Content marketing appears in some form during most campaigns. You might produce educational articles, e-books, videos or webinars for your campaigns that can help you achieve your goal, whether it’s increasing brand awareness, improving lead generation or encouraging purchase decisions. But, if you’re not careful, it can fall flat. Answer these seven questions about your content to make sure it’s on the right track.
1. Who are you writing for?
There is no single piece of content that appeals to every sector of your audience, so set a more specific target audience or persona and write content that appeals to their needs, goals and interests. Narrowing your audience will help you create more successful, engaging content that aligns with your brand identity.
2. What topics address the needs of your target audience?
Get specific here. Determine the key takeaways you want your readers to have, and build your outline around those so your content flows naturally. Take into account the knowledge your target audience already has, and, if possible, find ways to weave in your value proposition to directly or indirectly position yourself as the best option.
3. What are you trying to accomplish with this piece?
Your goals should tie in directly with the buyer’s journey. Not every type of content will appeal to every audience member, and not all content will be meaningful in each stage of the buyer’s journey. Create a diverse range of content that achieves different goals like brand awareness or prospecting to guide audience members through each stage of the buyer’s journey.
4. Did you include compelling visuals?
While visual content makes your written piece look more appealing and readable by breaking up text and adding extra elements to engage your audience, it also can help break down more complex topics and make your material overall easier to understand. For example, this illustration of the buyer’s journey conveys the information in a more interesting way than if it were text alone.
5. Are you filling any gaps of knowledge or providing a new perspective?
Your content won’t get noticed if it doesn’t bring anything new to the table. Tap into your creativity for a new perspective on an old topic that stands out. When reading other content, think about any new questions that are left answered, or consider looking into gaps of information that you can fill yourself.
6. Does it have a strong CTA?
Once a buyer is reading your content, don’t let them go without taking some sort of action. Include a CTA that ties into the goal of the content and moves readers to the next stage of the buyer’s journey, like when OfficeVibe created a slide-in CTA on their blog that invited users to subscribe to their email newsletter.
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7. Are you appealing to your readers’ emotions?
Between a piece that details the features of your trucking services or a piece that describes how a customer will feel peace of mind because you’ll do the job right the first time, which will resonate more with your audience? Emotions are how you take an otherwise bland topic and make it relatable to your audience.
Conclusion
Create successful content marketing by using this framework when developing each piece. Whether your work is written or visual content, you need consistent quality with everything you produce.
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