The key to your marketing efforts

Let’s start this article with a challenge. Read this and try to figure out what it is talking about.

“This intricate piece of machinery features a multi-cylinder internal combustion engine, equipped with a forced induction system and an advanced fuel injection mechanism. The engine is synchronized with a complex transmission system, featuring a torque converter and a series of gears that facilitate power delivery to the circular boosters”

Got it? Isn’t it obvious? You just read a very detailed description of a car.

Now imagine someone is trying to sell you this car. If there is a slim chance you’re a mechanic, you probably understood the text easily. But for the rest of us mortals, technical language is mostly confusing, and in no way engaging.

This might seem like an extreme example, but we have witnessed how many companies try selling amazing, life-changing products using completely incomprehensible content that never attracts customers. Their marketing campaigns fail, and they believe these strategies are useless.

When talking with business managers and finding out they have lost faith in marketing campaigns, I always ask about their content. What they tell me makes the problem clear: they fail to convey their message. Is this your case?

In this article, we will explore why content marketing efforts fail, and how experts in content marketing can really make a difference.

Why do content marketing efforts fail?

Although there are a million factors behind a content’s success, when it comes to the substance and the text that compose these marketing efforts, we have identified two main problems: using technical language and focusing on the company’s perspective of a product.

Technical language

When you make part of an industry, whichever it is, the slang and acronyms are part of everyday interactions. You understand your coworkers, and they understand you because you are speaking in the same language.

However, the rest of the world doesn’t understand this technical language. Marketing campaigns only work when customers are able to grasp the characteristics of what you are selling. And when they run into some incomprehensible word or concept, they will almost never take time to figure out what it means. Customers will just skip your ad and move to the next one, one they do understand.

If they can’t know what you’re selling, why would they buy it?

Sticking to your idea of your product

Selling also means focusing on what the customer wants or needs.

You probably proudly identify every feature that makes your product unique. You have put in the work and you understand the complicated logistics that make your product possible. And as much as sharing this must be exciting for you, it is not necessarily interesting for your customer. It can even be boring, which makes it worse.

Companies fail to sell their products when they can’t image and leverage what the customer will find useful and impressive about their product.

How can strategic marketing help?

Talking with different business managers has proven to us that learning how to create comprehensible and interesting content for customers is not as easy as it sounds. Marketing experts apply multiple strategies in order to achieve this.

Market Analysis

Before actually starting to write, marketing experts investigate how others are talking about the product, both companies and customers. They also analyze what type of content is successful, and take note of its characteristics.

Our experience proves how important market Analysis is. Instead of just shooting in the dark, identifying the language and concepts that have been successful in engaging customers saves time and effort. It is also the perfect way to pinpoint benefits and features that the competition has never leveraged and find a way to make your message stand out.

Persuasive Language

When it comes to the content of a marketing effort, our experts know they need to use persuasive language. What do we mean by this?

For once, all technicalities, industry slang, and acronyms are crossed out. Important concepts are explained in common words and even with examples. We follow a simple rule: a kid should be able to understand what we are selling.

Our content also integrates different strategies that hook the audience to our message. Implementing rhetoric questions, stories or anecdotes, facts and statistics, and even a joke here and there makes our content enjoyable. Our content cannot be a burden to our readers, the point is to sell the product without the audience noticing it.

Appealing to needs and interests

Finally, our experience has shown us it is key to appeal to the audience’s needs and interests. When working with business managers and getting to know the products they want to sell, we usually need to shift the focus.

Instead of sticking to how the business describes the product (features and characteristics), we try to pinpoint what problems and difficulties the product solves. An audience reacts if it understands why it needs the product. Customers will learn more about the features once they are hooked.

Using the persuasive language strategies we mentioned before, like anecdotes or questions, our content evokes customers’ needs and interests and shows how the product is the perfect fix for them. The path is set up: if they identify with the problem, they will buy the solution.

Takeaway

With this article, my intention in showing you how your content creation efforts might be failing is not to discourage you. Marketing has proven to be the best way to attract leads, convert them into customers, and increase your sales.

However, just like any other job, it needs to be done right. I’ve seen how maybe businesses try to do this on their own, wasting time and money.

Our experts in Biznaga Media are here to help you. They have the knowledge and practice to produce high-quality content that leverages your marketing game, while you focus your energy on what you do best.

The key to your marketing efforts