3 Content Marketing Tips from a Content Writer
TLDR
Your content should act as the perfect pair of wedge heels: practical, makes for an easy walk, and still super snazzy.
Are you content with your content marketing efforts? Bad dad joke. Sorry.?
But really. When was the last time you took a good, long look at the content you’re putting out there for your audience? Is it 100% written with your audience in mind??
Are you getting sick of our interrogation??
Okay, fair. We’ll give you a break, and give YOU some answers with our own content marketing—this blog!
“What’s the deal with content marketing?” - Jerry Seinfeld (not really)
First, let’s recap what content marketing actually is. If you already know, skip right to the tips!
Think of content marketing as marketing with a little more substance. More oomph. It goes beyond talking about your fabulous products and services—it digs into your expertise about things relevant to your audience. By sharing your expertise, you build your brand as an authority in your industry. In turn, that helps build trust and rapport with your customers.
Content marketing can be in the form of blogs (woot woot!), brand podcasts, informational videos, infographics, and more. It gives your audience a takeaway—they learn something from it that hopefully makes their life easier.
So, if you own a garden shop, you might decide to go beyond just promoting your deals on tomato plant starters. You start content marketing efforts that give customers tips on growing different tomato varieties, how to nurture tomato plants so they’ll thrive, and methods for deterring the mercilessly destructive tomato hornworm. (I’m dealing with that last one this year in my garden. Pass any pointers my way!)
Quality matters.
A key point of content marketing is to establish your brand’s credibility—as the authority on coffee, cars, or crime scene cleanup—whatever your thing is.?
Content marketing is nothing if it doesn’t exude quality and relevance. Here are some tips for delivering valuable content marketing to your audience.
Tip 1: Let Your Audience Guide Your Content
When forming or fine-tuning your content marketing strategy, start with your audience. They’re the ones you’re trying to reach. Look to them to guide the what and where of your content.
What the content is…
What does your audience care about? If you’re not quite sure, just ask them! Reach out in person in your day-to-day interactions with customers, on social media, and so on. They’ll appreciate that you care about their wants and needs—and their answers will help you form a content strategy that considers what real customers are asking for.
Some of the best content marketing helps customers navigate a common pain point. It may also provide helpful or interesting information that enriches customers’ knowledge or sparks new ideas.?
Back to the garden shop example. Your content marketing could include tips for new gardeners, ideas for taking your veggie garden to the next level, and showcasing local customers’ gardens. You based your content strategy on common questions and passions your customers express to your employees. Kudos!
Bottom line: Any content you create should keep your audience in mind.
Content marketing is nothing if it doesn’t exude quality and relevance.
…and where the content is.
Your audience should also help you determine where your content marketing should be. Oftentimes, you might go with a mix of different things.
If customers tend to find and engage with you online, perhaps you go with a blog.?
Maybe it makes sense to have printed one-pagers with tips about certain products. Example: The most popular veggie at your garden shop is tomatoes, and you hear a lot of the same questions about tomatoes from your customers. So, you create a Tasty Tomato Tips guide for customers to grab at check-out.
Your shop decides to also give customers the option to sign up for your gardening email newsletter, where you regularly share season-relevant gardening advice. Maybe you even link your blog there too.?
Experiment, see what works, and again—ask your audience where your content is most helpful for them.
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Tip 2: Provide Valuable Insights
Great content instills trust and builds rapport with your audience. Your customers are smart. They can tell if your content is slapped together without thought or authority on the subject at hand. They crave substance and authenticity.
When you develop your content, take the time to do your research and due diligence. Keep asking yourself what information is valuable to your audience, and how best to deliver that value. Then, ask your audience what they want. It always should come back to them!
Make everything easy peasy.
Your content should act as the perfect pair of wedge heels (or Oxfords, for the fellas). Practical, makes for an easy walk, and still super snazzy.?
