Focus On Trust, Not Traffic
One
of the most intoxicating measurements in all of marketing is “web
traffic.”
It’s
measurable. It’s binary. We can actually do something to affect the
results. It makes us feel good to see the “hockey stick” graph of
all these new visitors surfing our site.
But
as any experienced marketer knows, for most businesses, nearly all of
this traffic is represented by people who take a quick glance at our
site and never return. They
are tourists, not residents.
Trust, not traffic
I
want to challenge you. Are you taking the easy way out in your
marketing plan? Are you spending money on advertising and SEO because
they are familiar and you can get the budget approved? Because it’s
convenient to out-source to an ad agency (and out-source
accountability)?
On
the other hand, building trust instead of traffic takes time, a new
content marketing mindset, a new commitment, and perhaps even a leap
into the unfamiliar.
The economics of transmission
The
CMOs in this respect are smart people because they know that 70
percent of their customers are more likely to buy something when they
see content about a product or service shared by a friend. People who
share content are likely to read and understand what you do before
they make a decision to share it. In essence, they are becoming your
advocates.
When
people “like” something, they are only lightly and temporarily
bonding with it. But when they share something, it’s a bold and
intimate act. They are raising their hand in a virtual way and saying
“I believe in this. I stand for this. Pay attention.”
This
forces us to re-consider the best leading indicator of sales: Content
that moves.
The
power on the web does not come from content alone or traffic. It
comes from social transmission. Your investment in content
development does nothing for your business if it’s not seen and
shared. Content that doesn’t move has the same economic value as
the world’s greatest movie script locked in a cold, dark vault.
The psychology of sharing
Let’s
peel the onion even further. WHY do people share? To understand
social transmission, we must understand why people decide to share.
There
are a lot of reasons why people share content but numerous studies
show there are three primary motivators:
- The content serves as an extension of their self-identity (it makes me look cool, relevant, smart, etc.)
- Sharing is an act of kindness to help others; and
- Sharing shows support of a person, brand or cause
The dilemma
These
motivations are a tremor in the way we normally think about digital
marketing. If the real economic value comes from the transmission of
content, and people share content for these intrinsic and emotional
reasons, why do companies spend so much money to try to get people to
share content for economic reasons?
AdAge
recently reported on
a renaissance in SEO
investments.
The reason behind this surge is that so many brands have bought into
the content marketing mantra but now find that nobody is consuming
it. Why not turn to familiar SEO tactics as a remedy? There’s a
place for that, but the problem is, through paid means like SEO,
advertising and promotion, we might be able to trick somebody into
viewing a piece of content, but we can’t trick them into sharing
it.
Комментарии