You will hear a lot of different things said about content marketing.
How important it is, how great of an ROI it can have. That you must write every day and that you must post every single article to social media. That you have to build a list and that you have to get such and such a number of visitors to sign up to it.
There are all kinds of content marketing hacks and guerilla tactics out there, supposedly meant to help you out.
But instead of trying to find the next shortcut, we suggest accepting and conforming to the single universal rule of content marketing: you need to provide value.
The value of being valuable
Source: Screenshot from dribbble.com
Let’s, very briefly, explain why value is more important than consistency, quantity, trends, and everything else that comes to mind as a possible silver bullet for content marketing.
- There are countless articles on the web – thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of them covering a single topic.
- If you want the search engine to favor you, you must be better than all the rest.
- If you want your visitors to convert, they must take something away from your content.
- Valuable content has the power of sending visitors your way for years after you have published it.
The question we need to ask ourselves now is: how do we write this kind of content in the health and wellness niche?
Provide reliable and interesting data
The first thing we need to bear in mind about health and wellness content is that anyone can write it. Even if they don’t really know what they’re talking about, they can still write a compelling article about, let’s say, weight loss.
However, what they are claiming to be true may actually not be true – and they can cause quite a bit of frustration, if not actual harm, with their words.
In an industry as sensitive to reliable information as this one, your unique angle is easy to spot: provide reliable, verifiable, and trustworthy information.
If you are able to take it up a notch, try to feature your own research. It doesn’t have to be overly difficult to execute. You can conduct surveys and reach your own conclusions, and consult subject matter experts to help you out with the more complex aspects of the writing.
For example, this article about sleep and social life is full of all kinds of interesting data that serves to underline the points it is trying to drive home. The sources are listed clearly, the information is formatted and delivered in an engaging way, and it is very unlikely you will find something quite like it somewhere else.
Compare and contrast
The health and wellness industries are flooded with all kinds of products, and it can be very difficult for an average consumer to decide which product is right for them when everyone will obviously claim their solution to be the best.
An easy way to establish yourself as a go-to source of information is to provide honest and trustworthy reviews of different products or services. Anything from gym wear to running shoes, to diet supplements and training programs can come under your scrutiny.
Source: Screenshot from phillyvoice.com
The key to this kind of content is honesty above all else. It will require learning to walk the fine line between trashing a product and speaking your mind, but your audience will trust you when they realize you’re not trying to hoodwink them.
This article about GPS trackers for dementia patients is a good example of the kind of article we have in mind. It features all the basic information a reader would need and it showcases some of the most popular choices in the niche, yet it delivers information clearly and without too much fuss.
Find the right format
Don’t think about content as words alone: sometimes, images or video will speak much louder than words.
Some people will prefer watching a video over reading an article, while others will prefer to be able to skip and skim a page as opposed to listening to something. So, the choice really comes down to you and what you think your target audience wants.
You can, of course, choose to do both, and feature a video with your words or offer a transcript of the actual video.
Also, think about the topics that work best for video. Some topics are certainly better covered with the aid of visuals – explaining how to do an exercise properly is an excellent example of that. On the other hand, recipes are probably better-suited for written format.
Source: Screenshot from lfacapsulefillers.com
Here is an example that features both video and text: a tutorial on calculating bulk density for capsules. The video was also featured on YouTube and on the company’s website, meaning they have utilized more than one avenue to promote it, and are trying to provide their users with the choice of audio (and video) or words, even for a very straightforward topic.
Reformatting your content (from video to text and vice versa) is often also a great way to attract new audiences and gain some additional traction from something you may have published a while back.
Closing thoughts
Your main takeaway should be this: writing in an industry as sensitive as health and wellness, your main point should always be to double- and triple-check your information. You don’t want your content to stand out for all the wrong reasons.
Rather than trying to outdo someone in terms of flashiness and trendiness, try to consider what your visitors are looking for and how you can best answer their questions.
That way, you will earn their trust as a reliable online resource they wouldn’t mind consulting again and again.