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We’ve talked about business blogging in our previous post, and in this blog I want to talk about reports. What we need to consider here is a little bit of human psychology. If you haven’t looked to any of Seth Godin’s content or read any of his books, I strongly recommend that you do.
Seth is quite a marketing genius, and one of the phrases that he coins is, “People need to know us. People need to like us, and people need to trust us, before they start working with us,” Which if you think about it, that really is a metaphor for life, isn’t it?
One of the easiest ways to do that with people is to offer them something of value, and because you do that, you automatically raise your profile in the mind, as someone that may be worth listening to.
Business blogging is one way to add value. Someone comes along to your website, they see your blog, or maybe they’ve been sent there. Maybe they’ve googled a question online. They’re reading your content. They’re on your website, you’re adding value, and that makes a difference.
Using Reports To Collect Relevant Contact Details
Imagine that you have a bigger piece of content that you deliver to somebody that is adding even more value, and that delivery comes at a cost. That cost is an email address. This particular principle is known as reciprocity. It’s one of the first principles of influence that Professor Robert Cialdini talks about.
Reciprocity basically means, I do a favour for you, so you do a favour for me. It’s classic thing.
You go to a bar with your girlfriends. I buy Janet a drink, and I know Janet is a bit of a chardonnay drinker like me, so she has a large glass of Chardonnay, I have a large glass of Chardonnay. Then, what happens if you’ve chosen your friend’s right, of course. Then, Janet will say, “Let me get the next one, Denise.”
Of course, Janet then buys me a Chardonnay, and then the night just goes to par, and you drink far too much. Then, you have a bad head in the morning, so we know how that scenario goes. That is what reciprocity is.
Building An Email List
As human beings, we are wired for that. You imagine that you give somebody a piece of content in the form of a report, and they then give you their name and email address in return.
What happens is, you have started to build an email list, and it’s an email list that you can nurture, because what happens, of course, is that people don’t convert straight away. There’s only a small percentage of people that are ready to act now, but once you’ve given that piece of content to somebody, then that by all intents and purposes, is a lead.
What you need to think about is, is that lead relevant for you? Yes, it is, providing you make your content relevant, to speak into a problem that your market might have. Now, I’m going to give you an example from a recruitment business owner, but first of all, I want to share with you how it worked for us and how we really hit on this as we started to build our business.
Nurturing Contacts Into Qualified Leads
The first strategy we did was a cold email campaign, and then thought, “We need to do this a bit more. What are we going to do now? We need to give them something else.” What we decided to do, because obviously I’m a content writer, is a write a piece of content that is relevant to a problem that Recruiters have at the moment and provide a solution that they need. This then helps to build some connection between us, and also demonstrate us as an authority in how we might be able to help them.
One of the first reports we ever wrote was “Six Easy Ways to Generate Candidate and Client Leads”. It’s a bit of a long title, but really it was very appropriate for people, and it flew off the shelves, or flew off the internet, whatever you want to say. People that downloaded that report clearly had an issue around generating leads.
The reports we created generated client leads which went into an email campaign, and over time we nurtured them, picked up the phone, spoke to them, or they contacted us, and that worked incredibly well.
We then wrote another report, “The ultimate guide to content marketing”. Again, what we tend to do is give a massive value in whatever we write. People read it and thought, “Oh, so this is what I need to do for content marketing. I think I’ll just get somebody else to write it for me.”
We created another report, we call it a report, it’s actually a checklist, and this has been serving us so well. If you’ve not downloaded a copy, you can find it on here.
You will have to enter your name and email address, to download the report, and then you go into our marketing system, and you become a lead, because the chances are, that if you have got questions about auditing your marketing, you might want to be doing things differently. You might have some gaps in your Marketing and, ideally, you could be a lead for us. That’s how the whole process works.
We have one particular email, short email series that our clients use and they send out that works incredibly well to actually get people to raise their hands and say, “Yes, I do want to have a conversation.” What’s interesting is, as part of our Superfast Circle membership, yes, we do reports, but, of course, you can create your own.
Over the weekend, I connected with one of our particular clients over in Australia. We were chit chatting and he just said, “Oh, by the way, thought you might like to know that the report on Performance Management has had 140 downloads, and the Pay Rise report had over 400 downloads.” Those 540 people that have downloaded the reports could be client or a candidates in the future, with some more nurturing. Utilising Reports can make a huge difference.
Final Thoughts
You can see the process is quite straightforward when it comes to reports. I love reports because they’re such an easy win for people, and they’re a fantastic way to elevate you and stand out from the crowd, because most recruiters don’t do them. Reports are a way for people to get to know and trust you, and you can then nurture them over time. You’re giving them added value, and then you anoint yourself as the expert in your market.
How We Can Help
Using reports really positions you as experts within your market. Members of the Superfast Circle receive a monthly 3,000 – 4,000 word report that can be tailored to the sectors that they recruit into.
Book your call and demonstration here if you want a quick chat to see how Superfast Circle can work for you.
Thanks,
Denise
P.S. If you want to learn more about how #SFC can help support your marketing speak to us here.
