Whether you work in an industry that deals in B2B, retail manufacturing, or directly with customer service, all modern marketing efforts are continuously moving toward content creation.Every textual material that your visitors see, from page-long blog posts to website copy, conveys a message that reflects back to your company.
The pros recognize it; over 78% of today’s CMOs acknowledge custom content as the future of marketing. The people recognize it; 61% of consumers report that they are more likely to buy directly from companies that tailor thoughtful content than those that do not. As the media landscape continues to evolve with technology, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that users seek an individualized purchasing journey and businesses must deliver it.
Build. Your. Buyer. Personas.
We tend to harp on the importance of building out buyer personas here at PCR. This is because it is the first step in implementing campaigns from prototyping to web traffic auditing. Buyer personas represent detailed understandings of your various audiences, show individual insights into their purchasing journeys, and are overall critically important in allowing your company to define customer value. They are everything. Therefore, taking the time to consider every fathomable persona is completely essential before you even begin to write a headline or format a landing page. When creating your personas, consider their pain points: What do they struggle with and how could your product or services help thwart these obstacles? Are there any major barriers that would prevent them from considering your company? Are they digesting information on office desktops or mobile devices? Get specific and get in your user’s head before you get going.
Make sure to speak their language.
After profiling your individual users, use their demands to form your brand image. For instance, say your company is a manufacturer of high-quality ties. Your most prevalent buyer persona might be a 35 to 55 year-old, C-Suite business professional who seeks to emulate executive status and accepts nothing less than the finest fabrics. Your company’s voice should address those needs. Perhaps you’re homepage includes a slogan like Refined Textiles for Defined Professionals. Your ideals and image should directly reflect those of your user. Your website is an immediate portrayal of your brand and the foremost source of information about your business. The language of your copy must communicate the language of your buyers. When a businessman visits your tie enterprise’s homepage, he should feel instantly connected to the product and confident in its value to his profession. Make sure to tell your story with him in mind.
Answer and educate.
Once you establish the specifics of your user’s struggles, address their concerns and answer their questions through content creation. In most cases, your content will be cultivated and accumulated in the form of blog posts. They can be updated and revisited frequently, reflect importance to your audience, and can serve as a means of two-way communication between business and buyer. Never write them for the sake of filling space on your site. Instead, recognize your blog’s vitality as a tool to promote your brand and connect your users. Make note of trending problems that they seem to have and respond to those of your distinct buyer personas. Your goal should not only be to attract visitors and convert leads, but to delight your current customers as well. All content creation should serve as an opportunity to educate the world about why your company matters and who it matter to.
Create a unique way to tell your story.
At its core, content marketing is simply storytelling. Every brand has a tale to tell and, thanks to a plethora of digital options, plenty of ways to tell it. The problem is that everyone is trying to tell theirs the best and consumers seem to have an increasingly difficult time breaking through the clutter to determine value. In his presentation at Hubspot’s Inbound 2014, LinkedIn Senior Content Marketing Manager, Jason Miller, discussed the importance of using relevance to create insights, not just to provide information. Chances are, there are companies that provide similar, if not identical services to those that you work some hard to make appear special. In the words of Jason, “create the all-encompassing guide to whatever conservation you want to own.” Examine the ways that competitors in your industry market themselves, then do something different. Strategize, experiment, and retune your approach to content creation until you discover a way to command the attention of your users. Fuel insights, direct industry conversations, and don’t stop until your fans become steadfast followers.
While SEO optimization components like your H1, keywords, and alt tags brings traffic to your site, top-of-the-line content is what converts and retains them to your brand. Determine what your audience wants to hear, how they want to hear it, and empathize with them in order to set yourself apart and keep them coming back for more.