CHAPTER 11

Provide Value (Yes, for Free!)

“Excuse, me, Dave, we’ve never met, but I wanted to introduce myself,” Michael said confidently, as he stopped me at a large social media conference in New York. “I just wanted to thank you for all of the great value you and your company provide,” he continued. “I mean, all of the links, resources, and tips your social media agency has shared, all of the articles you’ve written over the past year—they’ve just been so helpful that I’ve recently started my own social media agency with everything I’ve learned from you. Thanks again, Dave. Keep up the good work. I’ll be watching!”

I felt devastated at first. I had always intuitively believed that providing value for free on social networks online was the way to demonstrate expertise and credibility, build a reputation, and become a “thought leader.” But here, someone had the nerve (or transparency, at least) to tell me the value Likeable and I had provided for him, for free, was enough for him to start his own business doing what we did. It just seemed so unfair. I questioned my basic assumption that giving away a lot of what we sold built credibility and trust and provided the marketplace with the opportunity to organically spread the word about us. Maybe I had been wrong all along and was just a bad businessperson.

Luckily, only three days after the conference, I received a phone call that helped reaffirm our core beliefs about giving away valuable content online. The call came in from a key decision maker at one of the leading party and tent companies in the country. She was straightforward and to the point:

       Hello, Dave. You don’t know me, but I’ve been following you guys on Facebook, Twitter, and your blog for several months now. I just read another excellent blog article from your staff, and it reminded me that I’ve been meaning to call you. We need a social media strategy and plan, and we could do an RFP (request for proposal), but honestly, I know we want to work with you because I’ve seen how you guys think in all these articles you’ve written and shared over the last few months. I have $250,000 in our budget. When can we get started?

The free value we had provided for months may have allowed competitors to learn from us—heck, it even spawned new competitors. But that same shared content had helped build our reputation and credibility over time so that we were able to attract inbound leads and grow exponentially without any outbound sales force. Had we not given away information for free, the $250,000 caller wouldn’t even have known about us and certainly wouldn’t have contacted us.

PROVIDING FREE VALUE BUILDS TRUST, REPUTATION, AND EVEN SALES

The more valuable content you can share with your fans and followers, the greater the trust and reputation you’ll build with them. Share your expertise without expectation or marketing-speak, and you’ll create an even better name for yourself.

For example, if you represent an accounting firm, write a blog article such as “Top 10 Tax-Saving Strategies for the Year Ahead” and share it on Facebook and Twitter. While it might be tempting to end the article by saying, “For more tax-saving help, call us,” it’s better to showcase your expertise without asking for anything in return. If a prospect wants more help, she can quickly figure out how to contact you from your website, I promise. If you’re worried about not having enough to write about, you can always write shorter, more pointed articles instead. A “top 10” post could just as easily be a 10-part series in which you dive a little deeper into each of the top 10 strategies, examples, or reasons as well.

You don’t need to write articles to showcase your expertise either. In fact, writing articles can be time-consuming and unnecessary. Simply finding helpful articles online and sharing them with your community will provide value that current and prospective customers will appreciate. The material doesn’t have to be from you—just credit the source when you share it.

Provide Enough Value to Help People, Without Giving Away the Farm

Even if we did give away enough content to inspire others to start their own social media agencies, it’s rare that you could ever give away so much information that people could afford to do everything on their own. Accountants can share general tax advice, law firms can present information about the impact of new laws, consultants can describe best practices, and doctors can provide health news and tips. Eventually, however, no matter how valuable people might find your research, tips, and articles, they are not experts, and they’ll never know your content areas as well as you do. So when they need help, chances are they’ll need your products or services—and that’s when you can profit from all of the free value you’ve provided.

By consistently providing great content over time, you won’t need to advertise how wonderful you are—your community will already know based on what you’ve shared. And when they’re ready to buy your product or service, they won’t need to respond to ads telling them whom to turn to. They won’t even need to search Google to find what they’re looking for. They’ll already feel like they know you—they trust you and like you—so they’ll turn to you to solve their problem.

Every Brand Is a Publisher Now

Articles are no longer solely written and shared by professional services firms. Now, every company and brand can post any articles they have written in-house or found elsewhere to their blogs and LinkedIn pages. They can tweet and retweet valuable information throughout their entire community simultaneously. You are essentially able to publish any amount of valuable information with the click of a button, and it has the potential to be seen by millions of users.

