This is a summary of a (sell-out) presentation I gave today for the Marketing Association and their fabulous brainy Breakfast series.
Great content is critical if you want great results. Without great content you will simply never successfully compete for your audience's attention. Here are some tips and practical ways to get you started.
1. Know your audience
On almost every project we do, we begin by understanding our audience and creating personas to represent them. These are tools (example above) to personify the various types of people that make up our target audience. They describe their attributes, their challenges and needs, their habits, the technologies they use, etc. You can go into as much detail as you need and create your personas to represent different sections of your audience based on socio-economic groups, gender or age groupings, similar cultural needs, attitudes, etc. I highly recommend creating them, and then having them on your wall, or in your face somehow, to keep you focussed. These are the people you are creating content for - keep them up front and centre.
2. The right tone
The tone you then adopt in your content has to be created to work for those personas. When we were given the challenge of re-inventing the old drink responsibly website, the tone we adopted was "the drinker's friend". That meant avoiding judgements and lectures, and being on the drinker's side. Even the name of the website had to go because it didn't reflect the agreed tone. Drinking Responsibly was soon replaced with Cheers! and even when the site has to reflect back to you that you're a fairly heavy drinker, it's done in a friendly, accessible tone. Try the "Is my drinking normal?" quiz out for yourself.
Another fabulous example of getting the tone right has to be the "Dumb Ways to Die" video put out by the Victorian Metro in Australia. What a fun, catchy way to be told to stay safe around trains.
The video had an impressive 57 million views on You Tube, reached the top ten downloads on iTunes, and, more importantly, contributed to 20% less accidents on the Metro.
3. Choose your weapons well
The actual way you choose to convey your content is another crucial element to how well it will engage its audience. Video is proven to be an effective tool which can result in people spending 88% longer on your website. In the US shoppers who view product videos are 174% more likely to purchase.
You can spend a lot of money on creating videos (if you want to). This example for the launch of the new drama channel TNT in Belgium is fun:
It has the impressive place in history as being the second most shared commercial ever, with 46 million views on You Tube.
But, you can also be cheeky and capture your audience without spending the big bucks.
This video cost $4,500 and delivered Dollar Shave Club 12,000 new customers in 2 days. It's now had an impressive 11 million views, so those stats will be soaring.
There are many other ways of achieving great content, as well as video. Annual reports are being staggeringly reinvented to make them infinitely more compelling on line. Our favourite examples include the Mail Chimp example which is also a lovely webpage, and the completely photographic annual report from the Calgary Zoo on Instagram.
Don't underestimate either, the power of great infographics.
This photographic infographic (by Paul Marcinkowski) is arresting, but still informative and represents a new style of conveying information in more compelling ways.
Finally, don't overlook the incredible power of animated gifs - for virtually no bandwidth, they can bring surprising life into a webpage.
4. And, then what?
Don't forget that great content is but one step on a journey. Every single piece of content should give the viewer a way to take a step forward. Where do you want them to go next? What do you want them to do? Now, make it easy for them.
(Beware of putting "orphaned" content up on YouTube without clear links back and a way to continue your engagement. Millions of viewers mean nothing if they don't remember you, or engage further.)
5. Keep it Fresh
Keeping your content fresh seems obvious, but is so often overlooked. Make your own website your homepage, so that you are forced to look at it every time you go on line. Treat your content like a fridge; open it for inspiration; snack from it; create meals from it; and add new things constantly. Check those use-by dates and every now and then make sure you check out the forgotten corners where last month's leftovers are still hiding.
Avoid automated news feeds or twitter feeds UNLESS you're interesting, relevant and always fresh in those channels.
Our own recipe app Fast Fresh & Tasty is now used 13 times a month by its audience. The main reason? The content is kept fresh. It's all about weeknight meals, but every season a new update comes out using what's fresh and abundant right now. A simple idea, but utterly engaging to thousands of kiwis who use it.
If you're in charge of your digital content, ask yourself some tough questions before you next post:
- Is it perfect for our audience?
- Does it guide them to an action?
- What will get them back?
- Is it the best way to present this content?
- Will the audience share it?
- Is it current?
- Is it the best it can be?
If you want great results; always put your best (content) foot forward.