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How to Create Article Introductions That Do Their One and Only Job

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One winter night during my high school junior year, a good friend introduced me to the most hilarious person I’d ever met. He was her new boyfriend, and we were all heading out to a formal school dance.

I tried to mask how excited I was to meet this guy. My friend hadn’t dated before, and I was thrilled for her.

More than that, something about him just got my attention and held it, and having him within our group fit so well.

Of course, now I know why. After my friend went off to college and her relationship with John ended, she encouraged us to date. We did, and have now been married for more than 13 years.

A first meeting has the ability to captivate your attention and be forever ingrained in your memory.

This is not unlike an introduction to an article. If done well, each line draws you further in, and before you know it, you’re halfway through the content.

A good introduction has one job: Get readers to continue reading your article. If you keep reading this one (or click the sections below to find exactly what you need), I’ll give you tips on how to make your introductions do just that.

Tl;DR
Get readers to stick with an article through introductions that deliver on the headline and establish the rest of the piece. How you do that will vary depending on the type of content (e.g. journalism vs. an opinion piece).

Make introductions work with attention-getting openers (stats, stories, etc.) that connect well to the content’s point. Remember that introductions might impact certain metrics.

  1. What Introductions Do
  2. How to Make Introductions Work
  3. How Introductions Can Impact Your Webpage Performance

What Introductions Do

Introductions must do two things to turn clicks into engagement:

1. Deliver on the Headline

It’s great if your headlines get lots of clicks, but if nothing of substance happens after that, the time you spend crafting great titles could be for naught.

Think about those ads you see at the bottom of articles at popular publications that entice you to click. While so much thought has gone into that headline, almost always, you land on a lackluster piece of content.

My recent post about writing successful headlines emphasized the importance of not only “clickability” but also titles delivering on what they promise.

You start delivering on that headline immediately in the introduction of your content. It’s where you set the stage by telling an intriguing story, explaining what you’ll cover, why readers will benefit and so on.

Essentially, you have to transport readers from their real world into the world of your content.

While there’s no one formula or template for an introduction, it must pull readers in …

2. Establish the Intent of Rest of the Article

Imagine you’re going to begin a conversation with a stranger or someone you barely know. You want to come off as friendly and interesting, but not too strong or with loads of personal information.

Think of your content’s introductions like that. Adopt a level of personability and the promise of more to come, but don’t start throwing overly detailed information at readers right away. They might feel overwhelmed before even getting started. In short: Be concise.

Introductions differ depending on the type of content they introduce.

  • In journalism, an introduction must address who, where, what, why, when and how (5Ws and the H) quickly in order to move to the meat of the piece.
  • Story-driven pieces might begin with entertaining snapshots of a specific event or a highly relatable situation most readers can understand.

Without stating it directly, each intro type lets readers know whether they’re about to read an update of facts and projections or a commentary on culture and deeper meaning.

Even though the introduction comes first, don’t feel as though you have to write it first. In fact, my introductions usually happen when the rest of the content is fully outlined and mostly written.

By that time the meat of the content is established, as are the voice and tone of it, and it’s easier to create an introduction that properly introduces the rest.

How to Make Introductions Work

An introduction that works frames something worth remembering and learning more about. So how do that in just a few sentences?

First get readers’ attention. Depending on the usual voice and tone of your brand, you might begin with a surprising statistic, an unexpected joke, a story or a conversational reference to something your readers experience.

For example, take the introduction of this blog post. In opening with a story, I hoped to draw you in and keep you on the page. Do that right, and you’ll hang on to readers through the rest of the piece.

Second, connect the opening to the point of the content, and say what the piece will do in the context of any stated problem. How is this specific piece going to address the downside of the statistic, or make something easier that most readers experience from time to time? ‘

Again looking at my intro to this blog, you’ll see a simple example. I connected my story to the idea of introductions and said the blog would explore how to develop good ones.

Obviously, the attention-getting opener and the presented solution need to be well connected, and that might be easier in some cases than others.

As long as your first sentence (whether a stat, a joke or an empathetic statement) does relate to the larger piece, feel free to take another sentence to clearly connect it to the rest of the introduction (as I did in this intro).

However, if the opening sentence stands on its own, don’t add sentences for the sake of a longer intro. Brevity is ideal when it comes to introductions, especially in journalistic and serious business pieces – your readers understand their problem; they want to read your answers.

If your content is part of a series of pieces, state that clearly and link back to the previous segments. If you’re repurposing content from another branded piece, consider referring to the other piece and linking to it, if possible.

