At the core of marketing is the need to differentiate your product or service from the competition, to generate a profit.

The profit part is the most important.

Good marketing creates value in your product or service that the customer desires and is prepared to pay a premium for. The greater the perceived value the higher the price that can be charged, and the greater the profit that can be realised.

You don’t need a marketing department if all you want to do is be the cheapest on the market. If all products and services are seen of equal value then the only differentiator becomes price and you have become a commodity.

The key to driving profitable sales is to create value and one of best ways of establishing this position is by becoming recognised subject matter experts. In this blog we discuss how to do this and how it drives lead generation.

Becoming a subject matter expert - demonstrates expertise and establishes trust

To quote Bill Gates, ‘Content is King!’. Well written and technically accurate content that demonstrates your expertise and establishes your company as subject matter experts, is key to establishing confidence in your product or service and differentiating yourself from the competition.

In contrast to a ‘hard-sell’ focus, non-promotional feature articles, white papers and blogs enable a company to ‘take the high ground’ and establish a position of authority, trust and expertise.

Customers are much more inclined to trust content that demonstrates expertise in a chosen field. Showing readers how knowledgeable you are on the subject in question helps them make better informed decisions without feeling like they are being ‘sold’ to.

Becoming a subject matter expert - improves search ranking and therefore findability

Informative, non-promotional, engaging content is the main driver of good search engine ranking.

The days of stuffing a website with keywords linking to your product or service are long gone and will even get your website demoted down the rankings. The Google, Bing and Safari algorithms all deploy ‘semantic search’ whereby they present content based on the intent or meaning of the search words used, as opposed to their literal match in the content.

Searches now take you to a highlighted paragraph within an article or blog as opposed to dropping you off at the top of it. Search engines are becoming more and more adept at taking searchers to the content they are looking for. Marketers who understand this can generate leads for their clients by developing content that attracts prospects and provides them with the information they are looking for - to solve a particular challenge or explain a particular technique.

Becoming a subject matter expert – sets your sales team apart

Sales teams are always crying out for marketing materials to help them generate leads. Feature articles placed in print or online journals, case studies and white-papers can be easily and beautifully reproduced into impactful printed or digital materials for the sales team to give, present or email to their prospects and customers.

In today’s digital age very few people still read feature articles in printed magazines, but once placed that same content can be re-purposed for a multitude of different online channels, from social media posts to web-pages and PDFs, to be found by and shared with potential customers.

Well written, informative content is the life blood of this activity flowing through a multitude of different channels to reach the target audience.

Becoming a subject matter expert – drives posts on social media

We all know how important social media has become for businesses trying to establish brand awareness and lead generation - and we can all spot a good post from a bad one.

Informative and engaging posts enjoy more likes and shares and therefore reach a wider audience and at the heart of any good post is high quality content, usually published elsewhere.

So for example a feature article published in an online publication can be linked to from a social post, likewise a blog on a website or a case study formatted as a PDF.

Irrespective of where the piece has been published it can be re-purposed to be shared on social media and therefore provide a steady, constant stream of high quality content to your (expanding) audience.

Waypoint Digital Marketing – the subject matter experts

At Waypoint we have been writing, publishing and posting well-researched and technical-rich content for our clients for over 10 years.

Whether it’s placing a feature article in a magazine, producing white papers, running a digital campaign with topical blog articles or providing sales teams with PDF case studies, we have the technical copywriting expertise to establish your company as subject matter experts and generate more leads.

For more information please get in touch by calling 01962 862760 or emailing info@waypointdigitalmarketing.com.