How To Convert Your Audience Into Buyers Using Content Marketing with Chris Marr

This week we have the amazing Chris Marr on the podcast. As an expert when it comes to becoming a ‘Wikipedia’ in your industry, Chris and I look at how to create content that leads people to buy. Although you may create content that is well-written or nice to look at, you need to think about how you’re going to use content to get people to buy into your product or service. Whilst we’ve spoken about this before, this episode goes much more into depth when it comes to creating valuable content. Grab a pen and a notepad, the episode is going to be filled with great snippets of information!KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCASTYour customers and prospective buyers should determine the content that you create. Often, people create content for their peers instead, whereas, if you want to be an authority in your market is to create content that shows that you understand your customers.If you can serve your customers better, you will be seen as an expert in your industry.When creating your content, you need to think about how people go through the buying process. What problems do they have? What objections do they have? The content that answers this is the content that will perform well in terms of conversions.Buyers are doing research online before they make a buying decision so you need to step away and see the world as a consumer. On average, 77% of a buying decision is made online before a buyer contacts a company for the first time.The people that are vulnerable and honest in their industry effect their consumers in a positive way. If you’re not confident about your product and service, you’re going to hold back when it comes to creating content.If you’re worried about creating content in a different way to everyone in the industry then try to overthink it. You need to create content exactly how you want to. It will help you stand out!Although you should be keeping an eye on what your competition are doing, you need to have a unique approach to your content.Content is not about virality in your industry it is about your buyers making a buying decision. If one person has the ability to buy something and your content helps them make this decision, it is a success. Being famous to buyers is powerful.If your buyers have a question, it is your responsibility to answer it.There are 5 main topics that buyers want to have answers to when it comes to content. Those are price, cost, problems, reviews and comparisons and best of.You need to become the ‘Wikipedia’ of your industry. This means people use your website as an information resource to figure out what they want – whether they buy from you or not.By typing the questions you get from your buyers into Google and looking at the suggested searches, you will be able to get a snapshot of what your customers want to know. Once you’ve done this, you need to work out which questions have already been answered.You need to let go of the need to look smart.There are no secrets in any industry, so don’t worry about sharing them online. Let go of the need to control.It is not about being the first, it’s about who can do it better.THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…Traffic to your website doesn’t necessarily mean leads. You need to differentiate between the two and ensure you’re writing content that leads to sales.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISSIntroducing Chris Marr – 03:12What Should We Think About When Creating Content for Our Audience? – 06:06What Content Should I Be Producing? - 11:30Should You Post Controversial Content? – 16:00How to Stand Out and Be an Expert in Your Industry – 26:28How Do You Know How to Help Your Customers? – 34:46Should You Share Your Secrets? - 40:00Chris’ Top Tips – 47:50Transcript below Hello, and a super warm welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How has your week been? So this week, I am recording this episode from California. We're still here. We would have been well back but by the time this comes out but Phil, my lovely editor who's listening to this as I speak, he's going on holiday so we're just getting a little bit ahead and making sure that we batch this content so that it can be done before he goes. So it's a little early in the morning, and I have to say I had maybe one or two gin and tonics last night, so a little bit tired, but we're going to see how this goes. And thank goodness for you guys it's an interview, so you haven't got to listen to me go on the whole time.So this week, I'm really excited to have Chris Marr on the podcast. Now I've seen Chris talk a number of times, but last year he keynoted MarketEd.Live, I was very lucky that I was able to keynote that event this year. But I saw him keynote MarketEd.Live last year and he said something that I have talked about over and over and over. And basically, he talked about being the Wikipedia of your industry. So whatever industry you're in, whatever your business is, that really people need to come to you because you're the expert. He gave a great example about how his wife actually runs another business and she did it with hers and it helped massively. So even though we've talked about content before and how important it is, he comes at it from two different angles; one talking about becoming the Wikipedia of your industry. But secondly, how do you create content that leads people to buy.So you might create content that's nice for people to watch, or look at, or use, you might create content that is educational, or fun. But what are you actually doing to get them to physically buy your product or your service? So I really liked the conversation that we've had today, I really like what he talks about because this isn't something we've necessarily talked about. Well, we have talked about it before, but we haven't necessarily talked about it in this way before. So even if you've listened to lots of content episodes, I know we've talked about content before, he definitely puts a different spin on it and actually a really, really important spin. So I definitely want you to take a listen to this because it's going to be good.So if you don't know Chris, he is a multi-award winning entrepreneur, and believes content marketing is the only way to set a business leaders free from a world of mediocre interruption marketing. He's also the founder and driving force behind CMA, the UK's largest membership organisation of its time. So I really think you're going to enjoy this one. So without further ado, here he is. Introducing Chris Marr I am super excited today to welcome the very smart and very lovely Chris Marr to the podcast. How are you doing, Chris?I'm good. Thanks very much for having me along. I'm excited about this.My pleasure. My pleasure. Now I've already said in the intro, that last year you were keynoting MarketEd.Live. And I've seen you speak before then. I'm sure I have. But last year really stood out, because you talked about content, and it literally blew my mind what you were saying and you came up with some great concepts. So to get you on to talk about this, I think it's going to be so much value to our audience. So just in case they haven't heard from you or they don't know who you are, can you just tell them who you are and how you got to do what you're doing now?Well, my name's Chris Marr. I am based in Scotland in Dundee which is north of Edinburgh for those have never been before. And I work permanently from home full time. I run a small company called the Content Marketing Academy or CMA for short. And I've been running this company for about six or seven years now in various forms. We used to be an agency. We merged into a membership like that was 100% our focus and also consulting as well and obviously some speaking happens as well. So I spend most of my time working with our members, working with our clients. And I do most of that online. I've got a family just like you have, and some kids at home. Good to have the flexibility of the working lifestyle. So I pick up those kids from school and do all that kind of stuff. So I've got a fairly flexible working life and I enjoy what I do. It's great.And content marketing is that the core of very much everything I do, whether we're talking about blogs, or videos, or websites, or anything type of content, there's a philosophy that we believe in. And that gets applied to everything that we do.Yeah, no, I love it. And I love the fact as well that we are in a world now that we can work from home, we can balance that life a little bit better, and have those opportunities to do things like the school run and go to... not that I necessarily love going to the nativities, and the plays, and the things. But I can do if I want to and still do something we absolutely love and still help and teach and work with loads and loads of businesses. So I love the fact that we're in that position. And we were talking just before we got on this call about the fact of content marketing still seems to be an area where people really struggle. They really struggle to come up with that consistent content through maybe blogs and podcasts and vlogs, but then also they struggle to put content on social media. So in terms of content what do you think determines what we should create when we're thinking about content for our marketing in general? What Should We Think About When Creating Content for Our Audience? People do struggle with it. And I think, we'll cover off some of that, I think as we get into this conversation. But the reason we asked this question...