It’s frustrating, isn’t it?

You’re trying to grow your business using Digital Marketing.

You execute different digital marketing strategies to grow your business revenue.

Different strategies to get customers for your product or service but despite your best efforts, it doesn’t seem to work.

Perhaps there are people visiting your website or interacting with your social media but they do nothing.

They don’t convert into many inquiries or sales for your business.

So why is this happening?

It’s mainly due to 2 big reasons:

• People do not TRUST your business enough
• People are NOT convinced that you are the answer to their problems.

That is why in this post, you’ll discover an important key that you need whenever you’re using Digital Marketing to promote your business.

The key is: Marketing assets.

What are marketing assets?

Marketing assets are things that you can show to your potential customers that will help build trust.

Some examples are customer testimonials, product demonstration and so on.

These are things that you can showcase on your website or social media profiles.

Marketing assets are highly effective in building a trustworthy brand.

It can increase people’s desire to buy your products or services.

Simply put, marketing assets can turn people who are just browsing into paying customers.

As you grow more marketing assets so will your bank account.

Without it, you’re likely to see little or no results with your Digital Marketing efforts.

It’s almost like driving a car with no petrol in it.

In a few moments, I’ll share with you 8 specific examples that you can create or collect for your business.

If you want to ensure the growth of your business, you need to have these 8 marketing assets.

These marketing assets are indispensable and highly effective.

So, don’t ignore them if you want to be successful with your Digital Marketing efforts.

You can accumulate them and showcase these marketing assets on your website.

Here are the 8 marketing assets you should start collecting:

1. In-depth individual case-studies 

First, on our list are detailed case studies.

What are case studies?

As its name implies, it is a study of a case.

The main goal of a case study is to show your people how your products or services can help them.

With this marketing asset, you study how your product benefited a certain individual or group of people.

In the process, you are showing others how they can also be benefited from your product.

You can think of it as a documentary.

Case-studies can be in the form of a video or an article.

And it can boost your company’s credibility and professional image.

It may require more work and effort to create them but they will be very valuable to your company.

Advantages of case studies

if you are able to create an in-depth case study, it helps you to:

• Prove that your product or service delivers results
• Gain trust with people quickly
• Attract lookalikes to do business with you
• Give people the desire to make an inquiry with you (more prospects in your pipeline)

Essential elements of a case study

An effective case study has the following:

• Description of the study
• The goal of the study
• Your plan on how to help your customer
• How you will execute your plan step by step
• Results of your strategy
• Your findings and conclusion

The overall content of your case study would depend on your main goal and focus.

So, be sure to be flexible enough to include as much needed information as possible.

Examples of case studies for marketing

To help you understand better what case studies are, here are some examples:

• Video Case-Study by FedEx
• Written Case Study of Ours: How We Helped a Business in the Beauty Industry to 3.4x Their Year on Year Online Sales Growth

Destroy the competition with case studies

Imagine if you are a customer who is torn between two products.

One product comes with a case study.

The other does not.

Which product will you choose?

Obviously, there’s a better chance for you to choose the product with a case study, right?

This is how case studies can create an advantage over others.

2. Before-after stories in written or video form

Before-after stories can be a little similar to case-studies.

But this is more towards in the form of a story rather than just highlighting facts.

It can be in a written or video form.

Click here to see some great examples of before-after stories done by Virgin Active Singapore.

To further elaborate about before-after stories:

The stories show that there are people who have bought a product or service before &  have experienced real benefits.

When it’s in the form of a story, it brings out a more emotional impact instead of just presenting facts.

Plus, some potential customers will be able to see a reflection of themselves.

Benefits of a before-after story

The best thing about a before-after story is the contrast you can make.

You can take a problem and how it makes your customers’ life miserable.

Then, you contrast that on how your product/service can make a huge difference.

Comparing a life without your product and a life with your product impressively highlights the reason why your customers should do business with you.

You can write your story, create a video, or both.

Before-after stories are commonly used in the fitness industry, cleaning products, and real estate properties.

Of course, this type of stories can be used virtually in any industry.

So do not be too quick to jump into the conclusion that this will not work for your business.

3. Photos or video footage to show your product or service

A picture speaks a thousand words.

Some people would prefer to see things or watch videos than reading.

Apart from having words and descriptions of your product or service, it’s also important to have images and video footage.

It not only engages people but more importantly….

It helps people to visualise what you’re selling.

It helps people to imagine and see themselves using your product or service.

Some interesting statistics about photos and videos for marketing

Here are some interesting statistics that show how powerful photos and videos are for marketing:

• A web page that comes with images and videos perform better by 94%
• Tweets with images get 35 percent more retweets
• Tweets with videos get 28 percent more retweets
• Email marketing campaigns get more clicks with images
• Infographics boost website traffic by at least 10 percent
• YouTube, a video-streaming website, has 1.3 billion users
• 5 billion videos are watched on YouTube every day
• 100 million hours of videos are watched on Facebook every day

Numbers don’t lie.

