Some marketing agencies might make it seem like mystical voodoo, but the reality is that there are four simple (at least on the surface) rules for effective content creation. They are:
1. Choosing the right "voice" to best address your customers.
2. Being extremely consistent in the look and voice in all marketing content.
3. Keeping your content freshly updated, now more often than ever before.
4. Getting your content out to the right audience... i.e., your customers and potential new customers.
Let's talk a fast look at each of these tasks and delve a bit deeper.
Choosing Your Voice
How is it that when you read content on Apple's web site and then read similar content on Microsoft's site, you come away with a different feel for each company? The voice that a company adopts to address their customers is crucial in terms of how you are perceived in the market, and against your competition. When a customer who may be in the market for your product or service sees your web site, or looks at your print ad, or reads your brochure, what kind of vibe do they get from your content? Are you fun? Easy to do business with? Is your product meant to attract a young customer? A wealthy customer? As you refine the definition of your target markets, your company's voice needs to be laser focused in the ways that most appeal to the people who want to buy your product. One really important note: no matter how cool you think your your brand is, there's never any excuse for misspellings, improper use of language/grammar, or cute abbreviations. Even with the most casual and fun brand, you'll lose customers who don't appreciate an inability to communicate correctly.
Consistency Is Key
Look at the marketing of any successful company, and what do you see? An obsessive focus on consistency at all levels of their marketing... the use of colors and fonts, the size and placement of the logo, the length of text and ratio of text versus images, and much more. You want to get to a point that in even the most brief exposure to your marketing message, such as a person flipping a page in a magazine, scrolling down a web site, or driving past a billboard on a freeway, will give you some brand recognition and sparks an association, even a subliminal one, for your customer.
Keep It Fresh
Customers have different expectations today than they did just a decade ago. It's not enough to update your web site once in awhile; if you don't add fresh content every week (or every day in some industries), there's little reason for customers to come back regularly. And your social media? You have to find the magical balance of having a near constant stream of new content without crossing the bounders of seeming too spammy or overbearing to your market. Build an expectation that customers can keep coming back to you for information.
Delivering Your Message
There's no one vehicle you can use to effectively deliver your message to your customers. This has never been more true than now. Putting all of your efforts into Facebook? The majority of your customers might actually have more interactions through Twitter or Instagram, and you're missing out. Ignoring your web site because you already get your news out on social media? Really bad idea; after a customer gets his or her exposure to you through social media, they are likely to visit your site for deeper information. And, perhaps worst of all, if you think you're covered by communicating to your customers only through your own vehicles like your site and social media, you're wrong. There are plenty of people who prefer having the third-party validation of your industry's magazines and external web sites, so building and maintaining a good relationship with the media who will cover your products/services is still crucial.
We Can Help
Your marketing is how people perceive your brand. The last thing you want to do is have a terrific product or service, only to have people develop misunderstandings about what you offer, or (much worse) never hear about you at all. There are many ways to approach the act of getting your message to the right people, thereby building a successful brand. Contact us now and let's talk about what your brand needs for the right kind of communications to your customers.
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