Is your marketing bringing you more clients? Here’s are 5 super simple ways you can use content marketing to attract more clients to your creative business.
A few years ago, back in the University, I encountered my first marketing failure of a lifetime.
A group of us had just co-authored a personal development book and we were faced with a challenge — to sell the book!
I co-authored the book, so how hard would it be to sell it, right?
Wrong!
With almost a thousand people in the audience, the other authors seemed to be killing it. I mean, they were writing down names, and getting pre-orders.
I on the other hand, didn’t make a single sale!
And the only name I got to write down didn’t pay until after two weeks.
Classic!
You can only imagine how depressed I felt after that experience. In fact, I didn’t want to hear the word “marketing” anymore.
But fast-forward 5 years later, here I am talking about content marketing. Why?
It’s not because writing comes naturally to me.
On the contrary, content marketing simply means talking about what you do in a way that your audience (potential clients) can understand you and take action.
People talk about content marketing in a way that makes it look like a hideous marketing method that would completely zap your time and energy. Well, it’s not like it’s a lazy marketing method either. But what I’m going to do in this post is to show you the simple steps to using content marketing in your own way to get you more clients.
So let’s get to it.
Do You Want More Clients?
Really, in our line of business, who doesn’t? But that’s a question only you can answer. Your ‘hunger’ for new clients is what would propel you to take action on this post.
Before you embark on using content marketing for your business, you need to ensure that what you’ll talk about, and the way you’ll talk about it would attract your clients. Don’t expect to talk about how much you love your cat and expect clients to hit the “hire me” link for your creative services.
Instead, what you need to talk about is your service, but in different ways. Here are 5 ways to talk about what you do to potential clients.
1. Talk About The Role Of Your Service In Your Client’s Business
Using a design service as our example, what role does design play in ecommerce? (Assuming your clients were ecommerce businesses). All you have to do here is to let your potential client see the importance of your service in his or her business. Here’s a formula you could use to develop ideas for this kind of content:
What role does [my service] play in [potential client’s business]?
Having this formula in mind, the designer in our example can then develop the following content ideas by answering the question in the formula:
- Why Good Design Helps Shoppers Purchase More;
- 4 Ways To Use Design In Your Ecommerce Business
- 20 Design Tips For Ecommerce Businesses On A Budget
These are just examples, but you get the point, right?
2. Talk About The Benefits Of Using Your Service
Now, you have to step out of your business and into your potential client’s business. What does your client have to gain by using your service? Will he have more business? Will he have more profit? How about more customers? Or better ROI?
Once you’ve been able to figure out all these benefits, you can then weave them into your content.
So here’s a formula to help you generate ideas:
What are the benefits of using [my service] in [potential client’s business]?
With this formula you can then create the following content ideas:
- How To Use Product Display Designs To Grow Your Sales
- 14 Product Design Templates To Help You Double Your Sales Overnight
- 4 Ways To Use Design To Create A Positive Brand for Your Ecommerce Business
- How To Use Design To Double Your ROI
3. Talk About Your Service In Places Your Clients Hangout
I believe this is just common sense. If you have a body fitness product for people who like to exercise, where do you go to sell it?
The gym! That’s not rocket science.
Online, that would mean going to fitness blogs and forums to publish such content. In our design example, the last place you’d want to go to is another design blog.
Why? Because their audience would be made up of people who sell design services like you. An exception would be if the design blogger also talks about a subject in your potential client’s industry.
This strategy is called guest blogging: You publish content in places where your clients most likely are.
So as a designer looking to get more ecommerce clients, sites that talk about marketing, ecommerce and business in general are your best picks. For sites that talk about ecommerce, you need to ensure that their audience are ecommerce businesses, not consumers. An ecommerce blog that talks about how to get the best deals online isn’t a good fit for you.
Yes, this would require a bit of research. So, here’s a guide to help you out in this step: The Ultimate Guide to Guest Blogging.
4. Talk About How Your Service Got Results For A Client
In other words, a case study. From point 2, you showed potential clients how they can benefit from your service.
Have any of your clients actually benefitted from your service? If there are, then you should tell the world about it. This is called a case study.
So here are examples of such:
- How XYZ Company Changed Their Design Template And Increased Sales By 200%
- How I Helped XYZ Reduce Their Abandonment Rate By 200% Through A Simple Tweak In Their Shopping Cart Design
How about if you’re just starting out…where do you get case studies you don’t have?
The good news is, the case study doesn’t have to be about you or your service. It could be about how another business used your kind of service to get results. This still strengthens the fact that your service works.
That’s the message you’re trying to pass across and it’s what your potential clients should see.
5. Talk About Why You Believe Your Client Needs Your Service
This is where you need to connect with the potential client. Some people believe they don’t have to invest into something in order to get the results they want. If you believe that investing into design would help in the long run, then you need to make potential clients see things your way.
Sometimes, this point could just be about you saying why you started design in the first place. What are your beliefs about design? Why do you think design is necessary?
Using myself as an example, I believe selling services is a way of changing the lives of those who need it. So I wrote this post: Changing Lives, One Service At A Time: How to Discover The Purpose Of Your Service Business. You should go read it.
Here, you don’t go into the technicalities of your service. Instead, you let it flow and connect with potential clients who have the same beliefs as you do. There really isn’t any formula for this one, but here’s a question you could ask yourself;
What do you really think about [your service]?
I don’t think talking about your service using content can get any simpler than what I’ve just explained here. If the tips in this post still seem hard for you to do, then you should probably look for other means to get more clients.
But in reality, it’s as simple as meeting someone on the street and selling yourself. Content marketing is about educating your prospects to the point where they’re ready to buy. And every piece of content you write is a way of selling yourself.
For example, in this post, I’ve helped you brainstorm potential content topics you could use in your marketing efforts. And I’ve shown you how to do it too.
As a content marketer, I help clients brainstorm content ideas, research places where they can get more leads (guest blogging) and also develop the content needed to help them achieve their business goals. So if a potential client wants to remove the hassle of coming up with content ideas on their own, they could simply fill the form on my services page so we could kick-start something awesome :-).
If you’re ready to take advantage of this post, here’s what to do next:
Imagine you met a potential client on the road and he asked you about your service and how you could help his business.
What would you say? Write it down.
That’s the first step to generating an overflow of ideas. Then refer back to this post and use the formulas to generate more ideas.
So, how do you plan on letting clients know about your service? Share in the comments below.