They Ask, You Answer: Know more about this industry expert’s revolutionary marketing philosophy! [Monday: Marketing Marvels]
Miles Everson’s Business Builder Daily speaks to the heart of what great marketers, business leaders, and other professionals need to succeed in advertising, communications, managing their investments, career strategy, and more.
A Note from Miles Everson:
Hello, everyone. Happy Monday!
How was your weekend? We hope you all had a good rest.
Let’s start the week with motivation from today’s “Marketing Marvel”—an outstanding person in the fields of business and marketing. Every Monday, we feature these kinds of professionals and highlight their experiences, insights, and contributions to the industry.
In this article, we’ll talk about a “Marvel” who has pioneered an effective strategy for inbound marketing and content marketing.
Read on to know more about this person and how his insights can help you boost your brand’s digital presence in the long run.
Miles Everson
CEO, MBO Partners
Chairman of the Advisory Board, The I Institute
Marketing Marvels
The Internet has conditioned us to believe we can find the answer to any question or problem we may have by simply typing keywords into a search engine.
You’re curious about something or you want to know what’s the best thing to do in a particular situation?
Just “Google” it.
This expectation and need to quickly find answers became the essence of inbound marketing, or the process of attracting prospects to a business when they’re actually searching for a solution to their problem.
… and one of the top industry professionals who focuses on ways to effectively conduct this marketing strategy?
Marcus Sheridan!
Photo from IMPACT
Sheridan is a highly sought-after international keynote speaker known for his ability to excite, engage, and motivate audiences with his simple yet powerful transformational business approach.
In 2017, The New York Times dubbed him as a “Web Marketing Guru,” and Forbes named him as one of 20 “Speakers You Don’t Want to Miss.”
As the author of the content marketing guidebooks, “The Visual Sale” and“They Ask, You Answer,” Sheridan has not only inspired thousands of business owners, leaders, and marketers to unleash their full potential but has also given them the tools they need to succeed.
Did you know Sheridan’s success story didn’t begin on the stage?
It actually started with a business created out of the back of a beat-up pickup truck. His experience in saving his swimming pool business, River Pools and Spas, from the economic collapse of 2008 was featured in multiple books, publications, and case studies all over the world.
From its humble roots as a 3-man company to one of the largest pool manufacturers and installers in the U.S., River Pools and Spas is now one of the most visited pool business websites in the world, with over 75,000 hits a month.
Sheridan’s story of how he successfully saved his business led him to share the lessons he gained with others. Today, he delivers global keynotes to inspire audiences in the areas of sales, marketing, leadership, and communication.
He also helps people across the globe to achieve their own successes with his “They Ask, You Answer” philosophy.
Creating a Culture of Listening AND Answering
Sheridan’s “They Ask, You Answer” is a business framework with one obsession at its core:
“What is my customer asking?”
By focusing on 10 straightforward concepts, this revolutionary guide challenges businesses around the world to stop selling to their customers and start answering their questions to get positive results.
Sheridan talks about this framework in detail in his book of the same title.
Photo from IMPACT
So… how does the “They Ask, You Answer” strategy work?
This philosophy has a simple proposition: Educated prospects become happier and better customers.
This means if your target market is asking questions online, you have to answer them openly AND honestly—whether that’s in the form of a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) page, blogs, etc.
Why is this important?
When you shift your focus to educating your target market rather than simply selling to them, you:
- Establish consumers’ trust and eventually, loyalty
- Weed out bad-fit prospects
- Help make the buying process smoother
Simply said, the “They Ask, You Answer” strategy teaches you to create the RIGHT content, organize that content so it’s easily consumable, and utilize that content in the sales process to improve your close rates.
[Close Rates: This refers to the percentage of sales leads and outreach efforts that produce customer conversions and sales.]
According to Sheridan, once you implement this framework in your business, you’ll likely see dramatic increases in organic traffic, sales, and revenue growth.
The BIG 5
Sheridan states some businesses take a year or more to make their inbound marketing strategies work. Why?
It’s because they don’t understand what content they should create to effectively facilitate the entire sales process.
Sheridan believes to be successful in marketing, companies should address the 5 most common sets of questions customers ask:
- How much does your solution cost?
- What are the negatives or issues with your solution?
- How does your product or solution compare to alternatives?
- What is everybody saying about your solution?
- What is the best solution available?
These are questions consumers usually ask or research about before they choose a brand, and these are key details that fuel a business’ sales process.
The problem is sometimes, instead of answering these questions, some companies embrace the so-called “ostrich marketing,” where they choose to bury their heads in the sand for as long as possible. They stick to safe topics and pretend the BIG 5 don’t exist. Other times, they wait until they are face-to-face with consumers before they address these basic questions at all.
The result?
Online visitors to those businesses’ websites get frustrated because they can’t find the information they need to commit to that face-to-face meeting or call… and in case you don’t know, “frustrated” is the F word of the Internet!
That’s why as a business owner, leader, or marketer, you have to make sure you’re not one of those businesses. Be the brand that’s willing to answer the BIG 5!
Sheridan says when this is done properly, you won’t be waiting a year or more to see results. Instead, you’ll likely see a rise in qualified traffic, a steady stream of qualified leads, and an increase in sales in no time.
We hope you learned a lot from and enjoyed reading today’s “Marketing Marvel!”
Always remember that in today’s digital age, the traditional sales funnel—marketing at the top, sales in the middle, and customer service at the bottom—is no longer effective.
To be successful nowadays, you must pore over questions, concerns, and problems your target market has, then address those as honestly and thoroughly as possible.
Having the answers consumers need can attract thousands of prospects to your brand. It’s a simple yet powerful equation that helps produce growth and success: They Ask, You Answer.
Start applying this fresh approach to your marketing strategy!
“The ultimate content strategy is listening. Great content is the best sales tool in the world.”
– Marcus Sheridan
(This article is from The Business Builder Daily, a newsletter by The I Institute in collaboration with MBO Partners.)
About The Dynamic Marketing Communiqué’s
“Monday Marketing Marvels”
Too often, industry experts and the marketing press sing the praises of some brand or company’s marketing strategy.
… only for the audience to later find out that its product was a flop, or worse, that the brand or company went bankrupt.
The true ROI in marketing can’t be separated from the business as a whole.
What good is a marketing case study if one can’t prove that the company’s efforts actually paid off?
At the end of the day, either the entire business is successful or it isn’t. And the roles of marketing and communication are always paramount to that success.
Every Monday, we publish a case study that highlights the world’s greatest marketing strategies, marketers, and communicators.
However, the difference between our articles and the numerous ones out there is that we will always make certain that the firm really did generate and demonstrate earning power worthy of study in the first place (compliments of Valens Research’s finance group) in keeping with a person’s leadership skills in the area of marketing and/or communication.
We’ll also study the greatest marketing fails and analyze what they did wrong, or what they needed to improve. We all make our mistakes, but better we learn from others’ mistakes—and earlier, rather than later.
Hope you found this week’s marketing marvel interesting and helpful.
Stay tuned for next week’s Monday Marketing Marvels!
Cheers,
Kyle Yu
Head of Marketing
Valens Dynamic Marketing Capabilities
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