Unsexy products need content too
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It’s always fun (and rather easy) to write for fashion brands, liquor manufacturers or sporting companies. But what part does content play when your product is unsexy? When your business is about selling hearing aids, compressed air solutions or even houses? And how will it boost your ROI? After creating digital & content strategies for ‘boring companies’, as they often call themselves, for years, Steven has compiled his motivations, results and advice in one presentation. Not only will he explain how the process works, he will also show some cases in which content has meant a huge improvement to digital ROI and revenue for so-called ‘boring’ companies.
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Unsexy products need content too
- 1. MY BUSINESS IS UNSEXY SO WHY THE HELL WOULD I NEED CONTENT ?
- 4. full service digital agency inbound & online marketing webdesign & development marketing automation digital content creation
- 8. my audience doesn’t use search engines like that
- 9. 44% of all buyers start the buying process via a search engine
- 13. my customers aren’t interested in ‘content’
- 19. At a third of the price.
- 20. 87% of internet users admit being influenced by helpful content when buying everyday products
- 21. 70% of all companies worldwide have no content strategy
- 22. big purchases don’t happen online
- 24. B2B buyers go through about 57% of the purchasing process before ever talking to sales.
- 28. time to break the wall between facts and common beliefs
- 29. Sexy or not sexy, when you’re in a business where you need to: •Educate customers •Assist customers •Guide customars •Convince customers …
- 31. You need content. But where do you start?
- 32. everything starts with a plan
- 40. the right content at the right time
- 42. set up a road map
- 46. cases
- 59. CONCLUSIONS 2015 steady growth curve becoming flatter little organic growth competitors don’t use content
- 60. CHALLENGES? raise amount of hearing test requests in a target group that’s not ‘digital’ grow ’expert’ image lower the share of paid channels in the media mix
- 61. APPROACH 2016 market research competitor research buyer research content strategy marketing automation
- 62. APPROACH 2016 blog e-books & brochures as premium content personalized email-follow up mediapartners no longer used for bannering, but for content promotion marketing automation makes it all easier
- 67. 5 take aways 5 take-aways
- 68. marketing knows the product, sales knows the customer
- 69. no strategy, no party
- 70. data is your best friend, use it
- 71. bad content is worse than no content
- 72. ain’t no opportunity like an unsexy product
- 73. GOT QUESTIONS?
Editor's Notes
- Hello! Welcome to ‘My Business is unsexy, so why the hell would I need content’
- My name is steven van duyse, and I work as a Digital strategist and Inbound Marketing specialist at Mia. The one on the right is my junior colleague.
- So first off, what’s Mia?
- a full service digital agency, big enough to cope and small enough to care. We’re in the digital marketing business since 2001 and are specialized in the entire trajectory of a website project. From strategy, over design and development, to the full digital marketing scope.
- Enkele van onze grootste klanten, waar we een volledige digitale dienstverlening voor voorzien, van strategie over sites bouwen tot online marketing.
- We zijn al enkele jaren een trotse partner van Google, wereldwijd de grootste zoekmachine, en van Hubspot, de authoriteit op het vlak van Inbound marketing.
- Let’s start of with some food for thought. For some reason, we often get contacted by businesses that describe their products or services as ‘boring’. Think industrial B2B-solutions, consumer products with a long acquisition path or services that everybody needs, but nobody spends a lot of time thinking about. These are some of the most common responses we get, when talking to these business owners about why their businesses should go digital.
- Let’s have a look.
- These days, search engines are the first place most people look when searching for a particular product online. Consequently, it’s also the first place to find new customers online. If marketing is about being in the right place at the right time - search engines provide the ability to do just that! Both organic and paid.
- And it’s not just Google Either. There’s these huys too.
- Oh. And all these guys. Today, everything is a search engine. Got a restaurant? Yelp. Got a product? Amazon or Bol.
