value focused

Early this February, I wrote a blog telling the story of my LinkedIn post that went viral. The short, organic post that went viral was a rant about cold sales pitches. Too many people were connecting with me on LinkedIn only to flood my inbox with these money-grubbing pitches. Fed up, I posted a rant that ended up garnering over 1,000 likes, 287 comments, and over 85,000 views. Naturally, that visibility made a lot of haters crawl out of the woodwork, but the post was also flooded with positive comments and genuine questions. One question, in particular, caught my eye. It went something like, “So, you don’t pitch EVER, or sell EVER?” My answer? No, not really. And this question made me think deeper about it all. Our focus at Express Writers truly is on serving our customers first. That rings true from our blogs and content, down to our sales team (which are not actually made up of salespeople, but content specialists and managers who focus on helping, instead of selling). Even our live on-site conversations with ‘hot leads’ are focused on helping and serving, rather than selling. This value-first, serve-first mentality goes hand-in-hand with content marketing. Content marketing is value-focused marketing. A content-focused marketing approach is our #1 way of driving qualified traffic to our site, earning leads, and making sales. I have leaned into content marketing because I love it, and because it WORKS — we have seen amazing things happen because of our audience-first content focus in marketing. This content marketing mindset has trickled down into almost every aspect of what we do at Express Writers — and that’s what I wanted to write about today on the blog. How a serve-first mindset really, truly can equal brand growth. Delighting your customers AND growing your bottom line? It’s possible. Read on. [bctt tweet=”Our focus is on serving our customers first. That rings true from our blogs and content, down to our sales team. More on #valuefirstmarketing via @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”] The Growth of a Value-First, Serve-First Content Marketing Approach: Your Consumer Wants You To Care About Them Content marketing as a whole has been growing rapidly. A Technavio market research analyst forecasted the content marketing market to grow globally at a CAGR of more than 16% from 2017-2021, according to their latest report. By 2021, content marketing is set to be worth over $412 billion! According to Ujjwal Doshi, a lead analyst at Technavio for media and entertainment services research, content marketing’s effectiveness is because of the lack of effectiveness in traditional marketing. What do you know — today’s consumer is savvy, and can’t be fooled into buying something! “The effectiveness of traditional marketing is decreasing by the day. Companies must adopt the latest marketing trends to enhance their business and increase their consumer base. Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach that is focused on creating and sharing valuable, consistent, and relevant content to attract and retain the audience.” As a whole, content marketing is first and foremost about the customer, NOT about the brand. And this is why it’s growing at such an incredible rate and being adopted by upwards of 90% of B2Bs. According to Content Marketing Institute’s definition, the whole point of content marketing is actually to “attract and retain a clearly defined audience.” They go on to say: “Instead of pitching your products or services, you are providing truly relevant and useful content to your prospects and customers to help them solve their issues.” This is a big shift from traditional marketing and advertising, where it’s all about the brand pushing their message out to consumers. Instead, with content marketing, the consumer has the power to discover and connect with brands and content that suit their needs. And that’s what today’s smart consumer is looking for in a brand or marketer. Someone that cares about them. [bctt tweet=”Content marketing is first and foremost about the customer, NOT about the brand. And that’s what today’s smart consumer is looking for in a brand or marketer. Someone that cares about them. @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”] Unsurprisingly, the rise of content marketing has happened alongside changing buyer preferences. Shoppers don’t like pushy sales pitches, ads, or impersonal marketing according to studies by Accenture, BigCommerce, and SnapApp & Heinz Marketing. The latter study even found that most B2B Millennial buyers are sales avoiders, and will avoid talking to sales until at least the middle of their buying journeys. Modern buyers have the internet and social media at their beck and call to help them find information and make purchase decisions, so their buying journeys are more independent, self-directed, and unpredictable than ever. This quote from the BigCommerce study showcases how buyer expectations have changed: “Millennials have grown accustomed to speed, convenience, and a personalized online shopping experience. However, Gen Z has never known shopping without these. They’re more brand agnostic and very wary of brand promises.” – Erik Christiansen In other words, trust and loyalty are harder to win than ever, but today they matter more than ever. Consumers today are more discerning, smarter, savvier, and more resourceful. They have the internet to help them make informed purchases. They can smell a sneaky sales pitch from miles away, and they know when brands are being inauthentic. That’s why we need to serve our customers value before we do anything else. We need to focus on building trust and loyalty rather than selling. It’s what they want! How do we do it? With a content marketing strategy built on the right framework. Lifecycle Marketing: A Framework for Targeted Content Marketing Luckily, the concept of lifecycle marketing fits in perfectly with a content marketing mindset. When you think of the buyer’s journey in terms of a lifecycle versus a sales funnel, you can more accurately predict what they need/want at each stage, including after you’ve won their loyalty. A traditional sales funnel doesn’t show that part of the journey, let alone what you’re supposed to do to keep delighting loyal customers. The only way to go is down and out, and … Read more