If you want to explore the state of factual information in America, consider this question: Is orange juice good or bad for you? Here are some of the many responses I’ve heard from experts, companies, friends, and colleagues over the years:  

• • Orange juice is just sugar water. And it’s unhealthy to drink it.
  • Orange juice is fine but the pulp is what you need to have in it, otherwise, it’s just sugar water.
  • Fresh-squeezed orange juice is really the only thing that’s good for you as it’s packed with Vitamin C. Store-bought orange juice is not good for you.
  • Orange juice is great for you because it’s part of an animal-based diet (what animals would consume, hence it’s healthy). And it’s good for helping to minimize depression and boost energy.

So, which is it? This is an example of how the average American consumer gets bombarded with what often amounts to contradictory advice or confronted with inconsistent facts. It’s no wonder there is so much marketplace confusion, especially when it comes to health or other areas.  

But it’s not just health. In every area of life, your customers and potential customers will have questions. They’ll wonder about how something works. Or why it’s effective? The question is: How much can you help clarify things for them upfront?

How Clarifying Things for Customers Helps Your Business

If you’ve ever helped customers solve a question they had, you may notice that they will many times give you their business on the spot. That’s because when you play the role of a clarifier, you become instantly authoritative. That authority, which we’ve talked about before in other posts, is key to winning customers’ business. 

So, what does this practically mean when it comes to playing more of this clarifying role in your marketing?  Here are some ways you can go about it.

Clarifying Tool No. 1: Develop an FAQ Section of Your Website or Create a Separate Page

Those questions you often get from customers? They are likely questions that others have and will be searching for when they are looking for a product or service. Creating a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section of your website can not only help you answer those questions without fielding a lot of one-off calls, it also enhances the trust consumers place in your products or services.

The other thing you can certainly do is create a separate page for key questions. Why do this? Because many of these questions will have volumes of searches in Google, and if your page is about these exact questions, you can draw a lot more eyeballs through ranking for that query. (We’ve written previously about how answering users’ questions is a great SEO tactic.)

Clarifying Tool No. 2: Create Social Currency Content That Your Customer Can Pass On

We’ve written a lot about the 6 approaches to content, a framework known as STEPPS that comes from Wharton professor Jonah Berger. One of these approaches is something known as social currency. Think of social currency as that which a consumer learns and then passes on to someone else to seem cooler, more interesting funnier, or in-the-know.

One example of social currency is knowing a secret to something, maybe it’s a trick to get something to work, or having access to the special entrance to a club or event that no one else knows. It can also be information that the average person is not aware of but a piece of knowledge that makes that person seem a lot smarter.

As a business, if you can create this kind of “social currency” content, you’ll inevitably get those customers/potential customers who consume it to not only pass it on, but also begin to look to you as an authority, which we’ve said previously is a key aspect of winning business.  

Clarifying Tool No. 3: Do Videos Educating Customers About Your Process

One of the things we often discuss with our small business clients is transparency. How transparent is your business in terms of how you go about doing what you do? Demystifying how things work can be a great tool so that customers can not only see how you do things, but also what you know and your particular level of expertise in your industry.

Why not, for example, create videos on your phone to explain an aspect of your business, how you approach it, and what makes you different? If you’re a bakery, it might be how you source the ingredients. If you’re a lawyer, it might be how you charge for different activities or what consultations are clearly free versus when you’re on the clock. If you’re a coach or a consultant, it might be the backstory of how you came to realize a particular approach you had worked.

Clarifying Tool No. 4: Promoting Success Stories

As with any product or service, customers also aren’t always clear on whether what you are selling will work. This is where having the kind of social proof from your existing customers will help. This can include things such as:

• • Success stories (either text or video)
  • Case studies (where you helped a company or organization)
  • Testimonials (video or text) that supports how great a product is
  • Reviews/Ratings (especially on Google reviews, Yelp [if applicable] or your website)

By including these “content types,” you’ll be hopefully clarifying not only that your product works, but in many cases, a particular approach your customers used to find success.

Conclusion

If you want help working through this or any marketing challenge you have, don’t hesitate to contact us at Marketing Nice Guys. We’re happy to have a free consultation to discuss your needs. Finally, to answer the first question above, I do think fresh squeezed orange juice is healthy for you. The rest, I’m not so sure.