Venture capitalist Fred Wilson and many others have said that links are the economy of the social Web. Once you are connected through such links, your audience grows exponentially. Writing and sharing great articles can provide your community with valuable information, no matter what you’re responsible for marketing. If it’s a food product or restaurant, you can share great recipes. If you’re marketing a clothing brand, you can share articles about the latest fashions. If it’s a hotel or airline, you can share articles about travel tips. The most important thing is to think about your target audience and provide articles they will find valuable. What would you find useful if you were on the receiving end of a status update? What would you like to see from your company?

Keep in mind, no matter what your organization sells, you’re not selling that here. Instead, you’re selling your expertise. You’re selling your reputation. You’re selling your credibility. And, of course, you’re not actually trading this content directly for something in return. You’re giving it away. But is it worth it to become a thought leader in whatever space you’re in? Is it worth it if in the future you never have to sell anything because people consider you the top expert in your niche and they come to you to buy your product or service before searching elsewhere?

Beyond Articles: Consider Other Ways to Provide Value

Though articles are an effective way to disseminate a plethora of information, other tactics are equally, if not more, helpful. For B2B organizations, for example, perhaps you want to write a white paper or share a research study. For consumer brands, you might want to create a fun game to play, a comic that makes people laugh, or a free mobile or Facebook application, all of which can provide entertainment and practical value. Be warned, however, that the cost of developing your own online game or application can be huge, and therefore it is riskier than writing a quick article.

Another way to provide valuable content is through videos. You may find it easier to create 60- to 120-second-long videos talking about how to do things yourself, top five tips, or any other content you might have traditionally written in an online post or article. For many, filming videos is easier than writing, and videos also have the added benefit of better showcasing your organization’s personality than the written word might be able to. Here are a few quick guidelines for creating video content:

1.    Use an inexpensive camera. There’s usually no reason to waste money on high-end expensive equipment.

2.    Keep it short and sweet. People’s attention spans online are short—no longer than two minutes.

3.    Share the videos everywhere. Share on YouTube and Facebook, and consider using Vine or Instagram videos to further spread your word.

4.    Have fun with it. This shows in your final product. (It also shows if the person on camera is uncomfortable or anxious.)

No matter what medium you decide to use, content and value can be as simple or complex as you want. The main criterion, however, is that you deliver something useful to your customers or communities and truly ask for nothing in return.

FIVE PERCENT OFF IS INSULTING: COUPONS, AND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN VALUE AND MARKETING

Perhaps because marketers have for years used phrases such as “valuable coupons” and “valuable offers inside,” we’ve grown to associate the words coupons and discounts with value. Indeed, e-mail marketing as a channel relies heavily on sending discounts on products and services to customers in hopes that the offers arrive in people’s inboxes at the moment they want or need whatever the companies are selling. The question is whether or not such e-mails offer value or whether they are simply marketing ploys. Make no mistake: there is a difference between a valuable offer and a marketing offer.

Ten percent off is not really a value. It’s a marketing offer. Five percent off is insulting. Fifteen percent off may or may not be perceived as valuable—it depends on your audience and product. It’s of course OK to offer 5 or 10 percent off—just be aware that you’re not really providing much value in the eyes of most consumers.

Can coupons provide real value? Free is always best, of course. No one can argue with the value of a free white paper download, game, sample, or gift with purchase. If you don’t ever want to be perceived as a “value” or “discount” brand, a free gift with a purchase is the best compromise. Otherwise, 50 percent off, or greater, tells consumers that you are providing something of actual worth. While many companies won’t want to offer any of their products or services at 50 percent off, an increasing number of them are using this model to attract new customers, reward loyal ones, and create buzz on social networks.

Every organization should be providing its fans and followers with valuable content on the social Web, and many are already. The following examples are a few ways companies are providing value on a consistent basis.

