You believe in your products and solutions. Of course, you do, or you wouldn’t be offering them. But, too often brands push those products before earning the trust of their audience. You look brand-centric when every post pushes your solution right on the back of a quick pain point. Problem and solution awareness issues are common among brands since many tend to forget where the consumer has to start. Most of your target audience doesn’t know you and doesn’t trust you.
That trust is earned.
You have to build problem awareness before you begin to push solution awareness. It is a fine line to walk. It requires building a content marketing funnel strategy to help cultivate your visitors at any point in their buyer journey.
Customers Who Don’t Know Their Problem
Problem awareness is a crucial part of your marketing funnel. You should be actively strategizing to help people realize they have a problem in the first place. They aren’t looking for a solution because they don’t believe there is an issue. These are the visitors that will be coming in for topics that aren’t related to your products at all. You might be writing about industry trends, events or somewhat unrelated topics just to draw them in.
For example, if you are selling a medical part that would help new mothers postpartum, you will build a strategy surrounding motherhood. You could cover topics about pregnancy and birth that a new mother would care about, yet have no direct connection to your product other than building your authority as a company that “gets” mothers.
If you are a SaaS company that targets SMBs, small-medium-sized businesses, then your top-of-the-funnel content might surround office etiquette, company culture, product development and things that slot you as a solution-provider for the SaaS industry. If your product is linked to health or wellness, then you might be posting recipes, healthy diet tips, environmental issues or whatever appeals to your target audience and helps you become the authority in that area.
Customers Who Know Their Problem
Not all of your leads are going to be top-of-funnel. Some know their problem and want a solution for it. Even when they are searching for solutions, you can’t effectively jump in pushing your brand. Again, trust has to be earned. Start by parroting back the problems they are facing. Help them understand that you understand their problem and “get” their pain.
You don’t want to be too obvious or pandering here, but launching into your products or services without pinpointing the pains comes across like you aren’t really concerned about the customer at all. Too heavy-handed with the sales messaging and it will come across like the only thing that matters is your bottom line. You have a great opportunity to take someone who is already aware of their pain and help them consider their options carefully.
Assessing and Adjusting Your Brand Messaging
Your website messaging is going to either connect immediately with your audience or it’s going to flop and you will get yet another bounce. If you focus too hard on buyers that are at one point of your sales funnel, you will miss out on buyers that are coming in at other points.
We can help you audit existing content and build a content calendar to clarify those content gaps. Whether you need a strategic plan or want to outsource your content moving forward, we are here to help.