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Let’s face it. Your number one priority for writing blog articles isn’t to entertain the masses. It’s to generate sales. However, not all topics are built equal when it comes to generating sales. Turns out there are five time-tested and proven topics that generate more traffic, leads and sales than your average blog post.
Over the last 15 years, the buyer behaviour has changed significantly. Consumers spend more time researching answers to their buyer questions before talking to a salesperson than ever before.
As first codified by Marcus Sheridan in his book They Ask, You Answer, demonstrated by hundreds of businesses and proven by Google there are five specific topics that consumers ask questions around online when they are making a buying decision.
In this article, we’re going to be covering the Big 5 Blog topics, which include:
Cost & Pricing
I want you to think about the last time you went online to research a product or service before you made a purchase. At any point in your research, did you ask how much that thing costs? If you’re like the majority of buyers out there, it’s likely that you did.
But I bet at some point you were on a company’s website looking for information about costs but couldn’t find clear answers. And when you didn’t find clear answers, how did you feel about that company?
You probably felt frustrated, because you were aware that they knew their prices and were choosing not to share it with you. This frustration may have turned into a loss of trust in that company, and you probably didn’t buy from them.
Today, so many consumers experience the same thing because businesses refuse to share their prices on their website. Generally speaking, businesses who refuse to share this information say one of three things:
- Our products and services are custom-designed for individual situations
- Our competitors would know what we’re charging
- We might scare prospects away before we can explain the costs to them
Let’s take a look at each of these.
Our products and services are custom-designed for individual situations…
While every project you do may be different, and many factors might influence the final cost resulting in varying prices, you STILL need to explain this to your potential buyer to build trust.
See the thing is Google (to rank) and buyers (to purchase) don’t necessarily need a price list, all they want is a discussion of the factors that impact price. If the answer to what is your price is ‘it depends’, go into detail what that means.
Moby Siddique, CEO @RedPandas
Explain the factors that influence price, and at the very least, give them a price range or a “our prices start from” statement.
Our competitors would know what we’re charging…
Let me ask you a question: do you know what your competitors are charging? You probably just said something along the lines of ‘I have an idea of what my competitors charge, sure.
If you’ve been around then with very little research you should have an idea of what your competitors are charging.
My point is that if you know what your competitors are charging already, doesn’t it make sense that they probably know what you’re charging? And if they already know what you’re charging, does it really make a difference whether or not you put your prices on the website?
Why would you let your competitors get in the way of you being the most trusted and transparent voice in your industry?
It might scare away prospects…
If you are open about your pricing and someone walks away because they can’t afford you, then all you’ve lost is a lead that you were going to waste time on trying to close but who was going to walk anyway.
In other words, if you put pricing on your website, you actually attract the right customers and drive away those that aren’t best suited to working with you. This saves you time by helping you qualify or disqualify potential buyers early on.
On top of this, even if they can’t afford you, this honesty builds trust, which turns them into an advocate for your brand and helps you get more sales in the long run, because people want to do business with businesses that they can trust.
Remember, in the absence of value people will compare you on price. So, your job isn’t just to transparently share your price (or pricing range) but also do so with demonstrated value. Here’s an example of how we do this.
Examples of Cost Articles
- RedPandas Pricing Page
- The Cost of a They Ask, You Answer Coaching Program
- HubSpot Pricing 2022 Package Comparison
Problems (yours)
As we’ve already discussed, honesty is key in building trust with your buyer, and one of the best ways to do that is to talk about possible shortcomings or “problems” that may come with your offering, service, product or industry. One of the keys to problem articles is being candid about the problems but also presenting solutions.
Aside from building trust, this helps you get in front of the issues to create realistic expectations so that you have a better experience with your customers. More often than not, angry or upset customers is a direct result of expectations not being realistic or set from the start. So, by discussing potential problems or shortcomings of your product or service, you end up having a better relationship with your customer.
And finally, problem articles can help you weed out customers who might not be the best fit for your product or service. For example, RedPandas offer both coaching and ‘done for you’ packages for HubSpot Setup. The ‘problem’ with HubSpot Coaching is if you don’t have the internal resources, the coaching won’t be enough to have to set-up. We would communicate this problem to people searching for this problem but then also communicate another service that may be more relevant to them.
The thing is we only search for problems with something when we’re serious about buying something. If someone is going to search for problems with your product/service category, isn’t it better your brand comes up for that query and owns the conversion instead of someone else?
Another way you can approach problem articles is by writing about your prospects’ problems and the potential solutions. In many cases, potential customers aren’t aware of the real problem but instead of the symptoms related to those problems. By writing articles like this, you also build trust in your marketplace and move one step closer to becoming the number one teacher in your space. An example of an article like this would be “Why is my roof leaking?” or “Why aren’t my Facebook ads getting conversions?”
