Your customers or readers need information on what you offer – but that doesn’t mean your content resource library should stop there.
When you have a reader’s attention, you also have a rare opportunity to evolve that attention into action, or at the least, memory and positive association.
If your content marketing is strictly data-based, it will come across about as well as a flat, monotone speech, free of inflections or interest-grabbing transitions.
Avoid this pitfall by making psychology an integral part of your high-performing content design. After you’ve determined what you want to convey, make sure that you know how to convey it emotionally before amplifying finished content.
Not sure where to start your appeal to the hearts and minds of your audience? Try these content marketing tips on for size in your next campaign:
Be There When It Counts Most
The easiest pitch to make is a scenario where a customer genuinely needs your product or service, and is ready to buy at that moment.
Use keywords and key phases that are likely to capture the attention of a reader in a crisis. Advertise a convenient guide with the phrase “how do I file a flood insurance claim” would work well for a restoration construction business, for example.
This content provides valuable information when a customer needs it most, making them more likely to contact that restoration business when their claim check is in hand.
This is called reciprocity, a compelling urge in your potential customer pool to “pay back” a helpful gesture or resource that you provide. Make sure your content has true value as advertorials and self-promotion-stuffed articles won’t cut it!
Time Is Almost Up
Just reading those words likely triggered a physiological response (no matter how small) in your brain. It’s a sense of urgency, of rushing – the under-20 set have recently rebranded this urge as “FOMO,” or “Fear of Missing Out.”
Phrases like limited time only, ending soon, act quickly and more are certainly nothing new in the marketing world, but they still enjoy an enduring response that you can leverage.
Just as it’s difficult to read a sentence that uses the word yawn or yawning without feeling an urge to do just that – feeling sleepy yet? – these phrases spark a push to hurry up and perform an action.
That action could be anything, from signing up for your newsletter to purchasing a popular item: the right words used sparingly, will almost always light a proverbial fire under their backside.
Don’t Take My Word For It
Take a moment and envision a box of Wheaties, the popular breakfast cereal. You might not be able to recognize their flakes at a glance.
You may even not know the cereal’s particular flavor, but chances are you know one definitive thing: athletes appear on the front of their box.
Wheaties uses a type of psychological tactic called influencer marketing by working with these athletes, and it’s one of the easiest content marketing tips to put to use for your business.
The technique involves collaborating with a popular personality that already has your audiences’ ear and using them to amplify your message or add credibility to your brand identity.
If you can’t afford to hire a major league player or Hollywood superstar, consider instead the elevated bloggers and YouTube stars with a comparable level of consumer trustworthiness. They’re typically much less expensive to recruit (for more details, Linqia released a helpful influencer marketing report.)
Remember: you don’t need to “trick” or mislead your audience into absorbing your message – simply use language, phrasing and advocates that your potential customers are already primed to respond to.
It will be much less work than starting from scratch in both market penetration and the battle for consumer trust, and you’ll have more effort to devote to elevating your brand’s core message.
Delany M is a WriterAccess freelancer who creates high-performing content, provides content marketing tips, blogs posts for our company, and more!
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