- One of our customers, active in nailcare, was determined that people only visited their site after being visited by a sales rep and that it wasn’t in their nature to go look for information themselves. Their marketing manager came form a classical approach, always focussing on outbound communication. We did a small analysis (that basically anyone can do in 5 minutes), showing them that more than 75% of their site traffic globally came form search engines. And that of those visitors, almost 50% wasn’t looking for their products or their brand, but for their solutions to common nailcare questions and for their educations.
- They might not be interested in what you define as content, but everyone is influenced by content in some way when buying something. Content comes in many forms, and we need to get rid of the idea of content only being something written and optimized.
- This is content, wether you agree or not. This is a Macro-infused excel file for our customer Iko, a company that specialises in roof shingles. You might better know this product as the ugly type of roofing that is extremely popular in eastern europe. They have created an estimation tool for how much roof material is required for your house, including all side materials and tools, and this for every product they have. At a very, very low cost. It’s not mobile friendly, but it’s by far the most popular piece of content on their site. Even if it has almost zero text in it. Because content needs perspective too.
- This is not peculiar. Anyone who’s ever bought something of some value, has checked for prices, reviews and comparisons when at the point of buying. Looking for a final deal on a TV, or quickly looking up a review of a new record or book… If the purchase is ‘usefull’, like garden equipment, or someone is looking for a product to clean terraces while in a DIY-store, your company providing the right content might make that person a lifelong customer.
- Just like Aquaplan did. Another client of ours, from the same house as Iko, is Aquaplan. What we have done for them, is create some sort of ‘problem solver’ on the website, when you have no clue how to solve it yourself.
- And because of this ‘usefullness’, content generates 3 times more leads than traditional push marketing
- For a lot less money.
- Want more proof? Global research biy bubspot and it’s partners.
- With that in mind, Isn’t this scary? Not my fact either, but by Rebecca Lieb, who conducted a 2y long global research
- This ones’s actually true. Big purchases, like houses, cars, pools…they don’t happen online. At least: the purchase itself doesn’t happen online. But what about 95% of the decisions and research that goes on before people buy a car?
- Google research
- Meaning that if you don’t help them out at that point, a competitor is going to run away with them.
- Boge is a German producer of compressed air. This is as unsexy as it gets. And You don’t buy compressed air solution online. But when you’re a buyer, you go look for innovations online. Not only about compressed air, but also to run your company more economically. Or more eco-friendly. And sometimes, these searches get combined.
- Over a thousand downloads in the first year, all in exchange for data and scheduled for follow-up.
- So, isn’t it time we leave these ‘yeah, but, no, but’s behind us?
- And this is the tricky part.
- The upmost important thing to attract people is remarkable content that supplements your products. And don’t tell me that you are not Coca-Cola and that you don’t have anything special to talk about…Every company has something to tell, things from the past, things from the future, innovation...
- Get to know your own company. You’d be surprised how many people don’t know their company and it’s values thourghly. So how can you expect that from your customers?
- Talk to them. Talk to your sales reps. Your store clerks. Your installers. What questions do your customers have? Sales Interview Focus groups
- What do your customers want to hear or see at what point in their buying cycle?
- Unless you’re in advertising, media or blogging: views don’t mean anything. Get your kpi’s defined for your goals.
- Don’t go in with 100 ideas and no plan.
- So, how do we put this into action? Some examples.
- We’ve touched on Iko before. Boring product, unless you’re a roofer. So, what content do you produce for a company that almost never sells to the end consumer and just caters an audience that scepticists say ‘never use search’?
- We did it anyway. A blog with fucntional answers to common roofing questions, a lot of guides and calculators and then some. Results? + 35% in traffic, over 3.000 downloads per month in 15 countries in W, E en S Europe. All quality leads.
- Studant is an organization that provides tutoring for high school and college students. Their goal is twofold: get students to tutor, and get new tutors. Flyering among students and paid search used to be their biggest actions.
- And they stil are. But we added Heavy focus on local and national SEO for all site pages, supported by blog and content partnerships with student organizations. In just a year, we have seen amazing results. Meaning that of our top 10 of organic keywords, only 3 are branded. And they’re in the second half of the list. All based on focus groups en persona interviews
- + 190% in traffic +340% in organic traffic A lot more traffic outside exam periods +79% more conversions Search visibility doubled
- Agilos is a Belgian BI integrator that is in a very competitive market, as they’re far from the only ones implementing these tools in the Belux area.