Most importantly, don’t let your unformed introductions intimidate you. One of the perks of writing is the chance to carefully craft your message and develop it in any order you want.

As long as the meat of the content does what the title promises, the introduction simply needs to reinforce that fact (with a little flourish).

How Introductions Can Impact Your Webpage Performance

Introductions are important. Not only do they deliver on the headline and establish the rest of the piece, but they can help readers navigate the content and even impact its overall performance.

For example, if you have a very long how-to guide, or lots of points to cover, you may consider adding a table of contents at the top, with each bullet point linking to the section within the content, like I did in this piece.

Or, you might have a paragraph summary that gives the reader the gist of the topic (like our TL;DR in the intro). This can help them decide if they want to keep reading or bookmark it for later.

Of course, there are other factors to weigh, such as the perception of mobile users: Small screens make paragraphs seem even longer, so consider making your introductions one to two sentence paragraphs. Details like this can impact whether or not a person stays on the page or decides to come back later.

Following are two Google Analytics metrics that perform better when your introductions hold attention and encourage other engagement with your site.

Bounce Rate

The bounce rate gives a sense of how much interaction visitors have with your site. A bounce is a single-page session, meaning a visitor only looks at one page of your site – the home page, a blog or the contact page, for example. The bounce rate is the percentage of all site visits that only touch one page.

Now, even if someone finds your blog and reads a whole post, it still might count as a bounce if they leave the site after reading the post. However, if your posts tend to contain several helpful links to other pages on your site, visitors who actually read the content shouldn’t bounce as often.

Great introductions are the frontline against a high bounce rate on your blog. Draw readers in from the beginning to assure them that following your suggested links is worth their time.

Time on Page

The Time on Page metric measures how long visitors stay on a page of your site. So if you have an idea how long it takes to read through a typical blog (maybe five minutes), you can get a sense of whether or not the content is being read.

Be aware that Time on Page isn’t always accurate . If the visit is a bounce, no time is recorded. On the other hand, Time on Page continues to be recorded as long as the tab is open – even if the visitor isn’t looking at it right then (if they’re looking at another browser tab, for example).

Still, if the time spent on your pages is significantly lower than ideal, take a look at your intros to see if they’re as engaging as they could be.

If you want a more accurate sense of what visitors do on your pages, consider implementing event tracking or one of the metrics Quietly suggests in its article (link in previous paragraph).

Keep in mind that no one metric provides the overall picture of your content’s success, especially when it doesn’t measure exactly as you’d expect. Look at the bounce rate, time on page and average session duration together (along with other metrics) to determine if your content really offers what your audience wants.

For more on all aspects of content strategizing and creating, sign up for our email list and get instant access to your content strategy blueprint.

Have you come across a great introduction, or have a trick to writing stellar ones? Tell me about it in the comments!

How to Create Headlines That Make Your Readers Want More

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One thing I love about content marketing is that it’s a quality over quantity effort. This focus on the quality of our content includes everything from the big picture of a website down to, say, the headline of one little blog post.

Earlier this year we shared data on how to easily create clickable titles. I’m going to build on that today with a refresher on creating quality titles that are both captivating and honest.

Clickable, Not Clickbait

Let’s quickly revisit the main takeaways of Carrie’s post on writing clickable titles (link in the intro):

  • Headlines often have opening and closing phrases, such as “X Reasons Why …” and “… In the World.” Look at the data on which phrases get the most social media engagement to create catchy title templates like “X Reasons Why You Need to Do Y Right Now” and “A is the Best B in the World.”
  • Articles with numbered lists (listicles) should be titled accordingly. Multiples of five are well received, though once the list is longer than 20 items engagement declines significantly.
  • Titles with between 60 and 100 characters (about 17 words) get the most engagement.
  • Happy stories and headlines that give a sense of surprise, anticipation, joy and trust fare better on social media than do fear-inducing stories and headlines that give a sense of anger, fear, disgust or sadness.

Clickable titles do not equal clickbait. As Carrie said, if you provide what the title promises, you’re not baiting anyone. And good content always does what it says it’s going to.

The truth is, the most formulaic headlines containing the trendiest buzzwords can certainly be delivered on within the body of the content. And they get the clicks that lead to that great content. But maybe you don’t want to sound formulaic or trendy because it doesn’t suit your brand’s voice or tone or speak to your target market. If this is the case, your headlines are going to take a little more work.

