content marketing strategies Archives » Page 2 of 6

Tips for Making Your Content Stick

Time disappears. Memorable messages never fade.

How?

As Chip and Dan Heath point out in their marketing classic Made to Stick, they are designed to stick.

To help you make your material memorable, the Heath brothers offer a checklist for developing sticky messaging.

Let’s go over five of those suggestions along with illustrations from businesses that have used them.

1.Keep things very straight forward.

Determine your main point before you write a single word. Your material must be governed by this central theme, providing organization, focus, and direction.

How to proceed

Make sure your material has a straightforward, obvious theme before anything else. Ideally, you should sum everything up in one line. Your headline and each phrase should clearly state your subject.

Let’s compare an article that lists the advantages of eating veggies to one that explains why carrots are fantastic for vision, as an example.

The first is overly broad and all-encompassing. Quelle vegetables? How can the reader remember the content if the author lists every veggie and every perk? According to research, there is a limit to how much information we can take in at once.

The topic is more general; the article on carrots is more specific. It is simpler to keep in mind that carrots are beneficial for vision. Readers may also see a carrot. It is palpable.

2.Grab attention to something unexpected.

According to research, individuals learn by looking for patterns. We look for routines and consistency.

How to proceed

Consider a novel viewpoint on a well-liked subject. And if you declare something unexpected, support it with evidence.

For instance, if you work in the health area, you could write an essay about how dark chocolate with almonds lowers the risk of heart disease. Here is a draft of a headline: Did You Know That Dark Chocolate and Almonds are Your Heart’s Desire?

3.Reject abstraction and adopt concreteness

The shortest path between locations A and B on a flat surface is a straight line. Your material must adhere to this regulation.

When you present your message in tangible terms, you give the reader a clear path to follow. If you present your message in an abstract manner, you give your audience a muddled, squiggly line. Once bewildered, they take off running.

How to proceed

Making each notion tangible should come first. Use metaphors and analogies to aid with this. Don’t speak in jargon.

Here’s an illustration:

Abstract: “I need to relax.”
Concrete: “I need to get the cobwebs out of my head.”

The first term is overused, unimaginative, and monotonous. What next? Its direct language draws you in. It is visualisable. It is considerably more enduring.

4.Connect via emotions

Your audience will pay attention if it’s a topic they care about. They will care and respond to what you provide if you appeal to their emotions.

How to proceed

Find the emotion that connects your message to your intended audience. Readers are more inclined to care if you add that emotion to your material.

5.Draw audiences in with an engaging tale

According to research, individuals don’t only hear stories; they also experience them. It has the ability to transfer.

How to proceed

Tell a relevant story to help your target reader understand your message.

Imagine that you are writing a piece for Dole that urges readers to eat more bananas. Your narrative starts with a lazy individual dozing off at their desk in the middle of the morning. The patient had enough energy to get through the morning and the rest of the day the following day, however, after eating a banana to start the day. The outcome? If you want to do more things in a day, eat bananas.

Tell a captivating tale that leads your audience to the answer they’re looking for. Then, conclude with a statement that motivates people to take action.

Stickiness can be chosen.

Stickers are sticky on purpose. Knowing what the product would be used for, the maker added adhesives to its surface so that customers could glue it to another surface.

The correct audience may be added to your material if you are aware of its intended audience.

Your writing is more enduring. Why? because it was designed to be.

Which of the five suggestions will you use?

Create and deliver accessible content to your audience

How would the information on your website be altered if your audience was likely to see it under intense pressure, in 90 seconds, on a mobile device, and away from the main thoroughfare in a gas station restroom?

The difficulty is one that charities working with victims of domestic abuse and sex trafficking encounter. The question is:

Is the download speed of this homepage graphic too slow?
One touch calling capabilities on the phones?
Is the text simple to read under pressure and in a hurry?
Is the most essential stuff impossible to miss?

Fortunately, the extra effort spent catering to this audience’s demands probably improves the overall user experience for everyone who visits the website.

