Producing content that will resonate with your target audience and customers is part art, part science. Every business needs content, but it can be tough to keep coming up with winning content all the time.
One way to make sure you are on the right track most of the time is to plan your content around your target audience and customers whenever possible. When you first went into business, you would have done niche research – that is, research about what is most important in the topic or industry you are working in. You need to understand your customers’ pain points, the things that they have the most trouble with, and try to offer them genuine solutions for these problems.
Once you know what their issues are, you can create content related to it and point them in the direction of products and services that will really help them. You can either sell other companies’ products as an affiliate, or sell products you have created yourself.
Once you have a list of products to sell, it will be a case of offering the type of content your audience needs in order to become informed enough to make a smart purchasing decision. There are a number of forms of content that can help with this.
Helpful Content
Information they can use such as articles, top tips, checklist, how-to’s and so on can all provide a context for what you are trying to market. The content attracts search engines, who will send you traffic. Useful content then provides a context for you to link to products you wish to sell. Your website or blog can’t be one huge ad if you wish to keep people coming back for more.
And you can really only sell something, particularly your own products, if you are seen to be someone worth paying attention to. Good content related to your niche can position you as an authority worth paying attention to. This can establish your site as a go-to one for anyone interested in your niche.
Content in Multiple Formats
Many people are visual learners, so content should be about more than just words on a page. Videos, images, memes and infographics can all make your content stand out. Just be sure to name your files with keywords and include keywords in the page titles, descriptions of the page and so on.
Content about the Products and Services You Wish to Sell
At some point, you will be trying to sell products using your content. But there is a right way to do it, and a wrong way. The wrong way is too much hype. The right way is through stories and facts.
When you are planning your content, think about busy people who want to cut to the chase. They need the facts and they need them now. They don’t want a lot of fluff, but they do want to be entertained, engaged, informed, inspired. The product specifications, how large it is, how much it costs, color choices, and so on, are your target audience’s main concerns; but they want these facts wrapped up in future pacing.
When you sit down to write your next blog post or email; think about whether your main goal in that communication is to be helpful or to sell; and create content accordingly.
Do you have some questions about marketing your business online but don’t know who to ask? Why not ask me? I can help you with both strategy and implementation to make your business more profitable and more popular. We can do this together in 75 minutes; though my whiteboard session. Learn more about it!
