“Content builds relationships. Relationships are built on trust. Trust drives revenue.” – Andrew Davis
As a business owner, you would know that simply setting up a website, social media sites and other online presence is no longer enough. Customers want information that is relevant and informative, which will enable them to make informed decisions not just about your products but also related to their own business and industry. A potential customer could become a buying one based on the content they see via your online presence. However, in order that you continue serving customers well, it would essential to add fresh content constantly. Existing content would also need updating, but in order to have the maximum impact and ensure that search engines ‘pick’ your company’s content, the focus must be on creating and optimizing fresh content. Many companies believe that they can get away by changing a few words and pictures and the search engines would ‘think’ that the content was fresh and present it to the target audience. However, if serving customers were a focus for a company, they would actually create fresh content – some as often as daily. In any case, it would be tough to ‘disguise’ stale content for too long – search engines and customers are unlikely to fall for it.
When serving customers through fresh content, a company gains too. When your company churns out informative content – fresh and new – regularly, the popular search engines pick up this content more often. This leads to a portrayal of your company as an authority or market leader on particular subjects and industries leading to more visibility and higher ‘traffic’ on your company’s website and other online sites. More readership increases the chances of leads turn to conversions and a more formidable position in the market among competitors. More readers mean an increase in the chances of them ‘sharing’ the content to their friends and associates, thereby increasing the reach and readership of your content. You would be serving customers since they would find value in and benefit from the fresh content published from your company. We have mentioned several times that a customer-company relationship must go beyond the business association in order that it becomes sustainable and valuable for both and by serving customers through fresh content regularly, a company practically insures loyalty and profitability.
Social media is obviously another great ‘place’ to show case your company’s knowledge and expertise. Your company could be serving customers by writing on a chosen topic – publishing fresh content on the subject daily. Writing often and rich content on a topic allows readers to begin trusting your company and we know that trust breeds liking, which in turn means that they would be more likely to become customers and remain so for a long time. Social media is a great platform not just to post content but also to allow people to ‘interact’ and respond to the content. The number of responses and or ‘reactions’ will enable your company to know how people view your ‘posts’ – you could make improvements or additions depending on what seems to be more in demand. The most basic rule of serving customers is that you give them what they want – be it content or other offerings. The more you can portray that you are listening to them and converting that listening to action, the chances of them drawing closer to your company increases significantly. In addition, while serving customers through fresh content on social media, your company would increase its readership and reach since customers simply love sharing anything that catches their attention. Not only do they share content shared but information about your company also spreads – in a good way, paving the way for more customers.
Anything that interests customers and other readers has the ability to retain their attention. As the ‘audience’ gets accustomed to reading great content from your company, they look forward to the next piece of writing – such engagement leads to loyalty. In business, gaining loyalty is not easy and is ephemeral even when got by serving customers well consistently – hence when a company is able to gain a loyal customer base, they must do everything to hold on to them. Serving customers through the sharing of fresh and engaging content is not just about the content – it is a quintessential part of building reputation and your business. Fresh and engaging content allows your company to get ‘searched and found’ in the sea of information already available online. The popular search engines have repeatedly stressed on the importance and value of high quality, fresh and engaging content and it would behove a business to pay heed to their advice.
If the aim of your company is serving customers well at all times, then ensure that the messages your company sends out via content remains consistent, top class and engaging. Companies must continually check back to understand exactly what their target audience expects from them – assuming that you know what they want based on the past could prove to be a costly mistake. Companies would be able to put out engaging content without much effort if they made the effort and took the time to understand truly, what people want – actively listening and then converting that listening to action. Of course, it is not easy to know what the ‘readers’ want since preferences and likes change fast – only companies with commitment, passion and patience would succeed in ‘keeping a finger on the pulse’ of the target audience. Serving customers is about seeing and understanding things from their perspective and the better a company can do this, the more successful it would be in churning out offerings – content, service and products – that the target audience would love.
By understanding the reader mind-set and persona, a company would do a better job at customizing the messages and information provided in the content sent out. For example – if the target audience is a group of busy executives – rushed and harried – the content for them would need to be precise, crisp and brimming with information in short form and made available on their smart devices such that they could access it anytime and from anywhere. The idea of serving customers through content is to send out relevant content based on demographics and not using ‘umbrella’ content. Content must be useable, that is, must pertain to the world and lifestyle of the target audience in order for it to lead to engagement and loyalty.
The mistake that many companies make is in believing that if the content they provide is free – that is no requirements to meet, forms to fill or ‘gates’ to pass – they can dish out generalized content for a particular audience. In serving customers through content, a company can add more value by offering trials, incentives, coupons, discounts and other such freebies to attract the attention of an audience. Depending on the kind of response and the groups that respond, your company would know what content to send out to engage them further. The other reason for doing this, besides serving customers, is that you capture attention and make your company stand out from the hordes of competitors, all vying for the same customer groups. Make it worthwhile for the target audience to read your content, pass it on and convert to a buying customer – after all gaining more and serving customers is the goal of this effort.
Serving customers through fresh content is not as easy as it sounds and requires meticulous planning, detailed thought and consistently listening to the ‘voice’ of the existing and prospective customers. Craft unique and engaging ‘stories’ via the content and you can be sure to get higher engagement, raising the number of chances you would have converting the engaged minds to loyal customers.
