Even amid endless talk about stimulus checks and other kinds of federal aid, many people out there are watching their wallets carefully these days. That makes it difficult for marketers of every description to find the correct angle for moving products. Luxury items aren’t drawing many buyers right now.
That means that your job is to bridge the luxury/necessity gap and influence potential buyers to at least give some consideration to buying from you. At the moment, this means ditching the hard sell approach and appealing to the things that most potential customers care about. These things include solving problems, appealing to them emotionally, and creating a sense of need.
A number of marketing strategies work in those areas, so today, I want to suggest a few soft-sell strategies and explain how to use written content to accomplish your goals. The written word is still your most powerful weapon, so use it well. Let’s dive right in …
Narrative Content
Few marketing content strategies are more effective than storytelling at appealing to people’s emotions. Stories create many points of relatability. They also provide the opportunity to reach out to the broadest segment of your audience. Different details will appeal to different readers. I recommend reviewing the key details about your ideal avatar or buyer persona before sitting down to write or brainstorm and then deciding how best to approach your most likely buyers.
Narrative formats work best in email sequences, but other forms of content lend themselves well to it also. Story-based blogging is another key area of content development if you choose to go the storytelling route. Develop your blog content first, then create an email sequence that complements it. In your emails, for example, you can lead with key points and pose key questions that get answered in your blog. So, what do those key points involve? I’m glad you asked!
Jabbing Pain Points
All products exist for a small list of reasons. In most cases, they exist to solve a problem. In marketing terms, persuasion can get you far, and the most effective form of persuasion without the hard sell approach is to jab “pain points.” Shine the spotlight on the reasons why people need your product. Anything that can make someone‘s life easier in this enduring COVID climate will be welcome news.
Point out the stressors and points of discomfort that exist without your product. Make people think about what they’re missing, and do it before you ever mention that you’re selling anything. Regular readers might pick up on your strategy, but that’s OK. They already know your brand and have a degree of trust in it if they’re hanging around consuming your content already. New readers will be more concerned with finding solutions to their problems, and it’s tantamount that you deliver those solutions with finesse.
I recommend saving any sales language whatsoever for support and follow-up content. Just tell a story and build points of relatability. Present the solutions by describing key features of your product. Let’s say you’re marketing cell phone accessories. This is actually a good recession-proof option, but people will still be looking at price over quality most of the time. In your blog, include segments like this.
“Sadly, newer model phones aren’t any more durable than their predecessors, and ‘protective’ gear is getting flimsier by the day. To protect your investment, I always recommend researching cases, screen protectors, and other accessories and learning what you can about their effectiveness. Don’t just look at cost. As the saying goes, ‘you get what you pay for’ …”
You can then follow up with an email sequence about some high-quality phone protection accessories you’ve discovered and draw the reader’s attention to the products you sell.
Addressing Objections
One of the worst things you can do as part of a soft-sell approach is to leave the floor open to objections about spending money on a product or the real necessity of it. Be sure to brainstorm as many objections as you can, and weave the responses to those objections into your written content. Let’s continue with our previous example of phone accessories.
“I was personally appalled at the price of some of the cases I researched, but the reality is that a $5 case will never protect as well as one that is engineered to account for things like drop angles, drop distances, and water exposure. Not all cases are created equal, and if your phone breaks in its ‘protective’ case, what are you really saving? A better-quality case can save you hundreds of dollars, so don’t balk at $30–50 for a good one. In the long run, it’ll save you money.”
Steer Clear of ‘Features and Benefits’
Don’t list off the features and benefits of the products you sell. Rather, integrate information about the kinds of features to look for when readers go out shopping on their own. A few days later, when they get your email, they’ll already have those details fresh in their minds. At that point, it becomes easier to frame your product more as a lucky find than as something that’s been previously pitched and finally being offered outright.
OK, most people will catch on, but if you do a good enough job of building expectations and quality demands, they will, at a minimum, appreciate you doing the legwork and finding them such a perfect phone case. Even better, your case is only $34.99. They’ve been told to expect to pay as much as $50. What a deal!
Remove Sales Language from Your Calls to Action
Finally, don’t ask for the sale in your content. Let the content itself do the selling. Your CTAs should revolve around things like joining your email list and “staying informed” about new technologies, trends, and products. Even in follow-up emails, CTAs to click through to product pages can refrain from asking for the sale. Your product pages should be powerful enough to do the selling for you, especially in your product descriptions and visuals.
Do you need help finding your angle? Do you have trouble finding the words to make this kind of approach effective? Contact us. At BeezContent, our team of talented marketing copywriters has the words you need to succeed and the talent to fill all your custom writing needs. Let us help you develop a content strategy that revolves around a targeted soft-sell approach. We look forward to hearing from you!