Users shouldn’t have to trudge through and trip over complicated content. You’ll lose them if they do a faceplant. Keep it simple and sexy. Speak their language. They’ll stride through your writing and gain confidence when they step across your bridge of helpful content.
Great content instills trust and builds rapport with your audience.
Tip 3: Take Chances! Make (Calculated) Mistakes!
I try my best to live by Ms. Frizzle’s motto: “Take chances! Make mistakes!” (Magic School Bus, anyone?)
This also applies to content marketing. And marketing in general, really.
It’s important to experiment with different content to see what works and what doesn’t. You’ll never know if something will jive unless you try it. Things might not always work out how you imagined, but you learn new things about your audience with each new marketing effort you try. Don’t be afraid to take calculated marketing risks, and adjust accordingly!
…and keep your brand voice distinct but fluid.
We’ve talked about brand voice many times, and how it’s important to consistently use it. Your brand voice is your brand’s personality, and how it presents itself to the outside world.?
Our favorite way to frame it is to think of your brand as a person.
So, let’s use you, the reader, as an example. You are, more or less, the same “you” at the core—you have a unique personality, interests, and knowledge. But, you likely adapt a little depending on the situation. You probably don’t talk exactly the same way with a stranger, an authority figure, a child, and your best buddy. Most of us calibrate our language and presentation to who we’re with.
In a similar way, businesses should adapt to their different audience segments. Consider who you’re working to reach, and what they tend to respond to.?
Another note on mistakes
While we’re talking/making mistakes, I have some word-nerd thoughts.
Stellar content often breaks rules—but it’s gotta be intentional and in the name of style and voice. I can hear grammar police sirens coming at me for my use of sentence fragments in this blog. Or starting sentences with words like “or.” ;) I added them for flavor as part of the sōsh voice. This blog is meant to be fun and chill for you, dear reader.?
The point: Your brand’s voice should be distinct. It can absolutely include calculated rule-breaking if it makes sense for your brand and audience. Just be consistent and purposeful with it!
On the flip side, make sure you have a seasoned writer or proofreader to catch basic errors that detract from your brand’s credibility. Misspellings, misuses, throwing around apostrophes where they don’t belong—that typically just looks sloppy.?
Bonus Tip: Always Include a Human in Your Content Development
I wouldn’t have needed to add this tip a few years ago, but here we are.?
It can be tempting to just give an A.I. bot a prompt and use whatever it spits out. Resist.?
Use A.I. as a starting point if you want. Always, always have an actual person review and fine-tune everything if you do use A.I. for any written content. You don’t know if A.I.-generated content will have plagiarism or even be totally factual.?
Long-form A.I. content (at least as of 2024) can be repetitive, clunky, and just…off. It often sorta sounds like an alien gave their best try to write content for you. I did a lot of experiments with ChatGPT to see what my writing competition is like. So far, it leaves a lot to be desired. Don’t trust it to write an article for your brand—your audience will see right through it.
I’d only recommend A.I. for short-form content like social media posts—NOT content marketing, which should rely on your expert knowledge. You know your industry and your customers best. For more thoughts on using A.I. for your content, check out this other blog I wrote!
Want help with your content marketing?
Content marketing can take some serious time and planning. Good thing you don’t need to go it alone! Talk to us if you want to kick around some ideas for your content marketing strategy—we can even take the load off of you and create content for your brand. Set up a consultation with us. We can’t wait to talk content!
About Us
Founded in 1999, sōsh is a Milwaukee-based creative marketing and advertising agency specializing in data-driven strategies for small to large brands. Sōsh focuses on a wide range of disciplines such as creative services, social media, digital marketing, web design, advertising, and our trademark events. Sōsh creates meaningful connections between brands and their audience and does so through strategic communication, captivating creative, and thoughtful engagement. We are a collection of strategists - creatives dedicated to adding value to both our client’s brands and their consumers’ lives.
Absolutely! Audience-centric content is key to building trust and credibility.