When it comes to creating content, businesses aren’t looking to win creativity awards: they’re looking to generate sales. This doesn’t mean that all content should be overtly sales driven, like one of those late-night infomercials. Instead, it should aim to convey useful information, earn credibility and trust, and ultimately onboard new customers.
Unfortunately, many businesses are finding that their content simply isn’t working. That is, it’s not an asset that populates the sales pipeline with qualified leads, it doesn’t help shorten the sales cycle, and it doesn’t deliver ROI.
The good news is that filling this gap is straightforward, and simply requires knowing about the 4 R’s of engaging, profitable content.
- Relevant
Relevant content addresses the needs, goals, aspirations, concerns and/or pain points of target audiences. It answers the essential question that customers ask at all times: “What’s in it for me?”.
Tips:
- Conduct market research to develop profiles of key customer groups.
- Get feedback from sales and support teams. They often receive comments from customers that reveal what’s important and meaningful.
- Relatable
Relatable content is content that authentically connects with target audiences. The content can be formal, casual, solemn, funny, etc. For example, an article on the dangers of obesity will obviously have a serious, no-nonsense tone. What matters most is that target audiences can relate to the content and feel a personal connection to it.
Tips:
- Focus on educating and informing — not on self-promoting or selling.
- Send the right content to the right customer groups at the right time. For example, customers who are at the beginning of the buyer’s journey are typically conducting exploratory research.
- Readable
Virtually anyone can grab an instrument and start making noises. But it takes a trained musician to create beautiful music. Similarly, anyone can put words together — but this doesn’t make content readable. That happens when readers are simply immersed in the experience and don’t even realize they’re reading.
Tips:
- Pay close attention to the rhythm and structure of words. Reading has to be a relaxed, downhill experience.
- Clarify with examples and metaphors (i.e. describing one thing in terms of another).
- Robust
Last but certainly not least: content has to be robust. No, this doesn’t mean that it must be thousands of words long. The point is that readers have to deem content as substantial and robust. Otherwise, they’ll label it as fluff.
Tips:
- Ensure that all blog posts are at least 500 words long.
- Properly cite sources, experts, studies, etc. This helps with credibility.
Case Study
By applying the 4 R's and creating meaningful, engaging content for Beiler's Auto Repair we have been able to boost their search visibility by over 22% in just 4 months. We've added one article per month for the last 4 months to their website and it has produced great results for them.
Wrapping it up
Strategies for winning over the hearts and minds of customers has changed a great deal in recent years — largely because of the internet. But what hasn’t changed is that for content to function as a profitable business asset, it must be engaging by using the 4 R’s!
Daryl Schmucker, owner Noble Webworks.
We create content that works for your business