You’ve undoubtedly profited from the “curb cuts” urban design invention from the middle of the 20th century. These wheelchair ramps on the sidewalk improve the quality of life for so many individuals. Travelers can simply move their baggage to and from the pavement, parents can avoid jarring sleeping infants in strollers, and delivery people can effortlessly push their rolling carts.

Accessible building materials benefit more people than you probably know, just like curb cuts do.

Put on the audience’s shoes.

Even though you are passionate about your material, it could only take up a brief (but ideally significant) period in other people’s busy lives. Here are some strategies for increasing the impact of such moments.

Reduced expectations

In my professional life, I’ve participated in or seen hundreds of usability tests where users were asked to complete activities on a website, app, or other digital system. Even when I pay employees to accomplish work as our team observes, it’s amazing how much they miss, refuse to do, or neglect. Even when they are focused, the viewers’ attention seems to be waning.

To place significant concepts at the top of your content, use the inverted pyramid writing technique. Pick visuals that are simple to understand. Make concise, informative videos.

Make sure that each member of your content team is familiar with the subtleties of the target audience. A website that is trauma-informed might take extra effort to avoid utilising images or videos that could be upsetting. Any software targeting a sizable ESL user base would employ straightforward language rather than idioms. Your content is more likely to be successful if your team has a solid understanding of the target audience and any pertinent context.

if required for everyone.

Everyone is my audience, you could be thinking, if you work for the government, a hospital, or any other organisation that provides services to the broader public. Planning for a wide range of individuals and their requirements can become necessary.

In the past, it was thought that serving 80% of your audience was adequate. That still leaves one in five people who were turned off by your material. Should I inform the boss or should you?

An inclusive and more modern perspective proposes that if you take care of everyone, you’ll take care of your severe instances.

Your identities are again relevant in this situation. Do you have a character that speaks for the user group that has blurry eyesight, unsteady hands, or little technical knowledge? Do you also have a character for an ambitious young software engineer? Can you remember both as you create content?

Analyze your material.

How can you tell if the objectives of your content’s audience will be met? Find representative audience members to test the material with. Finding out how accessible your material actually is may be done in this method.

Find members of that audience.

You need to talk to folks who have typical objectives and circumstances. If it isn’t possible, you might have to use proxies who are familiar with the group. Even if it’s not ideal, testing with relevant subjects is preferable to either not testing at all or testing with coworkers.

You may learn a lot from standard usability testing that includes content-related activities and queries. This is the ideal starting point for any website or app. You may also analyse the content of a rival to get ideas and steer clear of pitfalls.

Consider the concerns you have with the material: “Will they get that this is for stressed-out 40-something parents?” Afterward, devise activities and inquiries to attempt to elicit the responses, such as “Who do you believe this is for?”

I’ve tried out a website for a yoga studio before. (For instance, “Register for a class.”) I rapidly learned that the site’s photos of physically fit and attractive people scared research participants.

Anytime you have material, test.

Even when your material is subpar, you may still learn a lot from it. You want to avoid introducing information that is off-target and any shocks. Early education gives you time to adjust. This might entail putting content on paper and asking readers to underline any unclear sentences. Maybe present the phrases that spring to mind with a picture that you want to utilise. Are they the key phrases that you and your company are looking for? Before a video is finished, request the opinions of the appropriate audience members.

After testing with a small sample of your audience, patterns might appear. Statistical significance is not needed for this kind of scholarly, peer-reviewed, quantitative study. You may participate in the qualitative research that Facebook, Microsoft, Lenovo, and many other companies perform with small groups of individuals.

Where to start

According to data from the U.S. Census, more than 25% of Americans live with a handicap. Consider how often you might not be operating at 100% even if you are not one of these folks. Consider drained parents, buzzed coworkers, or someone confined to a hospital with a sick family member. What about somebody going through a nasty breakup or any other unforeseen circumstances in life? Everyone occasionally performs poorly. Make sure they don’t have to work more than required to take advantage of your materials. They ought to be able to enjoy it as easily as possible and in the manner of their choice.

Ask the correct questions and keep the responses in mind.

