You’ve probably heard it many times over the years, but the phrase “Content Is King” is actually true. If you want to find ways to not only capture the interest of potential customers, but also to promote your brand and wares well, showcase the benefits of what you sell, and engage your clients more thoroughly, content can help you do it.
If you’re keen to take advantage of the many pluses which come from providing top-notch content on a regular basis, read on for some tips you can follow today.
Be Clear About Your Goals and Your Customers
The first step you need to take if you want to create content that will wow customers is really work out what your specific goals are to start with. That is, before you actually start writing anything, it is important to think about what you’re hoping to achieve from the content, so you can come up with communications which follow that direction effectively.
For example, are you looking to bring in more potential customers to your business, or wanting to find ways to showcase more products or services to people? Perhaps you want to better market your brand to a particular demographic, build more emotional connections with clients, or increase repeat business or referrals?
Alternatively, you might be looking to demonstrate your expertise in an area, or built trust with potential buyers. By understanding your objectives for each type of content you create, you will ensure that work is never a waste of time and is much more likely to achieve the actual results you’re after.
Don’t forget too that you must have a good understanding of the target market, or customer, for each piece of content you create so that you can tailor things accordingly. Knowing who you’re creating for will affect a variety of things, such as:
- What information is included
- What style and tone is used
- Where the content will be placed
- How it will be used
Make all of your content relevant to the needs, wants and interests of the particular readers/viewers you’re targeting, and you will be able to achieve your goals more quickly.
It is important, too, to put a process in place for quantifying the return on investment of your content within a certain timeframe. You may have Google Analytics software in place, for instance, to track website leads and other goals, or use more “low-tech” options such as getting your team to take note of where each customer enquiry comes from.
Using this information will help you to see whether you are achieving the objectives you wished to, or if you need to keep tweaking your content to make it work better for you.
Use a Variety of Formats
Next, keep in mind that you will achieve better results with your content if you put some variety in it. For starters, don’t just stick with simple, straightforward text. Instead, try to mix things up with a variety of formats and lengths such as pictures, infographics, videos, forum discussions, short social media posts, white papers, eBooks, webinars, workshops, courses, online and offline advertisements, and the like.
You should consider utilizing the advantages of popular short-form content (such as Tweets), to funnel prospects and current customers through to your longer content pieces, and increase engagement that way.
Video, in particular, is incredibly popular these days and actually tends to have the highest engagement for viewers because it targets more senses at once, and is typically more interesting to people than static text.
If you’re worried about putting together productions that are of the quality you’d like, keep in mind that there are plenty of top-notch production companies out there, such as Diamond View Studios, which can create videos for you at an affordable price.
Make Content Scannable and Eye-Catching
Of course, another incredibly vital part of creating good content is knowing how to use the best structure for it. With most readers these days being incredibly overwhelmed with information and other details vying for their attention, the majority simply do not have enough time to spend checking out all content in detail.
As such, most people want to skim the information in front of them quickly first, in order to determine if it is interesting or relevant enough to warrant further attention. This means that your content needs to be broken up into short chunks that can be quickly taken in and digested.
As well, remember that most readers of written content will be looking for short mental breaks when they consume information, particularly if they’re checking out lengthy or more complicated pieces.
To help them out, you should ensure that the layout of all of your text is broken up with many different subheadings and paragraphs. Adding in eye-catching photographs and pictures, as well as short videos, infographics and other imagery (like graphs and charts) will also help to keep readers engaged and make it more likely that they will share content with their contacts.
