Improve Business Content with These 4 Tips
February 6, 2019
Business content can be difficult to “sell” if you don’t put the right spin on it. Say you’re a plumber and you want your business to thrive and draw online traffic to your new website. What are you writing about? Something relevant to your business, of course. However, plumbing isn’t always a subject that every consumer wants to read about. To make it more attractive to consumers, you put a spin on your content so that it relates to them. For example, rather than writing a 500-word blog post about the importance of keeping drains clear, write a DIY how-to piece on how to unclog your toilet or remove hair from the shower drain in 5 easy steps.
You don’t have to be a plumber to create better content for your business. If you find yourself faltering when it comes to content creation, here are 4 tips for you.
1. Use a Call to Action: If you have yet to call in the expertise of a marketing management firm or done some online research regarding internet marketing, you probably aren’t familiar with the term “call to action”. Basically, this is a short but concise shout out to the customer to call now, click now, or contact you now, to receive pertinent information, a special promotion, etc. A call to action can be as simple as, “Call us today to get your free consultation!”
This CTA gives your customers the push to get moving and contact you, rather than just clicking around on your site for more information. Better than that, they will want to hurry and call soon to avoid losing a chance at a promotion or free offer. FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) is a serious driving factor for many consumers, especially where saving money is concerned. So, putting an expiry date on your special offers in your CTA will further improve chances of success in a positive traffic flow.
2. Personalize Your Message: Customers read plenty of content throughout their week, whether it’s a friend’s Facebook post, the back of a cereal box, or the latest blog entry from their favorite online personality. To make your content stand out above others in your niche, it’s important to make your content relatable to your customers on a personal level.
Some companies create relatable content by including a short blurb or story about how their product has helped others and could potentially help the customer currently reading their site. You want to refer to your customer directly and use an actual name in your blurb or story to humanize it. For example, a cosmetic company might write: “Rachel Waters used to complain about dry itchy skin after using her favorite foundation. We created our foundation with women like Rachel in mind. Using a specially designed hydrating formula, your foundation goes on smooth and comes off with no irritation or dryness. If you, like Rachel, suffer from sensitive skin and are looking for a hypoallergenic makeup made with people like YOU in mind, contact us now to learn more about our latest line of moisturizing makeup.”
3. Spell Check Everything: There is nothing less professional than a blog, landing page, or social media post with typos, spelling errors, or incorrect grammar. True, not all consumers are familiar with the laws of grammar and writing, and some may not even notice, but for others this is a red flag that your company isn’t serious. Professional businesses hire people to create copy for their websites and marketing projects, or at least this is what the majority of consumers believe. So, whether you have the budget for a third party hire, or you type up the weekly blog all by yourself, you should be checking it for errors before it’s published.
Spell checking and correcting grammar before a blog goes out will go a long way toward creating an image of authority out of your brand. You want your customers to believe you know what you’re doing and you’re the best in your industry. If you run a successful flower arranging company, but the florist down the street is posting more eloquent and grammatically correct content, customers might assume that the florist next door knows more about flowers than you, whether or not flowers and literature are related in the least.
4. Tell Your Customer Exactly What Your Product Does. A pitfall many business owners run into when designing marketing content is leaning too much on the “features” of their product to do the selling. It’s great that your new salad spinner has a remote-controlled spinning feature, that it’s made with antibacterial materials, and that it comes apart to store easily in the cupboard, but you’re missing the main reason somebody would want to buy a salad spinner; to clean and dry salad.
It seems like a waste of time to tell your customers what a common product does, but you should never assume. Something as simple as, “New anti-bacterial salad spinner helps you wash and dry your salad for crisp, clean vegetables every time!” can make all the difference between whether a potential customer continues to read the description and features of the product. This is especially true for companies who sell specialty products which might not be commonly known, such as auto parts or art supplies.
To sum things up, you can achieve better and more functional content for your marketing copy by acknowledging the customer directly, including a call to action, specifying exactly what your product can do for them, and keeping content clear of mistakes.