Next, I’ll expand on the ideas of clickable headlines and think about how to make those titles even more captivating.

Up Your Headline Game

A good, honest headline comes down to one thing: Clearly telling specific readers how they’ll benefit from the content. Bonus points if you can make it concise and compelling.

Really though, those are bonus points you can’t afford to pass up. Millions of blog posts are written every day, and tens of thousands of links are shared on Facebook alone every 60 seconds. The competition is fierce.

To help you up your headline game, we like these tips from Sprout Social and Authority Labs:

  • Be open to some hype and hyperbole. Sprout Social gives the example of a title promising “The Greatest Marketing Growth Hack of All Time (Hint: Cupcakes).” Assuming the tips are stellar, it’s alright to use such strong language and add the allure of cupcakes.
  • Incorporate “power” words. In addition to the must-read vibe a “How To …” or “Why You Need…” can add, throw in some extremes like always, never, tragic or fortune. Exclusive, secret or new are compelling but should only be used if they’re undoubtedly true.
  • Make a personal connection. Speak to readers directly with a second person “you” or make a firm statement of experience with the first-person “I.”
  • Use controversial topics or causes to fuel a headline. Of course, the point isn’t to pick a fight or name-call, but if your audience likes to rally this can be a way to grab attention.
  • Keep keywords second to clarity (stuffing them into headline is both awkward and bad for SEO). When you do include them, do so near the beginning of a title to support SEO.
  • Consider how tweetable your headlines are. I mentioned earlier that 17 words can make a great headline. Just be mindful that Twitter has a 280 character limit for tweets, and you want to leave room for @ mentions, hashtags, etc.

We’ll add a few of our own to that list:

  • Hold off on the title until you’ve written the meat of the content. Some articles shift during writing, and the main points change. Also, the headline is sure to reflect what’s in the content, and you don’t spend time clinging to a title that isn’t the best direction for the topic.
  • Search your keywords on Answer the Public. You might find a question of phrase that makes the perfect headline on its own.
  • Create more than one headline and have your colleagues weigh in on them (or use a headline analyzing tool) during the editing process. If possible, test more than one headline with A/B testing on your site and in your email campaigns.

When to Write Your Headlines

In the spirit of walking the talk of the above list, I’ll tell you that I didn’t even consider creating the title for this blog until reaching this point of the content body. And the one I wrote then isn’t the one you see up top – a proof point of the importance of having colleagues weigh in when you can.

Most likely, your first title idea won’t be the best one. Make sure those editing your content include the headline in the editing process and let you know if it’s vague, boring, too long, too short … Then look at the content you wrote and distill what is says to your audience into an informative and appealing phrase.

As an example, I’m remembering the story of Julia Child and the editor of her famous first cookbook:

Child and her editor long debated the title of her French cookbook for the American market. Potential titles included “French Cooking for the American Kitchen” and “Method in Cuisine Madness.” While that first one is clear enough, it isn’t nearly as compelling as “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” The two women finally agreed on a title that truly described the now timeless collection of recipes.

For more on keeping quality at the center of every aspect of your content marketing, sign up for our email list and get instant access to your content marketing blueprint.

Do you love or hate creating headlines? What are your best tactics? Tell me about it in the comments!

Writing Advice from Six Famous Horror Authors

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Halloween is just around the corner, and we’re celebrating by sharing writing advice from some of the spookiest authors of all time. So settle in, light a candle or two and listen to these haunting (and brilliant!) voices of the past and present.

1. Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson loved writing about the supernatural, and is perhaps best known for her novel, “The Haunting of Hill House,” which is often considered the best of ghost and haunted house stories.

In her essay, “How I Write,” Jackson highlights one of her favorite things about being a writer:

One of the nicest things about being a writer is that nothing ever gets wasted. It’s a little like the frugal housewife who carefully tucks away all the odds and ends of string beans and cold bacon and serves them up magnificently in a fancy casserole dish. A writer who is serious and economical can store away small fragments of ideas and events and conversations, and even facial expressions and mannerisms, and use them all someday.

Perhaps you keep a list of ideas in your files. Or maybe you make a habit of repurposing your content in ways that turn pieces of information into entire blog posts. This is what Jackson is talking about.

2. H.P. Lovecraft

H.P. Lovecraft wrote macabre and fantastic stories that appeared in magazines with names like “Weird Tales.” One thing that continues to be well-known from his writing is the human-octopus creature called Cthulhu.

