We are continually faced by great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble solutions. Lee Iacocca has a winning thought here. Are you occasionally looking for help finding an answer that would solve a problem? Happens to us all, and even for our customers. Why not turn this idea into a unique marketing approach?
Marcus Sheridan, the founder of River Pools and Spas in Northern Virginia, asked himself the same question and decided to use the question to help himself while helping customers for his business. We can all learn from what he discovered.
Sheridan wrote one article on his company’s blog in 2009 that simply answered the first question on everyone’s mind when thinking about buying one of his pools, “How much does a fiberglass pool really cost?”
To this day, thanks to insights he gained from Google Analytics, he’s been able to track a minimum of $1.7 million in sales to that single article.
Solving problems – answering questions – turns out to be a potentially lucrative marketing exercise.
Related: How to Frame Marketing Messages for Optimum Engagement
You can do this on your own blog like Sheridan did. But why stop there? Why not answer real-life questions from living, breathing people? Sites that do this are all around us have spent lots of time and energy collecting these questions for us, and feed them up daily on a silver platter.
It’s not quite inbound marketing, but pretty close.
Plus, real questions tend to be unique and more in-depth than general frequently asked questions content you’d create on your blog, or serve up in a newsletter. But with a little work, this could be your moment to shine.
Simply show that you know the ins and outs of your market and have seen all sorts of situations that enable you to answer with authority. Share some examples would add even more credibility.
Sure, forums, Q&A sites and the like have been around a long time. Nowadays all the buzz goes to video, inbound marketing, and content marketing. But we should stop a minute and think more on the approach because it’s not like every competitor company has mastered it and it’s still potentially powerful.
This is how you build and retain credibility with consumers who’ve never worked with you before.
And like anything in life, it only works when done well.
When thinking about this subject, I perused a lot of sites with questions and answers and saw some good stuff and some bad stuff. First, the most common offenders:
Marketing approach … questions with tough answers
If you don’t know the answer, don’t bluff with opinions. Do your research and if you cannot come up with a good answer, say so. You might even ask your customers for their help.
Poor grammar and errors
This matters more than you think. Think about it this way: You wouldn’t mail out a postcard that has a glaring typo in it. You wouldn’t make a sales call or presentation you hadn’t practiced. Polish matters online.
I know that the casual environment of the web makes us all feel like it doesn’t, but it does.
So what works?
So, what works as a unique marketing approach?
Concise answers are written with clarity and void of jargon that directly address the question being asked. A non-sales approach that is a genuine reflection of your unique value.
Sounds a lot like the characteristics of great marketing copy.
Another way to do this well is to give your time investment more longevity. Take it to your blog. You’ve spent valuable time answering a question on another company’s site – now take your work and reshape it a bit into a piece of content – a piece of marketing – that works standalone on your own site.
More to read: Case Studies to Evaluate New World Marketing Concepts
Maybe that means reworking the question and answer a bit to appeal to more consumers or removing it from a Q&A format. Maybe it means going more in-depth.
The point is you have a solid content asset that you can build on an archive on your own site for SEO and traffic.
Takeaways
We’ve heard from some clients who’ve landed crucial deals this way, and one in particular that I’ve spoken with has been able to trace a dozen deals back to one Q&A instance on one of the portal sites.
This is real stuff that is worth approaching strategically and tactically, just like the rest of your marketing.
If you are looking for additional resources in marketing strategy, one of my favorite experts is John Jantsch and Duct Tape Marketing. You’ll find lots of good stories and examples to learn from his blog.
So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you. But believe in the effectiveness of word of mouth marketing. And put it to good use.
It’s up to you to keep improving your creative marketing efforts. Lessons are all around you. In this case, your competitor may be providing the ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.
When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your marketing, branding, and advertising?
Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More reading on marketing strategy from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
How to Frame Marketing Messages for Optimum Engagement
Some Great Story and Storytelling Examples to Study
Jaw Dropping Guerrilla Marketing Lessons and Examples
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Everything is set and falling into place perfectly. The PR staff, cameramen, associate producers, producers, executives, even modern day advertising.
Everyone is ready for this weekend. The work party is being held right outside of Kansas City at my personal vacation cabin. It’s a bit of a drive for some of the people attending the get-together, but the views are definitely worth it: rolling hills, spacious countryside, abundant wildlife, you name it and this cabin has it.
Everyone in the office is probably ready for a little change of scenery. Besides, there are more than enough guest rooms throughout the place to accommodate everyone for the night since it’s a bit of a hike from the city. The only thing I need to check before the group gets here is to make sure there are no unwanted guests, or mice as they are commonly known, residing in the cabin.
I haven’t used the place since the past summer so it’s been empty almost an entire year. The cabin is bound to have mice so to make sure nothing goes wrong, I’ll go ahead and find pest control near me. I know there are some good companies in Kansas City so it shouldn’t take long to have the problem resolved.
Once the cabin is mouse-free and ready to house some friendly faces, the party will begin! Everything is laid out and set up for the guests and I can’t wait to get the conversation going about promoting our next film. Research has been saying that maybe the old ways are best and everything new and digital isn’t guaranteed to mean it’s better.
The new marketing approach will be a great conversation starter for the party considering the last film we shot didn’t do as well in the box office as we had hoped. We had followed the lead from some of our fresh-out-of-college PAs that assisted on the set who claimed that their generation didn’t really respect tradition advertising (i.e. billboards, newspaper ads, subway ads, etc.) and instead looked for their news online and through social media platforms (sponsored posts, influencers, trailers through video streaming sites, etc.).
Some of the executives and myself took to the web and the old school library to research statistics on traditional advertising vs. non-traditional or modern advertising. We came out of our study sessions with a pretty good idea of what needed to be done and why we thought traditional advertising didn’t seem to work anymore.
After brainstorming with the younger members of the staff and playing around on various websites and social media sites, we created a whole marketing campaign directed right at the younger generations. We thought this movie would be an instant blockbuster hit with our new advertising strategy, but instead of blowing the minds of our audience and exploding through the top of the box office charts, the movie flopped.
The generation we had been hoping to reach through this new way of advertising instead passed over all of the ads and promotions without a second glance. The links we put out on some of the biggest websites like Facebook and Instagram were hardly clicked or shared when we went back to look at the stats.
It was obvious then that the approach didn’t work, but up until now, no one had any other grand ideas about how to be creative in our advertising approach.
This cabin party will be the game-changer for the company and for the way the team works and brainstorms together. The new project will have a whole new advertising campaign attached to it that will be developed at this get-together.
There is no better place to clear one’s head and gain a fresh outlook on life and a new perspective on one’s career than being in the countryside surrounded by like-minded individuals. If all goes well, the weekend will be repeated in the future for other projects that may need a little fun in the production!
Mice, failed advertising strategies, long-distance driving, nothing can stop this party from being a hit.
