How are you going building that irresistible audience relationship … and list?
Creating content that strikes a chord, and solves a problem, is critical if you want to build a list and monetize your business.
How so? Great content is the key to creating an amazing relationship with your audience.
It will help potential new prospects find you and it will help them get to know you. And with the amazing power of Facebook advertising once someone has visited your site – and they need only visit once – you have an incredible chance to retarget them, build a relationship and make an offer that will knock their socks off.
Just this week I was looking for advice on how to engage a virtual assistant while maintaining confidentiality in my business. After doing a simple search, I found two blog articles close to the top of page one on Google. The first article was practical, easy-to-read and gave me a list of things to do. It was well written and very friendly in style and tone. It answered my question AND encouraged me to look around the rest of the site to learn more about the company and the services they offered. I was so engaged by the site that I bookmarked it for future review.
The second article – while useful – was just not in the same league. The advice was too general and the language was very stilted, formal and a little old-fashioned. There were no practical tips and the look and feel of the blog was dated. I quickly moved on!
Today’s post focuses on 7 simple steps to creating irresistible content that will help you build your list.
Step One: Know your audience inside out
I say this all the time – if you want to create an irresistible offer you MUST know about your audience and their fears, pains, needs and desires! The same thing goes for the content you are creating for your audience – every piece of content MUST tap into their needs and desires – and it must provide a solution!
So what are the six most important things you must know about your audience?
- What are their fears and pains in relation to your category?
- What are their deepest desires?
- What solution would work for them?
- What questions might they have about your category – meaning what search terms are they using?
- How do they live? (clue: this gives you an insight into how best to communicate with them)
- Where do they hang out online?
So please get to know your audience and get to know them well.
Step Two: Make your content practical and solve a problem
Your content needs to be practical and solve a problem for your audience right now. The more practical you make your content, the more valuable it will be to your audience. Understand what problem your audience is experiencing (see Step One) and then give them a step-by-step guide to solving that problem.
And I mean it when I say step-by-step! As human beings, we love lists and ‘how-to’ information. (Look at this post – it already has two lists to help you understand exactly what you need to do to solve your problem – which is to create epic content that will help you build a list and make sales.)
Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. So, if what you are explaining is complex, you can also add links to simple ‘how-to’ videos that you have created – to show your audience EXACTLY how to do the task you are explaining. ‘How to’ videos are simple and easy to create with screen casting editing software like Screenflow for Mac (I love it and makes my job so much easier) or Camtasia for PC. You can find out more about Screenflow here or take my word for it and order it here.
Also add in links that might be useful to your audience and that will help them complete the step that you have suggested. The links can be to your service or product, or a recommendation for another source of information, service or product that will help solve the problem. (See the links I provided above – note there is an affiliate link for Screenflow FYI – I only ever recommend products I, or my team, have used and love).
Step Three: Make your content meaningful
Your content needs to make sense to your audience and it needs to be meaningful. Things have meaning when they are linked to your audiences’ inner-most desires (back to Step One again!)
For content to be meaningful it must resonate with your audience and their experience of life. It must answer a question or a concern they have – and it should fall into the category of making a big difference to their life.
Sharing stories is an amazing way to create meaning and sense for your audience. Rather than laying out the facts, sharing a story can really help your audience understand a point you are trying to make (note the story shared at the beginning of this post).
We all know that we buy from people we know, like and trust so sharing stories is an incredibly easy way to share a part of you. Feel free to share information about your life or your journey that you feel comfortable with and that you feel will resonate with your audience.
Step Four: Make your content original, fresh and in your voice
Take the time to write material that is original. Google loves content that is original and will punish you for content that has been cut and pasted from another site.
If we forget about Google for a moment (shock, horror, gasp!) – just remember your audience will be more attracted to you when you write in your own voice and from your own point of view. When they see what you stand for, and what you believe in, they have a chance to get to know you and resonate with you.
One way to do this is to take a fresh approach to a subject. If you consider the core of the Demand for Brand offer – which is to make your offer irresistible and your brand ‘first date’ ready – this is a novel approach to a long-standing marketing problem. I’ve purposely taken a different view that is unique, intriguing and begs the question – what do you mean by ‘first date’ ready?
