5 Steps to Writing Great Content
If you’re a Mad Men fan, you might remember the scene where smooth-talking advertising exec, Don Draper, pitches to Kodak for their slide projector campaign. Kodak is adamant that the ad campaign is centered around the concept of a wheel.
In his compelling speech, Draper pitches the idea of not just a wheel, but a carousel of memories, which allows us to “travel…back home again to a place where we know we are loved.” In this iconic scene, we see the power of engaging customers through emotion.
We are a long way from the 1950s, but these simple tenets are still relevant today. Good content can help establish a relationship with your customers, promote trust, and create brand affinity.
Here are 5 tips to help you get started to write great content:
1. Develop your Content Strategy
If your content strategy isn’t solid and your audience isn’t well defined, even Pulitzer Prize-winning writing isn’t going to help you achieve your goals. The first step to writing great content is integrating it into the overall content strategy for your business.
Begin by identifying your core values, purpose, and goals. This is an opportunity to reflect on your brand’s story and create a compelling narrative around your company and what it stands for. Authenticity and purpose matter to today’s consumers.
The next step is to analyze your audience in more detail. Who is it that you are trying to reach? And what goal are you helping them to achieve? What are their pain points? What platforms do they use to get information? The more specific, the better.
Then segment your target audience into groups, and target different segments on different platforms. Your content strategy gives you an opportunity to convey your brand values to potential customers and offer them something of value.
2. Set tone of voice
The characteristics of the tone of voice should reflect the values of your brand. This is an opportunity for you to convey your brand’s personality to your customer. The tone of voice should reflect your customer base.
3. Analyze your competitors
Take a look at both your direct and indirect competitors’ content. What do you think their strategy is? What’s their tone of voice? Which of their posts gain the most traction?
By analyzing this, you’ll have a better overview of the marketplace and where your content fits in. You’ll also gain a better understanding of any gaps in existing content and your competitor’s relative strengths and weaknesses.
4. Be specific about selecting a topic
Choose topics based on your audience’s needs, interests, and pain points. Try starting with 4-6 categories for themes of content. Starting with themes makes it easier to narrow down on specific topics.
Research existing articles on each topic and try to find a new angle. What problem or question is your article solving? Do your research.
There are different schools of thought on the optimum word count. “For SEO, the ideal blog post length should be 2,100-2,400 words,” according to HubSpot data. “But before you go writing your 2,300 word blog post, keep in mind that not all blog posts need to be super long — in fact, 16 of their top 50 read posts (or about one-third) were under 1,500 words, so there's still plenty of opportunity to get your posts ranking even with a lower word count.”
5. Add a catchy headline
Once you’ve set your topic and done your research, it’s time to write your attention-grabbing pithy headline, the sort of phrase that will stop your reader in their tracks and compel them to click on it. Of course, that’s easier said than done.
Good luck!
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