12 Tips to Creating Effective Content
Whether you’re writing an ad, a blog post or an email, content becomes the critical ingredient to attract visitors and convert them into leads and buyers. Content is paramount in today’s highly competitive online marketing arena to grab the attention of people browsing and invite them to read your copy vs. countless other options.
So how do you create effective content? The following are 12 essential tips followed by leaders in the industry:
1. Refine your headline:
On average 5 times as many people read the headline as read the body. Your headline should be simple. Headlines need to be concise but they should create a sense of urgency, be unique and useful, be specific enough to make the reader feel you are addressing just them. The headline must stimulate and intense emotion in the reader that will without a doubt cause them to want to read what you have since it’s going to provide a real benefit.
2. Simplify your content
Your message should be clear and speak in terms of what’s in it for your readers. This is not a time to be about you. You have to articulate a burning platform, so to speak, that will create a sense of urgency in your reader to take action. Now is not the time to introduce your offer or by any means ‘sell’.
Your credibility rests upon the foundation you are building which is creating trust between your audience and you.
3. Give your audience what they want:
Be crystal clear in your own mind of what need your are trying to speak to in your reader. You need to be exact. This is not a time to wander. Exactly what need are you offering to fill and then present it. Watch your language; you should see the word ‘you’ and not ‘we’ or ‘I’.
4. Tell a story:
Ever heard the saying ‘facts tell, stories sell’?
Well, to a large extent this is true. Facts may well indeed
present reality but this is a time to appeal to emotions which telling a story helps accomplish. The story should not be about you, rather it should embody a plot that personifies the audience’s condition and inspires the notion that change can lead to a realization of hopes and dreams.
5. Have a purpose behind everything you write:
When creating content, make sure it is congruent. As stated before, wandering not allowed. Before writing content, make sure you have a clear purpose and stick to it through out what you write. If you want to address generating leads, then do so. If you want to build your brand, then do that but don’t blend the two.
6. Speak your ideal customer’s language:
Connect with your customer by speaking in their language.
This will help you connect with them and create trust. If you are unsure as to what their language is, then it’s back to square one since you don’t understand the needs you are appealing to. You have a split second to demonstrate you are genuine about their needs. You won’t get there if you are writing about roof repair to an audience of cement contractors.
7. Use active voice:
Passive voice makes you sound weak and reactive, while active voice takes charge.
For example, the passive sentence ‘Over 300 people have been helped by our product’ is much stronger in the active voice: ‘We have helped over 300 people with our product.’
8. Replace the words
may, hope, could, perhaps, might, hopeful with commands, such as will, can and do.
9. Back up your claims with facts:
statistics, success stories and testimonials. Testimonials are probably by far the most effective sine they provide another perspective and even if speaking to facts, they do not loose the benefits from telling a story as mentioned previously.
10. Incorporate the fundamentals of persuasive copywriting:
According to “America’s Top Copywriter” Bob Bly, the fundamentals of persuasive copywriting are:
Gains attention
Focuses on the customer
Stresses benefits
Differentiates you from the competition
Proves its case
Establishes credibility
Builds value
Closes with a call to action
11 Lead with strongest point:
Do you read something all the way through? If no, you’re not alone. The majority of people only read the beginning, so make sure you include your strongest point at the start.
12 Include a strong call to action:
If you don’t specifically ask people to do something, chances are they won’t do it. All your content from blog posts, E-mails and landing pages should close with a call to action. Your social media posts should have a call to action where appropriate. Always make sure you are offering something your particular audience will want. But you might ask, if most don’t read to the end, what good is a strong call to action when you close? Good question. This shines a light on how important it is to lead with your strongest point. You want to compel people to read to the end and starting with an attention getter will help ensure that your audience will want to see how the story ends. Another approach that is commonly applied, it to present the call to action more than once, typically mid-way through your content and again at the end. But be careful, you don’t want to come across as spam.
