Inbound marketing is still as relevant and useful as ever. It’s meant to raise awareness about your brand, bring in new customers or leads, and nurture the audience you’ve already built. The content your brand utilizes doesn’t necessarily need to be inbound. You are creating content the moment you start typing your social media ad campaign, landing page, print ad, etc.
While one of the cheapest yet most effective ways to market yourself, some brands may get a little lost during the writing process.
There are two questions every brand or writer should ask themselves, prior, during, and after they build marketing content of any kind.
1. Why will people care?
When building content, this question should be at the heart of every paragraph you write. It’s important to ensure that what you’re building is valuable to the person you intend to read it. You could write a blog post about your favourite romance novel author, but if your business sells sports memorabilia, your audience is likely not to care. We know that it’s not always as easy to spot and can take a real understanding of what your audience wants to see.
Your content should accomplish three things. It should attract, empower, and engage. Oftentimes people care about the content you’re sharing because they already care about your brand. You’ve built trust. By nurturing that trust by giving them something they feel that they’ve earned by engaging with you.
2. Why will people share?
It’s true that you can build an email newsletter for example and much of your audience will care because you took the time to highlight some FAQs or a video tutorial discussing how to properly use your product. Now the question is “Why will people share?” Perhaps they have friends who would also benefit from your tips. Maybe you offered a referral code for $20 off when you invite a friend. Whatever it is, your content should motivate people to share.
The goal should be that what you’ve created is so insightful, educational, or inspiring that they feel their loved ones would miss out if they didn’t share. This is the dream for many brands when marketing themselves.
If you’re having a difficult time getting your audience to share, remember, sometimes part of the answer to “Why will people share?” is that you’ve made it easier for them to do so. You attached a share button as a CTA, made the content attractive by creating a great headline, or you simply asked them to share if they found value in what you shared with them.
Remember though, you can make it as easy as breathing for someone to share, but if your content isn’t relevant and provides honest value to whoever is reading, listening, or watching, then no one is going to share.
Whether it’s an email newsletter, a print ad, or a 30-second TV spot, constantly ask yourself and your team those two questions. It will lead you towards creating content that people find valuable, which will deliver the marketing results you’re looking for.
Interested in learning more about the power of content marketing? Reach out for a conversation with us today or take a look at what other articles on our Content Hub.
