Market the Problems You Solve, Not Your Product Features
By: Ashley Ashbee
Tags: Startup Marketing, SEO, Ecommerce, Social Media, Product

Photo by Olav Ahrens Røtne on Unsplash

Market the Problems You Solve, Not Your Product Features

Support, don’t hustle

I still see this common myth about how social media and websites can help drive sales: people open your product or home page via a social media post, then they buy it.

No.

This is not what makes social media great and that’s not what engages people in online content. To be blunt: no one follows a page to see a business tell them it’s great and that they should buy from them. No one. People don’t buy products that way and they don’t support pages that do this, either.

When you share information about how to get the most out of a technique, how to save money by doing things a certain way, etc., people see that you know your stuff and understand their needs. They return to you because you solve their problems and shed an interesting light on a topic they value.

This doesn’t just go for social media. It goes for any online content.

In one of my favourite Medium posts of 2020 so far, Nicolas Cole debunks the notion that direct monetization of content is the default way to make it valuable. He explains how writing many thoughtful posts on Quora has helped him figure out what his audience wants to read and created credibility and awareness for his personal brand, which has led to speaking opportunities, writing opportunities for executives and much more.

Why did all of this happen? Because he established himself as a thought leader and someone who genuinely cared and understood the issues and (drumroll, please), he became more discoverable and memorable. You can’t achieve this by talking about your company and why people should love it.

People don’t remember or appreciate brag-fests about features. They just don’t.

The feature-brag approach is also faulty because it assumes your prospects are looking for your features and already understand their value. No, you have to show how that value applies to them. People search for solutions to their problems, not features.

I am a lead generation consultant, but I typically don’t use the phrase “lead generation” because people generally only use that phrase if they’re in my industry and already know what it’s all about. That’s not my target audience. It’s also really hard to rank for the term “lead generation.”

Search research tool Ahrefs.com wrote this fantastic post explaining the value of creating content based on search behavior.

“We have a competitive research tool called Site Explorer. One of the things it does is show who’s linking to any website or web page.

But, potential customers might not know we offer this product and instead search for something like ‘who links to my website.’

So we decided to write a blog post about that.”

Another benefit of organic content that solves problems is that it tends to be easier to rank in search, assuming your topic has high search volume but low competition. (A lot of people use Ahrefs to find that sweet spot.) Phrases of three or more words that are more specific are long-tail keywords.

It’s virtually impossible to rank high in Google search results for the one or two-word phrase describing what your business does, but it may be quite doable to rank high for a phrase of three words or more that people are searching to figure out how to do something, which will probably make you more successful anyway.

Also, remember that your audience may not even know they have a problem for it, so won’t even be looking for a solution.

You probably can’t rank your home page or product pages. But there’s a better chance you can rank a non-promotional blog post. (So stop only posting blog posts announcing your CEO’s trip to Africa and those new features you’re releasing.)

Remember that something can get millions of hits in traffic, but if it doesn’t convince people that it will solve their problem, and isn’t even clear if or how it will do that, it probably won’t engage people in a sale down the line because it won’t engage them in a relationship or help people see the value and suitability for their needs.

I really like what Kitiara Pascoe wrote about the positive impact of great content on your audience:

“Consumers can see effort and care. They recognise it. And they’ll be able to tell that a company who puts huge efforts into everything they do, from their product development to their blog, will probably put huge efforts into helping the consumer.”

Start thinking of content as a way of connecting to people with whom you share a goal and a passion and supporting that shared goal instead of as a way to hustle them into taking your action.

To become discoverable and engaging to your target audience on social media and in organic search:

Create content that illustrates, contextualizes and solves problems

Support your community in your social media (without promoting yourself)

Focus on the goals of your audience, not the coolness of your features

Build relationships and credibility instead of hustling for a sale

Organic content trumps promotional content every time. Don’t tell people what your value is. Show them.