Creating great content takes more than a knack for finding the right words. There’s an art when you create content that resonates with the right audiences, draws traffic, and drives conversions.
Here’s a hint–this isn’t another exhaustive ‘complete guide to” post.
With over six million new pieces of content published daily, there’s no room left for gimmicks—just great content.
Great content is meaningful, unique, and delivered to the right audience at the right time. It highlights your expertise without being presumptuous effortlessly. This content is authentic in its delivery. Its marketing is well-received by its intended audience. Here are a few fundamental tips for crafting high-performing content that outpaces the competition.
Fundamental #1: Create Content Containing Valuable Insights
In the chase for search engine rankings, every brand is creating content to rank for keywords. The focus falls on finding the right keywords. Instead, it should involve finding the right value proposition.
According to Hubspot, 83% of marketers report shifting away from traditional SEO tactics in favor of creating in-depth content. Quality data sets, thoughtful experimentation, and tried-and-true success stories are staged perfectly as demands shift toward deeper-level content.
There’s just one problem. Tons of data. Everyone is obsessed with collecting, analyzing, and leveraging it to sell more products and services. The thing about data sets is that numbers alone aren’t that impressive.
In fact, you can highlight the right data to convey almost any message you want to support. Your audience can spot cherry-picking when they see it. So, how can you add real value to your insights?
Start with Your Value Proposition
Creating content that contains valuable insights begins with defining the value proposition. Avoid creating content that only answers the “what” question. That merely scratches the surface. Everyone else is doing this. And the world doesn’t really need another “everything you need to know” type of blog post.
Address the Significance
Aim to go deeper and answer the “what for.” First, figure out why something is important to your audience. Then, address the significance with supporting data to communicate a fully formed point of view.
Create Content Containing Valuable Insights
Here’s how to create content with valuable insights:
- Define your value proposition [and why it matters to your audience]
- Find a credible expert to add depth with experiential stories
- Find, collect, and analyze the data
- Pick your point of view
- Draft your bottom-line message first [provide a clear, concise conclusion to serve as the focus of your content]
- Write an engaging message: stage the problem, provide context, and make your case
With these steps, ranking for a search term like ‘how to buy insurance’ has suddenly transformed from an ordinary informational post to a compelling story. It engages readers on a journey, making a persuasive argument, inspiring action, and deepening customer relationships.
Fundamental #2: Create Content that Addresses Your Target Audience’s Pain Points
Most companies are probably already focused on addressing pain points. It’s a fundamental step in marketing. You’ll typically find it in various types of content ranging from how-to blog posts addressing the pain point of needing to know how to do something to product reviews or comparison content that aims to streamline the decision-making process.
Still, some attempts perform better than others, and there is always room for improvement. We see everyone adopting cookie-cutter review posts attempting to address pain points while positioning their product or service as the obvious choice. The real value comes from somewhere deeper.
Identify your customer pain points and use them to frame your insights. For example, if you’re marketing for a company that sells mattresses, your pain point might be “how to fall asleep faster.” Insomnia and trouble falling asleep are common. According to the CDC, about one-third of all US adults experience this pain point. So, educating these adults about choosing the right mattress can provide a solution.
Do This, Not That
The key is to resist the urge to dress your product or service up as the best solution. Instead, focus on the data–let the numbers speak for your brand and save the direct sales message for your well-placed call-to-action.
Take a hint from those seeing extraordinary success with high-level content marketing. Up to 87% of marketers prioritize their audience’s needs over their company’s sales messaging–and it’s working. In the age of authenticity, consumers want to partner with brands that solve problems. Above all, find the right pain point and provide a solution. Deliver an engaging piece of content focused on providing information. Avoid pushing a sale drives conversions and customer loyalty.
Using our earlier example, you might tell a story about how sleep problems can be associated with socioeconomic groups. It could break down into something like this:
- Share data insights about how often people buy new mattresses
- Show how that information correlates to personal sleep habits
- Conclude that hand-me-downs contribute to sleepless nights
- Encourage consumers on tighter budgets to save a little more to spend on a new mattress
That journey is far more engaging than a fluff piece that positions your product against two or three competitors and only focuses on your benefits.
