If You Own the Problem, You’re the Solution

You’re a genius.

Your company has harnessed the universe in such a way that you’ve developed the most wonderful proprietary service/widget/product the world has ever seen. High fives all around. Start printing the money. Right? Right?

We see it all the time, but especially in the A&D marketplace: great products, innovative solutions and … crickets.

Marketers are continuously being told to be “buyer-focused,” but often forget to explain how problems are being solved in a way customers actually understand. That, or the message isn’t getting through to PR and communications departments.

In the same manner you would protect your company name in the event of online reputation management issues, you need to own the search results for all the potential problems your wonder product solves. Same strategy (and often tactics), same results.

And how does one do that?

First, you need to understand how and where your customers are searching for your solution. And if they’re American, they’re probably going to Google first and refining their search until they get their answer.

Next, you have to understand all the ways your customer may search for their problem (and your solution) via your favorite keyword tool, while still understanding the competitive nature of certain terms. Be selective and realistic; the problem keyword phrases you want to own are often non-competitive terms.

Once you know all the ways that people search high and low (and the longtail) for that answer, you have to figure out a way to get that copy on your site. Writing a press release and developing specs in a PDF isn’t going to own that problem, as searchers aren’t going to A) find it relevant or B) click on those in the search engine results pages.

One great way to use searchers’ behavior in your favor is to think of developing content as one giant FAQ. You can get started with one FAQ page and keep building it until you can turn every one of those questions into it’s own page.

The second part of this equation is laying out the content in a way that actually compels someone to take that next step, and become a conversion. You must realize that every page on your site is a potential landing page, so how are you capturing that visitor? A form? A dedicated phone number? These new pages must entice with a call to action.

Finally, you have to diversify your message. Content onsite is great, but if you really want to own your problem and those search results, you must take your message to video. Turn those FAQs into short video clips with keyword-enriched titles and descriptions and links back to related pages on your own site. Because video is all about the longtail, write separate variations of those titles and descriptions and syndicate these videos across multiple services (i.e. don’t just rely on YouTube).

For more information on our online PR services and to learn how to integrate PR with SEO strategy, digital asset optimization and conversion, contact us today.

Cricket photo via Flickr courtesy of seeveeaar