Have you ever been on a date with someone who would not shut up about themselves nor made the effort to get to know you the entire time? It’s one of the most eyeroll-inducing experiences anyone can find themselves in, yet that’s exactly what businesses sound like when they describe themselves as “most reliable in town” or “No.1 in Asia”. Such generic phrases don’t just blend you into the crowd, they also make you less credible in the eyes of your clients, because you haven’t given them any reason to believe that you’re as good as you claim to be.
The more creative businesses might talk about how their company was founded, or hardships that they overcame to build their brand. But these efforts still miss the mark, because your audience doesn’t actually care about your company’s origin story. Unless it benefits them. In the B2B world, your job is to link everything about your company to why clients can benefit by working with you.
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
Your company’s origin story won’t mean anything until it provides value to your clients.
Free information is not valuable in the information age
There’s no shortage of information in our smartphone-powered lives. Quite the opposite, really. People take more time sorting between fact and fiction than they do getting their hands on said information.
However, rather than helping their readers whittle through the haystack, many content writers and marketers try to convince clients of the value of their company by telling them everything that is remotely industry related. That’s why they fight tooth and nail to generate blogs, documents, and reports consistently, hoping that someone will eventually take the bait.
Many clients who do take the bait end up with buyer’s regret — hardly an emotion you wish to generate if you’re looking at building a sustainable business with customer loyalty.
According to Harvard Business Review, customers are 54% more likely to regret a purchase when overwhelmed by information.
This happens because customers go into a state of decision fatigue when bombarded with information. It is well accepted amongst psychologists that people often resort to hasty decisions or avoid making them altogether to get out of this state of stress. This psychological response will hardly guide customers towards selecting the best deal.
How should I talk about my product then?
Again, it boils down to customer incentives. You have to give people a reason to read. Instead of insisting that your products are the best in town, take all the information that’s out there and sort it on behalf of your customers. Give them an analysis of all their options. Equip them with the tools to make confident purchase decisions.
This does more than build good karma for your company. Doing research on your customer’s behalf helps you jump ahead of the line and reach out to customers while they are still in the research phase of their purchase (which takes up 83% of the buying process, by the way). This is when customers will be way more inclined to sit down and listen to what you have to say — all the more because you’ve already helped them solve the major headache that is research. Doing so will create far more opportunities for you to build rapport and gain their trust than tooting your horn ever would.
Still having trouble with your B2B content?
In practice, it can be hard to strike a difference between self promotion and addressing your customer’s needs. Which is why our content writers have helped clients across various industries achieve just that. Beyond captivating headlines and a big vocabulary, our content writers have the business acumen, strategic foresight, and creative wit that can cut through the saturated internet space.
So if you’re a tech geek who wishes to partner with us word geeks on this journey of figuring out how your B2B customers think, send us a sample of your blog or website at hello@etymon.com.sg and let us give it a fresh coat of paint.