Using content to influence switching costs
A strategy every content marketer can use to prove their role in revenue generation
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Now, let's get down to business, shall we?
Marketing is generally one of the most insecure positions in a company’s corporate architecture. Marketers are the first to lose their jobs when revenues are low or economic conditions go sour.
However, content marketers who have achieved longevity and enjoyed an averagely longer tenure than normal have mastered one thing: the art and science of demonstrating and proving the value of what they do to stakeholders — higher-ups and their fellow colleagues.
This translates into a competency capital that speaks for them and makes it harder for the company to let them go.
The basic way they do this is to tie each campaign to a real business objective, like revenue generation, brand recognition, traffic, etc.
However, one way that’s rarely talked about — but is equally effective — is using content as a tool to grow and reduce customer retention and churn rates respectively, by:
Making it hard for customers to leave your product
Making it easy for them to switch from competitors to yours.
To explain it another way, you’re essentially reducing what I call the “positive switching costs (cost of customers leaving you) and increasing the negative switching costs (cost of customers switching to competitors).
Let's be clear: I'm not advocating for illegal and immoral tactics that lock users into inflexible contracts with high exit fees. Companies that employ such strategies suffer reputational damage in the long run.
The strategies I'll share are both legal and ethical. Instead of feeling pressured, customers will stay because they genuinely find value in the product or service. And as you well know, the basis of effective marketing is to influence decisions subtly and positively.
Let’s dive into the strategies.
Facilitate feature awareness using content
Customers may switch from your product due to a perceived lack of features, even if the functionality exists. This is true, especially for very technical products with multiple features and use cases.
For example, let's say a customer is looking for powerful video editing software that supports precise color correction. Since your software happens to have that feature, it makes it to the customer's consideration stage.
However, it's either difficult to use or buried deep within a complex menu structure. What does the customer do?
They will abandon your software after failing to find the color correction tool, mistakenly believing it’s missing altogether.
This results in lost revenue, a lost customer, and poor brand awareness.
Poor brand awareness occurs because the customer will recommend another product to anyone requesting a tool with such a feature.
To avoid such a situation, show users your product’s features by mentioning and demonstrating how they work at every chance. Educate the customer about them not just for an immediate sale but because of what it will produce later on — a strong attachment to your product.
You can include it in articles, YouTube videos, etc.
Reduce the learning costs
Learning a completely new software can be daunting, especially for non-tech-savvy users who are comfortable with their current system. Therefore, they'd rather stick to their current tool with a familiar interface and operations.
Remove this obstacle by creating product-led content and tutorials replete with visuals — gifs, videos, images, and screenshots — to teach users how your tool works.
Also, create comparison pages and BOTF content highlighting the right features to demonstrate your product’s superiority. This way, you can demonstrate how switching to your product delivers significant value – benefits that far outweigh the initial investment of learning a new platform.
Get your customers into a community
Communities are commonly viewed as a strategy primarily for generating revenue. But is that really what it's all about? Surely, community building must produce more benefits than revenue, considering the effort, time, and resources it consumes. Reducing switching costs is one such additional benefit.
Putting customers into a community built around your product fosters an emotional connection with your product and other customers. Such emotional connection makes it harder for them to switch, considering their attachment to the product and the fact that it has become a part of their identity. Besides, communities are a major source of identity.
Additionally, customers can ask other community members for solutions instead of venting their frustrations about difficulties they encounter using your product online, switching tools, or drowning your support staff with queries. This reduces the tickets support staff have to handle, allowing them to respond quickly to customer queries and increasing customer satisfaction.
How can you use content to build a community, then?
Promote user generated content (UGC).
Share customers’ commonly asked questions with your community and seek answers. Some answers can then become the subject of your next blog post, webinar, or video series—you get the gist, right?
Create content around a POV your ideal customer profile resonates with, even if not directly, one hundred percent related to your product. For example, Sparktoro, an audience research platform, shares content rooted in personal experiences like this one on the chill work manifesto. That’s why I strongly believe content teams need to think beyond keywords to truly succeed (a story for another day).
Interview your customers' subject matter experts and use their insights in content. For instance, let’s say you have a martech tool. You can request a quote from the head of marketing of a company using it. People rarely shy away from the opportunity to share their expertise and establish themselves as thought leaders in the industry.
Support product mentions with authentic testimonials from real customers. Dedicate a portion of your time and resources monthly to creating customer success stories (a.k.a case studies).
Create a self-service post on switching from competitors
One obstacle standing in the way of people switching their service provider is the time and effort it takes to set up the new system.
For example, migrating data from their old system to yours may be complex and time-consuming, especially if a large volume of data is involved or the system’s setup differs from yours. So, the customer may prefer to remain with their current provider, regardless of the pain it causes them.
The solution?
Create content tutoring customers about switching from your main competitors. This could be a blog post, a video, etc. It can lure customers away from your competitors.
Here’s an example from HouseCallpro.
The article teaches prospects how to switch from Successware, which happens to be their main competitor. This can convince someone still on the fence about switching due to the difficulty of the process.
When creating such content, use gifs and in-product screenshots to illustrate each step of the switching process. Optimize it for search engines using a relevant keyword (e.g., comparison or vs. keywords). Then, publish it on your website and share it in forums and communities for easy discoverability.
The short of it all…
Using content to influence switching costs in your favor earns you competency capital you can leverage to justify your value to the company. It's also a useful tool for growing your customer base.
Here are some stuff I found interesting during the week.
Switching Costs, Shareable Content & Content Formatting
I’m a huge fan of the Marketing for Geeks newsletter by Lade Falobi. This issue on switching costs explains what it is and gives real-life examples. Trust me when I say you should definitely check it out!
Sparktoro: Amanda Natividad on doing things your own way
Any content marketer should be subscribed to the Content Briefly podcast. It sure has a lot. In this episode, Amanda discusses Sparktoro’s approach to content strategy, personal branding, etc. Give it a listen!
Let’s steal from… Seventeenth Century Explorers
I read this some time ago, but I keep going back to re-read it. I guess it’s because of the quality within. The article explores using rhetoric to demonstrate your product’s value propositions successfully. Check it out!