21 Experts Share Their Best Tips to Create Content Your Audience Will Love. 1 tip to create content their audience will love. Why should people read your article vs. someone else’s? The more personal you get with them, the more likely they are to share the article. Reach out to them and let them know you’re writing a specific article they may be interested in. Talia Wolf, GetUpLift Make it all about the audience The biggest mistake I see is creating content that is focused on you, and not the audience. This can be done in the comment section on your blog (or a blog with the same target audience), by emailing them, or through social media. Once the article goes live, I can then reach out to the sites mentioned within the article, and ask them to promote it on their end. A perfect example of this would be if you were to create an “industry stats” post on whatever market you might be. What is your best tip for creating content your audience will love?
The blank screen is torture.
The only thing worse is a filled screen and a mere trickle of metrics.
Content that doesn’t connect is as worthless as a blank screen.
In fact, it’s more than worthless: It’s costly. The struggle is universal.
Content-creation challenges were experienced by almost half of B2B marketers and 37% of B2C marketers, according to the Content Marketing Institute’s 2017 research.
How do you create content that connects with your audience?
That’s the billion-dollar question. I reached out to 21 content marketers and asked for their No. 1 tip to create content their audience will love.
Let’s not waste another minute; let’s dive into the results!
Be strategic
Know thy goals. Content marketers often have stars in their eyes when it comes to traffic, social shares, and their email list. Nonsense. Bigger isn’t better on any of those fronts.
What you have to know is how to make money. Rather than ask, “How do I make content my audience will love?” ask, “How do I make content with the lowest amount of traffic, shares, and email addresses that will still get me to my goals (whether that’s leads or revenue)?”
Aaron Orendorff, iconiContent
You need to understand who the big players are in the community on social media and you need to understand what gets interaction and engagement and what doesn’t.
Rand Fishkin, Moz
Before sitting down to write any piece of content, it’s vital that you have a plan. The plan doesn’t just consist of the topic you’re going to cover, but much more:
- The content: Map the content people actually want and need. Why should people read your article vs. someone else’s? What will you be saying that is new and different?
- The influencers: Next, map out influencers who would be interested in this article. You can collect quotes from them, mention them, or simply add them to a list of people you’re going to tweet to or reach out to via email when the article is ready. The more personal you get with them, the more likely they are to share the article.
- The media: Map out websites and publishers that would be interested in your article. Many publishers feature articles they find interesting or syndicate content. Reach out to them and let them know you’re writing a specific article they may be interested in. Reaching out beforehand will give you an indication if they’d like to see certain information in that article for them to share it or syndicate it.
- The promotion: Writing the content is only 20% of the job. The other 80% is promotion. Don’t just rely on sharing it a couple of times on Twitter and LinkedIn. Have a list of all the sites, communities, and platforms you’re going to promote on.
Talia Wolf, GetUpLiftMake it all about the audience
The biggest mistake I see is creating content that is focused on you, and not the audience. I hate to break it to you, but your readers don’t care about you! They care about solving their problems. The more you help your readers with what they care about, the more they’ll come back, read your posts, and become loyal readers.
Sue Anne Dunlevie, Successful BloggingIt all starts with your ability to research your audience. What is their biggest struggle that keeps them up at night? And more importantly, how can your content help them?
The key is to engage with your readers and actually have a conversation with them. This can be done in the comment section on your blog (or a blog with the same target audience), by emailing them, or through social media.
Tor Refsland, TorRefsland.comYou can validate your content ideas in a Facebook Group, a Quora question, or even just by emailing people who are interested in what your new blog is about.
One of my favorite approaches to validate my content ideas is with an onsite survey carried out with Qualaroo. I put a quick, one-question survey on a Facebook group that says something like, “I’m working on a new blog post. Which of these topics are you most interested in learning more about?” Visitor responses help me separate the great from the good.
Sujan Patel, Web ProfitsOne of the best ways to create content your audience wants is to ask them. Here are a few questions you could ask your buyers:
- How would you describe yourself? (e.g., I am a 30-year-old male VP of marketing at GEICO that loves cars and poker.)
- What other (your niche) sites do you frequent? Please tell me the names.
- What interested you in joining my list?
Now you have qualitative data to give your audience more of what they want from you.
Jason Quey, The Storyteller MarketerIf you already have a following and/or email subscribers – put together a survey in Typeform (the free version will do).
Adam Connell, Blogging WizardRead the comments on popular blogs in your niche. Listen to what people are saying on Twitter. Attend the Q&A calls and webinars other authorities are holding, and write down the questions people ask.
And then look for patterns. Almost always, you’ll find one or two…
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