Whom do you want to reach? What are their actions and objectives? Do any of them struggle with specific needs or disabilities? Why may your content be of interest to them? What sort of encounter do they expect from you? When working on a project, it’s easy to lose sight of your audience’s primary objectives. They should be included in any project specifications and posted on a whiteboard or sticky note that is easily seen.

Learn the fundamental rules for accessibility.

The Web Material Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) will assist you in comprehending the little adjustments that need to be made to your content in order for it to be accessible to every audience member, from video subtitles and audio to error messages and colour usage.

Want inspiration? Use a free screen reader across your website. It was dreadful the first time a coworker and I attempted this for a computer e-commerce website. We wanted to sob in compassion for anyone trying to purchase a computer from our website who is blind. It inspired us to update our company’s accessibility policies. It should be noted that Microsoft Windows includes a screen reader comparable to VoiceOver, although Apple’s iOS and macOS do not.

Integrate accessibility into your workflow.

Establish with your partners (designers, videographers, authors, etc.) the need for all materials to be accessible. Ensure that pictures have alt-descriptions, which are text blocks inserted into the HTML code to describe the image for screen readers. Make sure the videographer’s work includes subtitles and transcripts. Make sure the wording is clear and readable. Keep in mind that color isn’t the sole technique used to transmit crucial information to colorblind viewers.

Make sure the developers are using accessible code by speaking with them. This includes features like speed, clickable phone numbers, and distinct labels for form components. Want to make your content more engaging in a surefire way? Your content should load more quickly. All audiences like witty websites and applications.

Make text easier to read.

The worst online writer I’ve ever worked with was a doctoral student in English at Stanford. Reading compound-complex sentences online is unpleasant. Slice them up. Your writing must be at least the sixth-grade reading level. Get rid of the advanced-level sentences. For assistance with sentence brevity and simple language usage, use Hemingway Editor (free). Other advice:

Make sure your font can support text scaling and is large enough.
For a consistent and simpler read, align the text to the left.
Use the WebAIM Color Contrast Checker to check if text is viewable against the background color.
Look at your text. Don’t assume anything and hold out hope.

Create a video that is easy to use.

While some individuals adore videos, others are aware that they are an unnaturally linear type of material. “Really? Right? I must watch this. What is the time now? ” Give such individuals a different access point for the information. This is crucial in instructional and educational videos. Provide a transcript with timestamps so viewers can go to the sections of the film that are most pertinent to them (lynda.com is a great example). To assist individuals who need to watch with the sound muted as well as those who are visually and hearing impaired, add subtitles and audio descriptions (imagine people around sleeping babies, on public transportation, or in a multi-person home office without headphones).

Confirm it with your audience:

Want to view videos?
It has enough bandwidth to view videos.
understands how to use the video player effectively.
You can find the data in the movie in other places.
knows the language used in the video (or translate to their native language)

Be a pioneer in accessibility.

Organizations that provide public accommodation or get government support may be obliged to have accessible websites in the United States. According to recent court decisions, private company websites can be subject to the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Accessible websites will eventually become the norm. Being an accessibility pioneer right now helps you since it increases the number of people you can reach. Who wouldn’t want their material to be seen by more people?

Use These Simple Tips to Improve Your Writing

We’ve kept this piece brief, consisting just of useful writing advice, to give you time to explore more of this week’s Content Marketing World sessions.

Even talented writers value advice on how to write more persuasively. Additionally, readers value writing that is more effective. Their attention spans are short. They only have little windows of time to ingest stuff.

Do you compose and edit your work with the idea that readers will only read it briefly? Try these two writing suggestions for material that speaks more to your audience.

Tip 1: Use short, simpler words

Everyone enjoys sounding intelligent, but if your audience doesn’t grasp what you’re saying, they’ll stop listening. Don’t use overly complicated language in your content so as to persuade your viewers to quit reading it. Avoid forcing your attentive audience to navigate away from the website to look up a definition.

Short words are simple to comprehend. Long or difficult words make reading more difficult. Key points may be missed by readers, or they may stop reading altogether.

See how these before-and-after examples demonstrate the effectiveness of simplification.

BEFORE

tracking of workspace usage in real time.
Because of the data silos brought on by rigidity, it is challenging to
Due to a split in customer tastes, text is favoured over email.

