By Alyssa Sharp

So many small businesses have a severe need to shift their marketing mindset from incessantly pushing a product to maximizing consumer engagement. Branding and customer experience play large roles in the consumer buying cycle, so it’s essential to share valuable content, from which consumers can garner a clear benefit. Infusing your company’s brand into your lead nurture strategy not only drastically improves conversion rate, but also encourages repeat business.  Increase conversions and help your small business thrive by maximizing your nurture campaigns with the following suggestions.

Highlight customer stories. GoPro creates digital cameras for the active and extreme sports consumer. Because they engage with their customers, customers produce a lot of their marketing for them. Each day GoPro features a customer-created GoPro video on social media. Socially, the brand rarely mentions their camera’s features because the company understands their product will sell itself when customers buy into the brand’s lifestyle values.  Now that’s confidence in a product!

Additionally, the company produced a 4.5-minute promotional video for their newest camera without mentioning the product’s features or capabilities. GoPro grabs their audience’s attention by showing customers engaged in their favorite activity, recorded through a GoPro camera. The actual camera was only showed 20 times in the video and only when used by a consumer.

Small businesses can emulate GoPro by highlighting their customers’ success stories. Consumers tend to look for a connection with a company’s brand instead of solely with their product, but by providing an overabundance of actual customer success stories, your business will resonate with prospects and increase the likelihood of a sale.

Give advice or train a new skill. Look no further than the Whole Foods blog for an effective example of providing ideas for customers. While Whole Foods occasionally posts on upcoming sales, the bulk of their blog is dedicated to seasonal recipes and tips. The blog provides digestible content to make Whole Foods’ customers’ lives easier with the ultimate goal of positioning their company as an expert in the healthy eating.

As a small business, it’s easy to create a blog post about your product, but it’s important to consider the value multiple product posts bring to a prospect. Blogging is your opportunity to win a prospect over with your expertise and influence in your industry. Train on a new skill, talk about industry news or provide unique resources for your customers. Be helpful in your posts and stay away from bombarding consumers with the merits of your products or services. This is where you’ll see thanks in the form of sales.

Alyssa Sharp oversees the development and execution of Infusionsoft’s SEO strategy. She loves helping small businesses navigate the local SEO trenches and has a passion for all aspects of online marketing. Offline, she likes to exercise, cook and fantasize about her favorite sports cars. Reach her on Twitter @AVSharp.