GetResponse: Easy E-mail Marketing

GetResponse, the global e-mail marketing company helping over 300,000 organizations and marketers manage their e-mail and newsletter marketing needs, has built a highly engaged social media following around a topic that doesn’t scream, “Like, comment, share, engage!” When GetResponse launched its social media presence, the company wanted to utilize these unique platforms to give its brand personality, provide customer service, and build a community for small business owners. The company now posts content regularly telling its marketers how to launch an Instagram channel to improve their marketing efforts, how to better design a landing page to entice sign-ups, and how to stay on top of the ever-changing world of search engine optimization (SEO).

You would think that providing this insight and knowledge would be a great consulting service for which GetResponse could charge its customers a premium, right? Wrong. GetResponse produces this content to ensure that its customers are successful, and it believes in the brand’s ability to generate results for its customers because GetResponse is the expert in the industry. Instead of launching a new product, the company has built trust, and its customers stick around.

Anchor Associates: The Latest News and Laws

Anchor Associates is a dynamic real estate firm based in New York City. Far from being a mass-market company, Anchor Associates specializes in Manhattan apartment sales, rentals, and corporate relocations. Whether you’re looking to buy or just rent for a semester of college, Anchor Associates works to fit your home to your needs.

Anchor Associates creates value by sharing the latest news articles about the real estate industry, as well as decorating tips and interesting events around the city. Could people in its target audience take the information and use it without hiring or even contacting Anchor Associates? Could competitors take the articles and repurpose them for their own use? Of course they could, and some probably do. However, even just a handful of prospects appreciating the information enough to contact the firm have provided Anchor Associates with a huge return on its investments—in the form of millions of dollars’ worth of business.

Blendtec: Truly Entertaining Videos

If you haven’t seen a Blendtec video yet and you’re by your computer, it’s worth putting the book down for a moment and visiting YouTube.com/Blendtec. Blendtec is the maker and distributor of the world’s most powerful blenders, which it sells to restaurants, offices, and homes.

Blendtec isn’t just great at blenders, though. It’s great at entertainment too. Each short video the company produces asks the question, “Will it blend?” and it features an attempt at blending something you’d never think of—iPods, iPhones, and golf clubs are only a few (Figure 11.1). The videos don’t try to sell blenders, and they don’t try to provide any value to viewers beyond harmless humor and entertainment.

FIGURE 11.1 Blendtec Asks, “Will It Blend?”

But that harmless entertainment has led to this small company having one of the most popular corporate YouTube channels of all time. Millions of people have viewed Blendtec’s hilarious videos, and many thousands of those viewers have purchased blenders after viewing the videos. A note of caution: of those companies who aren’t in the entertainment business who try to create viral videos, 99.9 percent will fail. If you can truly entertain, that’s perfect. If not, figure out another way you can provide value to your community.

Flowerama Richfield: Beautiful Pictures That Inspire

Flowerama Richfield is a florist from Saint Paul, Minnesota, that prides itself on providing value to its customers and fans. Every week, Flowerama shares pictures of beautiful floral designs, tips for plant care, and DIY projects. After sharing some interesting DIY projects for wedding planning, one bride private messaged Flowerama and booked her engagement party and wedding. Could the company’s articles and pictures have inspired this bride to do it herself? The answer is yes, but the bride loved the website content, and she trusted Flowerama to play a huge part in the most important day of her life.

Likeable: A Daily Blog

Soon after we started our company back in 2007, we wanted to write a blog to share expertise and our point of view and to create and share valuable content about social media and online marketing. Much to the dismay of our small staff, I insisted that the blog be titled “Buzz Marketing Daily.” People argued internally, “If you write ‘daily’ in the title of the blog, you’re suggesting we’ll have new content daily. What if we can’t keep up?”

“We’re not a newspaper. We’re a marketing firm,” one person argued.

Four years later, the title has been changed to “Likeable Content Daily,” but we’ve been able to keep the promise of a new article each weekday. More important, the blog has become one of the most widely read and shared blogs on social media marketing in the world, and it is a consistent source of new business prospects.

GIVE, AND YOU SHALL RECEIVE

Companies have always sought to provide value for their customers and prospects. In exchange for those efforts, they have wanted an immediate return in the form of sales. The challenge on the social Web is to figure out how you can provide valuable content—information, entertainment, and/or applications—without expecting anything back right away. When you give content away for free, there will invariably be people who don’t become your customers—but who knows if they would have become your customers anyway? Other prospects will appreciate what you have to offer, share it with their friends, and become customers themselves.