Why Your Green Business Needs An Audience To Grow | blog ...

Posted by Stephen Bateman on Wednesday, October 17, 2012 ? Leave a Comment?

If you?re marketing your business online, you?ll know that your business needs its own audience. And if you are marketing a green business online, you?ll know that you?ve got to work even harder to build a brand that people trust.

? You?ll know that online buyers filter out advertising, preferring valuable information to help them make their purchasing decisions

? You?ll know that its relevant, genuine, helpful, search-friendly content that Google and other search engines seek out then rank foremost in their search results, so that people can find your business

? You?ll know that quality content is the social bait that drives people to share brand information and recommendations on their social networks, generating powerful word-of-mouth, online and offline.

And yet, even though this is an obvious paradigm change, you?re still thinking: what does any of this actually mean for my business?

The power of an audience

The real challenge for your green business online is building an audience.

Today rather than having to buy access to an audience from the media, your company has the opportunity to become a media company.

That?s your ultimate online marketing goal: to build an owned media asset (your content website) that gets more powerful and more valuable each month, and each year, as you continue producing customer-centric content.

As a business operating in the green sector you must ensure that content is not only relevant, discoverable and engaging, but also authentic, accurate and trusted.

As time progresses you will experience the power of an audience that trusts your content hub, then spreads the word, turning visitors into customers in the process.

Thinking and acting like a media company will help you build and retain audiences to grow your business. But without relevant, well edited stories you will find it difficult to attract and convert visitors on your website into customers.

Perhaps your website isn?t getting the traffic it used to, and your competitors have somehow improved their search engine rank performance (SERP).

You want to attract qualified visitors to your site, but you can?t seem to earn their attention. And when you do get their attention, they aren?t converting to sales.

That?s because you?re not practicing content marketing: creating and sharing informative, helpful and engaging content to attract visitors and convert prospects into customers, and customers into brand advocates who are happy to market your business for you.

But what is it exactly about content marketing that leads to steadier business growth? Why is this type of traffic, and these types of leads, better than others?

Customers are demanding a new buying experience

Content marketing ? educating customers rather than pitching to them ? is upending the lead generation and sales process. The internet and its content means that prospects are no longer waiting to be told or sold; their buyer journey has modified and they are gathering their own information, soliciting peer recommendations, and making decisions about you and your competitors.

If your website is failing to attract new visitors and grow your prospect pool, you are struggling to stand out in today?s competitive landscape. In other words: you may be doing great things for sustainability and the environment, but you?re undifferentiated. No doubt you understand your unique selling proposition, but your prospects don?t, and there?s a good chance they?re unconvinced even when you have the opportunity to make those differences clear.

You need to adapt your marketing and sales process to align with the new buying experience. You need something more to influence the buying decision by first enhancing your buyers? buying experience.

Content marketing is your ?something more?.

? Content marketing gives your brand category leadership by embracing the information-driven buyer experience

? Content marketing positions you as the expert and first point of reference on the buyer?s purchasing journey.

Simply put, content marketing is an education-forward marketing approach that gives you the influence that comes with authority.

How Lloyds TSB drove 500 per cent more conversions on its sustainability web page

When Lloyds TSB Commercial developed an online application to help small businesses plan and articulate their environmental policy, it wanted to optimise adoptions of the online application amongst the larger business community. To do that, it employed content marketing to build trust with its audience.

By creating helpful advice about how an environmental policy can help small or medium enterprises (SMEs), Lloyds TSB gained credibility with its audiences online and developed enough trust and authority to attract and engage larger numbers of engaged visitors to its web page. By developing content that outlined the merits of environmental policy and sharing it on UK business forums and LinkedIn business groups, entrepreneurs rapidly understood that Lloyds TSB was able to help them to become more sustainable and this increased the number of conversions on their landing page by 500 per cent.

Authority rules and only customer-centric informative and helpful content could build the trust the bank needed to attract small business owners to its website.

To receive a copy of our Lloyds TSB case study, please register your interest here.

At Wise Up Media we believe that content marketing is all about educating prospects enough to do business with you. To understand more about our approach to content marketing view our short explainer video.

Source: http://blog.greenwisebusiness.co.uk/2012/10/why-your-green-business-needs-an-audience-to-grow/

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