The internet has changed forever how people buy goods and services. Companies that don’t change how they sell
accordingly will eventually- and inevitably- lose their business to the companies that do.

Before it was cold calls or an advertisement in the local paper; now you are attracting customers, not interrupting them.
Instead of the numbers game, putting yourself in front of as many pairs of eyes as you can, it’s all about the customer
themselves. How you can be useful to them. How you can help solve their problems.

‘Win their trust and that wins their custom’

‘Content is king’. I’m sure you have heard it. You have done well if you haven’t. But it’s actually more than just annoying
marketing jargon. It’s absolutely vital to understand if you want to survive in the evolving marketplace. What it means
really is ‘trust is king’- you win their trust, and that wins their custom.
Instead of building up rapport and trust in the showroom, now you do it while they are still sat on their sofa. Now, you
don’t even mention your product at all. Now, you do it with ‘Content Marketing’.

‘Content Marketing’ is the “creation and sharing of online material that does not explicitly promote a brand but is
intended to stimulate interest in its products or services”. Videos, blogs, social media posts, ebooks, newsletters. You
will have seen plenty of them yourself. They don’t sell, they inform, they entertain, they educate.
This freely-shared content builds awareness and trust in your brand, driving traffic to your website so whenever the
customer is further down the buying path, you are positioned as the natural choice, foremost in their mind.

Build rapport your salesman could only dream of.

It starts the relationship with your prospect off on the best possible footing. It’s a dialogue, not a sales pitch. You can
engage with them on a more personal level, without any immediate or obvious agenda. This allows you to build rapport
in a way that your best salesman could only dream of.

The practice itself is nothing new. Benjamin Franklin published his ‘Poor Richards Almanac’ in 1732 to promote his
publishing business. John Deere’s magazine, ‘The Furrow’, has been going since 1895. These days it is has a circulation
of 1.5million, in 40 different countries and 12 different languages. And you could count on your two hands how often
they have mentioned their own tractors in all that time.

That’s not to say it is easy. You can’t just give them any old guff. They have been fed on better, and now they expect
better. You know your product, now you need to really know your customer so you can provide what attracts and serves
them best. When you have attracted and served, then you can sell, and then when you have sold, you can up-sell.
It requires effort and a strategy, alongside consistent and relevant content. But when you do you are rewarded with
more customers. And more loyal customers. The good news is, this effort actually costs 62% less than outbound
marketing methods, while generating 3 times the leads*.

You can’t argue with those kinds of numbers.

Create your own content or pay someone else to do it, but don’t underestimate or ignore it. It’s the ‘new normal’. The
The sooner you adapt, the sooner you can start making money from it.