Explode your Customer Reach with Powerful, Creative Content

To attract, engage, and help your customers with the right experiences at the right time: it’s the goal of many a business website, but few succeed.

A pretty website is nice on the eyes, but without the right content to engage your customers, they’ll be long gone without so much as signing up for your email newsletter, let alone making an enquiry about your product or service. Can you afford to lose these potential clients before you’ve even spoken with them?

With clever placement of helpful resources that assist and educate your customers, you’ll have a winning combination to keep your leads engaged. Great design and great content can and should go hand in hand. In this article, we’re going to talk about how you can use different types of content to achieve the trust of your readers, and in turn generate leads and enquiries through your website.

Your website user experience is one of the most important aspects your brand can offer for building trust and authority. After all, your website is there to communicate who you are, and what you stand for. What do you offer your customers? Flashy visuals, or valuable information that helps them understand what you can do for them and how you can do it?

Building the kind of relationships you need to turn your website users into clients takes time. Most of the time, you’re not going to be able to sell a cold lead your most comprehensive service, right off the bat. Instead, you’ll show them why you deserve their business: not by simply telling them, but by showing them that you’re empathetic to their problems and can help. How do you do that with just the right touch? By empowering them with the right information at the right time.

The Stages of the Customer’s Journey

Part of the process of creating great content is to truly understand your customer’s journey, and put yourself in their shoes. When a potential client is new to your site, they’re probably only starting to discover you exist. Maybe they found you through a search engine, through Linkedin or Twitter, or via word of mouth. Either way, first impressions matter. They’ve accepted they have a problem and are looking for a solution. That’s where you come in. In this discovery phase, they’re collecting information and resources to find the best answer to their situation.

That’s where a well-designed site with a great customer experience comes in; and fortunately for you, we’re about to take a deep dive into exactly how to go about delivering that. Let’s get started.

The Best Types of Creative Content to Use

• Checklists
• Ebooks
• PDFs of long-form articles
• Video or Webinars
• Infographics
• Case Studies
• White Papers
• Blogging Content
• Podcasts
• Expert Interviews
• Testimonials

BONUS: Newsletter archives can show the ongoing value that you offer – and encourage potential users to sign up for your mailing list.

Whew, that was quite the list, right?

Don’t worry – you don’t have to ensure you’re doing them all. There are multiple forms of content to choose from, and not all forms are suitable for every person or every business.

Still, we’d highly recommend that you choose more than one format. People learn in different ways. While many are drawn to video, others will want to read. If you offer a blog with helpful articles, just like we try to do here, your potential customer will know they can come back to continue to learn something useful. This builds trust and authority – and, of course, the good habit of returning to your website. Each contact with a potential customer means they’re closer to converting, and you’re sure to be the name they think of should they require a service under your business’ umbrella.

How to Use Different Types of Content

Lead Capture

Some of the options listed above are a simple way to exchange information for an email address, which gives you permission to contact your users and puts them a step closer to becoming your client. Things like ebooks, PDFs, or case studies are a great example of lead magnets. You’ve probably seen it before – the tantalising prospect of a free in-depth guide to do this or that, which could be yours – in exchange for your email address.

Video

Informational videos are also a great way to show a client how to do something. You don’t have to be a great entertainer to do a great video; a large amount of the population are visual learners, and so they use things like YouTube to do their learning. You can build a YouTube following and share those videos on your website, too. WordPress make it easy to copy and paste a URL from YouTube into your blog posts to create an embedded video.

You’re not just limited to ‘how to’ do X or Y in a video format, however. You can also use them as a means of outreach, showcasing customer interviews and case studies. What about showing comparisons of types of product in your niche? There are so many ways to use video today, you’re only limited by your imagination.

Infographics

Infographics are eye-catching and engage the customer to stay on your site longer. The more helpful you are, the better your company positions itself as a leader in your industry. Infographics are a great investment, too. If you take the time to have a well-designed one, that’s something people will want to link to, which will in turn help build your backlinks and SEO process.

Podcasts

Podcasts are a great way to display interviews with industry experts. Remember, these are all optional, and you don’t need every piece of content, but think outside of the box and expand your reach. Your customer may listen to it on their morning commute or while doing household chores. Either way, it’s another way to build your authority, by showing your client that you know your stuff.

Blogs

Blogs are a great opportunity to use keyword phrases to help your search engine ranking. By displaying your vast experience and knowledge in your field, you’re helping build confidence in your reader; both in your knowledge and expertise and in the products you offer. After all, a true expert wouldn’t offer sub-par products or services, your readers will think.

You can use blogs to answer questions to commonly asked questions. A good way to find these is to search the ‘questions’ social network, Quora. The great thing about this method is that you’ll find content ideas in questions that haven’t been adequately answered by Google, but that potential customers are obviously searching for the answer to. If you can answer these questions in blog form, you’ll have a great opportunity to easily rank top in Google for that question, and attract users searching for similar answers in future.

eBooks

eBooks can be about how to use your product or service, how you differentiate yourself, or why your company is the best choice. How can you eliminate their problem? Will you save them time, money, or convenience? Speak to your customer’s wants and needs.
Testimonials build trust. Displaying them on your site says this is our track record, and people trust us. Again, it’s another authority benchmark.

When to Use Different Types of Content

Different types of content have different uses for different stages of the customer journey (whew, try saying that three times in a row quickly!).

Consider earlier how we mentioned a client going from the awareness stage to the discovery stage. Each of the pieces of content can be used in the discovery stage – but how can you make even better use of your creative content?

And what about after you’ve obtained a client? By offering a resource page with helpful videos, you’re showing them that you continue to offer helpful information that can guide them into being a more loyal customer. Word of mouth is a huge bonus, and by treating and retaining your customers, your business will thrive. Delight them, and exceed their expectations. Just because you signed a contract, doesn’t mean they become invisible.

Offer checklists of things to be aware of that might be overlooked in their business field. By continually engaging with them, you’re cementing your position as the go-to person or company.

Offer a newsletter that keeps them up to date on industry tips or regulations, or if you’re in a B2B sector, maybe you can offer them creative ways that they can expand their own customer base.

Take the time to give your client a well-rounded experience. Be seen as the leader in your industry.

Where to Start

It can be overwhelming when you see how many different ways you can reach out, but instead you should think of it as being quite empowering! You don’t have to create all these different avenues all at once. Expand in the areas based on who your customer is and what their needs are, but also based on your strengths and skills as a business.

Not every business needs video or a podcast. On the other hand, you may retain the customer’s dwell time on your site and help them see ways that you can help. There are so many varied ways to be seen and heard, but in a sea of constant distraction it can feel impossible.

Set yourself up as the authority in your field by showcasing your desire to help your clients with smart, actionable tips, and resourceful information. You need to build trust before you can build a relationship. Being the one-stop solution to your customer’s needs is a guaranteed way to build loyalty. Loyal, happy customers are the best advertisement you can get.
How will you help your customers today?