn their attention towards scrubbing online reviews to find out which products are hot with folks who already have them in their hands. Finally, shoppers make their way to a select handful of product websites to sleuth around for helpful native content. This is where smart direct-to-consumer (D2C) content marketing can make a serious impact.
As a marketer, your website and online presence are powerful tools that you can use to turn potential leads into brand loyalists. How do you do it? One of the single, most underrated tactics is aiming to become the ultimate authority on your products and industry. This means creating a wide range of robust, native content that answers your leads’ questions before they even know they have them.
What Makes for Great Content?
As a D2C marketer, you have the unique potential to cut through all the noise and talk directly to your audience. Since you’re selling your product directly to your buyers, there’s no middleman that you have to deal with. Creating a consistent, confident voice across all your channels not only helps educate your customers, it makes them trust your industry “know-howâ€. More so, it empowers them to become your strongest advocates – a relationship that is truly priceless.
And although it’s tempting to want to hyperfocus on your competitors and what they’re doing to reach consumers, it’s important to take a step back and make sure your content is doing its job.
Simply put, great content turns your customers’ needs into wants. This might sound like a lofty goal, but the more you get in the practice of thinking about what your prospects are looking for, the easier it will be to draft and create content that puts what they want right in front of their faces. To put this into perspective, consider for a moment that you’re running a tech gadget e-commerce company. Some potential questions your leads might ask about your product are:
What will this do for me?
How will this make me feel?
What do I get for the price?
What’s in it for me?
When you can draft content that answers these types of questions before they have to be “searched for†by a consumer, you’re well on your way to building authentic brand engagement – and persuading the consumer that his or her purchase with you is the best one.
Getting Ahead of Your Buyer’s Most Burning Questions
Anticipating the needs of your customers and prospects is an ever-changing and constant process. Think about it the same way you would tend to a garden. Every day, you need to pay attention to what’s happening on the ground-level and look for clues and insights in various places. Doing some thorough digging around the internet, and in customer forums, is a great starting point and the perfect place to begin brainstorming topics for your native content. While there’s no set-in-stone roadmap, here are a few places to look first:
1. Follow the influencers in your space
Hop on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Reddit, and the like to start searching for people talking about the products or services you offer. This might mean looking through social posts with relevant hashtags or joining a couple Facebook groups or Reddit threads. You’ll gain so much valuable intelligence about your market by joining the spaces your prospects exist in.
2. Read up on your competitors
Scour the blogs, forums, and social media accounts of your competitors. Look for posts or forums that are getting a lot of activity and engagement. These are likely topics your company needs to have a message on as well.
3. Reviews rule all
Nothing is more valuable than feedback from consumers. Do your due diligence and read as many reviews as you can! Consider the fact that folks giving positive reviews felt so connected to your product or service, that they were compelled to write about their experiences out of pure passion (and likely with no compensation). Negative feedback, alternatively, might be brutal at times, but it is information you should mine, listen to, and learn from.
4. Keep track of your own customer communications
From chat bot inquiries to replies to emails, make sure to maintain a record of questions your customers have come to you with. If one customer has a question, you can bet that many more have the same exact one. When it comes to marketing automation-focused strategy, there are programs you can integrate into your CRM platform that enable you to use Net Promoter Scores to gauge sentiment and identify advocates within your customer base. You can then send them automated prompts to write a review, be part of a case study, or even take a reference call with a prospect. This will not only empower your customers to use their voice, it will also attract more buyers due to an influx of great reviews! That’s a win-win.
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5. Trends and keywords are your best friend
Tools like Google Keyword Planner and Google Trends will help you stay on top of what your audiences are talking about. Think of them as a gut check that will help you verify or disprove assumptions you have about current customer preference, concerns, or pain points.
Gathering Your Intel and Creating Content
Now that you have a ton of buying behavior research under your belt, it’s time to put it to good use. Great content can manifest itself in many different ways. Podcasts, blogs, social posts, YouTube videos, and newsletters are just some of the many mediums you can leverage to position your brand as the leading expert in your space.
Whatever you do, lead with the idea that you are in the business of educating, not convincing or persuading. This way, you will always create content that answers your prospect’s burning questions and doesn’t come off as an opportunistic sales pitch. Once you tend to this part of customer experience, you will create fertile grounds for both first-time – and long-term – customer devotion.