Make your words matter-engage your customers with content value. This is the age of information- intellectual property reigns. Your brand and message needs to engage your audience. They want to find your information quickly. And when they do, you want to bring content value so they come back for more!
This article will give you information to engage your audience and create content value for blogs, lead magnets, and websites. In this blog, we will cover what works for understanding your audience, engaging them, the importance of the general format, and readability for content value impact.
Engaging Audiences
What engages a potential customer to stop, read your copy and keep reading? What they deem as a value. Value is found in many ways:
- Curiosity from an engaging headline and first paragraph
- Looking for an answer to a problem
- Seeing something that is unique
- Searching for a product or service
- A subject matter that creates credibility
- Humor
Know who you want to engage
Knowing your audience is the most important step in engaging your audience. So many people write in general terms. Writing for a specific audience, actually, a specific person, gives your content more focus for the audience you are trying to engage.
If you are looking to engage then drill down to who this person might be. If you make this one person (an avatar) representative of the message you want to create, it allows you to intentionally create and write about the goals and values, the objections and roles, which your message, product, or service provides to this specific avatar (audience). Here is a list of some of the aspects you want to create for your avatar:
- Education or salary
- Problems they are trying to solve
- Age and gender
- Single or married or divorced
- Children
- Interests
- Goals and values
- Objections & Roles
Once you start filling out this particular avatar’s desires and background, you begin seeing all of the needs and the answers to the questions an audience with similar objections, values and background have. Viola’! You now have material to work with and to build your marketing campaigns on! Think of it as a reverse process for building an audience!
The format of your content is important
Spacing and visual images either draw the eye onto the page and down it, or it distracts from the content.
If a person has difficulty reading something, or the points are two smushed together on a page, people tend to leave your digital page and go to another.
Face it! People make more decisions based on the visual aesthetic first, and then investigate the facts. You want your message to be clear, easy to read, and attractive.
- Tell your reader what the content is about. In a brief sentence stating what the value will be gained from reading the blog or content will give your reader a sense of security with the goal and direction of the material.
- Create a space between main thoughts. Use headings to anchor each main thought on the page. Typically a Header 2. 3. or 4 will be bold enough to stand out, help direct the reader through the material and toward the end of the page. The main thoughts are seen clearly. The reader knows what direction she or he is going with the content.
- Check your audience’s reading levels with the Fleishman Calculation. This calculation lets you know by the number or words in a sentence and the type of words, what level of reading you are presenting. Ensure you are writing appropriately for your audience’s age, education or the cultural appeal of your audience.
- Break up content with images or videos. Videos are really popular for giving immediate information to your audience. They should be no longer than a 60 seconds to 2 minutes.
- Images should relate to the subject presented. An image can surprise, inform, diagram or delight your reader. Diagrams or charts are also useful for explaining more technical material.
How long should it be? How many words?
There’s a lot of discussion around the length of a blog, a landing page, or an e-commerce book. Generally, a blog has around 550-1000 words. Google search engine is more impressed with the quality of your message including, is it helpful? Are people being informed or educated on something new or more in-depth?
An E-commerce book is longer. It can be several pages in length up to 2000-2500 words. In an E-book, it is important to keep the same pointers in mind as a blog: Keep the information succinct and informative, Use your headers and sub headers to divide and organize the material. And E-books need color and design to package and create an appealing read.
The important thought behind all of the blogs, lead magnets, and books you create for your audience is to create VALUE!
If your targeted audience believes they have received value, it creates trust in you and your services. Trust in turn creates a desire to use your services and products, eventually making them loyal customers who also advocate and share your business with others.
Write your content with the plan to give them lots of value! Value is perceived in different ways. If you are selling a solution to parents who have difficulty potty training their two-year-old, and you give them information to soothe their own anxiety or help the process along, you have given them a huge amount of value.
Perhaps, another person needs value in the form of humor (or maybe the potty training parents need some potty humor as well!). If your blog is intended to be entertaining (and informative), and it hits the right spot for lifting their attitude, they will seek you out again on YouTube or a blog to enjoy and laugh at your humor. You have given them great value.
Check your P’s & Q’s, and FAQ’s
Before you hit the publish button on your blog or send out a thousand emails with your lead magnet, check your spelling, grammar, and information. Grammarly is an excellent application that helps you with spelling and grammar. Use others to read your material and if you can’t find anyone to do so, read the work out loud to yourself. In reading it vocally, you can hear the cadence of the words, find out where a sentence might sound awkward or confusing. And check your tense and tone.
Checking your information or your source of information is also important. Check that your information is currently accurate and relevant. It doesn’t hurt to link another URL to your work if it’s common information, such as referring to Grammarly as a grammar tool. Just be sure and have the link open onto a new tab, so your reader does not lose his or her place in reading your material. If you need to obtain permission to quote an outside source, then contact the owner or business and ask permission. And also use footnotes or an asterisk to indicate the source. Follow AP Style for correct annotations for digital content. https://www.apstylebook.com/
Lead your audience
When you have engaged your audience. When they are reading your blog, keep the audience engagement rolling. Point them to the next step. Give them directions to go forward on the customer journey. You want the person reading your content value to love it enough to take the next action- It could be signing up for your newsletter or for additional IP (Intellectual Property). If you don’t have a call to action link or button, you should place one in the middle and the end of your content.
It’s not being pushy or flashy or any of those things you associate with sales. It is being helpful. Engage and incentivize your potential clients and customers to go the next step.
Bring value to your audience= Audience converting to your service or product!