AFTER

monitoring of workplace use in real time.
It is difficult to… due to rigid data silos.
Despite the differences, more customers choose text over email.

Save your best vocabulary terms for your ground-breaking book or your upcoming Scrabble match. In your content marketing, use straightforward language. Even readers who are familiar with difficult subjects value clarity in writing.

Tip 2: Make short, concise sentences.

Therefore, readers who enjoy short word length will also enjoy brief sentences.

A statement with less than eight words was understood by every reader in the poll. And 90% of people could comprehend a phrase of nine to fourteen words. Comprehension declined as the number of words rose. Only 10% of the information in a statement that included 43 words or more was comprehended. Even though the study was conducted over ten years ago for newspaper writing, content marketing might benefit from its findings. And it stands to reason that now, shorter could be preferable.

Do you frequently employ conjunctions and clauses in your sentences? Could those be divided into a few simpler, stronger sentences?

Let’s examine one of the introduction’s most difficult to write sentences. You want to grab the interest of your readers and encourage them to keep reading the information. The key is to speak clearly.

Let’s run through this illustration. I’ve altered a few details to protect the author’s privacy:

“Over the last several months, we have observed the trend of remote work, which calls for more individuals to utilise their home internet for business-related activities and raises cybersecurity threats.”

That statement is excessively lengthy at 31 words. How can we condense it while keeping its meaning?

First, think about the unimportant things.

The sentence is dated by the phrase “during the last months.” Is time a crucial element? Since it isn’t in this instance, it is cut.

The usage of home internet for professional reasons is becoming more common due to the trend of remote work, which also raises cybersecurity dangers.

The sentence now has 27 words.

Next, the present perfect first person is used to express “we have seen.” The sentence is not essential since attribution is not required, even if the verb tense might be changed to a simple past or present tense. Additionally, remote work is a well-known trend in 2020. There’s no need to state that:

“More individuals are using their home internet for professional reasons as a result of remote employment, a development that also raises cybersecurity threats.”

The sentence is now 20 words.

Additional edits: Remove the phrase “requiring additional employees” because remote workers are a given. There is no internet at home for your dog. the verb be changed to active voice.

“The growth of remote work necessitates the usage of the home internet for professional reasons,” introducing cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

The sentence now has 18 words.

Keep in mind that we already erased the “trend” viewpoint. We must repeat the process.

“Using home internet for business reasons is a requirement of remote employment, posing cybersecurity hazards.”

The sentence now has 14 words.

The usage of the word “labour” twice is more obvious with the shorter text. Let’s remove one citation:

There are cybersecurity dangers while using the home internet for business.

There are now 11 words in the sentence. Although the intention was to remove one word, the editing opportunity exposed the idea’s redundancy. “Remote work” is better described as “home internet for work reasons.”

Is there anything else in the statement that is unnecessary? Yes. Let’s modify once more:

“There are cybersecurity dangers while using the home internet for business.”

The sentence now consists of eight words.

The main idea is still present even if the phrase is just eight words long instead of 31. Additionally, it hits the percentage of terms that all participants in the American Press Institute study could understand.

What quick suggestions do you have for writing better?

Every day, we create, edit, and read it – material with rambling phrases or difficult words.

Let’s surpass that material. Let’s keep in mind that our readers have limited attention spans and enjoy reading things that are simple. Because of it, our language and phrases must be concise.

Integrate content into your lead generation process

Lead generation and nurturing generally are defined as collecting contact details and then developing relationships with potential customers.

I tend to treat lead generation more loosely. Regardless of your niche, leads are your current or potential customers who have given their contact details because they don’t mind hearing from your brand.

Can content marketing help (or even drive) your brand’s lead-generation and nurturing strategy?

It sure can. Let’s see how:

1.Match material to search intent

Almost every website in existence has been geared to get Google organic traffic. This procedure often entails choosing pertinent keywords and using them in both the on-page language and the anchor text of backlinks.

However, providing searchers with what they were seeking for – optimising for search intent – is the most crucial component of the optimization equation.

