How Home Inventors Stay Ahead: Content Marketing

When you’re searching for a topic online and you come across the perfect blog post or a comprehensive downloadable PDF, isn’t it just the greatest feeling? Doesn’t it make you want to dive further into their website and see what other great things they have to offer? This is content marketing. When a business utilizes content as part of their marketing strategy, they’re providing salient resources to draw and retain users to their website to build trust with them and ultimately convert them into a paying customer. In this blog, we’re covering content marketing for invention makers.

When you’re building customer relationships through content marketing, your content needs to provide value and is relevant to your audience. Otherwise, don’t expect anyone to read, listen or watch what you’re offering. It also needs to be done consistently. Don’t expect to write a single article and expect people to suddenly flock to your website and make a purchase.

Coming up with great content is kind of like coming up with a great invention idea. You’re trying to solve a problem worth solving for your target audience. But you’re solving this problem with words, visuals, audio, or perhaps a combination of all three. And it needs to be done consistently until you’ve built enough trust with them and nurture them into becoming paying customers. In addition, regular communications such as newsletters are great for keeping your product, brand, or business top of mind until the customer finally decides to purchase your product.

Content Marketing

So let’s recap everything we just talked about above when it comes to content marketing for invention makers:

• Your content must be relevant to your audience.
• It must also provide value to your audience.
• By providing free value, you begin to earn the trust of your audience.
• The objective is for the audience to trust your business enough to convert them into a loyal customer.

Thus, your content must be related to your business’ value propositions. To put it bluntly, if you sold basketball equipment, you wouldn’t write blogs about figure skating.

Now let’s look at a couple of examples of what great content is.

Content Marketing Example 1: MAKO’s Product Startup Podcast

Our product design services are tailored specifically to startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Guess who the primary audience of our podcast is? All the content in our podcast is created in such a way that it provides immediate value to the listener. For clients who are well into prototyping with us may want to consider using their prototype in a crowdfunding campaign to gain exposure and feedback. We talked about how clients can achieve this in one of our recent episodes with Will Ford, the Co-Founder of the crowdfunding company LaunchBoom. 

Content Marketing Example 2: CarGenerator Blogs

Our client’s CarGenerator’s product is a weatherproof inverter. When you add CarGenerator to your vehicle,  you get a reliable, ultra-light, no-maintenance backup power solution. To support their website, our client has a wonderful blog with quality content about everything from camping to outdoor survival to RV tips. As you can imagine, many of those who enjoy the great outdoors need the CarGenerator in case of tough weather conditions. Talk about being relevant to your audience! One of our favorites is titled Six Tricks For Survival Success. You’ll want to read how to survivalists make a canteen when they’re in a pinch. The answer will surprise you!

Final Thoughts

Yes, content marketing is probably one of the most powerful tools to build exceptionally strong relationships with your audience. Not only is it a fun and engaging way to educate them and build trust, more importantly, but it’s also a great way to convert them into paying customers and help meet your bottom line. However, as we alluded to earlier, results are not guaranteed nor will you see immediate results from your investment. Content marketing takes time and resources. Like invention ideas, you might find it might take some experimentation before you determine what kind of content resonates with your audience. But when you do, it sure is worth it.

About: MAKO Design + Invent is the original firm providing world-class consumer product development services tailored to startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Simply put, we are the leading one-stop-shop for developing your physical product from idea to store shelves, all in a high-quality, cost-effective, and timely manner. We operate as one powerhouse 30-person product design team spread across 4 offices to serve you (Austin, Miami, San Francisco, & Toronto). We have full-stack in-house industrial design, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, patent referral, prototyping, and manufacturing services. To assist our startup and inventor clients, in addition to above, we help with business strategy, product strategy, marketing, and sales/distribution for all consumer product categories. Also, our founder Kevin Mako hosts The Product Startup Podcast, the industry's leading hardware podcast. Check it out for tips, interviews, and best practices for hardware startups, inventors, and product developers. Click HERE to learn more about MAKO Design + Invent!