In his guide, “Literary Composition,” Lovecraft demands something of true writers:

No aspiring author should content himself with a mere acquisition of technical rules. As Mrs. Renshaw remarked in the preceding article, ‘Impression should ever precede and be stronger than expression.’ All attempts at gaining literary polish must begin with judicious reading, and the learner must never cease to hold this phase uppermost. In many cases, the usage of good authors will be found a more effective guide than any amount of precept. A page of Addison or of Irving will teach more of style than a whole manual of rules, whilst a story of Poe’s will impress upon the mind a more vivid notion of powerful and correct description and narration than will ten dry chapters of a bulky text-book.

As any content-creator understands, simply knowing the rules of grammar, punctuation, layout, etc. will not make the content great. Writers must first and always read other writers and have a solid sense of what quality writing looks and sounds like.

3. Octavia Butler

Octavia Butler was not a horror writer in the strictest sense (she is better-known for science fiction), but her stories definitely have a way of making readers feel unsettled and disoriented. In “Kindred,” for example, a black woman from the 1970s unexpectedly and repeatedly gets pulled back in time to save the life her own slave-owning ancestor.

Butler had this to say about improving pieces in progress:

You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That’s why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence … A workshop is a way of renting an audience and making sure you’re communicating what you think you’re communicating. It’s so easy as a young writer to think you’re been very clear when in fact you haven’t.

In the content marketing space, the editing process functions as a workshop. The ideal is to establish a habit of pieces being edited, revised and edited again before getting sent to the client. Even a great first draft is likely missing things that will enhance clarification.

4. Stephen King

Stephen King is often called the “King of Horror.” His work has received numerous awards, and several of the stories were adapted into famous creepy movies, television series and comic books. The author’s name is practically synonymous with horror these days.

King is known not only as a great horror author, but as an expert writer who offers great advice to aspiring writers. In his memoir, “On Writing,” King said this about developing one’s own style:

You may find yourself adopting a style you find particularly exciting, and there’s nothing wrong with that … When I read James M. Cain, everything I wrote came out clipped and stripped and hard-boiled. When I read Lovecraft, my prose became luxurious and Byzantine. I write stories in my teenage years where all the styles merged, creating a kind of hilarious stew. This sort of stylistic blending is a necessary part of developing one’s own style, but it doesn’t occur in a vacuum. You have to read widely, constantly refining (and redefining) your own work as you do so.

While using another writer’s style is not necessarily akin to plagiarism, it can be stunting to your own development as a writer. It’s true that content creators must often strive to write in the style of their clients, but having one of your own is nice when you want to write your own brand’s blog post, for example.

5. Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe might be the most iconic of horror writers. He wrote terrifying stories and poems that explored the darkest regions of the human heart and mind. His own life was fraught with loss and depression, so it’s not surprising that he had a sense of what scared people in the 19th century.

In his essay, “The Philosophy of Composition,” Poe says this of the writing process:

Most writers—poets in especial—prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy—an ecstatic intuition—and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes, at the elaborate and vacillating crudities of thought—at the true purposes seized only at the last moment—at the innumerable glimpses of idea that arrived not at the maturity of full view—at the fully-matured fancies discarded in despair as unmanageable—at the cautious selections and rejections—at the painful erasures and interpolations—in a word, at the wheels and pinions—the tackle for scene-shifting—the step-ladders, and demon-traps—the cock’s feathers, the red paint and the black patches, which, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, constitute the properties of the literary histrio.

That is to say, writing is not generally a straightforward process. Whether it’s an article, a white paper or a poem about a talking raven, a good piece of content rarely happens without some struggle and reworking.

6. Anne Rice

Anne Rice is arguably the greatest vampire fiction writer of our time. She’s the author of the renown “Vampire Chronicles,” and in some circles, her leading vampire, Lestat, has a following all his own.

On her website Rice offers the advice I saw from almost every other author on this list. In fact, it’s the advice I’ve heard most often from my professors, favorite novelists and writer friends. It thus seems appropriate to leave you with these words:

On writing, my advice is the same to all. If you want to be a writer, write. Write and write and write. If you stop, start again. Save everything that you write. If you feel blocked, write through it until you feel your creative juices flowing again. Write. Writing is what makes a writer. Nothing more and nothing less.

Happy Halloween, and happy writing!

How to Create and Market an E-Book

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The thought of developing an entire book as part of your marketing strategy might seem daunting. Rest assured, though, e-books are totally doable and definitely worth the effort. Read on to learn how to make them a staple of your content marketing.

What is an E-Book?

