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How to create desire through content marketing
With more companies jumping on the content marketing bandwagon, it is increasingly important to make your content stand out from the crowd. You need to devise compelling, clever and insightful ways to craft and distribute your content in ways that benefits your audience and client.
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Content marketing is no longer marketing your product through content. It’s about making content that speaks for your product. (Shutterstock/everything possible)
A
s customers increasingly rely on content for their purchasing decisions, nowadays there is a wide range of content available for almost anybody at any age group.
Amid the pandemic, many companies are switching to online marketing activities due to the greater challenges of implementing offline strategies. However, this has led to a flood of online platforms and content that look similar to each other and don’t stand out anymore.
With more companies jumping on the content marketing bandwagon, it is increasingly important to make your content stand out from the crowd. You need to devise compelling, clever and insightful ways to craft and distribute your content in ways that benefits your audience and client.
How can you as the content creator keep up with the pace? I normally start with these three simple questions:
Who are you speaking to?
Create a persona, not demographic. Demographics include age, gender, race and income bracket. Personas, on the other hand, dig into the personality of the buyers, focusing on what makes them who they are and what drives them to seek out the services or products you offer.
Knowing your audience will help you understand their journey. If you can understand their journey, you can map where your content fits better and become special to them.
What are their pain points?
This might be the most important question you’ll need to answer about your audience. What problems are they experiencing? What challenges are they facing? What issues are causing them pain over and over again?
Once you understand the issues your audience is facing, it becomes easier to craft your content.
Why do they want you?
The heart of any content is your audience’s moment of interest. It’s about finding where your content fits into their lives and creating a conversation around those “moments”. Understand the life of your audience, learn their new moments and take part in those discussions (for new parents, they may be interested in reading about five simple ways to make a baby sleep more soundly, for example). Anchor your message into their life moments.
To illustrate this point, Adel’s immediate problem might be getting an affordable website build, but at her core, she doesn’t really understand websites. She is pursuing her dream to finally build her own online cosmetic business. If your message to Adel consists of offering a “fast, affordable website design,” she’ll evaluate you purely on price and samples. If, however, you really go deep and address Adel’s why, offering “everything you need to launch the online cosmetic business you’ve always dreamed about,” she will be totally hooked.
Make your content part of their need, not just want
Another point to note is that each aspect of your content must be delightful and useful, shareable and marketable. Don’t be a textbook; talk and write as if you were having a conversation with a friend. Your audience is far more likely to relate to and engage with content that is conversational in nature. Speak on their level and language and never ever be too sales driven.
Create story-telling format content. If you have to force your audience to see the value in the content, or hard sell it, it won’t work. Create content that inspires confidence in your audience. Is your content making them smarter? More efficient? More accomplished? How are you actually affecting their lives? Solve your audience’s problem and make your content part of their need, not just want.
Content marketing is no longer marketing your product through content. It’s about making content that speaks for your product. Work on your positioning. Work on your message. Create an emotional connection that no one else can have and make it count. For companies with kids as the target market, you should start creating content not only for the kids themselves, but also for the parents; some products are decided by mothers but some products are decided by both of the parents such as education institutions, entertainment products and early-technology products.
Not all content is copy-based. Now is the era of video content, or you could combine copy and video. If you have a limited budget, you could also add some elements into your copy-based content so it will still look more appealing and drag people to go through to your content (for example, the Instagram carousel). You will be surprised how a simple element can make your audience more engaged with your content.
Lastly, place your content on the most-visited platform by your audience. Instagram and Twitter seem to be the most appealing platforms nowadays but you should analyze whether your audience really visit them. Remember that by understanding your audience as a persona, you will understand their “moment” of journey, including their reading behavior.
People read what interests them, even if it’s sometimes an ad. People buy what interests them – hopefully it’s you. (kes)
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Ferdinand Sinaduma is GDP Venture’s head of brand, which focuses on enhancing the human experience through behavior development, design thinking and technology, and is skilled in user experience and interface design, business and product development, branding and identity, advertising and mentoring.
