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In order to develop content for your audience, you need to understand who they are. Why do they read your content? Are there specific topics that interest them? Decide what appeals to you and your target market, and focus on those things.
You can be unique without being ridiculous by keeping true to yourself and your interests. You want people to like you for you, not because you force yourself to fit some pre-made idea of “cool”.
Research the topic or put out a call for ideas. Come up with several potential titles and headlines for each piece of content you plan to produce. While it may seem difficult, research is key to creating great content.
It will keep you from going into detail too often, and help you build off other peoples' work. Moreover, you won't have trouble getting fans or friends to write content for you.
They'll think of you as an author, and their input will make your article more interesting. Remember, users want to hear about stories others tell than ones that look fabricated.
That way, they'll feel more connected to the story. Their input also helps makes your articles better. There's no sense in putting so much time and effort into an article if nobody else seems to find it interesting.
It’s impossible to know what will happen next with your content marketing strategy, so putting together an outline of all your ideas is a great start. You can then build out how you plan to achieve these ideas using milestones and actions items.
Content marketers should be willing to admit that they do not have all the answers and that their strategies may need improvements or changes in the future.
It is also important for content marketers to recognize that creating effective content takes work and time. There are no shortcuts to success, but having a roadmap of where you want to go is a good thing.
Put yourself in someone else's shoes before launching your campaign. If you were watching another company's video series or reading other material, which one would you choose? Which one would you like to see more information about?
The best way to answer these questions is by developing a strategic roadmap.
Experienced marketers know that your content marketing efforts should be targeted, planned out and more engaging. If you have multiple campaign objectives, let them guide the way for which you plan.
That being said, don’t get lost in planning. Just because you can think of all the steps to take doesn’t mean you need to take them.
Content is king, but so are emotions. You want people to share or discuss your content when they feel something positive toward what you are sharing.
Your goal with content shouldn’t be “to teach me how to do something,” it should be to build trust and make peoples lives better. Only then will they continue to buy from you and become advocates for your brand.
Think about ways to integrate other elements of sales into your content plans, such as comparisons with items sold previously, additional benefits, discounts, special offers, etc.
This way, regardless of whether you offer free deliveries or 10% off codes, people will still want to buy. This also helps reduce the risk of turning customers away.
When you’re trying to promote content, it can be difficult knowing where to start. You may have a story that needs telling, or an insight that needs sharing, but how do you know who to reach?
To begin with, define your target market. Who are you marketing to? Technical people, social activists, entrepreneurs, mothers, artists….? Find out what they care about most and write from a position of understanding their issues and passions.
Then try introducing change by being positive and encouraging them to think for themselves. This way they will trust you more and enjoy learning about things that matter to them.
Plot your next move based on what works and doesn’t work. Try new techniques until you find what succeeds and what fails. Once you have the necessary steps defined, you can repeat as often as needed.
A common mistake of some content marketers is to focus only on their marketing message or creative, at the expense of the reader’s experience.
You should understand your readers and how they think before you try to sell them anything.
What appeals to one person might irritate another. It’s up to each individual to make decisions about whether something will appeal to them.
If it doesn’t then they won’t buy, no matter what you sell. How do I know if something will appeal to me? Well, that depends on me as an individual.
I need to believe that whatever I am reading or watching would also interest other people. If we both feel there is nothing interesting for us, that is when I will stop writing…and you will too.
The next evolution in content marketing is conversations. More and more people are turning to social media as the go-to place for chatting with others.
Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ all have versions of talk that allow you to connect into discussions.
You can start by simply joining chat groups about topics that matter to you. From there, followers will be able to see your messages or posts.
Soon after you set up these chats, you’ll find people asking questions or telling their stories. By offering a platform where they can tell their story, while also sharing it with their friends, conversation becomes much easier.
Content marketers need to learn how to master dialogues and interact with their fans and clients through this channel.
Interviewing people is a common way to get content out into the public eye. People love talking about themselves, their job, or what they know.
Therefore, using interview subjects in your articles is an easy way to gain original information while also adding some life into your work.
There are several different ways to use an interview in your writing. You can conduct an interview with the subject yourself or you can hire someone else to do the interviewing for you.
Either way, the important thing to remember when doing an interview is that it’s not a one-way street. Give away as much of the story as possible so the audience will want more from you later.
Also, keep them up to date by giving them enough leads to make a connection along the way. This keeps their attention higher than if you give them a complete synopsis.
There’s a saying in business “you can’t buy reputation, but you can definitely earn it.” If your content marketing team is too small, they won’t have enough people to do all of the different tasks that need to be done to create quality content.
Having more people will also make teamwork easier. When there are too few members of the team, everyone has to work hard and put in effort to produce good results.
More members mean less responsibility for each person and easy access to every member’ageing gap, skills, and experiences which makes teamwork efficientand more fun.
Content creation isn’t just about writing great articles; it’s about providing expert advice and information. And it takes professionals with diverse skill sets to come up with original ideas and share other people’s wisdom eloquently.
You can easily get into the mindset that any writer who puts their name on something they wrote is automatically qualified to become a publisher or hold a job at a company. This may lead to redlining authors and limiting contributions to social media channels where developers rule the day.
Writers know how to use language to persuade others to trust them and their abilities. You want writers creating content for your website or trying to convince potential customers to hire them.
Stories are a popular way to draw in readers, as people love hearing tales of adventures or seeing how characters deal with challenges.
All too often, companies go about their marketing with the goal of stuffing consumers full of content but without taking into account who they are talking to or what they might interest them in.
Stories are a much better way to connect with your audience and promote healthy conversation. You can start with a story angle and then pair it with supporting details for those customers that want more information.
Showing rather than telling is a major storytelling technique, and has been shown to improve narrative messages significantly.
People know they're listening to a tale when there's crying involved. It makes sense since we feel sympathy towards the protagonists of a story.
We want to see them succeed so that we don't feel like outsiders watching their struggle. That's why a good plot tugged at our heart strings gets us engaged and interested.
You also have another powerful reason to include stories in your campaigns: performance boost. Listening to a story reminds us of all that matters to us in life.
It brings back memories that make us happy. This positive emotion helps boost productivity and creativity while improving morale and health.
