In the noisy world we live in today you will need a different approach to get the attention with your content marketing activities. Your content needs to stand out and speak clearly to the needs of your audience. Here is a quick list of 7 easy tips how to give your customers’'s attention an easy jump start:
1. Be clear about your offerings by adding value
Your single most important purpose of all your Content Marketing initiatives, actually of your content strategy – You have to add value! Show what you have to offer!
And we are not talking about your products and services yet! We talk about all the expertise and in-depth knowledge you can share. Because we know you are the experts in your field.
We are not suggesting you should not talk about your products or yourself at all. Well, at least not for now.
- We suggest you switch the conversations to your expertise and knowledge that you are able to share. Creating conversations around your product, not about it.
- Can you improve your audience's knowledge?
- Does reading the text make them better in what they do?Is the content making their lives easier or can you provide practical tips?
Then there's a good chance you provide REAL VALUE to your audience.
2. Be clear who you are talking to
Understand your audience – be really clear who exactly they are and what they need by working with personas.
Find out about their needs and challenges – How? Here is a short list of options available to you, just a few to mention here:
- Ask your sales team to provide insights (insider tip: Be sure they lay off their subjective filters!)
- Ask your customers directly through interviews
- Market research
- Focus groups
- Social media monitoring
3. Educate. Don’t advertise.
To enrich the knowledge of your target audience is a great way to build trust and loyalty with your existing or future customers. Take those general rules into account and make them a cultural habit, but most importantly:
- Stop talking about yourself (for now)
- Stop using the words “message“ and “we“
- Start thinking about your customers’ needs and challenges and address them
That’s all that matters for now!
4. Give. Give. Give.
Never stop producing content that adds value to your customers. Challenge yourself with every piece of content you produce whether it adds value. Step in the shoes of your audience by reviewing their needs and challenges and ask yourself: Does it add value to me?
5. Don’t expect. Keep giving. Nurture.
Your visitors will appreciate that you offer them free information. On an ongoing basis. At some point it may be easy for you to ask your visitors for their name and eMail address and convert them into leads by like eBooks, webinars, checklists, whitepapers or other content offers with which they can deepen their knowledge and gain expertise with your help.
From the moment you keep track about your leads' behaviours, you will understand their needs even better and provide even more targeted information of even higher value that may finally make them loyal customers.
6. Show your audience a human side
Even when using digital channels, show them real people are behind those activities. People do not want to talk to companies and corporations. They want to talk to people. Use personalized messages, real person as senders and use a warm and emotional tone of voice.
Another option to show the human side is to show the real people behind all those activities or the real people you are doing it for. While this could be done by showing case studies, customer interviews or stories, the way to give your people a face is by documenting and not creating content. For instance, by extending your content marketing activities, by Instagram stories or – depending on your audience – Snapchat stories. This gives a whole new transparency on what you are doing, how you do it, and even more importantly – if you can show it – why you're doing it.
7. Harvest when the time is due.
Know when the time is right to get in touch and make your offer. You should have a clear plan and indicators in place to know when a person is considering buying from you. if that moment has come, take the chance and don’t waste time.
But even more important – be patient and stick to providing value. Over and over again. This never stops. Even if someone eventually signed a contract or bought your product.
Credit: © Carlos Muza/Unsplash
