Amazing content isn’t enough

In recent posts, we’ve been taking a closer look at the driving force behind a successful brand. From web psychology to real-time marketing, we’re asking, what makes one business more appealing than another?  The answer is knowledge. 

The level of understanding a brand has of their customer base directly correlates with a campaign’s overall success. If your content doesn’t address basic audience wants and needs, it won’t get picked up and read. Great content isn’t enough – here’s why. 

Create content for ‘Real People’

Face-to-face you can use emotional indicators – body language, tone of voice, facial expressions – to gauge what customers really want from your product or service, and provide relevant information as a result.  Screen-to-screen, this isn’t so easy. It’s left to real-time data and analytics to fill in the missing pieces. 

We mentioned in Drive your data in the right direction  how data needs a human touch to reach its potential. Taking this concept one step further, marketing experts are telling us to stop placing generic themes and ‘brain storming’ sessions at the heart of our content planning and instead, ask what ‘real people’ want from your site. 

All singing all dancing, unique content won’t wash with customers if it offers no actual value. Content marketers need to engage with their audience on a personal, emotional level that feels like their speaking directly to them and them only.  

The bigger picture

Consumers are no longer restricted to traditional sales platforms. Day-to-day, they scan and analyse a multitude of different channels – newsfeeds, reviews, blog posts – for content that resonates with them. And whilst audience segmentation is a step in the right direction, it’s essential that brands always think of the bigger picture; who could be a potential viewer and why should they want to connect with your brand?  

Adapt to change

In an industry that’s continually reinventing itself, it’s important to keep up with the pace and adapt to change. Tools that were once intended for the work place have become common household items, even children’s toys. 

Take Facebook for example. It was originally used by school leavers to connect with friends; now it’s a multi-million pound ads platform.  Throw in the odd Google update for good measure and it’s safe to say the internet can be a confusing place to communicate.

Our advice? Don’t try to talk to everyone at once.  There’s no shortcut when it comes to delivering high-quality content. Think long-term and devise a foolproof strategy that accommodates every medium. Contextualisation is a huge buzzword at the moment and as a result, many are centring their content plans upon real-time marketing.  Read Is your website doing all it can? to learn more. 

Keep your eyes peeled for our next post, The Art of Content Creation for more great ways to engage customers and get people talking about your brand.