Feel free to be controversial – a different viewpoint will draw people to you. In fact, I chose the mentor I am currently working with because she had a view that ran counter to the groupthink at the time.
So please – no wallflower behaviour – even if you feel a bit shy! There is a whole process to writing in your voice and from your own perspective. Contact me here if you’d like help with this! I love helping entrepreneurs find their voice and create an offer that is perfect for their audience!
Step Five: Make your headlines irresistible
From social media posts to emails and even dear, old newspapers – we’re trained to scan the headlines. Make your headlines eye-catching and intriguing.
You have about one second to make an impact with your headline! So it has to be good! Great copywriters advocate spending about 50% of your entire writing time on your headline. Some copywriters even advocate writing up to 100 headlines to find the very best one.
What makes a great headline? It must be:
- intriguing
- unique
- specific
- address a pain point
- results oriented.
You started reading this post because of the headline. Let’s dissect it for a second:
7 Steps (specific) to Creating Irresistible Content (unique and intriguing) Guaranteed to Build Your List (specific, addresses a pain point, results oriented).
To understand what headlines work well for you – take a look back at the last three blog posts or news sites you looked at. What was it about their headlines that grabbed you?
Step Six: Make your content findable
Here is a heads up – your content will only be found by your audience if: A. your entire site is properly optimised and B. your keywords work together to fulfil a central purpose – rather than being scattered around randomly like confetti. In fact, the old story about the percentage of keywords on your page or website to achieve optimisation is pretty much considered dead in the water. To be found right now is much more than about what keywords you are using!
“Wow? Really?” I hear you say.
Yes really!
So how can you optimise your website and make your keywords more SEO friendly?
- Make your site structure easy for your reader to navigate (back to our audience again!)
- Format your site so that Google can recognise it (header, body, sidebars, footer etc)
- Put your keywords in your title page and your header
- Properly tag and structure each page inside your site – again ease of use is key!
- Have a site map that is crawlable
- Make sure your site loads quickly – lag is a big drag!
- Create meaning with your keywords – rather than randomly peppering your copy with keywords – focus on how your keywords work together. What is the overall meaning, purpose and intention of your site? What will people gain from visiting your site? What is the big takeaway for them?
- Find and use synonyms for your keywords e.g. yoga studio, yoga centre, yoga classes or real estate agent, real estate specialist, real estate broker.
Step Seven: Shout your content from the roof-tops
You’ve spent a lot of time putting some great content together – so you need to get your content working for you out in the world! Make sure that for every piece of content you write that you syndicate it across all of the social platforms you are on!
This job is made much easier by scheduling tools you can use so your posts and tweets go out automatically. A great platform to schedule your social media is SmarterQueue. Visit here to check it out.
If you want to push your blog out more broadly and you have some budget then there are many content marketing and syndication platforms available like Outbrain, Zemanta, Arc and Taboola – these are all pay per click and you will need to put a campaign together to make the most out of them.
There are also free sites such as Zergnet (it’s free, but you must put a plugin on your site to promote it and others’ content) or inbound.org. scoop.it or reddit.com. With these sites, you need to make sure your content matches their audience.
In the paid space, my vote goes to tailored Facebook advertising, as you can attract people to your site value through a high-quality blog post article. Then once they are on your home turf they can have a look around AND you get the chance to retarget them once they have visited you!
So – there you have it! Seven steps to creating absolutely irresistible content that will be irresistible to your audience – and help you build your list!
If your head is spinning after all of this information – feel free to called: Step Into Your Yes: 5 Steps To Help You Step into Your Power. Overcome Your Fear of Selling, Build Your List and Grow A Business You Love here.
Alternatively you can contact me directly here. I’d love to help you make sense of your puzzle and create an irresistible offer for your audience that will build your list!
If you have any tips or tricks you would like to share please make a comment in the comments below.
Yours ,
Jen xo
P.S. If you liked this content please feel free to share it with a friend or work colleague!
