Inspiring Customers Through Content
Is your business devoted to creating content as part of your marketing strategy? Then you have surely encountered the struggles and challenges of the process. When a business first starts blogging, they usually play it safe – sharing information about the business and its growth, introducing new products and services. It’s not the worst method, and it does help generate leads, but what all of these messages have in common is: repetitiveness. Sharing information related to your business is essential, but it can easily turn a blog, a social media channel or a newsletter into the dullest platform and you wouldn’t want the word dull being associated with your brand. Customers don’t like spending time reading content that they expect. The good news is that there are some ways to change this and by doing so manage to truly inspire.
Start by sharing an inspirational story – it could be through an article you’ve written, a link to someone else’s article or a video. It doesn’t matter whether you have created the content, as long as you choose it well. And if you can find a story that resonates with your company’s values, that’s even better. Inspirational stories have the special ability to connect with people on a much deeper level. Everyone loves stories that demonstrate that when you work hard you can accomplish great things. Choosing to share something inspirational that might not be relevant to your product or service, shows a few things about you: a) you are human, b) you care about other things, not just making money, c) you articulate your company’s beliefs and ethics in a smart way and d) you stand out from the crowd.
Caring deeply about a cause or a person, feeling inspired or emotional about a story – these are the experiences you want to provoke in your readers. An inspirational story you share can have a long-lasting effect on your audience, bigger than you might have anticipated. These are emotions which inspire people to talk and take action.
It’s quite easy to spot videos or stories of great quality these days. Check out TED Talks or the RSA, see which are the bestselling books at the moment, follow the most influential people on Twitter and LinkedIn. Always try to bring something from you when sharing such content. A simple message with your opinion or a thought-provoking question will inspire more of your readers to communicate about it.
And remember – not everyone will feel engaged with such a story and not everyone will agree with the message. But the ones who do – they will inspire you too.
