How to Create Content Your Customers Crave

Mark Sullivan, Director of Demand Generation for CallRail shares step-by-step guidelines on  how to create valuable content that drives long-term results

Cookie cutter, boring content doesn’t cut it anymore. Now more than ever it’s important to create content that stands out. How? By giving your reader information they truly value. That means putting time, effort and research into your content.

Your content shouldn't just attract readers — it should turn them into loyal brand ambassadors. You'll want to create content that's so brilliant, readers will keep coming back to you for more.

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That long-term engagement is the true goal of content creation, but something that many marketers struggle to achieve. Here's the gist of how to create valuable, lasting content.

Step 1: Identify goals

The first step to creating valuable content? Have a point. What do you hope to achieve by publishing this content? Some goals include:

• Inform
• Introduce new or novel information
• Introduce a product or service
• Promote your brand
• Entice a call to action
• Respond to recent industry news
• Offer opinions

Whether you hope to achieve one or all these goals with your content, be as specific as possible. For example, if you hope to “solve a problem,” determine what that problem is and how you’ll solve it. Again, be as specific as possible to boost your content’s value.

Step 2: Identify your audience

Knowing your audience is equally important as knowing your goals. If you don’t know your audience, how can you successfully create content they’ll value? Identify exactly who your audience is before attempting content creation. Be specific and identify their:

• Interests
• Demographics
• Socioeconomic status
• Problems/challenges they commonly face

Knowing your audience is imperative to creating content that sticks. If you’re not answering the questions your specific audience is asking, you won’t reach them and you’ll possibly attract an irrelevant audience that won’t help your business.

Step 3: Create a topic

Once you’ve identified your goals and your audience, define your topic. Ask yourself the following to measure your topic’s value:

• Is the topic relevant to the customer’s needs or interests?
• Is it fresh?
• Does it teach the customer something new?
• Is it engaging?
• Does it solve a problem?
• Is it thought provoking?
• Does it help build your brand identity?
• Does it encourage action?

The more specialized your content, the better it will perform. That’s the cold, hard truth — niche content will continue to trend in 2017 and become evermore important.

Step 4: Start building your content

Depending on your goals, there are myriad ways you can begin creating your content.

If you want to promote your brand:

Engage in influencer marketing. Collaborating with other brands and influencers in your industry doesn't just strengthen your reputation. It helps keep your marketing fresh, too.

If you want to solve a specific problem:

The internet has an answer for virtually every question or problem, making it a competitive space for businesses that want to be the best of the best. Give specific answers to common questions to position yourself as a go-to resource. One way to find out what your audience is searching for is to check out forum websites.

Some of the other tools show you questions and content ideas related to your keyword. They also let you select the country you want to target, making it easier to create valuable content.

For example, when I type in the word “dishwasher” and choose U.S. as the country, I’m greeted with tons questions - 150, to be exact! All questions that real people ask about dishwashers. There are some obvious ones (Which dishwasher is best?) and some golden nuggets (Why dishwasher isn’t draining water, Are dishwasher pods better than liquid). These all make great ideas for content pieces designed to solve specific problems.

Some other resources for creating content include:

• Reviews: Reviews showcase what customers like or don’t like about certain products and services. Check out reviews to find common problems, then address these pain points in your content.
• Employees: Specifically those who deal with customers on a regular basis, like your sales team and customer service representatives. They can tell you the kinds of calls and inquiries they receive on a regular basis. Recording customer calls also can give you some great ideas for content.
• Customers: There’s arguably no better resource for ideas than your customers! Ask them directly or on social media what they’ve always wanted to know more about, then address it in your content.

What kind of content should you create?

“Content” is a loose term that can mean many things, including infographics, blog posts, contests, and video. Visuals and video will continue to be a trend throughout 2017 (most likely at a much higher rate) — if you're stuck on ideas, gravitate towards these.

Make sure your content looks and performs well on mobile. As you know, mobile accounts for the majority of online traffic. Make sure that your content is mobile optimized for boosted performance. This is going to continue to gain importance in 2017, especially due to Google’s recent announcement about mobile-first indexing. The importance of mobile cannot be stressed enough.

To keep your content fresh, you'll want to avoid some content types:

Gated content: When properly executed, gated content can work well to capture leads. However, in the day and age where almost anything can be found for free online, it may not make sense. Use caution when approaching gated content — revisit Steps 1 and 2 to make sure such content will fit with your audience and they will find enough value in it to give their info. The value exchange has to be worth it to the visitor.

Interruptive marketing: Does anyone actually enjoy pop-ups? (Did they ever?) Disrupting the user experience isn't just a no-no, but it can also get you penalized by Google on mobile devices starting in early 2017. There are still reasons and types of interstitials that are acceptable, but make sure you follow the guidelines so your site isn’t impacted by this signal.

Summary

Ultimately, your content should be valuable enough that it:

• Positions you as an expert in your industry
• Builds your audience's trust
• Keeps consumers coming back for more information

Keep your audience and goals front of mind, as well as the upcoming content trends for 2017, and you'll create content that's worthwhile, shareable and relevant.