It was Jay Baer who coined the term Youtility in his NY Times bestselling book of the same name. If you’re not yet familiar, Youtility is the concept that modern marketing must first be useful to potential customers. Your marketing itself must be something that’s wanted by consumers.
What does that entail?
What Youtility really comes down to is being there for your clients when they have needs you can meet. Instead of your marketing announcing “I’m here!“, your marketing should exist to answer the question “How can I help?“. The reason marketing has fundamentally changed over the past few years is that consumers have much more information than they used to and prefer finding their own answers to hearing pitches from companies.
The majority of small and medium-sized businesses haven’t made the shift in their marketing, meaning there is big potential to stand out for those who do.
At boomtime, we’re big believers in the ability of useful marketing to grow businesses. That’s why boomtime Word of Mouth Marketing is designed to help companies grow by nurturing the needs of our client’s customers throughout their buyer journey. At the heart of that process is our use of value offers to capture the attention of website visitors when they first interact with your website.
When someone first hears about your business from a friend, the first thing they’ll do is search for you on their phone. The first thing they’ll see is your Google My Business page. My Business profiles are critical for small and medium-sized businesses. They’re useful to your local customers because they announce that your business is legitimate and provides them all of the tools they need to research you or contact you.
From there, they’ll land on your website. This is where it’s most critical for you to offer your help. Any visitor to your site is likely there because you have the potential to solve a problem for them, whether they are in need of a pizza or advanced legal help. The best thing you can do when they arrive at your site is offer them something useful in exchange for their email address. That can be a coupon for what you sell or some insight in your area of business that they will find helpful.
This accomplishes 3 powerful things.
- You will stand out by providing value to your website visitors from the outset.
- You will have the ability to identify website visitors who are great prospects. (most of whom wouldn’t have reached out to you otherwise)
- You will set up the foundation to continue your value marketing efforts and build your brand long-term.
All the best,
Bill Bice
CEO
