Andriana BoyrikovaWhat a better time to assess your content and think of ways to improve it than the beginning of a new year, and even a decade? Instead of setting too ambitious yet unrealistic goals for 2020, which will most likely get cluttered in your to-do list, you should break them down into small manageable steps, starting with how to create content that really matters to your target audience.
In today’s digital world awash with content, it is crucial that the content you create instantly strikes a chord with your target audience, keeps their attention, and adds actual value to them.
In reality, however, only 49% of marketing leaders believe they provide an experience completely aligned with their customers’ expectations.
Do you believe your content is fully aligned with your customers’ expectations, or do you generate content mostly for the sake of keeping up with today’s marketing trends?
No matter on which side of this content marketing schism you are, it is crucial that you understand one thing: if you want to attract more customers or retain your current ones, you need to generate relevant content that matters to them.
Thus, here is my brief checklist what to immediately eliminate from and employ in your content in order to meet your prospects’ and customers’ expectations.
What to eliminate from your content
Me-centric content
Often, small businesses generate content that their owners or marketers consider important rather than their target audience find relevant and helpful: or what I call me-centric content. To avoid this slippery slope, it is essential that you develop your buyer personas which will lead your way at every stage of your content marketing strategy. You should understand, listen to, and empathize with your target audience before you get yourself to write any single line of content.
No clear purpose
A 2000-word string of beautifully written words that has no clear goal is a total waste of both your and your target audience’s time. Every piece of content you create should have a distinct purpose: e.g. present yourself as an expert on a specific topic; trigger people to subscribe to your newsletter; drive more traffic to your website; entertain your readers; you name it. Before you commence writing, apply the “So what?” factor: “Why am I writing this? For whom am I writing it? What action do I want to trigger with it?”
Selling before helping
If you use your blog, podcasts, and social media to flood your subscribers and followers with information about your company, products or services, you will quickly lose fans. Instead, become their advisor, help them overcome a challenge or fill a need. Be generous, empathic, and open to what they need or ask, give them the information they need, and gain their trust. Remember: “Help before you sell.”
Keyword-stuffed content
A 2000-word article stuffed with keywords that ranks high on Google, but doesn’t answer your readers’ questions, deserves no place in your content marketing goals. SEO practices have changed dramatically, thus now you need to focus on your users – on their intent, problems, needs, questions – and help them. Strive for relevant, human-to-human, shareable content that provides the best answers to your prospects’ and customers’ questions.
What to employ in your content
Solve a problem or meet a need
The best way to generate content comes from listening. Listen to your prospects and customers and what they are trying to tell or ask you in their reviews, emails, and social media comments. Tap into their challenges and help them transform their situation. Create content that solves an actual problem or meets an existing need: this is the ultimate goal of content marketing.
Answer your target audience’s top questions
Your prospects and customers, just like all other people these days, look for answers to particular questions on the Internet. Each of their questions can turn into a title of your next blog post or podcast. You can easily compile their questions from emails, comments and messages on social media, demos, presentations. Craft content answering an existing question that bothers an actual prospect or consumer.
Evoke emotions
Your content should emotionally engage your target audience: they should find it important, want to read it, share it, and come back for more of it. There is a big body of research that discusses how emotions influence consumers’ decision-making. Make your target audience feel something: inspire them, motivate them, educate them, surprise them, empower them, entertain them.
Make your content understandable
Get rid of the fluff and keep your content simple, concrete, and informative. Don’t delude yourself that if you create vague or overly complicated content and overuse industry jargon, you will sound more professional: in the best-case scenario, you will leave your readers cold. Lastly, don’t forget you talk to humans and not to walls: always tailor your content to your buyer personas.
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I hope you have found these tips helpful. What is the one major improvement to your content that you and your team want to focus on this year? Let me know in a comment.
Featured image: Pixabay.
Do you need help with content creation? Email me and I would love to help you step up your business with the right content and strategy.