- Agilos used to be heavily focused on the tools they were offering. Not an illogical approach, seeing as they are a premium partner for a lot of quality tools AND this is a common approach among BI integrators.
- But we wanted a different approach. Going for a new Persona strategy, and focussing on the help, the advice, and the added value of Agilos. Stepping away from the tools and moving to the more human part of BI.
- I don’t know if you gues can see these numbers, but YoY, the traffic for 2016 has been up by 85%, the amount of leads had suadrupled and conversion rates are right on the spot.
- Amplifon is an Italian company, also active in the Benelux under that name and ‘Beter Horen’. They are one of the biggest companies in the world providing hearing solutions for people who experience hearing loss. And this goes a long way: defining the severity of the hearing loss, advising solutions, selling solutions and providing service and support.
- If you’re talking unsexy, this trumps everything. Put this next to a compressed air generator, and even the latter looks sexy. But hearing aids…how do you start a content strategy there? Especially when what you offer is also being offered by your competitors AND about half of your possible targets are in denial about their hearing loss and the existing website is a disaster, thanks to international rules.
- Want ondanks de goede en stabiele resultaten van SEA en FB Advertising, merkten we dat de groei beperkter werd. En dat er op organisch vlak een grote lacune zat, waar onze concurrenten amper aandacht aan gaven. Er werd dan ook gekozen om de inspanningen richting Paid Search iets te beperken (zowel in management als ad spend) en sinds januari 2016 kozen we met Amplifon resoluut voor meer inspanningen en investeringen op vlak van content.
- Ondanks dat minder digital-savvy publiek, slagen Mia en Amplifon al een aantal jaar heel goed in die opdracht, met een sterke stijging van alle KPI’s tot gevolg. Maar het leven is meer dan conversies alleen en dus was de hoofdopdracht voor Mia in 2016 drieledig: * zorgen voor een gestage aangroei van afspraken voor een hoortest * het imago van Amplifon als hulpvaardige experts versterken * zorgen voor een lagere kost per conversie
- * blogartikels die de meest voorkomende vragen van Amplifon-klanten en -leads beantwoorden, in functie van kwaliteit en kwantiteit van online traffic, en die moesten zorgen voor het bestendigen van het expert/hulpvaardige imago van Amplifon * e-books en brochures, zodat mensen niet meer per sé langs een fysiek Amplifon Hoorcentrum moesten passeren * depersonaliseerde en geautomatiseerde emails, passend in het contentplan van blog, books en social * samenwerkingen met voor de doelgroep belangrijke mediapartners vanuit een curated content-oogpunt, gericht op conversie
- Al deze ingrepen leverden al snel een uiterst positieve ROI op: in vergelijk met dezelfde periode vorig jaar (inclusief het belangrijkste moment inzake hoorafspraken) konden we volgende zaken noteren: * +25% meer bezoekers * +23% nieuwe afspraken * +35% search visibility * een daling van de cost per lead met 15%
- Amplifon heeft al enkele jaren de ambitie om ook online de onbetwiste marktleider te worden inzake hooroplossingen en hoorbescherming. Geen sinecure, want de doelgroep van hoofdzakelijk +65 jarigen is niet meteen de gemakkelijkste om online te bereiken en (vooral) te activeren.
- Amplifon heeft al enkele jaren de ambitie om ook online de onbetwiste marktleider te worden inzake hooroplossingen en hoorbescherming. Geen sinecure, want de doelgroep van hoofdzakelijk +65 jarigen is niet meteen de gemakkelijkste om online te bereiken en (vooral) te activeren.
- Talk to both.
- This ones’s actually true. Big purchases, like houses, cars, pools…they don’t happen online. At least: the purchase itself doesn’t happen online. But what about 95% of the decisions and research that goes on before people buy a car?