Over the years, we’ve learned that engaging content is the best way of organically attracting leads. Gone are the days of keyword stuffing, and fixing up dodgy backlinks to trick Google.
Virtual platforms are smarter than ever, and cheap tricks aren’t working as well as they used to. AI can detect AI as well as babies know their own mothers. So, the majority of businesses are funnelling this strategy into their marketing plan. By driving a brand with content marketing, they direct organic traffic towards their brands. And the more traffic organically generated the more exposure.
Content is what drives your brand forward. So, selecting the correct content to suit your business is invaluable. If your content doesn’t quite reach your audience in the way that you’d hoped - your brand gets swept under the rug of competition quickly
But it’s not always as easy as simply creating something and posting it. The competition is tough, and there’s plenty of quality content to compete with. And it’s being churned out on an hourly basis.
So to really make your brand become heard, content can’t just be average run-of-the-mill quality. It needs to help make your brand cut through the noise like a foghorn.
But let's say you've ticked all these boxes. You're posting regularly and tactically on social media; sending out a steady stream of marketing emails and nurturing your website regularly. But your customers just aren’t engaging with your content, and your brand is drifting around your content platforms like a bit of a sad tumbleweed.
Cue the question...are you really creating the right content?
Is your content good enough?
Not sure if your content is good enough?
It's probably worth...
- Analysing the engagement of the buyer persona
- Revisiting your buyer persona
- Checking up on your competition
- Revising your posting schedule (consider your audience’s time zones if you're reaching out to an international audience)
It's also worth checking which content was successful and which was a flop in terms of engagement. You could have the most cutting-edge top-tier content, but if absolutely no one is engaging with it - it's not helping you.
Go back to your buyer persona
It always comes back to your buyer persona. Your buyer persona is your square one.
Reposition yourself in your buyer’s shoes every time you create content, to keep your content fresh and synchronised with them. Reconsider their content habits and use the correct platforms to streamline their content consumption.
It’s something to keep on top of at all times, especially as buyer persona habits are changing. Consumer behaviour is literally changing all the time, and your buyer persona is no exception to the rule. As your buyer persona shifts, your content marketing must simultaneously shift as a reflection of the changing markets.
Speak the same language as your buyer persona
Your content needs to speak the same language as the buyer persona. Language is important, it's how we communicate with one another. Naturally, different audiences communicate differently. Communication is entirely relative to your audience's age, interests, geography, habits, and pre-existing media consumption.
Learn their language, and write up a set of brand tone of voice guidelines. The tone of voice guidelines helps to dictate future content, especially if your business is selling something extremely niche.
And of course, different content platforms have varied tones of voice. Social media is typically more flowery, and web content tends to be more precise and refined.
Use different languages depending on the content platform. Try and adapt the content depending on the platform the content is relevant. And remember, different audiences use different platforms depending on their demographics, interests and position in the inbound marketing process.
If you're writing web copy, funnel the most important parts of your content into a few short sentences. If you're posting on social media, your language is more informal, but of course, if you're posting on social media you have the flexibility to be a little bouncier and conversational with your language.
Short-form video is everywhere, so use it
Whether we like it or not, short-form video is the future of content marketing. It's dominating social media, and now it's a popular content choice for web homepages.
The best thing about short-form video content creation? Video editing software has become extremely user-friendly and highly accessible, making it easy for any business to market themselves using the popular trend. However, if short-form video creation isn't your forte, enlisting help from social media specialists could get the ball rolling.
Keep an eye on the competition
Although it takes originality to generate quality content, we all know marketing requires a heavy dose of competitor research to gain inspiration. Go over your competition's content with a fine tooth comb. What worked well for them? What didn't work well for them? How are they engaging with the same audiences that you're trying to attract?
Pinch some concepts from similar businesses that are successful in creating engaging content. By extracting these concepts and scattering them into your own content, you can attract the same audiences.
Check out our free buyer persona kit.
If you're keen to get some quality insights into buyer personas to streamline your content, then check out our marketing resources.
We've created a downloadable buyer persona guide and template, which helps to funnel your audience into a specific niche. This kit will give you the bread and butter of your content-making decisions. Oh, and it's completely free.