E-book is short for electronic book. You’ve likely heard the term in reference to both electronic versions of physical books (the sort you read on a Kindle, for example) and publications from businesses. It’s the latter we’ll be discussing here.

A true e-book is, like a physical book, designed to be easily read. It can be formatted in either a vertical or horizontal orientation, though horizontal is best for reading on a screen. If you expect most readers to print your e-book, consider a vertical format, which fits better with other papers and in folders.

Typically a PDF file, an e-book can contain common, interactive features like links, the option to jump to certain sections from the table of contents and even video. While you might find an array of interactive online documents, a real e-book will also be scalable to a desktop, phone or other device (unlike many PDFs and other official documents).

E-Books as Effective Marketing Content

An e-book that’s part of a marketing strategy should be a relatively high-level overview of a topic the company specializes in. It could also focus on trending topics relevant to the brand.

Where Do E-Books Enter the Marketing Funnel?

The marketing funnel is a simple image that illustrates the process and scale of turning visitors into leads and leads into conversions. The top of the funnel is where people first meet your brand, and as they move farther down their numbers decrease until a small segment becomes actual customers whom you try to retain.

Depending on where visitors are in the marketing funnel, brands should use different types of content to speak to them where they are. For example, while social media posts and videos work for initial attraction, those considering whether to buy will want more specific and thorough resources to explore.

The Marketing Eye provides a helpful image to describe how content matches up with the marketing funnel:

Based on this, you might choose to target e-books to the middle of the funnel (MOFU) where potential customers seek useful, educational resources and downloads. According to Moz, this is the consideration phase where customers start associating you with the solutions you offer. E-books are a great place to present evidence and build trust in the MOFU stage without being salesy.

Of course, depending on your e-book topic ideas and the project’s eventual focus, it could be better suited to the top (TOFU) or the bottom (BOFU).

E-Books and Inbound Marketing

E-books are part of what’s called inbound marketing – attracting new customers and building relationships with existing ones through valuable, useful content (as opposed to appealing to the masses with interruptive ads). Since e-books are often downloadable once the visitor provides an email address, they’re a great way for companies to gather the contact information that turns visitors into leads.

Early this year Carrie explored the Content Marketing Institute’s report on B2C content marketing, and e-books got a mention as one of the top content types used by B2C marketers (35 percent report using it).

Perhaps not surprisingly, e-books get more attention within B2B strategies – 71 percent of B2B marketers report using them for content marketing purposes.

Further, the majority of B2B marketers find e-books effective for achieving specific objectives. More than 60 percent think they’re even more effective than case studies or non-video social media posts.

Including e-books in your inbound marketing strategy comes with plenty of benefits, even before you get started with the actual marketing. As a marketing material, an e-book is:

  • Easily stored – these aren’t massive digital files.
  • Quickly shared with interested parties.
  • Environmentally friendly.
  • Easily updated if need be.

You can market your e-book in a range of ways. From featuring it on your site’s homepage to sharing it in email campaigns to highlighting it in social media posts, you have a number of channels for sharing the link and download instructions.

Another idea has to do with something we explored recently: repurposing content. Your e-book contains easily-digested pieces of content that could be expanded into blog posts, and chapters that could become a series of posts. However you repurpose pieces of the e-book, make sure you include a prompt to download it.

Getting Started with E-Book Creation

Once you’ve decided to make an e-book part of your inbound marketing content strategy, it’s time to dive right in to the creation process. To help, we’ll share our own process for creating original, customized e-books.

Identify your e-book topic. As I mentioned earlier, e-books should be high-level overviews of something you specialize in or a topic that’s currently trending in your industry. Analyze your target audience/personas and marketing goals, then zero in on what information needs addressing right now for Persona A, for example, at the most appropriate place in the marketing funnel.

Decide how you’re going to write the e-book. Do you have the resources in-house or do you need to outsource the work? Remember, too, that an e-book with images is more appealing than one without, so enlisting the talents of an in-house or contracted graphic designer is a must.

Choose an e-book layout. Time to decide if you’ll use a template or create your own layout. Templates are available online, though a custom design gives you full control over every aspect of the project and keeps it fully original.

Like a physical book, an e-book needs a cover page, table of contents and clearly marked sections. As a piece of marketing content, it needs an introduction, body, takeaway and call to action.

When your e-book is complete, share it somewhere in your web content, making it easily downloadable with a simple email share. With plenty of visuals and easy-to-digest chunks of information, marketing e-books offer solutions for readers (often potential customers) who face challenges the company can address. (Plus, you can repurpose the content on your blog, for example).

