Are your days filled with answering customer questions?

Do you get text messages, emails, and other forms of communications with concerns from customers who are confused about a product you offer or may be unsure about how well your service will work for them?

If so, you should be turning those queries into a long-term marketing strategy that churns out answers to all the questions your customers might currently have and those they may have in the future.

It’s an often-overlooked strategy that is so simple that most businesses don’t even think of it or if they do, they’re not sure how to implement a marketing strategy that could help grow their bottom line.

How the Internet Works

Did you ever stop to think about how the Internet actually works? It may seem like second nature to us these days, but there was a time when we didn’t have the Internet to look things up in an instant and to answer our most pressing questions.

Northern Virginia businessman Marcus Sheridan started thinking about that after the 2008 recession. His pool company was in a serious downturn and he needed to come up with ways to keep his business alive.

Like most of us when he turns to the Internet, Sheridan is often looking for the answer to a question, seeking a product review, or perhaps some tips and tricks on something or other.

When it came to finding solutions to elevate his business, answering customer questions came to mind.

He also realized that if he could create a content marketing strategy based around customer questions, he just might have a fighting chance at recovery.

Based on his newfound understanding of inbound marketing, which he describes as “simply the process of attracting (instead of chasing) customers,” Sheridan set to work on a content marketing strategy.

It was a way for him to teach and problem-solve at the same time, which is why those questions were so important in the first place.

Where to Find the Questions

Beyond the questions that you as a business owner may be encountering regularly, you might be wondering how to find other, equally relevant customer queries.

A popular online tool called Answer the Public lets you in on what questions your audience is already asking.

All you have to do is ask, or in this case, type a word or phrase in the Answer the Public search bar.

If you’re in the business of making pools like Sheridan, you might type in a phrase like “home swimming pools.” After typing in the phrase, Answer the Public comes up with suggestions like, “are indoor swimming pools more expensive?” “are homes with pools more expensive,” “how to build a home swimming pool,” and more.

In Sheridan’s case, the question that people asked him most frequently was, “how much does a fiberglass pool cost?” Since most of his competitors weren’t answering the question online anyway, he took a shot at it.

But rather than giving them a definitive number, he instead wrote a blog post about all the variations involved in buying a pool.

It ended up being one of his most successful posts, one that he still tracks to this day and that he says brought him over $1 million in sales.

Other ways to find what people are asking about in your particular industry or about your product or service include searching on websites like Quora, using a keyword tool like Keywords Everywhere, or simply doing your own research on the Google website.

What to Do with the Questions?

Once you have a long list of questions, it’s time to answer them.

Of course, you could create an FAQ page on your site and simply answer the most commonly asked questions that you get or from the ones that you found through your research.

Or, you could create a content marketing plan that encapsulates all of the questions you’ve found, giving your readers more than what they bargained for.

Blogging on a regular basis is great, but for it to be successful, you’ve got to create content that people are looking for, which makes the compilation of customer questions even more important.

By regularly cranking out even one blog post a week and sharing it on your social media channels, you’ll slowly but surely become an authority figure in your industry, with the ability to answer every question, concern, or fear that your current customers or prospective ones may have.

The Post Covid World

The pandemic has changed a lot about our world, including the way people shop. Of course, it was inevitable. The closure of non-essential retail stores only fueled the growth of online shopping and with that, some major changes in the public’s buying behavior.

Left without brick-and-mortar stores to visit, consumers naturally turned to online shopping, a reason to amp up your digital efforts in 2021.

While answering customer questions is just one part of a long-term content marketing strategy you should pursue, it’s definitely one worth exploring,

Have you thought about beefing up your marketing efforts by answering customer questions? Let me know in the comments below.