We create compelling content to make connections to our readers. We learn to better understand our readers by listening, by careful observation, by asking questions, carrying on conversations and doing surveys.
We are still guessing though until testing gives us the data that helps us improve our content.
When we understand the diversity of our prospects in our market, when we have a clearer understanding of their wants and needs, their hopes and their fears, we can create content that helps people decide that we are the right choice.
When we understand the nuance of their perceptions, when we understand their sense of personal values, when we understand what is important, we can make more connections, create more clients and we can better meet and exceed their expectations.
How do we measure success in creating compelling content?
Not by guessing, not by the compliments of friends, but by testing to see what works and then use the feedback to improve our compelling content.
Yes, testing is essential but we can do better faster by paying better attention to our marketplace. We can leverage what we know to make improvements faster through testing.
When we are marketing, we are making stuff up. We are guessing what people want to hear. We have to. We have to assume what people are thinking about and looking for. Having intuition from experience helps for sure, but smarter guessing is still guessing.
- Sometimes we are clueless and people move on.
- Sometimes we make a partial connection and a few people stay around and pay attention.
But we are always making stuff up.
Our task is a better understanding of our prospects. How can we do that?
When we meet prospects and clients we can listen well.
We must actively listen to what is said- our prospects perceive their challenges and their needs differently that we do.
Our prospects have much in common with our marketplace. When we listen carefully to a few members of our marketplace, we can get a fairly accurate measure- a measure we can improve on- by asking questions an listening some more.
We can learn by observation. We learn what we can from their surroundings- what they read, what they value, how they speak…
What is especially useful is that we can carry all our insights and all our processes for seeing and observing onto the Internet.
People find us using a plethora of search queries. Our task is to discover what our web visitors want when they search with particular terms.We can ask if our content answered their question or was their something else of concern that did not get answered?
We can ask them for suggestions- how could we improve this website?
We can make a variety of offers and determine what they want by what they accept as a free offer.
Smart conscientious contractors give surveys to make sure the client is happy with the work that was done.
What if asked what could we have done even better?
What other questions could we ask to get an interesting and spontaneous reaction from the client?
We can survey and learn in the sales process. We can survey and learn in the fulfillment process.
We can track the results of a follow up survey about how well we did with during the estimate process.
If we are following up on our estimate, and we discover they have hired someone else- that is great… we can ask them what was particularly appealing about that contractor? We just need to be even and not judgmental. We want to know how they made up their mind- not help them understand they made a mistake.
We can follow up with surveys as to how the construction process went- what went well- what might we have improved to increase their satisfaction with the results.
Testing is critical. We need to make sure we are listening well. We need to make sure we are engaging prospects.
The web has a variety of diagnostics tools available to interpret what is happening on your website.
I like Google Analytics. It has very powerful tools for understanding how many are coming to your site and what search terms they are using.
Google has powerful tools for simple A-B testing and more sophisticated techniques if desired. This is called the Google Optimizer.
And when we have a direct response component to each of our pages, analytics programs can tell you how well you did with it. By asking for feedback, by asking questions to follow up on the free offer, we can get an ever improving understanding of our prospects and clients.
All this intelligence can help us create more compelling content. Our improved content can help us reach more people in our community.
What are your thoughts on testing?
How much testing do you do, in comparison to assuming you know what the market wants?
Any concerns you want to raise?
What did you like about his article?
What did you think went astray?
Feel free to comment below. Feel free to call or email.
