Before you write one word of copy for your online content marketing, you must first:
- Know your objectives
- Know your target audience
- Know your product or service
Objectives?
I know this seems so common sense it's not worth spending time on, but the time you take to write down a few notes on each of these things will be well worth it.
For example, writing on the web can have several objectives, besides making a sale. What is it you'd like readers to do? Contact you for more information? Sign up for a digital report? Leave a comment, watch a video, fill out a survey?
It's okay if you're a teacher and enjoy educating people without any sales objective in mind. However, if you're not at least asking readers to think, ask, remember, or act, then you're not really teaching, are you?
Teaching requires some sort of call to action to lock in the learning. Don't let readers leave saying, "That's nice, so what, bye-bye…"
Start your blog post with a question. End it with a question. Ask people to take action, even if it's just to think about something and get back to you. If you're not engaging with readers, don't expect them to volunteer anything. And don't expect them to buy when you ask.
Audience?
Who are you trying to write to and reach? The more you know about your audience of readers, the easier it will be to "speak their language." You can't really connect if you don't know to whom, can you?
If your audience is primarily male lawyers over the age of 50, a young woman attorney will read what you have to say anyway because she'll be able to connect the dots. So don't worry about being too specific.
The other thing to remember is to appeal to universal human needs and desires. For example, we all want to save time, energy and money.
Your Stuff?
Of course you know your products and services well, especially if it's your own business and you've been working in it for a while. But how well do you know what the benefits are to your end users? How well do you know your customers' challenges and problems?
There are multiple ways your products and services are used by a variety of customers, and many of them you don't know about, unless you ask.
Example: When I first started my customized newsletter services for executive coaches, I didn't know that the content I created was also suitable for use in company newsletters. But I noticed some of my best clients were corporate accounts, not independent consultants.
Explore these 3 concepts with a trusted business advisor, coach or mentor. Or get some consulting if you're struggling to know and understand how these essential key concepts will contribute to writing content to build your business.
They are the foundational pieces to writing content that attracts clients, and builds trust.
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