“Alohomora,” while not precisely speaking friend in Elvish, the spell is supposed to open doors, windows, locks, and other security devices. It may not be powerful enough to break the enchanting bits on the content vault, but you may not need too. Sadly, you don’t need wizardry to produce charming content that is alluring to your readers. After all, every great spell starts with a little planning. Now, before you, utter Riddikulus, think about what your content is not doing. If it is not seductive to your readers, then it is time to make a little light in a dark place. Lumos!
Engaging content is sexy. It gets the blood moving, the ideas churning, and makes the light a little brighter. Inside we discuss a pivotal point were content often fails – goal setting and you don’t even need polyjuice potion.
Understanding the Role of Intention
The magic of words is bewitching, but casting that spell is not always easy. Mostly, that is because we do not plan or design the job that the words must accomplish. We just need to write a blog and toss it on the internet, where everyone in the world will read it three times. Many people try that, and it just doesn’t work. Muggles! The enchantment of well-designed content is that it targets the right people at the right time.
“Intention” in witchcraft is the act of defining the job that a spell performs. Alohomora – Intention – to open locks. Riddikulus – Intention – to cause a fear to become humorous. Blog – Intention – to convince a reader that a product or service is what they need to solve a problem.
There is also the intention of the people who undergo an internet search. What are their motivations, and how do they apply to your products or services. This is the relationship between keywords and content design, and how that relationship fits the reader.
The Buyer’s Journey and Content
The psychological processes that a person who needs your product or service is a roadmap of sorts. It is the place on that map that defines the role of content. The buyer’s journey is a three-tier affair:
- The Top Tier – Content is written for a general audience, which is narrowed by the use of keywords, #geotags, and keyword phrases. You are tossing a fishing line into a wide river in hopes something will bite.
- The Middle Tier – Content is honed to appeal to a narrower selection of people who like what you’ve said in Tier-1 content, but generally want more in-depth information. Something has struck your line, and the battle begins. Will you land it, or will it be the one that got away?
- The Bottom Tier – Content is written to produce an action. What is it you want the potential customer to do? Sometimes that goal is to make a purchase, give an email address or ask for a call back for information, or even downloading an e-Book or sign up for a newsletter. You’ve got the fish next to the boat and in the net. All you have to do now is haul it onto the boat.
Planning Goals for Content
In marketing, everything should be measurable. We use goals to track the progress of obtaining achievements. There are also different types of content, and not all of them are good. If you have ever read a weak blog where the headline was hot but the bulk of the blog was a little like a watered-down coffee, then you understand weak or thin content. Why do “you” need content? Why do you even have a blog? What is it you want that blog to do? The answer to these questions is all about your ultimate content goal. From that goal, everything you publish should move you or your company closer to that goal. To achieve that, each piece of content needs a roadmap.
Goal setting starts with identifying problems within your business -We need more newsletter subscribers – We need to move more of product 5A. Content is a tool that can help you solve problems.
- Step 1 – Make a list of problems you’d like your content library to solve.
- Step 2 – Look at each problem and identify where in the Buyer’s Journey that problem exists for potential customers. For example, if your problem is that you need more subscribers to the company’s newsletter, then you are looking at the middle section of the Buyer’s Journey. These are people who want more information or want to stay informed about what your company offers. It would not be the top tier as those people are looking at basic problems – I need new shoes, I need new tires for the car, etc. They will scale down the millions of options to choose a few companies or products that might help them solve their problems in the best way possible. It could be the bottom tier, but usually not. The bottom tier is on the verge of buying, and they just need a little push from sales and marketing to do that.
- Step 3 – Design the content to include goals that are appropriate for a visitor at a specific level of the #Buyer’sJourney. You are looking at keywords and keyword phrases, CTAs, Stats versus incentives, quality titles, and subtitles, etc. Incentives are helpful, but not always appropriate. If I am a reader and I want/need more detailed information, a discount is not likely to sway me. I need to know if these tires are what I need for my upcoming road trip. Everything that is in that piece of content needs to work towards the goal you’ve set for it. Those goals also need to match the potential problems that the reader may have. In short, there are two sets of goals — one set that belongs to the reader, and one set that belongs to your company. Every piece of content needs to address both sets of goals.
What You Should Not Do
Do Not:
1. Publish content just to publish content.
2. Try to trick readers by using popular keywords that don’t fit your content.
3. Try to out-do your competitors by publishing the same type of content using the same topics. Be unique. Be original. Be customer/reader focused. If you are competing using a high-traffic keyword or phrase, be different rather than similar.
Goal setting for content helps make the content valuable for the reader and, in so doing, enables you to solve problems both for your business and the consumer. If your content is useful, people will want to subscribe to your newsletter or buy your products. Need to learn more about content productions? Just reach out to the WriterAccess team of content strategists and writers.
David S. is an experienced writer with a focus on small- and medium-sized businesses. He primarily creates quality SEO and marketing content for regular clients, which include; web designers, marketing companies, outdoor living clients, and pest control companies. His private clients include homestead/prepper magazines, marketing agencies, pest control companies, healthcare affiliates, outdoor living, construction companies, and gardening/nursery companies.
