Writing better content for your content marketing efforts isn’t about any single piece of content. Success is about putting together a body of content that works as valuable information for your audience and effective marketing for your firm. Here are a few concepts to keep in mind as you create your content.
Be Specific – But Not Always
Actionable information is more valuable to a broader audience most of the time. (Like, ahem, this piece. It’s hardly a deep dive into the any content marketing concepts. But it is actionable.)
That’s not to say that more abstract think pieces and discussions of trends and concepts don’t have their place, particularly if you are working to establish thought leadership, but more of your marketing content should focus on specific solutions to specific problems your target audience is trying to solve.
That focus on solutions to specific problems is a good test for those of us in “boring” industries. Solving problems is never boring to the person whose problem is being solved.
Be You
You’ve got a personality. Your company has a personality. (AKA a brand.) One, the other, or both should be on display 100% of the time. This is the key to truly connecting with your audience in the important emotional ways that help drive buying decisions. No, a strong brand voice won’t win the day if you’re selling widgets and the customer needs gadgets, but chances are you’re not the only one selling widgets. It’s the emotional that resonates and can tip the scales in your favor.
Be Human
Cut the jargon. Write like you speak. In fact, as you write, pretend you’re explaining your concept to an audience sitting right in front of you. Obviously, if you’re being you – see above – you’ve already gone a long ways toward being human, but many of us still have the tendency to trot out the high falutin’ language in an effort to impress. Being able to talk to the talk has its place – typically much later in the buying process – but most of the time it’s really about connecting.
Tell Stories
From cave paintings and ancient mythology to modern religions to pop culture, just about every society has its ways of relating important cultural knowledge and passing that knowledge from generation to generation. Those stories take otherwise dispassionate facts and create context. People relate to stories. Use that natural tendency to draw people into your story emotionally. Price, service and all of the other left-brain stuff always matter, but people still buy on emotion.
