All content is not created equal
Matt Coyne - EWD
Copywriter, Roundtable & Workshop Host, Interviewer - we help people tell their story
When writing for myself or Waves Connects I sometimes forget the basic needs of an audience when creating content. Sometimes it doesn't matter - I just write what I'm thinking about at that time. Other times, when I'm trying to create more regular meaningful content, I need to remind myself to follow the basic audience needs of content.
I find it easy to do for clients as you follow your guidelines to ensure you're delivering a good cross-section of content, but again, I need to remind myself with my own work, that the content needs to be targeted and balanced.
How To Balance Content Needs For Your Audience
To create effective content, I've found it really helpful to follow these steps to ensure I'm writing a balance of copy. Here's the five types of content I try to create:
Best Practices Content
The best practice content gives readers insight into how to get better results from their activities.
This type of content should be succinct yet detailed enough for the reader to learn something new and gain valuable knowledge. Examples may include tips on how to increase traffic, increase conversions, or use specific tools more effectively. It could also include advice on improving customer service or maintaining relationships with partners and suppliers for example, depending on who I'm targeting with my words.
Enjoyment Content
I like this probably more than most. For 20 years I've enjoyed writing articles for fun - and hope people enjoy reading them.
Enjoyment content helps your audience relax and have fun while reading it.
This type of content should be entertaining, creative, and interesting enough to keep readers engaged but not overwhelmed or confused by too much detail. Examples may include humorous anecdotes, funny stories, or even light-hearted debates about topics related to your business or industry, or sometimes, just something fun (did you read my event predictions for 2023 yet?).
Information Content
Information content provides readers with the facts they need to make informed decisions about their activities and investments in products or services related to your business.
This type of information should be easy for readers to understand without having too much technical jargon or complicated terms used throughout the text. Examples may include product reviews, case studies, research reports, market analyses, industry trends and forecasts, etc. Speaking of case studies, I must get my latest one live with Explori this week!!
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Answers Content
Answers content is designed to provide quick answers to questions that readers might have about products or services related to your business (i.e., FAQs) or it could be answers to their questions about how to approach their needs and vet potential solutions.
This type of content should be concise yet comprehensive enough so that it can answer any questions that readers might have quickly and accurately without leaving them confused or needing additional information elsewhere in order for them to understand what was said in the answer provided. For example, you could provide an "RFP template" that is obviously slightly weighted to your solutions...
Help Content
Help content is designed specifically for people who are looking for assistance with activities related to your business (i.e., customer service) and to get more value from what they have with you.
This type of help should be presented in a way that is easy for readers to follow along with step-by-step instructions as well as able to clearly identify any errors they might encounter while trying out the instructions given in the help article(s).
Examples may include troubleshooting guides, tutorial videos/articles on how-to’s specific tasks related your business' offerings etc.
How do you use this type of content?
Once you've identified each type of need and when you're then creating that piece of content, ask yourself “does my post address this need?”
If not then take a few moments tweak / rework respective sections till you feel confident there's a balance between each area before finalizing & publishing your work!
You don't always have to follow these guidelines. Sometimes you just need to hit publish and not think too much about it, but, if you're building out a content plan or strategy, I've found this to be incredibly helpful.
What about you, do you check in on your content before you hit publish?