Editor’s note: Content Marketing World 2015, one of the premier events in content marketing, will take place Sept. 8-11 at the Cleveland Convention Center. Smart Business will profile three of the event’s leading speakers. This is part three.
One of the latest trends in content marketing involves companies using either text or video, or both, to answer customer questions — before the customer experience becomes an unhappy one.
“There is a whole field out there of ‘how to’ videos by companies saying, ‘Hey, here’s a short YouTube clip on how to do this and how to do that,’ which should, when executed correctly, prevent people from having to call you, right?” says Jay Baer, president of Convince & Convert LLC.
Proactive content
If such content is done well, it can reduce a company’s customer service costs — so there are benefits to content that extends beyond just “we got a customer out of it,” says Baer, who was named one of America’s top three social media consultants by Fast Company.
It all goes along with the tendency that most people would rather learn for themselves. In the recent past, it wasn’t that way. A company treasured all its “touches” with customers, hoping for an opportunity to sell or upsell.
“Sometimes this concept of we want to talk to the customers is great, except the customers don’t want that,” Baer says. “Most people don’t want to have an actual conversation unless they have to. It is a hassle. Most people would rather self-educate.
“Once consumers got to the point where there were no other resources available at their fingertips to answer their questions, then they would begrudgingly call. That’s where companies would start to say, ‘Well, what if we figured out all the questions anybody would ever have about us? What if we answered those questions proactively?’”
Self-education
This customer service content could evolve and grow as additional questions and responses that had not come up previously get added to the list.
“They prefer to self-educate,” Baer says of consumers. “They can learn by themselves, and then only when they are ready to buy do they actually pick up the phone.”
Research says in the B2B world, on average, 67 percent of buyer decisions have been made before consumers ever contact the company.
“By the time consumers pick up the phone, they are pretty much sold,” he says. “It used to be you would walk into a store and ask what they had to sell there. You would never think of doing that now. You call as the last resort, not as the first resort.”
One of the workshops Baer will conduct at Content Marketing World 2015 will be about a concept called atomization of content.
“This is where you take a big idea and execute that idea in a bunch of small ways in many, many different places,” he says.
“You execute that idea here, here, here, with slight variations in each channel, in each form. You set up a plan to atomize content, and it becomes much more efficient because you are not reinventing the wheel each time.” ●
How to reach: Convince & Convert LLC, (602) 616-1895 or www.convinceandconvert.com
