I’m going to introduce you to a marketing philosophy I’ve been working on over the years, and it has the power to answer all your major content questions, like:

“How much content do I need to make the sale?”
“What information is most important to my audience?”
“What’s the best marketing approach for my brand?”

We’re going to talk about informed purchase marketing, which involves giving your audience the right quality and quantity of content they need to make a purchasing decision. 

There are five influencing factors that determine your informed purchase marketing strategy:

Price, Longevity, Impact, Competition, and Urgency

When you understand how your brand’s products and services align with these factors, you’ll reveal everything you need to know to craft optimized, compelling content that’s just right for your audience.

Let’s begin with an easy one: 

PRICE

Price is the investment your purchaser makes to obtain your products or services. In general, it takes more content to sell a higher price item than it does a lower price item. 

Let’s say you’re shopping for a vehicle, as an example. You’ll likely perform a lot of research to determine which make & model is right for you, which dealer to purchase from, which specific package you want, and more. That’s because this purchase will probably cost a chunk of your bank account.

Now let’s say you want to buy a car air freshener. You may walk into the auto store, see “mountain fresh scent” and “long-lasting fragrance” for $.99 and grab-and-run to the register without a second thought. 

Strategic tips:

If you’re selling a high price product or service, emphasize the value of your consumer’s purchase and the return on investment (if applicable). Give plenty of content up-front to help aid your consumer’s research process and understand why you offer the best choice. Consider creating detailed, thoughtful marketing materials that address frequently asked questions.

If you’re selling a low price product or service, take a simple, “less is more” approach to your content and offer 1-3 straightforward selling points. 

LONGEVITY

Longevity refers to the length of time your product or service will make an impact in your purchaser’s life.

The rule of thumb with longevity:
Consumers spend more time and energy researching a product if they know it will influence their lives for an extended period of time. 

Let’s say you’re shopping for your dog, as an example.

You may be selective choosing a big bag of dog food, because you know it will influence his health for months to come, or longer. You’ll likely spend more time reading the label and researching the product.

On the other hand, if you want to pick up a tasty treat for him during check-out, you know it’s a single-use product that only impacts his life for a short time (less than 10 seconds, if your dog is anything like mine).

Strategic tips:

If your brand’s product or service has a long-term impact, create content that establishes trust, addresses satisfaction guarantees, and backs your brand’s credibility. 

If your brand’s product or service has a short-term impact, stimulate a sense of urgency, highlight the top 1-3 key benefits, and develop your selling process in a way that makes it easy to purchase and reorder.

IMPACT

Impact refers to the positive difference your product or service makes in your purchaser’s life. Impact ties into emotion, goals, and problem-solving desires that affect your audience. 

Generally, high-impact products and services directly affect a consumer’s happiness, health, and lifestyle, or they serve as a solution to a big problem or deep desire. Low-impact products and services do not produce an emotional response or a great sense of desire.

Strategic tips:

If your product or service delivers a big impact, paint a picture of what the end or long-term result will look like for your purchaser, share reviews and success stories, and deliver content that evokes emotion.

If your product or service doesn’t make a huge impact, focus on the key selling points and explain why your audience should purchase from your brand specifically.

COMPETITION

Competition looks at your purchaser’s selection of options within your product or service category.

Marketing your products and services in a competitive atmosphere doesn’t mean you have to work harder or bash your competitors (actually, I strongly recommend you don’t do this).

Be particularly mindful of your special position in the market and narrow in on the key selling points that make you the leader in this niche. 

Strategic tips:

If you’re in a competitive industry, focus on your unique difference, user-generated content like reviews and testimonials, and significant rankings or achievements. 

If you’re in a low competition industry, educate your audience on why they will benefit from your products and services, explain your niche and who you serve, and illustrate the potential impact in their lives. 

URGENCY

Urgency addresses the timeliness in which your purchaser needs your product or service. It’s important to leverage a sense of urgency in all marketing strategies. 

Some brands, like emergency repair businesses, already have this sense of urgency built-in.

Other brands, however, have to get creative and develop a sense of urgency.

Strategic tips:

If your product or service requires timely action, focus on the solution to the problem your product or service solves, and leverage strong calls-to-action, and make it clear and easy to take the next steps.

If your product or service doesn’t require urgent action, you can create this sense of timeliness by highlighting the impact and solution your product or service delivers, and offer incentive to purchase now (like free gift with purchase, today only, for example).

When you understand informed purchase marketing, you can tailor your content to your brand and audience, and ultimately drive the greater decision to purchase.

Creating revenue-generating content is both an art and a science. If you want to write compelling content that sells, make sure you’re avoiding any easy-to-miss mistakes and putting your best message forward with copy that follows best practices. 

Here are the 3 surprisingly common content mistakes and the solutions to fix them:

#1. You’re content isn’t solution-oriented.

It’s so easy to talk about your business and why it’s wonderful.

But it’s important to stop and ask, “How do I write about my business’ benefits in a way that my audience needs to hear?”

The fix: Deliver solution-oriented content.

Here’s a million-dollar rule to content writing that will make the biggest difference in your strategy:
Write content that sells the solution to your audience’s problems or desires.

All of your content should be written in a way that helps your audience easily picture their lives after your product or service has fixed a problem.

