Startups have a scrapyard problem.
Rising from the ashes of sleep-deprived nights, trying to deliver on promised utility, turbocharged with caffeine, innovation at startups takes center stage.
In this tunnel vision, the content engine at a lot of these organizations seems to resemble a scrapyard.
Meeting docs, communication memos, user conversations, product docs, roadmaps and early adopter feedback hold troves of value. Looking from the outside-in, all the content gems seem to have been clunked together, dented and unpolished.
To en-flame enthusiasm, find true believers and advocates for your product, better serve early adopters, and pave the road to scalability and growth, strike the iron when it’s hot.
Here are 4 types of content a startup needs to incorporate in their inception journey:
Who are you?
Incremental innovation may change the course of history or play the drums to the sound of which innovation of tomorrow is born.
As words are to sentences, pain-points of innovation yester are buns to the innovation burger
— Abheek Kakkar
But on the trail of this new-gen innovation, several competitors are branding their way to the top and biting into the revenue and trust pie. Healthy competition acts as a catalyst for startups to dive deeper, do better and deliver faster.
In the wake of all this, consumers face a choice dilemma and have to make a decision to go with you or go in another direction.
This brings us to ‘About You’ content.
About You Content
Values and principles define startups. While internal memos and communication threads are a helpful reminder to the team and the mission the team is trying to achieve, if this is not reflected in marketing communication and in conversations with potential buyers, the graceful edge that could close the sale is lost.
This content category includes content like:
- Core values of founding team members.
- Core values of the startup as a whole.
- CSR values.
- Founding journey and story.
- Founding challenges.
- Mission statement of the Startup.
- Press Releases.
- Wealth of team experience.
Why You?
Endless choice defines modern times.
In this Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V life, where brand loyalty delivers diminishing returns and switching over to a competitor’s product is easy, why would potential users and buyers choose what you are offering?
Without a unique selling proposition, your offering is like a dust particle in a sandstorm.
Unique Proposition Content
A unique selling proposition refers to the competitive edge your offering has over the competing products that could vie a potential customer away from your offering.
Define your USP on the base of these 4 things:
- Functional utility of the offering.
- Agility or order fulfillment of the offering.
- Derived emotional value from the offering.
- Value/Cost of acquiring that the offering.
What does your CV look like?
Expensive is out of budget till cheap becomes problematic.
Years of experience, learning from past mistakes, brings you to a place where you can deliver on your promise with maximum impact and minimum fuss.
Someone executing the same actions such as you for a fraction of the cost would make fiscal sense till the potential buyer realizes the value derived is also a fraction of what was expected.
Whether the market is saturated or growing, your work for others speaks volumes and is an indispensable component to your differentiation mix.
Case Studies
When it comes to your success stories, case studies and testimonials help bring perspective from a more relatable position for your potential buyer, and as such should be easily accessible and should highlight the pain points that you resolved.
A case study well-done would showcase:
- The pain-point of the past client.
- Processes that helped the customer reach their goal.
- Quantitative impact as a direct and indirect result of your efforts.
- What pain-point you solved for the customers of your client.
Will you lend a helping hand when it matters?
Time is of essence in conflict resolution, and a digitally connected world does not forgive turtles. In the complexities of a buyer journey, many a concerns arise, and act as hurdles.
Customer Support Content
Many startups remain under the impression that the scope of customer support is sandboxed between ‘the purchase date’ and a ‘future date as defined by the T&C’ of the offering.
The truth, however, is customer support is an undercurrent to each touchpoint throughout the buyer journey.
Your customer support content stack should dispel myths and misconceptions, address fears, lower the psychological barriers and hurdles surrounding the purchase and post-purchase experience, and reassure that the value that the offering will deliver will far exceed the cost expended to acquire said offering. For e.g.: In UX writing, this would look like: ‘No credit card required’, ‘cancel anytime’, ‘free 7 days trial’, ‘no commitment’, ‘zero down’ etc.
Your customer support content stack should include:
- Navigational content to seek the right kind of Customer Support Ticket
- How-To content
- Tips & Tricks to enhance the User Experience
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Billing related queries and transparency surrounding the T&Cs
- Trouble Shooting questions for common use cases
- Industry Vertical Meta: Issues faced by customers with competitors in the same space and your resolution to that issue.
To Close
Content Marketing, when done right, can be a low-cost catalyst to help your startup build momentum and deliver on the value it is promising, but zeroing down on the types of content for this purpose can become challenging if not grabbed from the scruff of its neck straight away.
Even before the inception, try bucketing, organizing, and structuring communications across these 4 categories to make communication with potential buyers and external stakeholders a true value add to their time.
