Content is fuel for any marketing plan. Good content will have consumers hitting the buy button faster than Swifties can gobble up Taylor tickets. Not-so-great sales content will confuse buyers and make them turn away from your offers.
I’ve already written about turning potential buyers from confused to convinced. I’ve also urged readers of this column—and anyone willing to listen—to create great content. But there’s another level entrepreneurs and small business owners may strive to attain—million-dollar sales content.
This level of sales content rises above the common, where content simply highlights 17 features consumers aren’t convinced are worth their time, dollars, and energy. It’s connection-focused content that tells stories and touches consumer emotions in profound and lasting ways.
When you master the art of connection, what you’re selling feels more like a necessity to buyers—they must have it because your content engages every part of them.
“The three pivotal elements in that kind of sales content? Fascinate, demonstrate, and resonate,” says marketing expert Tieron Spear, co-founder of Next Level Ambitions. “I think about the Flex Tape commercial by Swift Response, a company with an estimated annual revenue of somewhere between $7 and $25 million,” Spear says.
“In the commercial, water gushes from a hole in a tank. Then, almost magically, the flow is halted when a man swiftly slaps the tape over the hole. This tape-slap demonstrates the product’s efficacy, fascinates viewers with its immediate results, and resonates with people facing similar problems. You can use the same principles to create million-dollar sales content for your business.”
Fascinating, demonstrative, resonant sales content can be the key to reaching your next audience—and your next level of revenue growth. Here are three insider secrets to creating just that kind of million-dollar sales content—connection-based, authentic, and selling without coming off as sales-y.
1. Fascinate with scroll-stopping content
In the Swift Response example, water gushing from a hole stopped scrollers in their tracks. Who doesn’t want to see what it’s all about?
You, too, can fascinate with your content in many ways, such as by using surprising headlines that pique curiosity and challenge assumptions. Consider the headline from years ago, “Ditch the plastic, go naked,” by Lush, the British cosmetics retailer. The company’s tongue-in-cheek style captures attention while highlighting its packaging-free products and environmental mission.
If you don’t want to go the video route, as Swift Response did, you could start by turning your static images into GIFs using tools like Motionleap or Typito. I tried Typito with a photo I took yesterday at the Mountain State Fair in Asheville, North Carolina. First, Typito created the video. Then, I used FreeConvert.com to turn the MP4 file into a GIF. My example is simplistic; you can create many more effects than the text effect you see here.
2. Demonstrate with demos, case studies, and testimonials
Swift Response said more with its gushing-water video than they could with 1,000 words by showing the pain—the hole with water flowing out—being instantly relieved with a slap.
How can you quickly and creatively demonstrate the pain your company solves for buyers?
One way is to use demos that show how your product or service works in real-life scenarios and how it benefits your customers. Duolingo has an excellent demo video that showcases its features and benefits—in just 30 seconds.
Case studies are another way to demonstrate the power of your product or service. One case study about the relationship between the organic search company Fractl and its customer, Porch.com, hits many demonstrative boxes.
- The headline notes how Fractl earned links from 931 unique domains for Porch.com. It wasn’t “hundreds” or “almost 1,000” domains but precisely 931. Specificity sells.
- Following the hero section, the page highlights more quantitative results, including the number of monthly organic visitors added, high domain-authority links secured, and press mentions and social shares.
- As readers continue scrolling, the numbers keep coming: mentions from major publishers, niche publishers, radio stations, and regional publishers, for example.
- The page also includes testimonials from publishers and Fractl employees. Although offering testimonials from employees anywhere but the site’s Careers section isn’t common, it is clever—you have a far greater ability to shape and sway what your employees and co-workers say.
“When it comes to million-dollar sales messages, first and foremost, speak in a language your audience understands,” says content marketing expert Tommie Powers, co-founder of Next Level Ambitions. “What works best is to showcase why buying your product is a better option without using tons of words that people likely won’t read or know how to interpret,” says Powers. The Fractl case study shows how to get your case across in as few words as possible.
As we also saw in the Fractl example, statistics and data that connect purchases to key metrics and outcomes work to demonstrate, too. The business messaging app Slack offers such statistics on its current home page. About three scrolls down, readers see these stats:
- 85% of users say Slack has improved communication
- 86% feel their ability to work remotely has improved
- 88% feel more connected to their teams
Survey your customers; you may be pleasantly surprised and want to share the results in your content.
3. Resonate with messaging that pokes at pain points
Entrepreneurs love what they do and create—they love talking about their offers and using content to do so. But the people consuming your content and considering your offers don’t care about you; they care only about what’s in it for them. That’s why million-dollar sales content focuses on buyer struggles, challenges, and pains.
To resonate with your buyers, put yourself in their shoes. Practice empathy so you can understand their emotions, motivations, and goals. For example, consider Nike’s ad based on the US women’s soccer team’s World Cup win. That ad, focusing on empowering women and girls, used empathy to inspire the audience to overcome obstacles and pursue dreams. And even though the ad wasn’t designed to sell a product, per se, it evoked strong emotions and positively affected viewer perceptions.
You can also show how your product or service adds value to buyers’ lives. Evernote does a great job of this by using benefit-oriented headlines and subheads on its website. For example, its homepage uses the headline “Tame your work, organize your life.” Several benefit-laden subheadings follow:
- Work anywhere.
- Remember everything.
- Turn to-do into done.
- Find things fast.
These statements emphasize how Evernote helps people achieve goals and solve problems rather than just describing the app’s features.
Ask these questions to get closer to million-dollar sales content
To supercharge your campaigns so they deliver more purchases, marketing expert Kai Ravariere, co-founder of Next Level Ambitions, recommends answering this set of questions as you’re planning:
- How do you want viewers or readers to feel while consuming your content?
- What message or movement can your audience resonate with and get behind?
- How can you creatively call to your tribe, even when they’re in a group of people who aren’t in your target audience?
- Which core emotion or primal state of being do you need to tap into to move the various segments of your audience into action?
- How can you tie that emotion or state into the nature of your offer in a way that compels people to click, buy, tag others, and share?
“The goal is to help your audience feel like they’ve just gotten something good from your content, even if it’s just a good laugh or a wave of emotion,” says Ravariere. “In other words, sell less and connect more.”
Consider using AI tools to optimize your core content strategy and messages
AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Bing Chat can help you create million-dollar sales content quicker and more efficiently. I’ve written about using these chatbots for many purposes, like email marketing, writing social media posts, and even blogging.
The idea is to feed your core content strategy, messaging, and persona information into an AI tool and ask it to create hyper-focused sales content that leads to action and sales. But don’t forget to edit; generative AI tools are not yet at a stage where you can put in a prompt and expect publishable content.
Bottom line? Sales content will increase your revenue; great sales content, possibly by millions
I’ve long believed that people love to buy but hate to be sold. I also believe that buyers, especially buyers burdened by challenges, want to consume your marketing content. They’re out there on the web or scrolling on LinkedIn or Instagram when suddenly, they see a shocking video still or read a tongue-in-cheek headline that arouses their curiosity.
Congratulations.
You’ve just completed the first part of your job by fascinating and capturing their attention.
Next, your prospective buyers may wonder, “Can this company really solve my challenges?” They follow the link to see where it leads. If your company does an excellent job of demonstrating, whether with demos or case studies, buyers may want to consume even more of your content. They’ll explore your website and social media channels, resonating with your emotional stories and perhaps even feeling connected to a larger movement or moment.
Congratulations.
You’ve just demonstrated and caused resonance, too.
When you fascinate, demonstrate, and resonate, all three elements connect, putting you well on your way to million-dollar sales content—without even having to sell.
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