Have you ever received an email from a favorite brand or found a blog post on a site you love only to feel like you’re falling asleep before you even get halfway through? It’s like the person behind it had no idea who or what their customer wanted and sent you straight to Snoozeville!
That’s because more often than not, businesses fall into the trap of creating content for content’s sake. Content creation shouldn’t just be a check on your to-do list but a genuine way to build connection with your dream customer! While you may have every intention of offering highly valuable content tailored specifically to your awesome customer, you feel like it’s outside your grasp sometimes. Trust me, we all feel like that every now and then, but there are a few surefire ways to get you on track and creating content that your audience actually wants to read!
#1 Think About Your Wheelhouse
As a business owner, everything you offer as a brand should be cohesive to your overall vision and mission. After all, your brand is what people truly know you for! You want to be intentional and have purpose behind everything you say or share with your audience. If you are a women’s beauty brand with a blog post on your website about the best travel spots for families or favorite dessert recipes, it may be confusing to your customer. When you sit down to brainstorm content ideas, hone in on who you are as a brand and the value you can offer the audience. What kinds of things are you an expert on? What problems or challenges can you help your customer with? Is there a special promotion or giveaway your customer would be excited to see? Spend time producing content your customer can’t get enough of!
#2 Look To Your Competition
Do you know the age-old saying, “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer”? While I certainly hope your competition isn’t your enemy, keeping them close as a reference is always a good idea. You want to stand out from the crowd but knowing what a similar brand is up to and how they are gearing their content towards their audience is very helpful. Are they offering blog posts or podcast episodes every week? What are the kinds of topics they offer? Do you notice a good amount of customer engagement on these content types or not? Taking a close look at what is working and what isn’t working for them can help you find validation in your own content strategy for your brand. Never let what a competitor is doing be the “end all, be all” of your own planning, but allow it to give you a good guideline to reference.
#3 Ask the People What They Want
There is this pressure around every business nowadays to be a content creator and come up with new and unique sources of content to put out there for the consumption of their customers. So why not ask your customers what they really want to see? Send out an email to your customer email list posing the question, “What kind of content would you like to see?” You can create a free online survey asking people to rank types of content or topics to help you get a clear idea of where your time is best spent. There is nothing wrong with going to the source and leaning in on your prime audience. Get out there and find out what your customers are craving from you.
#4 Schedule a Brainstorming Session
When you are working on a business there typically never feels like there is enough time in a day! This is one of the biggest reasons brands have a hard time creating consistent content or don’t get started in the first place. Having a content plan can seem like a bear to tackle, but I promise it can be as easy as sitting down at your computer for a fifteen-minute brainstorming session! A great way to make this happen is to add a recurring calendar reminder each month during a time of day you are most likely to have some time to spare. This becomes your time to get all of your ideas in one place. Think about possible collaborations with other brands, add links to articles you’d like to share, create a topics list or content types you’re interested in rolling out, and have fun with it. This brainstorm time isn’t meant to be your whole content plan but will keep your creative juices flowing and your mindset on track to work on your content for the month.