Fundamental #3: Provide Insights and Expertise Only Your Brand Can Offer
The messaging that you share through your meaningful insights is your chance to shine. The driving force behind content marketing is the opportunity to position your brand as the leading expert in what you do best. The other benefits of creating content are secondary to this one truth–you are the expert in your business.
Match Your Content Strategy to Your Goals
- If your goal is to build trust and strengthen customer relationships, create content that uses your expertise to solve problems.
- If your goal is to build a strong reputation, making your company the go-to for reliable information, create content focusing on highlighting your expertise through applied insights that provide a unique perspective.
- If your goal is building relationships and growing customer loyalty, focus on engagement by addressing the right pain points with factual information, branded tone, and real case-use examples that help readers translate information into action.
Create Content That Puts it Into Practice
For example, any cybersecurity company can share data on the prevalence of cyber crimes. In doing so, they can make a strong argument for the need for their services. But a bigger marketing opportunity exists for cybersecurity firms that use content marketing to promote digital literacy. That promotion aids in bridging the gap between their team of technical experts and their client base of smart, educated, successful, but less technically-proficient business owners and managers.
In other words, the best way to sell your big-ticket items is to help your audience understand their value. Content marketing can be the perfect vehicle for providing education that highlights your expertise. It’s also ideal for helping your ideal audience understand the value of your product or service.
Fundamental #4: Outpace the Competition by Positioning Your Brand as a Valuable Resource
The power of providing unique insights highlighting your brand expertise is what elevates your content marketing strategy above competitors. While everyone worries about keyword density and creating content pillars, you can rise to the top with a different approach. First, provide meaningful insights aligned to address customer pain points. Then, position your brand as a genuine solution.
Create content that focuses on:
- Building trust with credible, well-researched information
- Strengthening your brand with loyal customers
- Educating your audience to create confident, well-informed buyers
- Fueling engagement with thought-provoking context
- Highlighting your expertise with unique insights
Final Thoughts: How Using Content Creation Services Helps Brands Achieve their Content Marketing Goals
Anyone can probably do a little desk jockeying and string together intelligent-sounding words. And for some, that content strategy is good enough. But for brands looking to embrace the full power of content marketing, the strategies require more than writing. In fact, writing comes much later in the process.
Crafting valuable content positions a brand at the top of the flow of information. It requires quality data, meaningful insights, and engaging delivery. It’s a skill set that is carefully honed over time. But it’s not out of reach. Content creation services effectively leverage the experience of skilled content creators, bridging the gap between your knowledge and compelling delivery.
Learn more about how content creation services like nDash can help you level up your content marketing strategy. Contact our sales team or tap into our diverse freelance community.
FAQ
What are the Benefits of Content Marketing?
Content marketing helps brands build customer relationships. If consumers have a problem, they search for quality information to help them find a solution. Sometimes the answer is a product or service. Content marketing can help brands establish trust as they educate their audience using their industry-specific expertise. The result is a strong brand image and loyal customers.
How do you Create Content for a Target Audience?
Content marketing is often successful when you tailor it to a specific audience. Brands can use this to their advantage by:
- Creating detailed personas
- Identifying their pain points
- Making connections between those needs and their expertise
- Fleshing it all out with high-quality data structured to add heavy-hitting impact to an engaging story
What are the Elements of Content Creation?
Writing great content involves more than drafting words. Content creation is rooted in marketing. First, it begins with a detailed map of the customer journey. Then, identification of customer personas.
By understanding the intended audience, brands can think about what they want to accomplish with specific content. Define content goals tied to specific operational strategies. That ensures content marketing inputs translate into satisfactory outputs.
With all the planning underway, these steps can help you create specific pieces of content:
- Identify the audience persona
- Choose a pain point to address
- Find an angle (Based on your expertise)
- Conduct thorough research (Collect data and interview experts)
- Define the takeaway message
- Craft a story and build it up with supporting data, examples, and expert Accounts
This post is by nDash community member Marissa Snider. She’s a freelance writer with a decade of instructional design and corporate learning experience.