Customer Interviews Are the Missing Link In Your Marketing with Melissa Harstine
Nov 22, 2021
Most business owners are just guessing when it comes to creating content that resonates with their audience. What if you could gain insights into your dream customers' struggles, fears, goals, and desires? What if you could start creating content that you know is going to work because you're using words and emotions straight from your customers' mouths? In this episode of Cash In On Camera, Melissa Harstine talks about customer research, how to feel confident doing interviews, and leverage research insights to create content that connects + converts.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll hear…
▶️ [1:00] I think the main reason is just that when we're creating content or marketing strategies, from our own perspective, we're just guessing we don't actually know what's going to convert. We don't know what our customers really want, what they care about, and when we can get inside of their heads. By going straight to the source, asking them those questions, “Why did you start searching for a product or service like mine? What made you hesitate or slow down before you made that purchase?”
▶️ [4:03] And so I always recommend taking that zoom recording and turning it into a written transcript so that you can go through it and in a Google doc or whatever, just highlight, here's a pain point, here's a benefit, here's a really compelling, unique, memorable quote. And start to really take that interview and then pull out the little pieces that you can apply on your website headline, for example, your website FAQ page, as you're building out your content strategy for the next quarter.
▶️ [6:17] And I think another benefit is, that I think people are more willing to open up to a third party. Even if it's someone who's on your team, it isn't the person directly providing the service, like the person the client has constantly interacted with. There's just a little bit more conversational tone, a little bit more ease, and anytime you can just help people put their guard down. That's when they're going to share the really deep, really valuable insights, the things that you aren't going to get anywhere else, that can really help you improve your marketing content and your conversion.
▶️ [8:14] We're able to write that to really speak to the conversation that was already going on in the reader's head. Like the things that they were questioning, they're wondering about what they were wanting, is it really even possible? Like, is garden coaching a thing? Is it even a profitable thing? Right? Like they had that quote, that phrase came up over and over and over as I was doing this research, I didn't even know this is a thing when I first heard about this course.
▶️ [10:46] Getting Intel around your product, and your service, getting that feedback, and using it to improve your messaging or your content. Case studies are this exact same interview skill, the same types of questions you might even ask, but there's a little bit different application. So with case studies, I typically write like a long-form, maybe a thousand to 1200 word story about the entire customer journey.
▶️ [12:34] So it's actually a little bit in between those two things. So I take the transcripts and analyze the data and I try to look for those trends, those patterns, those messages of sticky messages I was talking about earlier. And then I have a handful of copywriters that I partnered. And a collaborative relationship where it's I know this person's really great at launch at sales copy for coaches, for example. This person is really great at website copy for tech companies. And so we'll get on a call and talk through my findings together, what I learned through the research, and the report.
▶️ [14:21] I love it. You and I have a lot in common in the sense that we both have journalism backgrounds. I happen to take my experience and go into the video marketing field. And you went more into the customer research, marketing, and content copywriting side. So, you are a woman after my own heart, because I think many of us saw that there was so much value in these, all of these different skills that we gained in journalism, and they can be transferable to marketing.
▶️ [16:10] Yeah, I love that tip. And the key thing that you said there is intentionality, right? It's like going into it as opposed to just showing up and just chit-chatting that you're going into it with intention, which I think is a really big tip.