If you spend any time watching TV you may have seem the odd advertisement. Content that sells to you is everywhere. I don’t know about you but being constantly sold to with content can get a little boring. You may have the most fantastic product or service, but you can over sell with your content just as you can with an overly pushy salesperson.
To maximise the fantastic opportunity digital content has to offer, it may be time to start considering how you can add value to potential customers rather than just selling to them. As strange as it may seem, you may even want to produce some content that offers alternatives to your product or service!
When you provide value with content you trigger the rules of reciprocity. Put simply, this means when you give someone something, they feel obliged to give something to you in return. It’s simple, and it works.
Nowadays it is very easy to provide people the gift of knowledge. If you are a franchisee or franchisor, you can produce simple videos, blogs, infographics, or white papers to provide useful information. This could be anything that is aligned with your product or service but not necessarily about your product or service. For example, if you have a fitness franchise you could provide tips about workout clothing or vitamins and food supplements. You may even want to give some advice about things that compete with your business. Although this may seem counter intuitive there is method to the madness. For example, if you represent a gym franchise you can create content to give advice on how to work out at home. People will who are searching for advice on working out from home may find your content and it will help establish you as a fitness expert. If they do decide that perhaps joining a gym would be better for them, your brand may be front of mind when they do that.
Remember, always brand your videos, or provide a biog in your written content so people know who you are and the company you represent. Call it reciprocity or Khama, providing value will come back to you in the end.
