“Adding Value” – What does this even mean?
You may have seen the word “value” and the instruction to “add value” in many content creation posts.
This blog explains what value is, and how you can best provide value to your audience and potential customers.
As simple as it may seem, content plays a crucial role when it comes to digital marketing. It makes sense, then, that content creation is the easiest vehicle to provide value to your audience.
Your content needs to serve a bigger purpose than just filling space on your website or Facebook page.
The more value you can give to your customers, the more likely they will be to purchase from you.
Adding value means giving more than you expect to receive.
If you own a business blog or vlog, you need to seize the opportunity to deliberately add value to your content.
This means that instead of just filling space on your blog, you need to constantly ask yourself: “How is my audience going to benefit from this?“.
Make any interaction with your content so engaging and compelling, that your community quickly realises that you are a giver and not a taker.
Produce great content that is customer-based and enriching. Your readers want to know what’s in it for them, so consider this to make your content more valuable.
The competition in marketing is always changing, so marketers have to be innovative when trying to acquire new leads.
People are overwhelmed with an abundance of online content, so you need to ensure that yours stands out from the rest.
How to create add value to your content
Adding value to your content means creating content that is simple to consume and most importantly, can literally revolutionise your audience’s lives.
Giving great information can help you generate new leads that can be nurtured into customers.
Here is how you could add value to your potential prospects in your market:
Usability
To enhance your value-adding efforts, you have to ensure that your website is user-friendly.
Schedule some time or get your marketing department to fully test the user’s experience on your site. Get them to test everything to ensure it works fluidly.
Ensure that your content is easily available on all mobile devices, because the majority of people fill their time by scrolling on their smartphones.
Ensure your content is optimised for mobile devices.
Many people use mobile devices for several hours a day; some are catching up on social media while others are reading the news, watching vlogs or reading and sharing content that interests them.
Make sure that your content is accessible on all mobile devices if you want to deliver value to your reader-base.
Add video content
Videos play a huge role in engaging your audience with online content.
According to Business Insider South Africa, YouTube has over 1.8 billion users every month.
If your company posts to YouTube, then you need to make sure that your videos are entertaining, educational, funny, life-enhancing or a combination of these features.
It’s always good practice to have video content as part of your business marketing strategy. Even smaller companies benefit from this tactic without spending loads of money on elaborate camera systems.
People all over the world are eager to consume view video content and live streaming, no matter what the industry, so this is a great opportunity for your business.
Video content is massively popular and will continue to attract audiences of every interest.
If you are creating video content, structure it so that you give your viewers fantastic information or how-to tips that they can implement immediately.
The key to adding value is so that the reader or viewer experiences an immediate benefit – you leave them better of than before they encountered your content.
Include great images
While video content is 100% visual, it’s always good to remember that blog posts benefit greatly from the use of high-quality images.
Images break up your written content so that it’s easier to read and digest as opposed to long-form articles that have no picture breaks at all.
Once again, you need to structure your content with the consumer in mind and how best you can enhance their experience with your brand.
Why are articles with pictures better?
Naturally, articles that feature good quality pictures tend to get more views, as they look more interesting.
Images give the impression that the article is easier to read, compared to articles that lack images completely.
When browsing an online store, the quality of an item’s picture is essential.
Any image/s that represents the actual product that they are looking to purchase needs to be true to life and shot to represent its true colour.
To the consumer, images also create a sense of interactive communication between those potential customers as well as current customers.
Be client-centric
Being client-centric means that your business is focused on your customer experience first. You are always asking how you can add value to their experience with your business.
Focus your marketing strategy on adding value to your customers.
Making your clients the centre of your business will not only give you the chance to grow your enterprise as a whole, but also the chance of referrals due to the wonderful customer experience.
People like to share their experiences good and bad and with a client centric approach; you can focus on a positive experience for the business.
A client centric approach to business also levels the playing field in a highly competitive marketing industry.
Keep an eye on the media
The media covers news that is current and happening, and to reach an international scale, content has to be up to date with the latest events and trending news.
Not only is it important to follow the media and implement it into your content, but also to keep an eye on what the latest online best practices are. Be sure to share content that enhances your company values and mission.
Repurposing content is a good way of sifting through current content to keep it “fresh and up to date”.
Encourage interaction
A great way to help improve your content and add value to your audience, is by persuading your audience to share and interact.
If your company takes the time to thank their viewers for sharing and liking their content, it will go a long way to foster trust in your reader or viewership.
Engaging with your audience from a place of sincerity will help grow and enhance your business as a whole, because you add that human element that many of your competitors lack.
Some businesses go a step further and ask viewers to share their personal experience or exchange information about how well the products are working for them. This too is a nice take on sharing and hooking more leads.
If you have a presence on other social media platforms, such as Instagram, be sure to interact with your followers and reply to their comments so that you continue to build your online community.
Provide a solution to your reader’s problems
The number one way to attract people to your brand!
#1 way to gain customers: solve their problem or frustration.
When creating content, it cannot be stressed enough how important it is to solve the reader’s problems. Providing a solution to the reader shows that your business is interested in the needs of the consumer, and this elevates your company from being all about business to being all about people.
Consumers are constantly scouring the internet for useful content that can assist them on a daily basis, whether it is simple DIY, life hacks, tips, or insight.
Big Domino Marketing created this very blog for the purpose of helping small business owners take charge of their digital marketing efforts.
Our goal is to help people learn and implement it for themselves first and grow their businesses, so that when the times comes and they need hire a digital marketing agency, they will think of us first.
Likewise, your value-add must serve the overall purpose of improving people’s lives before you ask for a sale.
Not only is content that solves problems more readable, but people will feel the urge to share it with their friends and family.
Content structure
Another way to enhance and add value to your content online is to focus on the overall structure. You could start by answering these simple questions:
- Does the content on your website flow easily?
- Does it answer consumer’s questions?
- Are the print bold and easy to read on any device?
- Does the content have breaks in-between or does it carry on with long-tail sentences?
- Is the grammar and spelling poor?
- Is it missing good images?
- Does the content itself sound natural and organic?
When it comes to adding value and gaining potential prospects then making sure the content structure is of readable standards is crucial.
Focus on the writing
On the subject of structure and readability, your content has to be of an excellent standard to be enjoyed by your readers.
Google looks for organic structure in content, but readers also want to experience content on their level of understanding.
Our tip is to write or speak in a natural, down to earth way.
Convey your message in the format that fits your company ethos and culture. Be sincere in all that you produce.
Connect with your audience in the way they want to be communicated with, because this is the best way to keep a captive audience.
If you decide to share a story, be sure that it’s something people can resonate with.
The more compelling the story is, the more likely it will be that it will be shared with others.
The Takeaway
Your website’s content will always be one of the most important aspects of your marketing efforts.
As a business owner, you can test the strategy of give before you ask and see how your community responds.
The important thing is that this is done from a place of genuinely wanting to help your community. This is not a cheap tactic to get people to fork over their hard-earned cash.
Most businesses focus on the bottomline, and we don’t begrudge them this. But you have a great opportunity to invest in your community before expecting them to buy.
Take care of the needs of your audience and provide a tremendous amount of value to them first. They will then reward you in kind with their engagement, shares and endorsements.
One day, they might reward you with their buying power.
The purpose of adding value is to give in abundance before you expect to receive.
