Andriana BoyrikovaPeople care about themselves, they don’t care about what you sell. It sounds harsh but it is true. If you want to attract more customers, you need to create content that tunes in to their “What is in it for me?” instead of overfocusing on what you sell. There are a few simple techniques that can tweak your product-centric content into customer-centric to benefit your prospects and customers.
Let’s say you have just released your new weight-loss training app with an abundance of features. Now it is time to start promoting it. But before you write endless product specifications for your website and emails, ask yourself: do your ideal customers – stressed people juggling family, work, and social life – wake up in the morning thinking about a specific training app and its features?
No, they are most likely worrying that they have fallen into a negative downward spiral of too much stress and prolonged inactivity, and they are seeking out easy ways to get back on track.
Focusing all your content on what your products or services do only creates more noise in an already too loud space: your message gets lost and you fail to attract the right people to take the next step.
Your content needs to show how your product/service fits into your target audience’s lives, solves their problems, meets their needs, helps them achieve their goals, or has an impact on their day-to-day activities.
From product-centric to customer-centric
I challenge you to go to your competitors’ websites and count how many of them are talking about themselves. Are they describing in length why their product or service is the best? Are they listing never-ending features? Perhaps they believe that by listing more and more features they will entice their ideal customers to buy their product or service. However, this language does little to communicate any actual value to them.
Now, go to your website and do the same test. Is your content screaming “This is how I want my product/service to appear” or does it offer useful information on the actual value your potential customers will get by using your product or service?
Try to uncover the weak spots in your content — the places where you were thinking about you and what you offer and not about your target audience and what they get out of it.
The shift from product-centric to customer-centric is difficult. It just feels so natural to talk about products and features instead of value:
“Try out our custom program built on state-of-the-art artificial intelligence algorithms.”
But what if you tweaked this to reflect the benefit for the user:
“Access the data you need, whenever you need it, no information overload.”
Every word directed to your target audience should show how your product or service will enhance their lives. Your content has to translate – at all levels – into a better life for them: whether it saves them time or money, prevents hassle, or helps them have a better, more fun, or more productive day.
Three simple formulas to make your content customer-centric
1. Define your buyer personas
You can create customer-centric content only if you know what your ideal customers’ problems, needs, and desires are. Write every single line of copy with the specific benefits for your audience in mind. You can use the following template as a starting point:
Our prospects are struggling with [list the challenges/pain points people have]
We can help them by [define how your solution will help them, with a focus on concrete benefits]
Which results in [list relevant metrics]
We have done it for [list customer references and proof points]
2. Use “so what?”
Scan all content on your website, blog posts, landing pages, case studies, and emails and write down all features you talk about. Copy and paste them into a new document. Then, after each feature, write down “so what?” and answer it:
The results will be sentences like:
- Our software makes all information instantly accessible, searchable, and trackable.
So what?
Find the info you need in seconds.
- Our consultants have over 20 years of experience helping clients exactly like you.
So what?
Trust the experts who can solve your trickiest financial issues.
- We write high-converting web copy.
So what?
Get more customers – and keep them – and avoid expensive SEO and SEA fees.
3. Always refer to Why
I can’t stress this enough: any piece of content you create should revolve around Why. Make sure you read why you should focus your content marketing strategy on your Why (if you haven’t read it yet). Why should be your starting point, always. Before you jump into creating any piece of content, answer these two questions:
“Why am I writing this?”
“Why is this important to my prospects and customers?”
Then again:
“Why is this important to my prospects and customers?”
Conclusion
Examine all content you have published or are planning to publish: does it reflect what your prospects and customers are really looking for? Does it add value to them so that they feel compelled to take the next step and choose you over your competitors? Before you create any piece of content, always:
- define your buyer personas and craft a clear use case: Our prospects are struggling with […]; We can help them by […]; Which results in […]; We have done it for […]
- add the words “so you can” after each feature you describe to highlight how your prospects and customers will benefit from it
- always refer to Why: “Why am I writing this? Why is this important to my prospects and customers?”
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I hope you have found these tips helpful. Is the content on your website or emails product-centric and, if yes, how are you going to improve it? Let me know in a comment.
Featured image: Vitalii Vodolazskyi, Stock Adobe.
Do you need help with creating customer-centric content? Email me and I would love to help you.
