6 Keys To Creating Valuable Content For Your Audience
If you’re looking to get into content marketing, it helps to be aware of the extremely stiff competition you’ll face. With about 7.5 million new blogs published daily, you must ensure your content is precious and engaging. Otherwise, your followers will quickly drift off to competitors offering better articles. With that in mind, below are seven tips for writing relevant content for your audience.
1. Know Your Audience
It might sound like a cliche in the digital content world, but it’s worth emphasizing. Before you ever start typing the first word, you must know who you’re writing to. Is it a breastfeeding mom? A business executive? A homeowner? Or a college student? Knowing your target audience helps you create content they’ll find interesting.
Further, don’t end by simply identifying them. Know their location, beliefs, spending habits, culture, age range, income level, and other demographic and psychographic characteristics. This way, you’ll be able to identify typical problems they face and offer practical solutions in your content. Readers love it when your content seems to speak to them at a personal level.
2. Outsource
Perhaps you’re running a business, and you use the content as a marketing strategy. You may be so busy that you can’t keep up with your predefined posting schedules. And that will hurt your image, given that your followers expect consistency. One way out of this challenge is outsourcing content creation to reliable agencies.
You may want to find a local agent with vast knowledge of your area of operation. Such agents know your target audience in and out and can help you create content that resonates with them. Moreover, they know your competitors and their tactics and can help you differentiate your brand, so it stands out from the crowd. The good thing with outsourcing is you only pay some fixed fee for all your content needs, and you can concentrate on developing your product.
3. Make Your Content Super-Readable
Like it or not, not all your followers will read your blogs word-for-word or watch entire videos. Thanks to the ever-reducing concentration spans, a good number of your followers are skimmers. Thus, it’d help if you made your content scannable. Shun the idea of long paragraphs. Your readers find it boring, and they’ll skip it without a second thought.
Segment your article into palatable bits with the clever use of subtitles, lists, illustrations, graphs, quotes, and images. All these elements help to break up large chunks of text, making it enjoyable. Besides, be precise and to the point without lots of fluff. Also, use the active voice and make your sentences short to improve readability.
4. Write For Humans, Not Machines
Indeed, search engines play a significant role in content discoverability. However, you shouldn’t be so obsessed with satisfying their typical ranking criteria that you forget how human readers perceive your content.
For instance, you may be tempted to fill your articles with keywords to outrank your competitors. While search engines may reward you with a higher rank, people visiting your site will quickly lose interest in your content if they discover you’re only trying so hard to rank. Eventually, the high bounce rates will lower your rank and credibility. So, strike a healthy balance between pleasing the search engines and satisfying the human readers.
5. Show Expertise
Your readers aren’t so green in your business niche. They’ll quickly know whether you’re an expert or a novice. If your content shows a lack of profound knowledge in your area of specialization, likely, your readers will never come back for more.
Avoid that by taking ample time to gather knowledge. Do in-depth and extensive research for any topic you’re covering. This way, you’ll sound authoritative, your followers will develop trust in your brand, and they’ll always visit your site for more information.
6. Have A Voice
You’re not the only content creator in your business niche. Probably, there are hundreds of competitors targeting the same audience as you. One mistake you can make is sounding like every other competitor. Chances are your prospects also read content from your competitors, and they can quickly tell whether you’re just copying from them.
Your winning point is developing a unique voice for your brand. Of course, get ideas from existing businesses, but curate content that stands out from the crowd. That’s how you connect emotionally with your followers and influence purchase decisions. Creativity will help you have a unique voice.
Conclusion
Your audience expects the best content and won’t settle for less. Laxity on your side may give them the excuse to shift to your competitors. So, master the art of creating highly-engaging content that addresses your target audience’s needs. They’ll adore your brand and stay loyal for a long time. You may want to work with professionals to craft a reasonable content strategy and maintain consistency in publishing posts.
