9 Steps to More Compelling Content

An effective content marketing program requires commitment and creativity

But you don’t have to be a world class writer or marketing expert to be a good content marketer. Here are 9 steps for generating more compelling content.

1. Passion. Ya gotta feel it. People feel it and know if you’re writing about topics that you love, feel strongly about and are clearly knowledgeable. These are the reasons you first became interested in your industry, the reasons you started your own business. Sure you get frustrated, annoyed and dog-tired, but you rally and are still passionate about what you do.
2. Preparation. Time to let go of that scattergun approach and one-off efforts. They don’t work and they’re wasting your time and money. Identify your audience—are they babyboomers, Gen-Xers or millennials. It makes a huge difference in the way you design your marketing program. Define your demographic and start building relationships with this group.
3. Action. If you’ve created a strategy or a marketing plan, you need to implement it. This is where a lot of small business owners fail. It can be overwhelming. Break it up into manageable blocks of time each week. Calendar these and treat them like a meeting. Use these blocks of time to work on your action items–writing blog posts, recording podcasts, preparing your monthly newsletter, writing new web content.
4. Commitment. To help you stay committed, create an editorial/content calendar. It should include the publish date, topic, your call to action, the format (blog post, image, video, etc.) and which social media platforms you will be posting to. I like to create a larger editorial calendar that identifies important events and topics, anything that’s seasonal, industry celebrations, etc. Keep this handy, add to it and reference it.
5. Stay flexible. You may have a calendar, but this is a guide to keep you on track. If something better comes along, by all means take advantage of it. I do keep a calendar, but I’ve been taking advantage of some of the articles about the election—looking at these from a marketing perspective. Do stay on top of industry, national and local news and leverage these stories if they’re relevant for your industry.
6. Listen. If you want to create great content that will be engaged with and shared by your community, find out what they want and need. To do this, spend time on the social media platforms they use and watch what they are sharing and engaging with. People like, comment and share what they feel emotional about, whether these emotions are positive or negative.
7. Become a good communicator. Once you know what your community wants, you need to communicate in a way that resonates and is easily consumed and shared by your them. Remember that attention spans are short, so you need to quickly get to the point. This is as much about formatting as it is about actual content. Create blog and social media posts that are crisp and can be easily scanned and consumed. Use subheads to break up paragraphs and seduce your audience. Bullet points are a great way to make content more accessible.
8. Be generous. Share your knowledge with your community and build trust. Remember that there will always be a group of people who’ll see the value in the information you provide, lack the time, skills or desire to do it for themselves. These are the people we call clients—they will happily pay for your expertise!
9. Become a continuous learner. Never stop learning. Whether it’s in your industry or about content creation itself, take the time to stay up-to-date on what’s new, what’s important and what’s changing. Stay passionate and genuine and you’ll build your community.

Thinking about outsourcing your content marketing program? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re content marketing experts.