If you own a children’s clothing store or a doggy daycare, you should have no trouble capturing your online audience’s attention with articles and photography…but what happens if you work in a “less exciting and emotive” industry? Keeping readers engaged is considerably more challenging if you’re a plastics manufacturer or roofing company. The key is to look at it from the perspective of who you are targeting. What type of information is relevant and valuable to your prospective customers?
Here are six easy content marketing tips any business can implement to make a blog and/or social media presence more compelling for its followers:
1.) Simplicity is key.
If your subject matter is already dry, the worst thing you can do is carry on with an overwhelming amount of text. Keep blogs and online content simple to help readers stay engaged. Regardless of how exciting you think your topic is, your article needs to appear ‘easy to read’ to your audience. Bold headings, numbered lists, bullet points, graphics, and images will help your readers better digest and retain your information.
2.) Play into emotional triggers.
PNC, a financial services corporation, played into a trigger that very effectively resonates with its Facebook audience: online safety and identity theft prevention. The article is relevant to PNC’s industry and services and is highly shareable (allowing audience engagement to compound as it’s sent to friends and family).
3.) Have fun with pop culture.
Once you have identified the audience you are targeting, conduct research (e.g., surveys, interviews, or focus groups) to better understand their interests and hobbies. For example, if you’re targeting men and women in their twenties to thirties, you will likely find that many are interested in zombie books, films, and television.
In fact, the Centers for Disease Control capitalized on the zombie craze by posting a fun but informational online guide “preparing for the zombie apocalypse.”
“If you are generally well equipped to deal with a zombie apocalypse, you will be prepared for a hurricane, pandemic, earthquake, or terrorist attack,” said Ali Khan, MD, director of the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response, summing up the campaign’s strategy.
The guide went viral so quickly, its online traffic crashed the CDC’s website.
4.) Utilize internal excitement.
Encourage employees from various departments to talk about new ideas, projects, equipment, industry news learned at a conference, or client success stories. What are the latest developments that are motivating them and exciting them in their role within the company? Audiences are easily engaged by an authentic voice and genuine, human emotion.
5.) Create ‘listicles’.
Listicles were popularized by the news site Buzzfeed, but have become a frequently-used blogging format for many major publications and businesses. The format was created to appease readers’ fading attention, incorporating quippy sentences and attention-grabbing images and memes. Some listicles are just plain fun or shocking. For example, if you are a bug exterminator, you could create an article titled “10 Home Pests so Ugly You’d Move Out.” Other listicles incorporate helpful information (i.e., “10 Signs You Need to Call an Exterminator”).
6.) Get help from a professional.
A good writer has the ability to make ANY subject engaging. So, when you team up with experienced content marketers, you can expect a blog filled with compelling articles that make even the most boring of industries relatable and exciting.
If you are overwhelmed trying to run a business AND a blog or social media site simultaneously, consider the many advantages of letting team of professionals take the content marketing helm!
Sources: http://www.personalbrandingblog.com/12-ways-to-create-interesting-company-content-in-a-boring-industry/
