What is Answer Based Content?
Think of Answer Based Content (ABC) as chatting with your customers across all platforms to answer those questions that keep them up at night!
This method means your team digs into the FAQs of potential clients, not for Google points (like traditional inbound and SEO practices), but to supercharge your sales game and make that revenue soar!
ABC allows you to educate and guide the user to make a purchase that will benefit them. The content targets client pain points, doubts, and wants from their perspective, being straightforward and honest.
This way content creation efforts (copy on your website, content offers, blog posts, emails, etc.) align with your sales team's efforts to find good fits, therefore reducing friction, avoiding duplication of resources, and helping increase conversion rates.
Why does ABC have a differential value?
Instead of spending thousands on content you hope will rank well on Google, invest time creating content no one else has because it comes straight from the source: your company’s experts.
The ABC methodology lets you showcase your expert knowledge and touch on industry insights. It relies 100% on your company being able to collaborate and share information on processes, issues, past experiences, pricing, and differentials with whoever is managing content in your company.
The difference lies in focusing on what prospects want to know and NOT what you want to tell them. If you start sharing this information honestly with prospects and other stakeholders without fear of losing leads or being copied, you will see a boost in your sales.
Why should you implement ABC on your home page?
Your home page is your company’s first impression. Here is where their conversion path (the steps a user takes before taking an action, such as filling out a form) begins. Designing your page to respond to frequently asked questions will reduce friction and hesitation among prospects, smoothing their path to conversion.
Optimizing your page with ABC means critical information will be permanently accessible, which your prospects will thank you for. It’s deeply annoying to wait for an email response to learn the price of something and discover it's well outside your budget.
You can use CTA buttons or hyperlinks to drive potential clients to other pages, thus supporting key conversion paths. This way, you can cover more ground without overwhelming the prospect with information. There should be a harmonic balance between white space and text.
Is ABC a mindset?
Yes. The philosophy behind ABC is stepping into your customer's shoes and understanding that they have limited time to make decisions, often too many options available to them, and, more often than not, little knowledge to understand if a product or service is what they need.
If you rewind your selling strategy, stop thinking about what your company wants, and focus on the consumers, you might find a better way to sell.
How can ABC be applied to a sales pipeline?
A simple sales pipeline for a logistics company -for example- could go like this:
- Prospect List
- Contact
- Qualify
- Develop
- Close Deal
The ABC mindset behind each of these steps forces you to ask yourself these questions:
What person/company will benefit from using my product/service?
Can this person afford my service/product?
Is my product/service within geographical reach?
What channel of communication does my prospect prefer?
Will they understand my product/service and how it can benefit them?
What can I give them that will help them understand how my product/service works and why they need it?
Can I offer them a solution to their problem?
Do I understand their problem, company, and industry?
How long will it take me to solve their problem?
How much will it cost them? Can they afford the solution?
Will they need to consider extra factors other than my fee/price?
Focus on their specific needs and explain the process behind our solution.
Walk them through what we can and can’t do to set accurate expectations.
What is our value proposition?
How are we better than the competition?
What experiences have previous customers had?
What proof can we give them that our service/product works?
You can test your sales pipeline against these common questions to see if your conversion path is designed to quelch potential clients' thirst for truthful answers.
How can I measure the effects of ABC on my conversion path?
At Digifianz, we work with HubSpot - an all-in-one powerful CRM - that allows us to automate tasks and track the buyer's journey through the site.
HubSpot has an attribution option where you can track the number of leads, visitors, and customers generated by the conversion path. With this information, you can refine your buyer persona knowledge and focus on the questions that matter most to your prospects.
How can I implement ABC?
If you understand the philosophy behind the method, you can begin implementing it yourself.
If you want to learn more about the process and how we could help you implement it in your business, simply contact us; we’ll be happy to help.
