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Content, Content, and More Content

Give your customers something of value. Give them the vital information they are looking for.

Do you want to get more business out of your current customers? Then give them value. Do you want to engage more new customers? Then offer them value. In today’s world of social media the best way to get customers to notice you is to offer them value and the most valuable thing you can give them is information in the form of content.

You’re on Facebook and you want a lot of people, the right people, to “like" you, you have to give them something of value. That something is information in the form of content.

You thought you had a perfectly good website, but you notice to your dismay that many people only visit your site once and then move on. In many cases, they don’t even click through and you end up losing them after a few minutes, hell, in a few seconds. What is that all about? It’s because you are not giving them anything of value. You are not giving them any information. They didn’t see anything on your site that made them want to stick around.

Your salespeople are having a hard time making appointments; even your current customers don’t want to see your sales team any more than they have to. What is that all about? It’s quite simple; your salespeople have nothing new to offer them. Your customers know that if your salespeople meet with them, all they are going to get is a rant and a pitch about how great your company is and how they should be buying more from your sales guy. They have been there, done that, and heard it a million times. They are sick and tired of it and they don’t want to hear it anymore. They want something new; they want to hear about new technologies, and what is going on in the industry. They want to hear about something that will surprise them, something interesting and informative that is going to help their company be better. They want information!

Look, it’s pretty straightforward. If you are building flex and rigid-flex boards, then you have to be the expert on that technology. You not only have to know everything about that technology, you have to also know what your customers want from their flex and rigid-flex suppliers and it is your job to provide that information to them in the form of content. The right customized content for that particular customer.

Customers today, more than ever, are looking for data, information, and most of all, good writing that is going to teach them something new about how to make their products and their businesses better. It is no longer enough to build the best product in the world; now you also have to be the world’s expert on that product, that technology.

This should not be that difficult for you to do, because it is your product, your technology, and it is what you have been doing for years. So it’s just a matter of sharing that knowledge with your customer base. I’ll say it once again: You have to provide the right content to the right customers.

I’ll give you one great example. PCB designers are starved for information. Even though they are spending 50 or 60 hours a week designing PCBs, most of them have never even been in a board house and most of them don’t even know how a board is built. For the most part, they don’t know one laminate from another, and they have no idea want it takes to design a board in the most efficient, elegant and cost-saving way. And yes, I can promise you, they are dying to find out.

And that’s just a basic circuit board. Now, add specific technologies to that mix, things like heavy copper or RF and metal-backed boards, and designers are really starved for information.

So, why not give it to them? Develop webinars on how to build a simple PCB. Start writing a column on how to best design in order to fabricate heavy copper boards. Start teaching design classes; develop a series of YouTube presentations that will be helpful to designers. In other words, do whatever it takes. Make it your mission to help designers connect the dots when it comes to designing the best PCBs that money can buy.

I have one client whose slogan is “The design is not complete until the board is built,” and nothing could be truer. They have had tremendous good fortune in their business by working alongside designers helping them to design PCBs in the most productive way possible.

Get out there, and spread your knowledge. Write articles, columns, and white papers; give webinars and seminars. Hold "lunch and learns" and give your customers that expertise that you claim to have. It is the best way possible to make yourself valuable to your customers and yes…it’s only common sense.