Service marketing differs from product marketing in several ways, with one key difference being the lack of a tangible sample for prospects to assess or test. One effective way to promote your services is by creating content that showcases both your expertise and your personality. Building a content library offers prospects a preview of your work quality and creates multiple opportunities for engagement.
Whether you already have a content library or are just starting out, here are some recommendations that can help get the best results from your content. They are organized under three questions: who, what, and how.
It’s very important to understand exactly who you're talking to. You likely have two possible audiences:
For example: If you're a business management consultant, you would target prospects by offering focused content that ties your services directly to their issues, concerns, and questions. Or you might focus your attention on supporting staff who are tasked with researching solutions or talent and reporting back with findings and recommendations. In this case, your goal is to earn their endorsement, so your content should cover a wider range of types and topics.
Before considering what kind of content to create, it’s important to note the “why” of your efforts. A primary purpose of using content to promote and sell your services is to get the reader’s permission to contact them further. Ideally, the form this takes is providing their email address and opting into receiving future communications. This allows you to engage them further with other content over time. Keep in mind that it takes an average of seven “touchpoints” over a 12- to 18-month period to close a contract. While you may see results in far less time, try to space out your touchpoints to keep your audience's interest.
Turning to what types of content would work best, consider the following:
With the answers to these questions in mind, here are content types to consider:
This is not an exhaustive list but should be a good springboard for you to brainstorm the types that fit your situation best.
Repurposing content is a great way to get the most value from a single piece. Write blog posts about the results of surveys you’ve offered, or divide your e-book into sections and create a tutorial or course. Always be thinking about how you can reuse content you created into new forms.
With your list of content types in hand, the next question is how to present them for the best results.
Keeping in mind that the primary purpose of your promotional content is to gather email addresses for further engagement (or to draw direct inquiries for work via email or other outreach), think about how you can lead the consumers of your content to your opt-in forms. The important thing here is to include a call to action that sends the reader to your site or another location where they can enter their email address. Don't depend on social media or external sites to store your prospect data. While it's beneficial to interact with your audience on those platforms, unexpected changes could impact your access. Instead, ensure their information is captured in your own database.
There are two more “hows” to think about. First, consider the medium for your content. You can write copy, create visuals (e.g. infographics), record yourself (e.g., a podcast or audio tutorial), or create videos (for tutorials, courses, or other uses). The other “how” is how to combine your content types most effectively. For instance, you might promote your various types of content in your newsletter or offer special content to participants on your membership site. Think about how you can connect multiple content types to each other in order to increase prospect engagement.
With such a wide choice of content types and promotional tools available, it’s a good idea to create a diagram of how each type is launched and is connected to other types. Use this as a roadmap as you build content promotions that sell.