Although nobody likes to be sold to, people still like to buy. Even if your customers need your product, they can still be put off by an overt sales effort. As soon as they feel like they’re being sold to, their resistance goes up.

This is why the content marketing revolution is so powerful….. it bring customers directly to you.

Smart companies have learned that the most effective marketing doesn’t involve hammering your prospects with your sales message. Smart companies have learnt to pull instead of push. They have learnt to find (or create) effective channels to get their messages across, like their website, their newsletters, social media like LinkedIn.

By creating quality content that engages your customers, you demonstrate your expertise and draw people to you. People respond to quality information that genuinely helps them do their jobs better, tells them something they don’t already know, makes their life easier, saves them money.

But when I say quality, I mean quality.  A well-written product press release is not what I am referring to as it is rarely any of these things.

You don’t need to sell what you do, you need to demonstrate that you know what you’re talking about.

I try to practice what I preach by doing just that with content like this article you are reading now. Nearly every post I’ve written has led to some sort of inbound lead – sometimes from new customers, other times from existing customers who didn’t realise all the services we offer.

Now, I’m going to go and wait for the phone to ring with someone enquiring about our content services!