Examples of Problem Articles
- Top Fiberglass Pool Problems and Solutions – River Pools and Spas
- The Problems with Working with a HubSpot Partner Agency – IMPACT
- The 10 Most Common Mistakes You See in a T-shirt Quilt
Comparisons / Vs Articles
While prospects are researching problems and vetting different solutions, they’re going to want to see comparisons of these solutions. With comparison articles, you need to answer one question for the prospect: “How can I decide between the different solutions?”
You can write comparison articles about products, services, businesses, industries and more. When writing a comparison article, you should think about including:
- Pros and cons of each option
- How the different options compare in different categories
- Which options are better under different circumstances i.e. “Which is right for me?”
You should be as honest as possible in these articles and mention to customers if you sell one of the services or products that you’re offering. If they find out later, you’ll lose that trust.
Examples of Comparison Articles
- HubSpot vs Salesforce: Detailed Feature & Pricing Comparison
- The Difference Between HubSpot Onboarding Through RedPandas vs Through HubSpot
- Marketing Done For You vs Marketing Done by You
“Best of” Lists
One of the most common ways people search online when making a buying decision is by using words like “best” or “top” in their searches. In order to make the best possible decision, it’s only natural that we would want to put all of our options on a spectrum from best to worst.
There are three different types of “best of” articles that you can write about:
- Best competitors
- Best in class
- Best practices
Best Competitors
These are articles where you compare your best competitors. The purpose here is to attract potential customers to your website when they search for “best xyz company”. For example, if you own an oil painting company, your customer will likely search for “best oil painting companies”, and when you have an article on your website written about this, and you build trust with them through this article, who do you think they’re going to come to when they need an oil painting?
You might worry that writing an article listing all of your top competitors will steer prospects away from your business, but if they’re going to find out about your competition anyway, if you write an article about it they’re at least reading the information on your site and you have the first chance to convert them into a lead.
Best in Class
There is a never ending supply of “best in class” articles available for you to write. For every product or service you sell, you can write an article around this, and then, you can write more articles about the same products or services by getting more and more granular.
For example, if you sell headphones, you might start with these articles:
- Best headphones
- Best headphones under $300
- Best headphones for noise cancellation
- Best headphones for music producers
As you can see, you can write the same article many times by getting more and more granular. You can then take this a step further by changing the word “best” to a product or service quality. Using the above example, as a guide, we might now write articles with the below headlines:
- Most Durable headphones
- Most expensive headphones
- Highest rated headphones
- Most fashionable headphones
Best Practices
This is all about teaching your customer how they can get the most out of the product or service that you offer.
If we follow from the headphone example above, our prospects might want to know:
- Best practices for choosing a headphone that fits your needs
- Best practices for wearing headphones for optimum comfort
- Best practices for music producers
- Best practices for keeping your ears healthy
Notice how in the last two examples, we didn’t mention headphones at all but instead focused on targeting consumers who are likely to buy headphones. Within these articles, we then also have the opportunity to introduce other products. For example, we might say something like: “Producing music? You’ll need a microphone”.
Examples of “best of” Articles
- Best HubSpot Agencies in Sydney: this is a best competitor article.
- 5 Things Your Website Should Include: this is a best practice article.
- Best Headphone: this is a best in class article.
Reviews
95% of buyers report reading reviews before making a purchase. Writing articles with honest reviews of your products will help you connect with more prospects looking for help making a purchase, and puts you in front of potential customers who are looking to buy right now.
When buyers are making a buying decision, they want to know if previous customers found a solution to their problem with the product or service that they chose. They want to know how others feel about the purchases they made. If real people are raving about the purchase, they’re more likely to buy. If others are complaining, they may avoid it.
You can write reviews about your product or service, and use other testimonials and case studies to support this, or you can write reviews around the software or tools you use (i.e. writing a review about aluminium roofs, which you also happen to build for customers).
Examples of Review Articles
- An Honest Review of HubSpot Video
- Most Reliable/Least Serviced Appliance Brands for 2019 – Yale Appliance
- Zebra GX Series Barcode Label Printer Review (Benefits, Features, & Cost)
Where Should We Start with the Big 5?
There are two main options to getting started with The Big 5:
- Whatever your ideal buyers are asking the most
- Start writing about cost
Whatever your ideal buyers are asking the most
You can run a content brainstorm with your sales team, asking them which questions prospects ask them the most over sales calls, and then writing articles answering each of these questions. When you do this, you’ll typically be writing articles that are more bottom of funnel focused.
Start Writing About Cost
You should get “cost” content out there as soon as possible because this is one question on everyone’s mind. While you might want to try writing content to drive traffic first, it’s always better to write sales enabled content first.
So, what’s next?
If you want to learn more about how to use content to drive revenue in your business, then we recommend reading these articles:
- Everything You Need To Know About ‘They Ask You Answer’
- Why Your Articles Don’t Generate Sales & How To Fix It
- How to Write Blog Articles that Rank & Generate Leads
Do you need help building and executing a content strategy? First, you need to decide whether you want to do it yourself or hire an agency to do it for you. Then, if you’re still looking for help, you can get in touch with us here.