Various search terms indicate various search intentions:

Informational intent is frequently regarded as top-funnel intent since searchers demand immediate answers.
Commercial investigation: Options are compared by searchers. They are nearer to making a sale.
Searchers hunt for product reviews with a commercial intent. They are prepared to make a purchase.
Searchers are looking for (video) instructions on how to use a product. These are your current clients who might buy from you again or free trial users who might become paying clients.

To cater to each of those search intentions, you must develop unique content assets.

Usually, you can infer search intent from a query. Apart from your head, you don’t need any sophisticated gear to do this. Organize frequent brainstorming meetings with your team if you are the team manager to get their opinions on your keywords and the search intent they represent.

Create a separate column for search intent on your keyword spreadsheets to incorporate it into your content strategy.

Create rules for your content writers based on the products you are offering for how they should respond to different kinds of search intent. For instance:

Commercial or transactional intent: Develop the content to subtly promote one of our goods.
You can already create content to encourage folks to download one of our lead magnets.
Navigational: Tailor the material to our current clients, for example, by gently promoting our complimentary items wherever they may be of help.
Commercial inquiry: List our products among the possibilities suggested by the text.

In the same way, incorporate intent analysis into your current content audit. Simply put, consider whether the landing pages directing organic traffic to your site are addressing a clear search purpose and consider how you may better match it.

2.Integrate CTAs with content

Make changes to your in-content calls to action to better reflect search intent.

For instance, it might not make sense to try to sell them your items if your content is designed to answer simple how-to questions. Instead, the content might offer helpful downloads (or printouts) that make the information simpler to understand.

Contextual CTAs can also be seen in:

There is a free checklist or flowchart that readers can download inside the email form to help them follow the instructions. (The mail option is the easiest. plug-in to set up contextual lead-gen forms that would be different on every page.)
An opinion poll asking readers to respond, with a promise to email the results (this is easy to set up in Google Forms.)
Suitable for the landing page (A clever chatbot sets up the CTA.)

3.Align CRM initiatives with funnel position

Making your brand more familiar to your present and potential customers is the goal of customer relationship management (CRM). They are more likely to make repeat purchases from you the better they are familiar with your brand.

However, such CRM initiatives cannot be the same for each part of your audience. The likelihood of a sale varies among different leads. Some of them are present clients of yours. If you speak to your present clients the same way you speak to strangers, you run the risk of permanently losing them. A segmented and tailored CRM strategy is essential because of this.

Knowing the search terms that directed those leads to your website and the content resources that engaged them and converted them into leads can also help you improve your conversion strategy.

4.Make extra content available to inactive leads.

Content is excellent top-of-the-funnel stuff since it drives traffic to your website from social media and organic search. But content may also be used to re engage past site users, making it a wonderful middle-of-the-funnel asset.

Create a more tailored workflow to increase subscriber engagement. For instance, you can send a follow-up email addressing the subject if a lead opens an email and clicks a link.

The majority of email marketing solutions allow smart automation, however your options may be constrained. Here is a list of the numerous automation options and the most popular solutions.

5.Reactivate redirected traffic

Not every new user that visits your website gives you their email address. However, you can convert a visitor into a lead without their email address.

Remarketing (also known as retargeting) programs that are ongoing are extremely effective in retaining visitors who did not convert into prospects or customers.

produces leads

The best approach to generating and nurturing leads is through content, especially when combined with CRM and remarketing solutions, which employ content once again to convert leads into paying clients. It doesn’t need to be extremely intricate. The tools and advice mentioned above will provide you with some simple suggestions on how to include content in your lead-generation plan.

Tips for Engaging Your Audience with Video Storytelling

A vital technique for instructing, amusing, and enticing your audience to return for more is visual storytelling. It gives your concepts, brand mission, and personality life. It enables you to demonstrate rather than merely declare.

Tip 1: Use video to repurpose and promote material

Your written content was the result of your laborious writing, editing, and design efforts. You may enrich it in novel ways with video. A marketing e-book was turned into a video years ago, and the result received over 300,000 views. People were enticed to read the e-book by the innovative and entertaining video, which starred a personification of the e-book.