Learn more about making e-books part of your content strategy by downloading ours! Simply sign up for our email list and get instant access to your entire content strategy blueprint.

Have you tried creating e-books for your brand? What did you love (or hate) about the process? Tell me about it in the comments!

What is Audience-First Content?

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You’ve likely heard that the 5Ws – who, what, where, when and why – are essential to good journalistic writing. In fact, the 5Ws are worth referencing when you’re creating any sort of professional content.

Knowing that you want to deliver the right message in the right place and at the right time covers what, where and when. But to truly get it right, you need to address the who and why.

In this post we’ll talk about who your content is really for and why you need to make sure you answer that just right.

What is Audience-First Content?

Audience-first content is content that puts the audience first by meeting today’s expectations for intelligent, personalized, targeted and relevant messaging.

There’s a lot behind this simple definition, and technology and data are a big part of that. Let’s first just focus on the basics: creating content for the “who” …

So, when you create content, who is it for? The obvious answer is prospects. But are you creating the content they want, or the content you think they want?

Imagine it like this: When you’re buying birthday or holiday gifts do you buy something you like and think the recipient should also like? Or do you learn what they like and search for a gift that suits their taste?

Most would agree that the latter is a better idea, assuming the goal is to find a gift the recipient will honestly appreciate and keep in their home.

A similar approach can apply to content creation. Rather than developing your content first and trying to build an audience on it, be audience-first. Audience-first content (also called audience-driven content) discovers who the audience is, learns what they like and creates content that caters to said information.

One part of knowing your audience is creating personas, and perhaps you’ve done this. Yet, these snapshots of typical customers can change over time as people’s needs, wants and lives change.

Audience-first content is customized to your target audience by aligning with their needs and keeping their attention at various points in the customer journey. TandemSeven has a nice graphic illustrating this:

To make that happen, you’ll need solid data. One way to do this is interviews with your buyer persona to better understand how they make buying decisions.

As TandemSeven points out (and we agree):

Many enterprises are organized in silos – with each silo focusing on optimizing specific channels, touchpoints, and/or aspects of the end-to-end customer experience. It is not uncommon for each group or function in an enterprise to design and measure customer experiences independently of each other. But customers think of all their interactions with a company as connected.

Today the customer journey is not always linear. This article from McKinsey discusses how the process is actually circular with four phases:

Consumer attention is quite limited because there is so much content to choose from; if yours isn’t crafted to them specifically (fitting seamlessly into how they use content, aligning with their interests and providing value), you’re just going to sound like another marketer, and the audience won’t stick around.

And, of course, this depends a lot on your content channel marketing strategy. For example, if you want to compete, be relevant and show up in the search results, you have to create content for both for your prospects and search engines – ensuring you’re implementing SEO best practices before you publish.

Why is an Audience-Driven Approach So Important?

The numbers don’t lie. According to Demand Metric, content marketing costs 62 percent less than traditional marketing and generates about three times as many leads as traditional marketing.

Audience-first content is part of an audience-driven, or customer-centric content marketing approach. Your content, marketing, product development, customer service, etc. should all operate based on solid data on what your audience and customers need and want.

An audience-driven approach to your content also fits with an inbound marketing style. Unlike an outbound marketing approach, which is interruptive and targets a wide audience (think television commercials and banner ads), inbound marketing strives to attract potential customers with content that interests them – true content marketing.

Further, positions in the customer journey change. People who, at one point, had only visited your website might now be repeat customers, so you’d want to approach them differently and with more familiarity. This will help keep them engaged at every stage.

For example, instead of reaching out to regular buyers with a deal on the product they usually buy, offer them the deal plus an even better deal if they add a product that complements the first. To keep it customer-centric allow them to choose the additional item from a short list, and link the listed products to relevant web pages and blogs to make the most of your content.

If you want to talk bottom line, audience-first content and an audience-driven approach reduce marketing waste. You might spend more time researching and tweaking upfront, but once your content and audience are aligned, you can build relationships and trust with your customers. It’s a long-accepted fact that returning customers bring in more revenue than new ones, so those early time investments are sure to pay off in the long run.

Before you develop your content and determine where and when to share it, know who you’re creating it for and why they want it. It’s going to take some time and energy up front, but audience-first content is an investment that can bring long-term benefits for your brand.

What have you learned about your audience and creating content for them first? Let’s talk about it in the comments! 

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