Images and videos produce results.

If you want to improve your online business, you can’t ignore these marketing assets.

4. Background story of your company

Companies need to build a meaningful relationship with their customers.

You can do this by creating a story about your company.

People rarely do business with companies they don’t know.

In fact, most people will be curious as to why your company started.

Your story helps to make your company become more memorable.

That is why a lot of leading websites today come with an “About Us” page.

Never underestimate how powerful a simple About Us page can be!

If you can introduce your company to them, you can gain their trust and loyalty.

Go ahead and share how you started and the goals you are trying to accomplish.

What makes a background story effective?

To create an impressive background story of your company, here are some things to remember:

• Be honest
• Think about how you can benefit your customers
• Express the value of your company
• List reasons why they should choose you
• Include awards, certifications, experience, and credentials
• Be engaging
• State facts, not assumptions

Remember, even if it is a marketing asset that’s about you, it should still be about your customers.

It is kind of tricky to strike the balance between being overly focused on yourself and still keeping your customers in mind.

The trick here is to talk about your audience and how your company, products, and services could benefit them.

As long as you highlight your customers on every point you present, you should be able to create a powerful background story of your company.

5. Walkthrough and show how your product or service works

 Most of the time, companies talk about the WHAT.

They focus on what their product or service does.

Take a step further and talk about the HOW.

Show people how your product or service work.

This can be in form of images, video or written format.

A walkthrough is like a step-by-step showcase of how your product or service works.

Showing how your product or service works can provide assurance to people that what you’re selling is real.

It helps potential customers to understand what you can give them the results they want.

It gives them an idea of how exactly you plan to solve their problem.

In your walkthrough, showcase your product’s features.

Be as specific as possible.

Highlight the different features that you have that give people the results they want.

If you get this right, you will surely attract more customers and increase your business profits.

6. Testimonials of experience (written or video)

Do you remember the last time you read reviews before buying something?

Chances are… you typed this into google:

“[product name] reviews”

You’ll try to find out what people have been saying.

I’m sure that you are not confident to buy a product online or use a service without first hearing what other people say.

For example, when you’re traveling overseas, you’ll try and look at the hotel reviews before making a booking.

So ensure you are constantly collecting testimonials in your business.

They are powerful marketing assets that you can use over and over again.

Benefits of testimonials

There’s a reason people would rather buy a product if it comes with testimonials.

The obvious reason is that it is more convincing to hear from people who have already used it.

With testimonials, you can:

• Build trust
• Increase credibility
• Promote confidence in your brand
• Involves your existing customers
• Establish rapport and loyalty among consumers

Let’s face it:

A lot of people are now skeptical and even cynical.

They don’t easily trust companies whom they believe are only out there to get their money.

They want proof first before they are going to pull out their wallets.

That’s where testimonials come in.

Other advantages of testimonials

With testimonials, you allow your satisfied customers to step forward and testify for you.

Testimonials are there to remove people’s doubts and objections.

In fact, by having testimonials on your website, you can dramatically increase your sales.

It would be great to have your testimonials written in an article or in a video format.

Plus, when you combine testimonials with social media, the result could be massive.

So, waste no time.

Get in touch with your satisfied customers.

Ask for testimonials and I’m sure you’ll have a more successful website.

7. Photos with of your customers

Let’s face it: the lifeblood of your business is your customers.

Without your customers, your business can easily go down and fail.

Thus, you want your business to be as customer-centric as possible.

One of the best ways to do this is to have photos with them.

When you feature images of your customers together with your brand, you can easily create a connection.

Your customers would love you more for having their photos featured on your website.

In the same time, you are showing other people that you are genuine, real, and caring.

It gives you an image of friendliness to your potential customers.

It tells other people that you take the time and effort to reach out and build a closer relationship with your existing clients.

Give this marketing asset a try.

I’m sure both you and your customers will love it.

8. News Media Features

If you are just starting your online business, chances are, you don’t have enough audience.

Your followers are only a few and your connections are small.

That’s where news media feature comes in.

You see, building your own audience takes time.

If you go to established news media, they already have an audience ready to listen to you.

So, instead of you gathering people, you go where the people have already gathered.

That’s why news media features are just exceptionally effective.

Try to reach out to the popular news media outlet in your niche or local area.

For example, you can reach out to Forbes, Huffington Post, CNN, and others.

You can also message influencers who already have a huge following.

You can contact popular websites to create a feature article for you.

There are many ways to do this.

As long as you establish a connection with these popular media, you should get more people to notice your brand.

Start Building Your Marketing Assets

There you have it: the eight powerful marketing assets that will boost your brand’s image online.

If you haven’t started to create or collect any of these, I would say it’s time you do.

Get started and make an effort to collect them and it’ll make an impact on your business.

As you start using any of these marketing assets, you will see remarkable growth.

But this remarkable growth can only happen if you make a conscious effort to build your marketing assets.