You may have heard the phrase, ‘Content is King’?
It’s often used in the context of business growth and marketing, and the idea behind it is simple: To get enough attention to convince a prospect that you’re the right choice for them, you need to be creating content that they can engage with.
Content that educates and informs.
Content that cajoles and compels.
Content that nurtures and content that sells.
In the kitchen industry, there’s little that’s more important than the content you put out, for the simple reason that the transaction you’re bidding for is a considered one.
People don’t buy a kitchen on a whim – behind every purchase, there’s a hive of activity and a vast consumption of information.
If you don’t take part in that process, by providing regular, useful content for those people, your chances of getting the sale significantly reduces.
In truth, the creation of that content is a large part of what we do for our Inspire KBB clients, and it works.
However, the default position of most kitchen companies when they decide to start Content Marketing is something along the lines of, ‘Let’s start firing offers out there to try and make sales.’
It’s an understandable instinct. However, it’s one that must be curbed.
You either want to buy right now, or you don’t, which means that a specific ‘salesy’ message doesn’t land with the people who might do business with you in the future, but aren’t ready right now.
That’s why we tend to lean towards an 80/20 approach – 80% of the content we create for clients is about building relationships with their audience, adding value and educating, with 20% of it more sharp end sales focused.
In practice, this means that in every ten pieces of content, two can be sales pitches, while the other eight are less sales and more value-oriented. The more value you add into your audience, the more you can take out in the form of orders.
It’s a bit like a bank account – first, you need to make deposits before there’s enough banked to make a withdrawal.
So, remember that ratio - add as much value in as you can before trying to sell.
