Jeff Harrison shows how local businesses use content marketing to attract customers by answering the specific problems people search for. He found a dryer repairman after Googling a squeaking sound and reading an article. The key: write evergreen how-to content with titles that match exactly what customers search for.
There's a saying that if you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I can't remember exactly who shared that comment with me, but it certainly makes sense. And I just want to share something with you about what it meant to me over the weekend. Hi, my name is Jeff Harris. I run a company called Swingpoint Media. And a lot of times people ask, well, Jeff, you know, hey, what, how does content marketing work? Well, I have to share a little story. Over the weekend, our dryer, our clothes dryer started making some noise, like a really loud high pitched noise. And so what did I do? I went to Google and I put that in and when I put it in, it pulled up a list of articles and I happened to click on one and then it led me to a repair person in my area. After reading the article, understanding what needed to happen. It's a front, front loading dish, or excuse me, front loading clothes dryer.
So the pulleys, and I guess there's several sets of pulleys and a belt had started to wear out. And that was what's causing this, this, I guess, squeaking noise. It was so loud I have an office here at home that I couldn't really work with it. So I thought, I'll just call this guy. And when he asked me how I found him, I told him on Google now when he came, he did a great job, everything was good. But this is exactly how content marketing works. This is an article that I don't know how long ago this was actually written, but it solved my problem. I immediately, when I had something that came up in my life, I went to Google and I typed in the problem question I wanted solved. And then Google behind the scenes, which seems to know everything, put a list of content or a list of articles in front of me and it would have done the same thing. Had there been a video, it would have. If this same guy would have made a video, chances are his video would have showed up there and I would have watched it, seen what it was, seen how he, he'd fix a problem and then probably would have called the number on the screen, still set an appointment. The guy showed up two days later, very nice, very professional, and did the trick. So the question is, how does content market actually work? You have to create solutions for the problems your ideal customer has to have solved. In this case, it was a squeaking dryer. If you're an H vac company, it could be why is my AC blowing hot air? You know, whatever it is, there's an answer for that. Now here's the coolest part about this and then I'm out is once you create the content, it could literally last a lifetime. I can go back on videos when I was in the golf business, which now has been, you know, 15 years ago when I got out, when I started making videos. There are still videos playing out there about me doing some, some demonstration and they're still getting tens of thousands of views. Why? Because it's evergreen. It helps now and it helps in the future. Now sometimes you're going to put content out there. That's a solution that I'm going to call it's a trending content. It may be something that is a short lived and that's okay. Then there's other things that you're saying, hey, these are the common things that my product or service solve for my customer. Now I want you just to reverse engine Internet. These are the things that my, my product or service solve. But how are my customers typing that into Google? You see, that's how we want to title our, our YouTube videos or our articles. We want to title them in a way that matches it up. It's almost like saying, hey, I'm going to go get a new pair of shoes and I want to get the pair of shoes that fit me. I want to start out with, with sizes that fit me. Then I'm going to go to color. The point is, is you're going to see if you can match your title of your article or your video to that of the question in the phrase that your ideal customers are asking. Once you start doing that, you'll have fun with this because the more you do this, the better you get at and you're just, all you're doing is you're helping your customers. So in this situation I talked about how does content marketing actually work? I've often recall called it breadcrumbing. Where all these little breadcrumbs are out there on the Internet in the digital footprint, if you will. And I'm just putting them out there of saying, hey, this is a problem that came up. I'm going to solve the question. I'm going to ask that question. There was a gentleman who I read about a long time ago and he said if your customers are asking you questions, you need to make content about it. And that's what I want you to think about. If I have a question that's been brought up by my customer, I should make a piece of content. Okay, I'm out. If you have any questions, my name is Jeff Harrison with Swingpoint Media. Here it is on the screen. Swingpoint Media. We are a local marketing company and we create organic content for local businesses to help them get more customers. Just like this appliance repairman got me. Have a great day.
