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You may have noticed that we’re currently living in uncertain times. And in these uncertain times, people are hesitant to invest or make big changes within their business. This means that you need to use all your marketing and customer service skills to keep your clients and potential customers satisfied until they are ready to make those changes and investments.
The best way to do this is… *hint: it’s in the title* …to add value to your audience!
What is adding value?
So what does it mean to add value? It means that your audience should feel as though they are getting helpful information from you with no strings attached. They should feel like they are benefiting most from the relationship as it stands.
A good way to understand adding value is to imagine your audience relationships as bank accounts. (Weird, I know, but stick with me.) With banks, you have to deposit money before you can withdraw it.
Now imagine the money you’re depositing is professional value. Knowledge, content and resources all count as value. You continue to deposit as much as much value as you can into potential customer relationships without them feeling they need to engage in any conversations until they're ready. Then, when they are ready for the transaction, there’s more value to extract from them.
The key though is that you have to ADD value before you can EXTRACT it.
Why is adding value important?
I have one word for you: trust. Adding value builds trust with your customers. The more you help them through your knowledge, content and resources, the more they trust you and the more brand equity you build. This will eventually warm them up to you, your brand, products or services. This makes sales conversations more friendly and productive because they already trust you to provide value however you can.
How can I add value?
Now you might be wondering what are some practical ways to add value to your audience. Well, well, well, today is your lucky day! Here are 4 ways you can easily add value to your audience to help build trust and brand equity:
1. Send maintenance and DIY tips to existing customers
An easy way to add value to your existing customers is to send them helpful tips on things they can improve on. During this uncertain time, your customers will appreciate added value that will help them make the most of their investments. If they’re not in a place to up their commercial engagement with you, tips for things they can do and processes they can improve themselves will be valuable content for these customers.
2. Create content that focuses on free or affordable actions
Another way you can add value to your customers is through creating content that focuses on making free or affordable changes. Everyone loves free stuff! As I’ve said before at the moment your audience is probably not looking to spend an arm and a leg on new initiatives, and showing them that you respect those limitations will go a long way toward building that trust.
3. Create a consistent stream of content that people can rely on
It’s all good that you’re adding value to all your content. But if you’re not being consistent with publishing content, then your momentum slows and your audience will forget about the value you’ve been providing.
Repeat after me when I say this: CONSISTENCY IS KEY. It actually leads to increased revenue. Brands that consistently publish content have a 23% revenue increase over those who are hit or miss. Having people that rely on your content is amazing. As they are likely to look at your business when looking to buy a service or product you offer.
The best way to ensure consistency is to batch your content and schedule it out. HubSpot’s social media tool even allows you to schedule posts for 2 years in advance. When you binge-create your content to be automatically dispatched later on, you keep up that value exchange without having to create content constantly.
4. Offer free audits
If you’re ready to REALLY commit to the value game, free audits are the way to go. No matter what product or service you offer, you can probably audit someone’s existing setup and provide recommendations for improvement. The key here is to not be too salesy. Make sure you keep point #2 in mind, and that will create enough value so that when they do want to partner with someone to make big changes you’re the one they come to.
Did you know that we offer a free HubSpot audit? Click here to speak to our team and schedule yours in today.
Adding value has never been more important than it is right now. If you follow these steps and use these ideas, you’ll be well on your way to building trust with your audience so that those who can invest now choose to do so with you, and those who can’t at the moment will want to come to you when they can.