Tyler Lessard, vice president of marketing at , asserts that “(video storytelling) has the potential to be more emotional and to generate humour, to create inspiration, to really make people want to re-engage.”

Unsurprisingly, the e-book is one of most effective marketing tools ever, and it provided the inspiration for a lot of other brilliant concepts.

Tip 2: To foster compassion and a personal touch, use video.

Speaking of crying, marketing communications manager, Kevin Doherty, shared a touching tale during his session about his grandfather. Then he played us a video of him with his “father” when he was a baby.

Many viewers who tuned in sent out a collective “awwwww,” and some mentioned in the discussion that it brought tears to their eyes. Me too. Just two months after the loss of his grandmother, his grandfather died just 15 days before the webinar.

It has been challenging to just function while dealing with a pandemic, wildfires, and an election in isolation. So I was at a loss when I eventually sat down to finish this session of writing. I mean, I hardly knew what to do with it.

We were drawn in by his tale, his video, and his narrative guidance. He mentioned the work of British psychologist Edward Titchener, who created the phrase “cognitive empathy,” on human cognition.

“Watching another person go through something allows us to completely experience it thanks to cognitive empathy.” That’s why, even if you’ve never been a grandparent, you virtually felt the weight of a wrapped-up baby in your arms as you watched my home film, and that’s why you received even a tiny glimpse of what it must have been like for Papa at that precise time.

This kind of emphasises the value of visual thinking, according to Kevin.

I hope that setting this session’s context in an honest, emotional way sparked something in everyone of you. “I also hope that my home film makes you more emotionally connected to my tale than the PowerPoint slide did,” Kevin adds.

Tip 3: Don’t be frightened to go live

Speaking of being human, many content marketers take it a step further by using platforms like Facebook Live, LinkedIn Live, and other live streaming services for in-the-moment dialogues. Dylan Hey, co-founder and CEO of Hey Digital, explains that streaming can be used to develop your brand, engage with your audience more deeply, and help the sales cycle.

You’ll see that happen if we mess up. You’ll be able to tell if we move slowly in some places. If it does, it’s happened before with our camera. Naturally, we don’t want them to occur, just like with all of these little things. We strive to create the ideal experience, but you’re witnessing the truth, and there is nothing that helps people connect more deeply with a brand or a person than learning about them and who they truly are from the inside out.

There are a ton of companies out there, but they never act in that way. “They’re afraid to take that risk, so they don’t,” Dylan claims.

How do you start a live streaming business? Anya, head of influencer marketing at Restream, outlines the company’s content marketing and offers some excellent suggestions. She began with a live program that emphasised customer education and pain points: what were they experiencing problems with? What is causing their confusion? Do they have any suggestions for new features, any criticism, or any worries?

From then, weekly Q&A sessions evolved. “We simply arrived.” “We simply made very straightforward, minimalistic images,” she claims. The crew emailed their audience to solicit questions for the livestream. The company’s marketing, customer success, and product teams all showed up to discuss.

Anya utilised influencers to support a weekly live interview programme with content producers. The approach was to concentrate on other well-known content producers and collaborate with those who are familiar with our offerings and are enthusiastic about working with us.

Tip 4: Interact with and appreciate your audience.

People are more likely to watch and return for additional content when there is a vast variety of visual representations. Including interactive aspects, which give viewers an opportunity to respond or ask questions, keeps them interested.

I believe that live video is a little more unpolished, but there is also the chance to receive real-time criticism. “People who are watching can actually drive the conversation, and you can ask a question and receive a quick response and get a sense of where you want to go next,” he said.

The founder of Warm Robots and personal branding specialist Goldie Chan loves livestreaming on LinkedIn for this reason, among others. “You are able to answer questions immediately, particularly when someone is sharing a personal story.” ” It becomes really visceral and is excellent for your brand and LinkedIn.”

Live streams are in the moment, but LinkedIn also allows you to go back and reply to comments, which Nick believes is essential. They’re going to be more inclined to tune in the next time that you decide to go live if you were to just take 10 minutes after you ended a broadcast and go in and answer everyone that commented on your video and let them know, “We appreciate you being here.” That participation is crucial, he claims.