3 Tips for Growing Your Business through Knowledge Sharing

How often do you agree to buy a product or service from a business you know nothing about? Likely, it’s important for you to research, explore, and understand where your money is going before you buy. It’s no different for your potential customers. So one way for your business to connect with potential customers is by knowledge sharing. Add value for your prospects and highlight your industry expertise with the following tactics.

Create Useful & Relevant Content

Does your business have a content marketing strategy? Do you produce content for your website or social media channels? While it’s not a short-term, quick way to land sales, content marketing has many benefits. Consider a blog or video series with topics that your audience will find useful. This positions your business as an expert in your space and offers a solution to your customers’ problems. And rather than simply creating content & posting it once, you should find ways to repurpose it. For example, you can grow & nurture an email list to send your new content to. Growing an email list helps you attract regular, qualified leads. Once you have a list, ask your subscribers what challenges they face that relate to services or products you provide. You can also do this via social media pages, in person, or in direct email messages. As an added benefit, adding website content that helps answer questions and solve problems for your customers will contribute to better SEO rankings over time. Better SEO means more traffic and more potential customers visiting your website.

Offer Your Time

Your time is valuable, but it can be worth offering structured & scheduled time to meet with potential customers—especially if you offer a premium service. For example, PixelPeople always offers a free 30-minute website consultation. When you offer your time for free, find a way to pre-qualify leads to ensure you’re speaking with a customer that’s likely to convert. You can do this through a brief survey or questionnaire, or by targeting your ads to a specific demographic. Finally, do what you can to automate your introductory meetings. Using a scheduling provider such as Calendly sets the expectation that your meeting will take place for a set amount of time and eliminates the back-and-forth of coordinating a time that works.

Promote a Lead Magnet

A lead magnet is a resource or opportunity you offer potential customers in exchange for their information (such as an email address for your email list – see above). Lead magnets come in the form of webinars, ebooks, and checklists, among others. Your lead magnet should support your overall lead generation strategy which could also include paid ads. Many business owners struggle with paid ads on social media. One reason for this is people sometimes go for the hard sell too soon. Rather than provide value to their ideal customers and clients (via the lead magnet), they want to tell people about their business. This is not the right approach. Instead, create a resource that solves a problem. It should not focus on your business, but rather on the problem your customer is trying to solve. For example, if you’re in home construction, you may offer a list of “10 things to ask a contractor before beginning your home renovation.”

Sharing your expertise is not about giving away secrets & providing your services for free, but about positioning yourself as a helpful expert and a valuable resource in your industry. When done with strategy & intention, it helps you reach the customers you want to serve. When potential customers trust your business, they are more willing to pay you for what you offer. Think about what you know that can support your customers with their challenges. If you’re unsure, ask them!

Tags: business growth, content development, content marketing, digital marketing, search engine optimization