How Do You Share Product Information with Customers?
In order to survive in this competitive global economy, businesses throughout the world must keep up with the rapid changes in the society.
One of the things that they must change is the way they convey their products to the customers. Picking the wrong way to promote their products may cause dramatic failure.
Therefore, be sure to choose the best way to present your products and their features. Actually, there are various ways for businesses all around the world to share product information with the customer. But, let’s divide them into two to make them simple.
1. Outbound Way
15 years ago, the best possible way to share product information with the customer was by directly approaching people and informing them of the product. Therefore, at that time, businesses needed to be tough enough to tirelessly knock on people’s doors, just to tell what product they are selling. This sort of way is called the outbound way.
Not only limited to physical approach, the outbound way can also be implemented through the online network. For example, send emails, private messages, or even make a phone call to a prospective client. Regardless of what approach the ‘seller’ is using, as long as the ‘seller’ of the product is the one that makes the move first, and approaches the ‘buyer’, it will be called an outbound way.
Small businesses, start-up companies, and other less-known enterprises are normally using this kind of way to share their products information with the customers. The reason is that they are not known enough to enable the customer to be the one that is approaching. The customers are not exposed and attracted enough by those companies.
Since this method involves the ‘seller’ as the one that makes the first move, therefore, usually, this way requires the company to have more budget to spend.
To conclude, the outbound way requires a company to be a “speaker” that is able to speak out loud about the company’s product information, so, the customers will be able to hear it.
2. Inbound Way
On the contrary, in an inbound way, it is the customer or ‘buyer’ that need to make the first move and be the one that approaches the business or ‘seller’. Of course, usually, this method is being used by startups, the big companies and well-known businesses because the customers are more exposed and attracted to know more about their product information.
The ‘old-school’ approach of inbound way is through the physical approach by the customer to the business. For example, in 2006, to know the product information of a Nokia Phone, a customer went all the way to the Nokia Store just to get that information.
On the other hand, the nowadays approach is more on the online network, wherein more convenient. Customers can easily gather the information of a product through the company’s website. Therefore, they must build up a website and fill it with all the data that is necessary to clearly convey the product. Moreover, they also can maximize the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to make it search engine savvy. As a result, it will possibly appear on Google’s first page for those looking for information related to the company’s product. Not only through the website, a company can likewise utilize social media (e.g. YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to share what its product is all about and find the customers that are looking for it.
In conclusion, the inbound way is an act of a company to be a “magnet”, wherein will encourage the customers to find out more about the company’s product information.
Content & Design
Inbound marketing method would be useless if there is no good content & design in the product information themselves. The content and design are really fundamental to attract customers and help them to find your product or company. According to HubSpot’s Inbound Marketing Report, the average cost per lead for companies which used outbound way was $346 in 2012. This price increased year by year. On the other hand, the average cost per lead with inbound techniques was $135. There is a huge difference on the costs. The results of the report or the cost may differ across the industries or target group. But it doesn’t change the fact that inbound marketing is the most popular method lately.
Quick question after comparison of inbound and outbound techniques: which one is the cost effective method? Outbound marketing or inbound marketing? Of course, the answer is the inbound marketing. Therefore, good content & design for the product or service is crucial. Just remember that weak design and content are equal to low conversion rate! Other than the content & design, in this digital era world, reaching people by delivering printed data sheet or product brochures is an ‘old-school’ approach. It would waste a lot of resources and manpower. And, there is no guarantee that the person that is being approached will give any attention to the data sheet or brochures.
Use online world
Through the online approach, companies are able to approach people and share their product sheet without using much resources and manpower. In addition, they can also monitor the insight and feedback from the customers. Hence, if businesses use digital product data sheet, white papers, etc. and promote them by using inbound marketing methods, they will definitely get more lead and high conversion rate, and at the same time, with less effort and budget.
The most known and effective media, method or platforms which is used to promote products or services are;
- Data sheets which is presented on product pages on company website
- Product or company presentations, marketing materials on Slideshare
- Online data sheet, manual or catalogue archives websites
- Marketplaces and B2B trade sites
- Directory websites
- Local business pages
- Social media (it is also used for B2B market)
In conclusion, businesses need to consider the perfection of the product information and the method to promote it to truly get high conversion rate. Now, some of you may be asking, “How can businesses create the perfect content & design for their digital product information sheet? Is it going to waste lots of company’s money?”
This is exactly the question we’re working to answer here at TDSmaker. With TDSmaker, businesses can do these following things.
1. Create product information sheets on understandable platform.
2. Design those sheets as beautiful as they want, which goal is to attract more customers.
3. In this globalization era, language is a crucial thing. Worry no more, on TDSmaker businesses can change the language of the finished product information sheet into another language.
4. Conveniently convert the finished product information sheet into PDF file, which can be shared online.
5. Enjoy free of charge pre-designed templates.
6. Effortlessly update the product information sheets at the same time.
Regardless of what approach businesses are using, by benefiting from those advantages from TDSmaker, businesses can surely create the perfect content & design for their digital product information sheet.
originally published at blog.tdsmaker.com.
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