One of the ways direct sellers can compete in the marketplace is to consistently provide value.
Video may be king on the Internet, but sharing your expertise and adding value via a company blog is still a massively popular and effective brand builder in letting people know about your mission, values, and your expertise and thought leadership. According to Statista, the number of bloggers in the U.S. is expected to hit 31.7 million in 2020. In a survey by HubSpot, 53 percent of marketers said blogging is their top content marketing priority. HubSpot also states that companies with a regularly updated blog have up to 97 percent more inbound links.
“Being the solution to people’s problems or the answer to their questions is what opens them up to eventually becoming a customer…”
Many direct selling companies and independent distributors are blogging to not only grow business but also educate and attract people from outside the industry. Most choose to incorporate a blog component to their website instead of using a separate blog URL. The growing trend is focused on teaching, bringing value to a targeted audience, and solving specific problems. This type of attraction marketing is less about selling and more about building a following.
As a corporate example, Plexus Worldwide’s “Sunny + Share” blog focuses on health tips, healthy recipes using Plexus products, and distributor success stories. Categories include Health Hacks, Trust Your Gut, Goal Getters and a few others.
Essential oil producers Young Living and doTERRA International run a blog teaching people how to use the products and offers recipes and overall healthy living ideas.
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Problem Solvers Create Trust
Perhaps the most powerful aspect of blogging is the ability to write targeted posts optimized for specific topics and keywords that people are already online searching for. Sticking with the health and wellness topic, a targeted blog post example might be “5 Tips to Defeat Late-Night Sugar Cravings” as opposed to focusing the post on an appetite suppressant product.
Being the solution to people’s problems or the answer to their questions is what opens them up to eventually becoming a customer because of the trust that is fostered. According to a study by Demand Gen Report, 47 percent of buyers viewed three to five pieces of content before engaging with a sales rep. In his book Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, Gary Vaynerchuk writes, “A story is at its best when it’s not intrusive, when it brings value to a platform’s consumers, and when it fits in as a natural step along the customer’s path to making a purchase.”
