That blog post you wrote a while ago? It could be your key to landing new clients. Here’s why.
Let me guess: you met with your potential client, they asked questions, you answered them well, you shook hands and headed back to your office where you wrote a nicely worded follow-up email that closed with, “If you have any questions then please don’t hesitate to contact me”.
Snore.
Guess what? That’s exactly what the other four people who also met with your potential client said in their emails.
With that stock-standard email, you missed a great opportunity to stand out, demonstrate your expertise and build more trust.
You’ve probably heard all about the benefits of content marketing in attracting customers, but one of the little-known and most powerful abilities of content marketing is to help in the later stages of the sales process.
When meeting with potential clients, every question they ask can be turned into a piece of content. If it is a question that’s been asked before, then hopefully – if you have a blog up and running – you will already have some related content in the bank. During the meeting, you should make a note of pieces of content you’ve written that align to questions being asked or topics being discussed.
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Then, when you return to your desk post-meeting, include links to useful website content in the closing statement of your follow-up email.
I was in a client meeting the other day and was asked whether testimonials should be included on their site. I spoke to them about how they should be, but that most businesses find it hard to obtain decent ones. I spoke briefly about my approach to writing awesome testimonials and promised a link to my blog post – How to write awesome testimonials.
“I love the name of the blog post,” was the client’s response. I guarantee they clicked on the link in the follow-up email I sent them and have read the blog post.
The beauty of this approach is that if you are a business that is shy about giving away all your secrets to the public through your content, then you can create pieces of content that are only ever sent to potential clients – specifically crafted to demonstrate your expertise, build trust and move the prospective client closer to choosing you.
If you get asked lots of questions and don’t have a piece of content for each one then there’s no better time to start writing.
Has your content marketing helped you in the sales process?