Let’s look at an example. Imagine for a moment you own a health-focused smoothie shop.

Instead of, “We use premium-sourced, natural ingredients.”
Try saying, “Fuel your body with the best ingredients nature has to offer.”

Instead of, “We offer a protein boost mix-in for our smoothies.”
Try saying, “Supercharge your morning with an added boost of protein.”

Instead of saying, “Our smoothies support better health.”
Try saying, “Sip your way to a healthier you with our smoothies.”

Remember, actionable, solution-oriented content is all about creating your audience’s better reality as a customer of your brand.

#2. Your content isn’t skimmable.

Let me fill you in on an important content marketing reality:

People don’t like to read.

You may have a few audience members who will gladly read big paragraphs and long-from copy, but for the most part, you really only have a few words or a few short sentences to capture the attention you’re looking for.

If you’re sharing content that’s super long and detailed, there’s a good chance it won’t attract the readership you’re looking for (even if it’s beautifully written). 

The fix: Make your content skimmable.

Use short paragraphs, bullet points, and brief, impactful statements to leave the impression you’re looking for. 

When your content is easy on the eyes, you may be surprised by how much more of the message your audience will absorb – resulting in more knowledge about your brand and ideally, more engagement.

Remember, content isn’t all about written text. Pictures and videos play a heavy role in your content strategy too and they’re your biggest assets for skimmable content.

While your audience might not like reading, they will likely love pretty pictures and eye-catching videos. (Like the saying says, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”) So consider conveying your message through multiple forms of media to create skimmable, but powerful content.

#3. You’re content isn’t driving the sale.

You’ve probably heard that overly sales-y content is a definite no-go.

But there’s a way to sell your brand’s products or services without sounding giving your audience sleazy salesperson vibes.

All the content you produce should serve a purpose, which is usually – in one way or another – to sell what your brand has to offer.

The fix: Create content that keeps its eyes on the prize, and naturally funnels your audience into taking the action you’re looking for. 

Don’t shy away from the sale, but rather, consider it an art that your content serves to illustrate. Here are a few ways to seamlessly drive your sales:

• Get creative with your calls-to-actions (CTA) statements and avoid generic sales-y terms like “buy now.”
• Incorporate many CTA opportunities in your content design, like buttons to shop or contact you, or links to your products and services.
• Write solution-oriented content that highlights your key selling points with minimal fluff and distraction.
• Consider sharing user-generated content like testimonials and reviews, so your existing fans can help you sell your products using their own words.

Fix these mistakes, and your content will be unstoppable.

Tell me in the comments: what solution does your brand offer to your audience?

When you release a fabulous content piece on our brand’s Facebook page, it’s natural to eagerly wait for likes, comments, and shares to start pouring in.

So what do you do when you’re underwhelmed by the results?

Here are my three tips to improve your social media engagement and create spark with the content you share:

#1. Start a conversation.

Engagement is all about response. If you simply post about your brand and don’t give your audience a reason to respond, they will keep scrolling.

Consider this mentality shift:

Don’t think of your business Facebook page as a stage or your brand’s personal soapbox.

Picture a big room filled with people at a networking event, interested in talking, learning, and igniting their interests. 

Imagine each post is an opportunity to start a conversation. 

Ask questions. 
Share a thought-provoking idea and request feedback.
Tell a compelling, relatable story.
Give an exciting prompt to answer in the comments.

Facebook’s algorithms favor conversation-filled, high-engagement posts, so give your audience a clear reason to comment on your content. 

You’ll be surprised by the results when you adapt to this change.

#2. Make it fun.

Why are people on social media?

I suppose there are different reasons, ranging from entertainment to friendships, but at the core of social media use is one important principle: 

People use social media for fun and enjoyment.

So ask yourself this question, “how do I make my Facebook posts fun and enjoyable?”

There are many options here depending on your brand and creativity. Here are a few tried-and-true methods for making your posts fun:

• Host a contest and offer free prizes
• Share imaginative video or image content
• Ask multiple choice, true or false, or fill-in-the-blank questions
• Create and share a quiz
• Trivia and fun facts

The bottom line:

Fun attracts your fun-loving audience and encourages them to engage with your brand.

#3. Shorten your posts.

As a brand leader, you have so many awesome things to say about your brand.

But when it comes to writing posts for Facebook, less is definitely more. 

The truth is, people don’t want to read long text – so short, impactful post captions are most effective. Magic happens when you can increase the quality of your posts by decreasing the quantity of words. 

Here are a few tips to help you write snappy, concise captions that will capture your audience’s attention:

• Edit, edit, edit. Write what you want to say, then take a break, and look at your post again. Eliminate unnecessary words and try to stick to 1-2 sentences. Use bullet points and emojis to make the content more skimmable.
• Let your pictures and videos explain the message. Your Facebook post consists of three content opportunities: the caption, the picture/video, and the link to your website. Understand the caption is only a team player, and it should support the content in the other two components.
• Realize you don’t have to say it all. There may be a million reasons why your brand is the best, and it’s okay if every post doesn’t list every reason. Start by choosing one key selling point per post.

When it comes to concise, impactful posts, I think Oreo’s Facebook Page is killin’ the game.

Happy posting, brand leader! 

Did your engagement improve from the tips in this post? Let me know in the comments.